"But it was even thou, my companion, my guide,and mine own familiar friend."
"But it was even thou, my companion, my guide,and mine own familiar friend."
It was not until Janet was sitting alone in the room she had taken at an hotel that her dazed mind began to recover itself. It did not recoil in horror from the remembrance of that grim ascent to the flat. It did not dwell on Cuckoo's death.
Janet said over and over again to herself,in tearless anguish, "Cuckoo and Fred! Cuckoo and Fred!"
The shock had succeeded to a great strain, and she succumbed to it.
She sat on her box in the middle of the room hour after hour in the stifling heat. The afternoon sun beat in on her, but she did not pull down the blind. There was an armchair in the corner, but Janet unconsciously clung to the box, as the only familiar object in an unfamiliar world. Late in the afternoon, when Anne found her, Janet was still sitting on it, gazing in front of her, with an untasted cup of tea beside her, which the chambermaid had brought her.
Anne sat down on the box and put her arms round her.
"My dear," she said; "my dear."
And Janet said no word, but hid her convulsed face on Anne's shoulder.
Janet had a somewhat confused remembrance of what happened after that. Anne ordered, and she obeyed, and there was another journey in a cab, and presentlyshe was sitting in a cool, white bedroom leading out of Anne's room; at least Anne said it did. Anne came in and out now and then, and forced her to drink a cup of milk, and smoothed her hair with a very tender hand. But Janet made no response.
Anne was of those who do not despise the little things of life. She saw that Janet was suffering from a great shock, and she sent for the only child there was in the great, dreary London house—the vulgar kitchen kitten belonging to the cook.
Anne silently held the warm, sleepy kitten against Janet's cheek. It purred when it was touched, and then fell asleep, a little ball of comfort against Janet's neck. The white, over-strained face relaxed. Anne's gentle touch and presence had not achieved that, but the kitten did. Two large tears rolled down into its fur.
The peace and comfort and physical well-being of feeling a little life warm—asleep, pressed close against you, is perhaps notnew. Perhaps it goes back as far as the wilderness, which ceased to be a wilderness when Eve brought forth her firstborn in it. I think she must have forgotten all about her lost Garden of Eden when she first heard the breathing of her sleeping child against her bosom. The brambles and the thorns would prick very little after that.
Later on, when Anne came in softly, Janet was asleep, with the kitten on her shoulder.
An hour later Anne came in once more in a wonderful white gown, and stood a moment watching Janet. Anne was not excited, but a little tumult was shaking her, as a summer wind stirs and ripples all the surface of a deep-set pool. She knew that she would meet Stephen to-night at the dinner-party for which she was already late, and that knowledge, though long experience had taught her that it was useless to meet him, that he would certainly not speak to her if he could help it, still the knowledge that she should seehim caused a faint colour to burn in her pale cheek, a wavering light in her grave eyes, a slight tremor of her whole delicate being. She looked, as she stood in the half-light, a woman to whose exquisite hands even a poet might have entrusted his difficult, double-edged love, much more a hard man of business such as Stephen.
Janet's face, which had been so wan, was flushed a deep red. She stirred uneasily, and began speaking hoarsely and incoherently.
"All burnt," she said, over and over again. "All burnt. Nothing left."
Anne laid down the fan she held in her hand, and drew a step nearer.
Janet suddenly sat up, opened her eyes to a horrible width, and stared at her.
"I have burnt them all, Fred," she said, looking full at Anne. "Everything. There is nothing left. I promised I would, and I have. But oh! Fred, how could you do it? How could you, could you, do it?" And she burst into a low cry of anguish.
Anne took her by the arm.
"You are dreaming, Janet," she said. "Wake up. Look! You are here with me, Anne—your friend."
Janet winced, and her eyelids quivered. Then she looked round her bewildered, and said in a more natural voice: "I don't know where I am. I thought I was at home with Fred."
"I have sent for your brother, and he will come and take you home to-morrow."
"Something dreadful has happened," said Janet. "It is like a stone on my head. It crushes me, but I don't know what it is."
Anne looked gravely at Janet, and half unconsciously unclasped the thin chain, with its heavy diamond pendant, from her neck. Her hand trembled as she did it. She was not thinking of Janet at that moment. "I shall not see him to-night," she was saying to herself. And the delicate colour faded, the hidden tumult died down. She was calm and practical once more. She wrote a note, sent it down to the waiting carriage to deliver, got quickly out of the flowingwhite gown into a dressing-gown, and returned to Janet.
Fred came to London the following day. Even his mercurial nature was distressed at Cuckoo's sudden death, and at Janet's wan, fixed face. But he felt that if his sister must be ill, she could not be better placed than in that ducal household. A good many persons among Fred's acquaintances heard of Janet's illness during the next few days, and of the kindness of the Duke and Duchess of Quorn.
The Duke and Duchess really were kind. The benevolence of so down-trodden and helpless a creature as the Duke—who was of no importance except in affairs of the realm, where he was a power—his kindness, of course, was of no account. But the Duchess rose to the occasion. She was one of those small, square, kind-hearted, determined women, with a long upper lip, whose faces are set on looking upwards, who can make life vulgarly happy for struggling, middle-class men, if they are poor enoughto give their wives scope for an unceasing energy on their behalf. She was afemme incomprise, misplaced. By birth she was the equal of her gentle-mannered husband, but she was one of Nature's vulgarians all the same, and directly the thin gilt of a certain youthful prettiness wore off—she had been a plump, bustling little partridge at twenty—her innate commonness came obviously to the surface; in fact, it became the surface.
"Age could not wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite vulgarity."
"Age could not wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite vulgarity."
There was no need for her to push, but she pushed. She made embarrassing jokes at the expense of her children. In society she was familiar where she should have been courteous, openly curious where she should have ignored, gratuitously confidential where she should have been reticent. She never realized the impression she made on others. She pursued her discomfortable objects of pursuit, namely, eligible young men and endless charities, with the same total disregard of appearances, the same ungainlyagility, which an elderly hen will sometimes suddenly evince in chase of a butterfly.
Some one had nicknamed her "the steam roller," and the name stuck to her.
She was—perhaps not unnaturally—annoyed when Anne brought a stranger back to the house with her in the height of the season, and installed her in one of the spare rooms, while she herself was absent, talking loudly at a little musical tea-party. But when she saw Janet next day sitting in one of Anne's dressing-gowns in Anne's sitting-room, she instantly took a fancy to her; one of those heavy, prodding fancies which immediately investigate by questions—the Duchess never hesitated to ask questions—all the past life of the victim, as regards illnesses, illnesses of relations, especially if obscure and internal, cause of death of parents, present financial circumstances, etc. Janet, whose strong constitution rapidly rallied from the shock that had momentarily prostrated her, thought these subjects of conversation natural and even exhilarating. She was accustomed to themin her own society. The first time the Smiths had called on her at Ivy Cottage, had they not enquired the exact area of her little drawing-room? She found the society of the Duchess vaguely delightful and sympathetic, a welcome relief from her own miserable thoughts. And the Duchess told Janet in return about a very painful ailment from which the Duke suffered, and which it distressed him "to hear alluded to," and all about Anne's millionaire. When, a few days later, Janet was able to travel, the Duchess parted from her with real regret, and begged her to come and stay with them again after her marriage.
Anne seemed to have receded from Janet during these last days. Perhaps the Duchess had elbowed her out. Perhaps Anne divined that Janet had been told all about her unfortunate love affair. Anne's patient dignity had a certain remoteness in it. Her mother, whose hitherto thinly-draped designs on Stephen were now clothed only in the recklessnessof despair, made Anne's life well-nigh unendurable to her at this time, a constant mortification of her refinement and her pride. She withdrew into herself. And perhaps also Anne was embarrassed by the knowledge that she had inadvertently become aware, when Janet's mind had wandered, of something connected with the burning of papers which Janet was concealing, and which, as Anne could see, was distressing her more even than the sudden death of Mrs Brand.
Fred took charge of his sister in an effusive manner when she was well enough to travel. She was very silent all the way home. She had become shy with her brother, depressed in his society. She had always known that evil existed in the world, but she had somehow managed to combine that knowledge with the comfortable conviction that the few people she cared for were "different." She observed nothing except what happened under her actual eyes, and then only if her eyes were forcibly turned in that direction.
She knew Fred drank only because she had seen him drunk. The shaking hand, and broken nerve, and weakly-violent temper, the signs of intemperance when he was sober, were lost upon her. She dismissed them with the reflection that Fred was like that. Cause and effect did not exist for Janet. And those for whom they do not exist sustain heavy shocks.
Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother!
The horror of that remembrance never left her during these days. She could not think about it. She could only silently endure it.
Poor Janet did not realize even now that the sole reason why Cuckoo had made friends with her was in order to veil the intimacy with her brother. The hard, would-be smart woman would not, without some strong reason, have made much of so unfashionable an individual as Janet in the first instance, though there was no doubt that in the end Cuckoo had grown fond of Janet for herown sake. And her genuine liking for the sister had survived the rupture with the brother.
The dog-cart was waiting for Fred and Janet at Mudbury, and, as they drove in the dusk through the tranquil country lanes, Janet drew a long breath.
"You must not take on about Mrs Brand's death too much," said Fred at last, who had also been restlessly silent for the greater part of the journey.
Janet did not answer.
"We must all die some day," continued Fred. "It's the common lot. I did not like Mrs Brand as much as you did, Janet. She was not my sort—but still—when I heard the news——"
"I loved her," said Janet hoarsely. "I would have done anything for her."
"You must cheer up," said Fred, "and try and look at the bright side. That was what the Duke was saying only yesterday when I called to thank him. He was in such a hurry that he hardly had a moment to spare, but I took agreat fancy to him. No airs and soft sawder, and a perfect gentleman. I shall call again when next I am in London. I shan't forget their kindness to you."
Again no answer.
"It is your duty to cheer up," continued Fred. "George is coming over to see you to-morrow morning."
"I think, don't you think, Fred," said Janet suddenly, "that George is good—really good, I mean?"
"He is all right," said Fred. "Not exactly open-handed. You must lay your account for that, Janet. You'll find him a bit of a screw, or I'm much mistaken."
Janet was too dazed to realize what Fred's discovery of George's meanness betokened.
Silence again.
They were nearing home. The lights of Ivy Cottage twinkled through the violet dusk. Janet looked at them without seeing them.
Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother!
"I suppose, Janet," said Fred suddenly, "you were not able to ask Mrs Brand—no—of course not——But perhaps you were able to put in a word for me to Brand about that—about waiting for his money?"
"I never said anything to either of them," said Janet. "I never thought of it again. I forgot all about it."
"Yea, each with the other will lose and win,Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in."—W. E. Henley.
"Yea, each with the other will lose and win,Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in."
"Yea, each with the other will lose and win,Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in."
—W. E. Henley.
It was a summer night, hot and still, six weeks later, towards the end of July. Through the open windows of a house in Hamilton Gardens a divine voice came out into the listening night:—
"She comes not when Noon is on the roses—Too bright is day.She comes not to the Soul till it reposesFrom work and play.But when Night is on the hills, and the great VoicesRoll in from Sea,By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlightShe comes to me."
"She comes not when Noon is on the roses—Too bright is day.She comes not to the Soul till it reposesFrom work and play.But when Night is on the hills, and the great VoicesRoll in from Sea,By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlightShe comes to me."
Stephen sat alone in Hamilton Gardens, a massive figure under a Chinese lantern, which threw an unbecoming light on his grim face and heavy brows, and laid on the grass a grotesque boulder of shadow of the great capitalist.
I do not know what he was thinking about, as he sat listening to the song, biting what could only by courtesy be entitled his little finger. Was he undergoing a passing twinge of poetry? Did money occupy his thoughts?
His impassive face betrayed nothing. When did it ever betray anything?
He was not left long alone. Figures were pacing in the half-lit gardens, two and two.
Prose rushed in upon him in the shape of a small square body, upholstered in grey satin, which trundled its way resolutely towards him.
The Duchess feared neither God nor man, but if fear had been possible to her, it would have been for that dignified, yet elusive, personage, whom she panted to call her son-in-law.
She sat down by him with anxiety and determination in her eyes.
"By starlight, and by candlelight, and dreamlight she comes to me," said Stephen to himself, with a sardonic smile. "Also by daylight, and when noon is on the roses, and when I am at work and at play. In short, she always comes."
"What a perfect night!" said the Duchess.
"Perfect."
"And that song—how beautiful!"
"Beautiful."
"I did not know you cared for poetry?"
"I don't."
Stephen added to other remarkable qualities that of an able and self-possessed liar. In business he was considered straight even by gentlemen, foolishly strait-laced by men of business. But to certain persons, and the Duchess was one of them, he never spokethe truth. He was wont to say that any lies he told he did not intend to account for, in this world or the next; and that the bill, if there was one, would never be sent in to him. He certainly had the courage of his convictions.
"I want you to think twice of the disappointment you have given us all by not coming to us in Scotland this autumn. The Duke was really quite put out. He had so reckoned on your coming."
Stephen did not answer. He had a colossal power of silence when it suited him. He had liked the Duke for several years before he had made the acquaintance of his family. The two men had met frequently on business, understood each other, and had almost reached friendship when the Duchess intervened, to ply her "savage trade." Since then a shade of distant politeness had tinged the Duke's manner towards Stephen, and the self-made man, sensitive to anything that resembled a sense of difference of class, instinctively drew away from him. Yet, if Stephen had butknown it, the change in the Duke's manner was only owing to the unformulated suspicion that the father sometimes feels for the man, however eligible, whom he suspects of filching from him his favourite daughter.
"We arealldisappointed," continued the Duchess, and her power of hitting on the raw did not fail her, for her victim winced—not perceptibly. She went on: "Do think of it again, Mr Vanbrunt. If you could see Larinnen in autumn—the autumn tints, you know—and no party. Just ourselves. And I am sure from your face you are a lover of Nature."
"I hate Nature," said Stephen. "It bores me. I am very easily bored."
He was longing to get away from London, to steep his soul in the sympathy of certain solitary woodland places he knew of, shy as himself; where perhaps the strain on his aching spirit might relax somewhat, where he could lie in the shade for hours, and listen to running water, and forget that he was a plain, middle-aged millionaire,whom a brilliant, exquisite creature could not love for himself.
"When I said no party I did not mean quite alone," said the Duchess, breathing heavily, for a frontal attack is generally also an uphill one. "A few cheerful friends. How right you are! One does not see enough of one's real friends. Anne often says that. She said to me only yesterday, when we were talking of you——"
The two liars were interrupted by the advance towards them of Anne and De Rivaz. They came silently across the shadowy grass, into the little ring of light thrown by the Chinese lantern.
De Rivaz was evidently excited. His worn, cynical face looked boyish in the garish light.
"Duchess," he said, "I have only just heard by chance from Lady Anne, that the unknown divinity whom I am turning heaven and earth to find, in order that I may paint her, has actually been staying under your roof, and that you intend to ask her again."
"Mr De Rivaz means Janet Black," said Anne to her mother.
"I implore you to ask me to meet her," said the painter.
"But she is just going to be married," said the Duchess, with genuine regret. Here was an opportunity lost.
"I know it; it breaks my heart to know it," said De Rivaz. "But married or not, maid, wife, or widow, I must paint her. Give me the chance of making her acquaintance."
"I will do what I can," said the Duchess, gently tilting forward her square person on to its flat white satin feet, and looking with calculating approval at her daughter. Surely Anne had never looked so lovely as at this obviously propitious moment.
"Take a turn with me, young man," continued the Duchess, "and I will see what I can do. And Anne," she said with a backward glance at her daughter, "try and persuade Mr Vanbrunt to come to us in September."
"I will do my best," said Anne, and she sat down on the bench.
Stephen, who had risen when she joined them, looked at her with shy, angry admiration.
It was a new departure for Anne so openly to abet her mother, and it wounded him.
"Won't you sit down again?" said Anne, meeting his eyes firmly. "I wish to speak to you."
He sat down awkwardly. He was always awkward in her presence. Perhaps it was only a moment, but it seemed to him an hour while she kept silence.
The same voice sang across the starlit dark:
"Some souls have quickened, eye to eye,And heart to heart, and hand in hand;The swift fire leaps, and instantlyThey understand."
"Some souls have quickened, eye to eye,And heart to heart, and hand in hand;The swift fire leaps, and instantlyThey understand."
Neither heard it. Nearer than the song, close between them some mighty enfolding presence seemed to have withdrawn them into itself. There is a momentwhen Love leaves the two hearts in which He dwells, and stands between them revealed.
So far it has been man and woman and Love—three persons met painfully together, who cannot walk together, not being agreed. But the hour comes when in awe the man and woman perceive, what was always so from the beginning, that they twain are but one being, one foolish creature who, in a great blindness, thought it was two, mistook itself for two.
Perhaps that moment of discovery of our real identity in another is the first lowest rung of the steep ladder of love. Does God, who flung down to us that nearest empty highway to Himself, does He wonder why so few travellers come up by it; why we go wearily round by such bitter sin-bogged, sorrow-smirched by-paths, to reach Him at last?
There may be much love without that sense of oneness, but when it comes it can only come to two, it can only be born of a mutual love. Neither can feelit without the other. Anne knew that. By her love for him she knew he loved her. He was slower, more obtuse; yet even he, with his limited perceptions and calculating mind, even he nearly believed, nearly had faith, nearly asked her if she could love him.
But the old self came to his perdition, the strong, shrewd, iron-willed self that had made him what he was, that had taught him to trust few, to follow his own judgment, that in his strenuous life had furnished him with certain dogged conventional ready-made convictions regarding women. Men he could judge, and did judge. He knew who would cheat him, who would fail him at a pinch, whom he could rely on. But of women he knew little. He regarded them as apart from himself, and did not judge them individually, but collectively. He knew how one of Anne's sisters, possibly more than one of them, had been coerced into marriage. He did not see that Anne belonged to a different class of being.His shrewdness, his bitter knowledge of the seamy side of a society to which he did not naturally belong, its uncouth passion for money, blinded him.
He had become very pale while he sat by her, while poor Anne vainly racked her brain to remember what it was she wished to say to him. The overwhelming impulse to speak, to have it out with her, the thirst for her love was upon him. When was it not upon him? He looked at her fixedly, and his heart sank. How could she love him—she in her wand-like delicacy and ethereal beauty? She was not of his world, she was not made of the same clay. No star seemed so remote as this still dark-eyed woman beside him. How could she love him? No, the thing was impossible.
A very ugly emotion laid violent momentary hold on him. Let him take her whether she cared for him or not. If money could buy her, let him buy her.
He glanced sidelong at her, and then moved nearer to her. She turned herhead, and looked full at him. She had no fear of him. The fierce, harsh face did not daunt her. She understood him, his stubborn humility, his blind love, this momentary hideous lapse, and knew that it was momentary.
"Lady Anne," he said hoarsely, "will you marry me?"
It had come at last, the word her heart had ached for so long. She did not think. She did not hesitate. She, who had so often been troubled by the mere sight of him across a room, was calm now. She looked at him with a certain gentle scorn.
"No, thank you," she said.
"I love you," he said, taking her hand. "I have long loved you."
It was his hand that trembled. Hers was steady as she withdrew it.
"I know," she said.
"Then could not you think of me? I implore you to marry me."
"You are speaking on impulse. We have hardly exchanged a word with each other for the last three months. Youhad no intention of asking me to marry you when you came here this evening."
"I don't care what intentions I may or may not have had," said Stephen, his temper, always quick, rising at her self-possession. "I mean what I say now, and I have meant it ever since I first saw you."
"Do you think I love you?"
"I love you enough for both," he said with passion. "You are in my heart and my brain, and I can't tear you out. I can't live without you."
"In old days, when you were not quite so rich, and not quite so worldly-wise, did you not sometimes hope to marry for love?"
"I hope to marry for love now. Do you doubt that I love you?"
"No, I don't. But have you never hoped to marry a woman who would care for you as much as you did for her?"
"I can't expect that," said the millionaire. "I don't expect it. I'm not—I'm not the kind of man whom women easily love."
"No," said Anne, "you're not."
"But when I care, I care with my whole heart. Will you think this over, and give me an answer to-morrow?"
"I have already answered you."
"I beg you to reconsider it."
"Why should I reconsider it?"
"I would try to make you happy. Let me prove my devotion to you."
She looked long at him, and she saw, without the possibility of deceiving herself, that if she told him she loved him he would not believe it. It was the conventional answer when a millionaire offers marriage, and he had a rooted belief in the conventional. After marriage it would be the same. He would think duty prompted it, her kiss, her caress. Oh! suffocating thought. She would be farther from him than ever as his wife.
"I think we should get on together," he faltered, her refusal reaching him gradually, like a cold tide rising round him. "I had ventured to hope that you did not dislike me."
"I do not dislike you," said Annedeliberately. "You are quite right. The thing I dislike is a mercenary marriage."
He became ashen white. He rose slowly to his feet, and drawing near to her looked steadily at her, lightning in his eyes.
"Do I deserve that insult?" he said, his voice hardly human in its suppressed rage.
He looked formidable in the uncertain light.
She confronted him unflinching.
"Yes," she said, "you do. You calmly offer me marriage while you are firmly convinced that I don't care for you, and you are surprised—you actually dare to be surprised—when I refuse you. Those who offer insults must accept them."
"I intended none, as you well know," he said, drawing back a step. He felt his strength in him, but this slight woman, whom he could break with one hand, was stronger than he.
"Why should I marry you if I don't love you?" she went on. "Why, of coursebecause you are Mr Vanbrunt, the greatest millionaire in England. Your choice has fallen on me. Let me accept with gratitude my brilliant fate, and if I don't actually dislike you, so much the better for both of us."
Stephen continued to look hard at her, but he said nothing. Her beauty astonished him.
"And what do we both lose," said Anne, "in such a marriage—you as well as I? Is it not theonechance, the one hope of a mutual love? Is it so small a thing in your eyes that you can cast the possibility from you of a love that will meet yours and not endure it, the possibility of a woman somewhere, who might be found for diligent seeking, who might walk into your life without seeking, who would love you as much as"—Anne's voice shook—"perhaps even more than you love her;—to whom you—you yourself—stern and grim as you seem to many—might be the whole world? Have you always been so busy making this dreadful money, which buys so much, that you haveforgotten the things that money can't buy? No; no. Do not let us lock each other out from the only thing worth having in this hard world. We should be companions in misfortune."
She held out her hands to him with a sudden beautiful gesture, and smiled at him through her tears.
He took her hands in his large grasp, and in his small quick eyes there were tears too.
"We have both something to forgive each other," she said, trembling like a reed. "I have spoken harshly, and you unwisely. But the day will come when you will be grateful to me that I did not shut you out from the only love that could make you, of all men, really happy—the love that is returned."
He kissed each hand gently, and released them. He could not speak.
She went swiftly from him through the trees.
"May God bless her," said Stephen. "May God in heaven bless her."
"Thine were the weak, slight handsThat might have taken this strong soul, and bentIts stubborn substance to thy soft intent."—William Watson.
"Thine were the weak, slight handsThat might have taken this strong soul, and bentIts stubborn substance to thy soft intent."
"Thine were the weak, slight handsThat might have taken this strong soul, and bentIts stubborn substance to thy soft intent."
—William Watson.
It was hard on Stephen that when he walked into a certain drawing-room the following evening he should find Anne there. It was doubly hard that he should have to take her in to dinner. Yet so it was. There ought to have been a decent interval before their next meeting. Some one had arranged tactlessly, without any sense of proportion. Though he had not slept since she left him in the garden, still it seemed only a moment ago, and that she was back beside him in an instant, without giving him time to draw breath.
She met him as she always met him, with the faint enigmatical smile, with the touch of gentle respect never absent from her manner to him, except for one moment last night. He needed it. He had fallen inhis own estimation during that sleepless night. He saw the sudden impulse that had goaded him into an offer of marriage—the kind of offer that how many men make in good faith—in its native brutality—as he knew she had seen it. When he first perceived her in the dimly-lighted room, and he was aware of her presence before he saw her, he felt he could not go towards her, as a man may feel that he cannot go home. Home for Stephen was wherever Anne was, even if the door were barred against him.
But after a few minutes he screwed his "courage to the sticking-place," and went up to her.
"I am to take you in to dinner," he said. "It is your misfortune, but not my fault."
"I am glad," she said. "I came to you last night because I had something urgent to say to you. I shall have an opportunity of saying it now."
The constraint and awkwardness he had of late felt in her presence fell from him. It seemed as if they had gone back by some welcome short cut to the simple intercourseof the halcyon days when they had first met.
He cursed himself for his mole-like obtuseness in having thought last night that she was playing into her mother's hands. When had she ever done so? Why had he suspected her?
In the meanwhile the world was
"At rest with willAnd leisure to be fair."
"At rest with willAnd leisure to be fair."
The Duchess was not there, suddenly and mercifully laid low by that occasional friend of society—influenza. The Duke, gay anddébonnairein her absence, was beaming on his hostess whom he was to take into dinner, and to whom he was sentimentally linked by a mild flirtation in a past decade, a flirtation so mild that it had no real existence, except in the imaginative remembrance of both.
Presently Anne and Stephen were walking in to dinner together. It was a large party, and they sat together at the end of the table.
Anne did not wait this time. She began to talk at once.
"I am anxious about a friend of mine," she said, "who is, I am afraid, becoming entangled in a far greater difficulty than she is aware. But it is a long story. Do you mind long stories?"
"No."
Stephen turned towards her, becoming a solid block of attention.
"My friend is a Miss Black, a very beautiful woman, whom Mr De Rivaz is dying to paint. You may recollect having seen her where he saw her first, the day after the fire in Lowndes Mansions, in the burnt-out flat of that unfortunate Mrs Brand."
"I saw her. I remember her perfectly. I spoke to her about the dangerous state of the passages. I thought her the most beautiful creature, bar none, I had ever seen."
Stephen pulled himself up. He knew it was most impolitic to praise one woman to another. They did not like it. It wasagainst the code. He must be more careful, or he should offend her again.
Anne looked at him very pleasantly. Her eyes were good to meet. She was evidently not offended. Dear me! Mysterious creatures, women! It struck him, not for the first time, that Anne was an exception to the whole of her sex.
"Isn't she beautiful!" said the exception warmly. "But I am afraid she is not quite as wise as she is beautiful. She is in a great difficulty."
"What about?"
"It seems she burned something when she was alone in the flat. At least she is accused by Mr Brand of burning something. A very valuable paper—an I O U for a large sum which her brother owed Mr Brand, and which became due a month ago—is missing."
"She did burn something," said Stephen. "I was on the floor above at the time, and smelt smoke, and came down, and De Rivaz told me it was nothing; only the divinity burning some papers. He was alarmed, andleft his sketch to find where the smoke came from. He saw her burn them."
"He said that to you," said Anne, "but to no one else. I talked over the matter with him last night, and directly he heard Miss Black was in trouble, he assured me that he had thoughtlessly burnt a sheet of drawing-paper himself. That was what caused the smoke. And he said he would tell Mr Brand so."
"H'm! Brand is not made up of credulity."
"No. He seems convinced Miss Black destroyed that paper."
"And does she deny it?"
"Of course."
"She can't deny that she burned something."
"Yes, she does. She sticks to it that she burned nothing."
"Then she must be a fool, because three of us know she did. De Rivaz knows it, I know it, and I see you know it."
"And it turns out the lift man knows it; at least he was reprimanded for being onthe upper floors without leave, and he said he only went there because there was a smoke, and he was anxious; and the smoke came from the Brands' sitting-room, which Miss Black left as he came up. He told Mr Brand this, who put what he thought was two and two together. Fred Black, it seems, would have been ruined if Mr Brand had enforced payment, and he believes Miss Black got hold of the paper at her brother's instigation and destroyed it."
"Well! I suppose she did," said Stephen.
"If you knew her you would know that that is impossible."
Stephen looked incredulous.
"I've known a good many unlikely things happen about money," he said slowly. "I daresay she did it to save her brother."
"She did not do it," said Anne.
"If she didn't, why doesn't she say what she did burn, and why? What's the use of sticking to it that she burned nothing when Brand knows that's a lie? A lie is a deadly stupid thing unless it's uncommonly well done."
"She has had very little practice in lying. I fancy this is her first."
"The only possible course left for her to take is to admit that she burned something, and to say what it was. Why doesn't she see that?"
"Because she is a stupid woman, and she does not see the consequences of her insane denial, and the conclusions that must inevitably be drawn from it. When the room was examined, ashes were found in the grate that had been paper."
"How does she explain that?"
"She does not explain it. She explains nothing. She just sets her teeth and repeats her wretched formula that she burned nothing."
"What took her up to the flat at all then, just when her friend was dying?"
"She says Mrs Brand sent her up to see if her portrait was safe. But Mr Brand does not believe that either, as he says he had already told his wife that it was uninjured."
"This Miss Black is a strong liar," saidStephen. "I should not have guessed it from her face. She looked as straight and innocent as a child; but one never can tell."
"I imagine I do not look like a liar. But would you say if I also were accused of lying that you never can tell?"
Stephen was taken aback. He bit his little finger and frowned at the wonderful roses in front of him.
"I know you speak the truth," he said, "because you have spoken it to me. I should believe what you said—always—under any circumstances."
"You believe in my truthfulness from experience. Do you never believe by intuition?"
"Not often."
"When first I saw Miss Black I perceived that she was a perfectly honest, upright woman. I did not wait till she had given me any proof of it. I saw it."
"I certainly thought the same. To say the truth, I am surprised at her duplicity."
"In my case you judged by experience.In her case I want you to go by intuition, by your first impression, which I know is the true one. I would stake my life upon it."
"I don't see how my intuitions would help her."
"Oh! yes, they will. Mr Brand is aware from the lift man, who saw you, that you were on the spot directly before he smelt smoke. Mr Brand will probably write to you."
"He has written already. He has asked me to see him on business to-morrow morning. He does not say what business."
"He is certain to try and find out from you what Miss Black was doing when you saw her in his flat. It seems you and Mr De Rivaz both left your cards on the table—why I can't think—but it shows you were both there. He came up himself next day and found them."
"We both sent messages to Brand by Miss Black."
"It seems she never gave them. She says now she forgot all about them."
Stephen shook his head.
"If Brand comes I shall be obliged to tell him the truth," he said.
"That was why I was so bent on seeing you. I am anxious youshouldtell him the truth."
Stephen looked steadily at her.
"What truth?" he said.
"Whatever you consider will disabuse his mind of the suspicion that she burned her brother's I O U. Mr De Rivaz' view of the truth is that the smoke came from a burnt sheet of his own drawing-paper."
"I am not accountable for De Rivaz. He can invent what he likes. That is hardly my line."
He coloured darkly. It was incredible to him that Anne could be goading him to support her friend's fabric of lies by another lie. He would not do it, come what might. But he felt that Fate was hard on him. He would have done almost anything at that moment to please her. But a lie—no.
"I fear your line would naturally be to tell the blackest lie that has ever been told yet, by repeating the damaging facts exactly as they are. If you do—to a man like him—not only will you help to ruin Miss Black, but you will give weight to this frightful falsehood which is being circulated against her. And if you, by your near-sighted truthfulness, give weight to a lie, it is just the same as telling one. No, I think it's worse."
Stephen smiled grimly. This was straight talk. Plain speaking always appealed to him even when, as now, it was at his expense.
"Are you certain that your friend did not burn her brother's I O U?" he said after a pause.
"I am absolutely certain. Remember her face. Now, Mr Vanbrunt, think. Don't confuse your mind with ideas of what women generally are. Think of her. Are not you certain too?"
"Yes," he said slowly, "I am. She is concealing something. She has done somefolly, and is bolstering it up by a stupid lie. But the other, that's swindling—no, she did not do that."
"Then help the side of truth," said Anne. "My own conviction is that she burned something compromising Mrs Brand, at Mrs Brand's dying request, under an oath of secrecy. And that is why her mouth is shut. But this is only a supposition. I ask you not to repeat it. I only mention it because you are so——" she shot a glance at him unlike any, in its gentle raillery, that had fallen to his lot for many a long day—"so stubborn."
He was unreasonably pleased.
"I should still be in a dry goods warehouse in Hull if I had not been what you call stubborn," he said, smiling at her.
"May I ask you a small favour for myself?" she said. "So far I have only asked for my friend."
"It seems hardly necessary to ask it. Only mention it."
"If my mother talks to you, and she talks to you a great deal, do not mentionto her our—our conversation of last night. It would be kinder to me."
Stephen bowed gravely. He was surprised. It had not struck him that Anne had not told her mother. A brand-new idea occurred to him, namely that Anne and her mother were not in each other's confidence. H'm! That luminous idea required further thought.
"And now," said Anne, "having got out of you all I want, I will immediately desert you for my other neighbour." And she spoke no more to Stephen that night.
"My dear," said the Duke of Quorn to Anne as they drove home, "it appeared to me that you and Vanbrunt were on uncommonly good terms to-night. Is there any understanding between you?"
"I think he is beginning to have a kind of glimmering of one."
"Really! Understandings don't as a rule lead to marriage. Misunderstandings generally bring about those painful dislocations of life. But the idea struck me thisevening—I hope needlessly—that I might after all have to take that richly gilt personage to my bosom as my son-in-law."
"Mr Vanbrunt asked me to marry him yesterday, and I refused him."
The Duke experienced a slight shock, tinged with relief.
"Does your mother know?" he said at last in an awed voice.
"Need you ask?"
"Well, if she ever finds out, for goodness' sake let her inform me of the fact. Don't give me away, Anne, by letting out that I knew at the time. If she thought I was an accomplice of the crime—your refusal—really if she once got that idea into her head—— But next time she tackles Vanbrunt, perhaps he will tell her himself. Oh, heavens!"
"I asked him not to mention it to her."
The Duke sighed.
"And so he really did propose at last. I thought your mother had choked him off. Most men would have been. Well,Anne, I'm glad you did not accept him. I don't hold with mixed marriages. In these days people talk as if class were nothing, and the fact of being well-born of no account. And, of course, it's a subject one can't discuss, because certain things, if put into words, sound snobbish at once. But they are true all the same. The middle classes have got it screwed into their cultivated heads that education levels class differences. It doesn't, but one can't say so. Not that Vanbrunt is educated, as I once told him."
"Oh! come, father. I am sure you did not."
"You are right, my dear. I did not. He said himself one day, in a moment of expansion, that he regretted that he had never had the chance of going to a public school, or the University, and I said the sort of life he had led was an education of a high order. So it is. That man has lived. Really when I come to think of it, I almost—no, I don't—Ahem! Associate freely with all classes, but marry in your own.That is what I say when no one is listening. By no one I mean of course yourself, my dear."
Anne was silent. There had been days when she had felt that difference keenly though silently. Those days were past.
"Vanbrunt is a Yorkshire dalesman, with Dutch trading blood in him. It is extraordinary how Dutch the people look near Goole and Hull. I shall like him better now. I always have liked him till—the last few months. You would never say Vanbrunt was a gentleman, but you would never say he wasn't. He seems apart from all class. There is no hall-mark upon him. He is himself. So you would not have him, my little Anne? That's over. It's the very devil to be refused, I can tell you. I was refused once. It was some time ago, as you may imagine, but—I have not forgotten it. I learned what London looks like in the dawn, after walking the streets all night. So it's his turn to wear out the pavement now, is it! Poor man! He'll take it hard in a bottled-up way. When next I see himI shall say: 'Aha! money can't buy everything, Vanbrunt.'"
"Oh! no, father. You won't be so brutal."
"No, my dear, I daresay I shall not. I shall pretend not to know. Really I have a sort of regard for him. Poor Vanbrunt!"
"C'est son ignorance qui fixe son malheur."—Maeterlinck.
"C'est son ignorance qui fixe son malheur."
—Maeterlinck.
Did you ever, as a child, see ink made? Did you ever watch, with wondering intentness, the mixing of one little bottle of colourless fluid—which you imagined to be pure water—with another equally colourless? No change. Then at last, into the cup of clear water, the omnipotent parent hand pours out of another tiny phial two or three crystal drops.
The latent ink rushes into being at the contact of those few drops. The wholecup is black with it, transfused with impenetrable darkness, terrible to look upon.
We are awed, partly owing to the exceeding glory of the magician with the Vandyke hand, who knows everything, and who can work miracles at will, and partly because we did not see the change coming. We were warned that it would come by that voice of incarnate wisdom. We were all eyes. But it was there before we knew. Some of us, as older children, watch with our ignorant eyes the mysterious alchemy in our little cup of life. We are warned, but we see not. We somehow miss the sign. The water is clear, quite clear. Something more is coming, straight from the same Hand. In a moment all is darkness.
A wiser woman than Janet would perhaps have known, would at any rate have feared, that a certain small cloud on her horizon, no larger than a man's hand, meant a great storm. But until it broke she did not realize that that ever-increasing ominous pageant had any connection with the hurricane that at last fell upon her: just assome of us see the rosary of life only as separate beads, not noticing the divine constraining thread, and are taken by surprise when we come to the cross.
The cloud first showed itself, or rather Janet first caught sight of it, on a hot evening towards the end of June, when Fred returned from London, whither he had been summoned by Mr Brand, a fortnight after his wife's death.
The days which had passed since Cuckoo's death had not had power to numb the pain at Janet's heart. The shock had only so far had the effect of shifting the furniture of her mind into unfamiliar, jostling positions. She did not know where to put her hand on anything, like a woman who enters her familiar room after an earthquake, and finds the contents still there, but all huddled together or thrown asunder.
Her deep affection for her brother, and her friend Cuckoo, were wrenched out of place, leaving horrible gaps. She had always felt a vague repulsion to MonkeyBrand, with his dyed hair and habit of staring too hard at her. The repulsion towards him had shifted, and had crashed up against her love for Fred, and Monkey Brand had acquired a kind of dignity, even radiance. Even her love for George had altered in the general dislocation. Its halo had been jerked off. Who was true? Who was good? She looked at him wistfully, and with a certain diffidence. She felt a new tenderness for him. George had noticed the change in her manner towards him since her return from London, and, not being an expert diver into the recesses of human nature, he had at first anxiously inquired whether she still loved him the same. Janet looked slowly into her own heart before she made reply. Then she turned her grave gaze upon him. "More," she said, as every woman, whose love is acquainted with grief must answer if she speaks the truth.
It was nearly dark when Janet caught the sounds of Fred's dog-cart, driving swiftly along the lanes, too swiftly considering thedarkness. He drove straight to the stables, and then came out into the garden, where she was walking up and down waiting for him. It was such a small garden, merely a strip out of the field in front of the house, that he could not miss her.
He came quickly towards her, and even in the starlight she saw how white his face was. Her heart sank. She knew Fred had gone to London in compliance with a request from Mr Brand. Had Mr Brand refused to renew his bond, or to wait?
Fred took her suddenly in his arms, and held her closely to him. He was trembling with emotion. His tears fell upon her face. She could feel the violent beating of his heart. She could not speak. She was terrified. She had never known him like this.
"You have saved me," he stammered, kissing her hair and forehead. "Oh! my God! Janet, I will never forget this, never while I live. I was ruined, and you have saved me."
She did not understand. She led him tothe garden seat, and they sat down together. She thought he had been drinking. He generally cried when he was drunk. But she saw in the next moment that he was sober.
"Will Mr Brand renew?" she said, though she knew he would not. Monkey Brand never renewed.
Fred laughed. It was the nervous laugh of a shallow nature, after a hairbreadth escape.
"Brand will not renew, and he will not wait," he said. "You know that as well as I do. Janet, I misjudged you. All these awful days, while I have been expecting the blow to fall—it meant ruin, sheer ruin, for you as well as me—all this time I thought you did not care what became of me. You seemed so different lately, so cold."
"I did care."
"I know. I know now. You are a brave woman. It was the only thing to do. If you had not burnt it he would have foreclosed. And of course I shallpay him back when I can. I said so. He knows I'm a gentleman. He has my word for it. A gentleman's word is as good as his bond. I shall repay him gradually."
"I don't understand," said Janet, who felt as if a cold hand had been laid upon her heart.
"Oh! You can speak freely to me. And to think of your keeping silence all this time—even to me. You always were one to keep things to yourself, but you might have just given me a hint. My I O U is not forthcoming, and Brand as good as knows you burned it. He knows you went up to his flat and burned something when his wife was dying. He wasn't exactly angry; he was too far gone for that, as if he couldn't care for anything one way or the other. He looks ten years older. But, of course, he's a business man, whether his wife is alive or dead, and I could see he was forcing himself to attend to business to keep himself from thinking. He said very little. He was very distant. Infernallydistant he was. He is no gentleman, and he doesn't understand the feelings of one. If it hadn't been that he was in trouble, and well—for the fact that I had borrowed money of him—I would not have stood it for a moment. I'm not going to allow any cad to hector over me, be he who he may. He mentioned the facts. He said he had always had a high opinion of you, and that he should come down and see you on the subject next week. You must think what to say, Janet."
"I never burned your I O U," said Janet in a whisper, becoming cold all over. It was a revelation to her that Fred could imagine she was capable of such a dishonourable action.
"Why, Fred," she said, deeply wounded, "you know I could not do such a thing. It would be the same as stealing."
"No, it wouldn't," said Fred, with instant irritation, "because you know I should pay him back. And so I will—only I can't at present. And, of course, you knew too, you must have guessed, that your twothousand—— And as you are going to be married, that is important too. I should have been ruined, sold up, if that I O U had turned up, and you yourself would have been in a fix. You knew that when you got hold of it and burned it. Come, Janet, you can own to me you burned it—between ourselves."
"I burnt nothing."
Fred peered at her open-mouthed.
"Janet, that's too thin. You must go one better than that when Brand comes. He knows you burnt something when you went up to his flat."
"I burnt nothing," said Janet again. It was too dark to see her face.
Did she realise that the first heavy drops were falling round her of the storm that was to wreck so much?
"Well," said Fred, after a pause, "I take my cue from you. You burnt nothing then. I don't see how you are going to work it, but that's your affair.... But oh, Janet, if that cursed paper had remained! If you had known what I've been goingthrough since you came home a fortnight ago, when my last shred of hope left me when I found you had not spoken to the Brands. It wasn't only the money—that was bad enough—it wasn't only that—but——"
And Fred actually broke down, and sobbed with his head in his hands. Presently, when he recovered himself, he told her, in stammering, difficult words, that he had something on his conscience, that his life had not been what it should have been, but that a year ago he had come to a turning-point; he had met some one—even his light voice had a graver ring in it—some one who had made him feel how—in short, he had fallen in love, with a woman like herself, like his dear Janet—good and innocent, a snowflake; and for a long time he feared she could never think of him, but how at last she seemed less indifferent, but how her father was a strict man and averse to him from the first. And if he had been sold up, all hope—what little hope there was—would have been gone.
"But, please God, now," said Fred, "I will make a fresh start. I've had a shock lately, Janet. I did not talk about it, but I've had a shock. I've thought of a good many things. I mean to turn round and do better in future. There are things I've done, that lots of men do and think nothing of them, that I won't do again. I mean to try from this day forward to be worthy of her, to put the past behind me; and if I ever do win her—if she'll take me in the end—I shall not forget, Janet, that I owe it to you."
He kissed her again with tears.
She was too much overcome to speak. Cuckoo had repented, and now Fred was sorry too. It was the first drop of healing balm which had fallen on that deep wound which Cuckoo's dying voice had inflicted how many endless days ago.
"It is Venetia Ford," said Fred shyly, but not without triumph. "You remember her? She is Archdeacon Ford's eldest daughter."
A recollection rose before Janet's mindof the eldest Miss Ford, with the pretty pink and white empty face, and the demure, if slightly supercilious, manner that befits one conscious of being an Archdeacon's daughter. Janet knew her slightly, and admired her much. The eldest Miss Ford's conversation was always markedly suitable. Her sense of propriety was only equalled by her desire to impart information. Her slightly clerical manner resembled the full-blown Archidiaconal deportment of her parent, as home-made marmalade resembles an orange. Archdeacon Ford was a pompous, much-respected prelate, with private means. Mrs Smith was distantly related to the Fords, and very proud of the connection. She seldom alluded to the eldest Miss Ford without remarking that Venetia was her ideal of what a perfect lady should be.
"O Fred, I am so glad!" said Janet, momentarily forgetting everything else in her rejoicing that Fred should have attached himself seriously at last, and to a woman for whom she felt respectful admiration, who hadalways treated herself with the cold civility that was, in Janet's eyes, the hall-mark of social and mental superiority.
"And does she like you?" she said, with pride. She could not see Fred any longer, but her mind's eye saw him—handsome, gay, irresistible. Of course she adored him.
"Sometimes I think she does," said Fred, "and sometimes I'm afraid she doesn't." And he expounded at great length, garnished with abundant detail, his various meetings with her; how on one occasion she had hardly looked at him; on another she had spoken to him of Browning—that was the time when he had bought Browning's works; on a third, how there had been another man there—a curate—a beast, but thinking a lot of himself; on a fourth she had said that balls—the Mudbury ball where he had danced with her—were an innocent form of recreation, etc., etc.
Janet drank in every word. It reminded her, she said, of "her and George." Indeed, there were many salient points of resemblance between the two courtships. The brother and sister sat long together hand in hand in the soft summer night. Only when she got up at last did the thought of the missing I O U return to Janet.
"O Fred!" she said, as they walked towards the house, "supposing after all your I O U turns up? How dreadful! What would happen?"
"It won't turn up," said Fred, with a laugh.
When Janet was alone in her room she remembered again, with pained bewilderment, that Fred had actually believed that she had destroyed that missing paper. It did not distress her that Monkey Brand evidently believed the same. She would, of course, tell him that he was mistaken.But Fred!He ought to have known better. Her thoughts returned speedily to her brother's future. He would settle down now, and be a good man, and marry the eldest Miss Ford. She felt happier about him than she had done since Cuckoo's death. Her constant prayer, that he mightrepent and lead a new life, had evidently been heard.
As she closed her eyes she said to herself, "I daresay Fred and Venetia will be married the same day as George and me."
Monkey Brand appeared at Ivy Cottage a few days later. Janet was in the field with Fred, taking the setter puppies for a run, when the "Trefusis Arms" dog-cart from Mudbury drove up, and Nemesis, in the shape of Monkey Brand, got slowly down from it, wrong leg first. Even in the extreme heat Monkey Brand wore a high hat and a long buttoned-up frock-coat and varnished boots. As he came towards them in the sunshine, there was a rigid, controlled desolation in his yellow lined face, which made Janet feel suddenly ashamed of her happiness in her own love.
"I had better go," said Fred hurriedly. "I don't want to be uncivil to the brute in my own house."
"Go!" said Janet. "But, of course, youmust stop. Mr Brand has come down on purpose to see us."
She went forward to meet him, and, as he took her hand somewhat stiffly, he met the tender sympathy in her clear eyes, and winced under it.
His face became a shade less rigid. He looked shrunk and exhausted, as if he had undergone the extreme rigour of a biting frost. Perhaps he had.
"I have come to see you on business," he said to Janet, hardly returning Fred's half nervous, half defiant greeting.
Janet led the way into the little parlour, and they sat down in silence. Fred sat down near the door, and began picking at the rose in his buttonhole.
Monkey Brand held his hat in his hand. He took off one black glove, dropped it into his hat, and looked fixedly at it.
The cloud on Janet's horizon lay heavy over her whole sky. A single petal, loosened by a shaking hand, fell from Fred's rose on to the floor.
"I am sure, Miss Black," said MonkeyBrand, "that you will offer me an explanation respecting your visit to my flat when my wife was dying."
"I went up at her wish," said Janet, breathing hard. She seemed to see again Cuckoo's anguished fading eyes fixed upon her.
"Why?"
"She asked me to go and see if her picture was safe."
"I had already told her it was safe."
Janet did not answer.
The rose in Fred's buttonhole fell petal by petal.
Monkey Brand's voice had hardened when he spoke again.
"I am sure," he said, and for a moment he fixed his dull sinister eyes upon her, "that you will see the advisability, the necessity, of telling me why you burnt some papers when you clandestinely visited my flat."
"I burnt nothing."
He looked into his hat. Janet's bewildered eyes followed the direction of his,and looked into his hat too. There was nothing in it but a glove.
"There were ashes of burnt papers in the grate," he continued. "The lift man saw you leave the room, which had smoke in it. A valuable paper, your brother's I O U is missing. I merely state established facts, which it is useless, which it is prejudicial, to you to contradict."