"I hope I'm giving anything like as much as I'm getting."
He grumbled something inarticulate as he passed by her and out of the door into the garden. Winnie looked after him with a smile still on her lips. If this were the worst she had to expect, it was nothing very dreadful. It was even rather amusing; she did not conceive that she had come off in any way second-best in the encounter.
Stephen came in a moment later and, on her report of Dennehy's arrival, went to look for his friend in the garden. But Dennehy was nowhere to be found; he was seen no more that day. He went straight back to London; he could not stop the deed, but he would not be an accomplice.
"Well, if he doesn't agree with what we're doing, I think he's right not to stay," said Tora. Yet Winnie felt a little hurt.
Then came the travesty, or the farce, or the protest, or whatever it may be decided to call it, in which Winnie formally—to a hostile eye perhaps rather theatrically—in the presence of her witnesses, did for herself what the powers that be would not do for her—declared her union with Cyril Maxon at an end and plighted her troth to Godfrey Ledstone. Godfrey would rather have had this little ceremony (if it had to be performed at all) take place privately, but he played his part in it with a good grace. It would be over soon—and soon he and she would set out together.
What of little Alice during all this? She had been sent to play with the gardener's daughter. It would be a portentous theory indeed that forced a child to consider the law of marriage and divorce before she attained the age of eleven. Even Tora Aikenhead did not go so far, and, as has been seen, Stephen's theorizing tendencies were held in check in his child's case.
Then off they went, and, on their arrival in London, they were met by Bob Purnett, who gave them a hearty welcome and a champagne luncheon, where all was very merry and gay. There was indeed a roguish twinkle in Bob Purnett's eye, but perhaps it was no more than custom allows even in the case of the most orthodox of marriages—and in any event Bob Purnett's was not that class of opinion to which Winnie's views could most naturally be expected to appeal. He treated Winnie most politely and called her Mrs. Ledstone. She did not realize that he would have done just the same if—well, in the case of any lady for whom a friend claimed the treatment and the title.
The next morning two letters duly and punctually reached their respective destinations. All was to be open, all above-board! Winnie had not found hers hard to write, and Godfrey had said nothing to her about how extraordinarily difficult he had found his. One was addressed to Cyril Maxon, Esquire, K.C., at the Temple; the other to William J. Ledstone, Esquire, at Woburn Square. Now in neither of these places were the views of Shaylor's Patch likely to find acceptance, or even toleration. No, nor Bob Purnett's either. Though, indeed, if a choice had to be made, the latter might have seemed, not more moral, but at least less subversive in their tendency. A thing that is subversively immoral must be worse, surely, than a thing that is merely immoral? Granting the immorality in both cases, the subversive people have not a leg to stand on. They are driven to argue that they are not immoral at all—which only makes them more subversive still.
And the dictionary defines "subversion" in these terms: "The act of overturning, or the state of being overturned; entire overthrow; an overthrow from the foundation; utter ruin; destruction"—anyhow, clearly a serious matter, and at that we may leave it for the moment.
At Cyril Maxon's chambers in the Temple—very pleasant chambers they were, with a view over a broad sweep of the river—the day began in the usual fashion. At half-past nine Mr. Gibbons, the clerk, arrived; at a quarter to ten the diligent junior, who occupied the small room and devilled for the King's Counsel, made his punctual appearance. At ten, to the stroke of the clock, Maxon himself came in. His movements were leisurely; he had a case in the paper—an important question of demurrage—but it was not likely to be reached before lunch. He bade Mr. Gibbons good morning, directed that the boy should keep a watch on the progress of the court to which his case was assigned, passed into his own room, and sat down to open his letters. These disposed of, he had a couple of opinions to write, with time left for a final run through his brief, aided by the diligent junior's note.
Half an hour later Mr. Gibbons opened the door. Maxon waved him back impatiently.
"I'm busy, Gibbons. Don't disturb me. We can't be on in court yet?"
"No, sir. It's a gentleman to see you. Very urgent business, he says."
"No, no, I tell you I'm busy."
"He made it a particular favour. In fact, he seems very much upset—he says it's private business." He glanced at a card he carried. "It's a Mr. Ledstone, sir."
"Oh," said Maxon. His lips shut a little tighter as he took up a letter which lay beside the legal papers in front of him. "Ledstone?" The letter was signed "Winifred Ledstone."
"Yes, sir."
"What aged man?"
"Oh, quite elderly, sir. Stout, and grey 'air."
The answer dispelled an eccentric idea which had entered Maxon's head. If this couple so politely informed him of their doings, they might even be capable of paying him a call!
"Well, show him in." He shrugged his shoulders with an air of disgust.
Stout and grey-haired (as Mr. Gibbons had observed), yet bearing a noticeable likeness to his handsome son, Mr. Ledstone made a very apologetic and a very flustered entrance. Maxon bowed without rising; Gibbons set a chair and retired.
"I must beg a thousand pardons, Mr. Maxon, but this morning I—I received a letter—as I sat at breakfast, Mr. Maxon, with Mrs. Ledstone and my daughter. It's terrible!"
"Are you the father of Mr. Godfrey Ledstone?"
"Yes, sir. My boy Godfrey—I've had a letter from him. Here it is."
"Thank you, but I'm already in possession of what your son has done. I've heard from Mrs. Maxon. I have her letter here."
"They're mad, Mr. Maxon! Mean to make it all public! What are we to do? What am I to say to Mrs. Ledstone and my daughter?"
"You must really take your own course about that."
"And my poor boy! He's been a good son, and his mother's devoted to him, and——"
Cyril Maxon's wrath found vent in one of those speeches for which his wife had a pet name. "I don't see how the fact that your son has run away with my wife obliges, or even entitles, me to interfere in your family affairs, Mr. Ledstone."
Acute distress is somewhat impervious to satire.
"Of course not, sir," said Mr. Ledstone, mopping his face forlornly. "But what's to be done? There's no real harm in the boy. He's young——"
"If you wish to imply that my wife is mainly in fault, you're entirely welcome to any comfort you and your family can extract from that assumption."
Ledstone set his hands on the table between them, and looked plaintively at Maxon. He was disconcerted and puzzled; he fancied that he had not made himself, or the situation, fully understood. He brought up his strongest artillery—the most extraordinary feature in the case.
"The boy actually suggests that he should bring your—that he should bring Mrs.—that he should bring the lady to see Mrs. Ledstone and my daughter!" He puffed out this crowning atrocity with quick breaths, and mopped his face again.
"You're master in your own house, I suppose? You can decide whom to receive, Mr. Ledstone." He pushed his chair back a little; the movement was unmistakably a suggestion that his visitor should end his visit. Mr. Ledstone did not take the hint.
"I suppose you'll—you'll institute proceedings, Mr. Maxon?"
"I'm not a believer in divorce."
"You won't?"
"I said I was not a believer in divorce." Growing exasperation, hard held, rang in his voice.
A visible relief brightened Mr. Ledstone's face. "You won't?" he repeated. "Oh, well, that's something. That gives us time at all events."
Maxon smiled—not genially. "I don't think you must assume that your son and the lady who now calls herself Mrs. Ledstone will be as much pleased as you appear to be."
"Oh, but if there are no proceedings!" murmured Ledstone. Then he ventured a suggestion. "Private influence could be brought to bear?"
"Not mine," said Cyril Maxon grimly.
"Still, you don't propose to take proceedings!" He munched the crumb of comfort almost affectionately.
Cyril Maxon sought refuge in silence; not to answer the man was probably the best way to get rid of him—and he had defined his attitude twice already. Silence reigned supreme for a minute or two.
"I suppose my wife and daughter must know. But as for the rest of the family——" Mr. Ledstone was discussing his personal difficulties. Maxon sat still and silent as a statue. "It may all be patched up. He'll see reason." He glanced across at Maxon. "But I mustn't keep you, Mr. Maxon." He rose to his feet. "If there are no proceedings——" Maxon sharply struck the handbell on his table; Gibbons opened the door. "Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Maxon." Maxon's silence was unbroken as his visitor shuffled out.
Maxon's nature, hard and proud, not tender in affection, very tenacious of dignity, found now no room for any feeling save of disgust—a double disgust at the wickedness and at the absurdity—at the thing itself and at the despicable pretence in which the pair sought to cloak it. Ledstone's intrusion—so he regarded the visit of Godfrey's father—intensified his indignant distaste for the whole affair. To have to talk about it to a man like that! To be asked to use his influence! He smiled grimly as he tried to picture himself doing that. Pleading with his wife, it must be supposed; giving wise counsel to the young man perhaps? He asked nothing now but to be allowed to wash his hands of them both—and of the Ledstone family. Really, above all, of the Ledstone family! How the thought of them got on his nerves! Mr. Attlebury's teaching about the duty of saving a soul passed out of sight. Was not he, in his turn, entitled to avail himself of the doctrine of the limits of human endurance? Is it made only for sinners—or only for wives? Maxon felt that it applied with overwhelming force to any further intercourse with the Ledstone family—and he instructed Mr. Gibbons to act accordingly, if need should arise. Mr. Gibbons had noticed Winnie's handwriting, with which naturally he was acquainted, on her letter, and wondered whether there could be any connection between it and the odd visit and the peremptory order. He had known for some two or three weeks that Mrs. Maxon was no longer in Devonshire Street; he was on very friendly terms with the coachman who drove Cyril Maxon's brougham.
Mr. Ledstone, mercifully ignorant of the aspect he assumed in Maxon's thoughts, walked home to Woburn Square, careful and troubled about many things. Though he was a good man and of orthodox views, it cannot be said that he either was occupied primarily with the duty of saving souls; saving a scandal was, though doubtless not so important, considerably more pressing. He was, in fact, running over the names of all those of his kindred and friends whom he did not wish to know of the affair and who need know nothing about it, if things were properly managed, and if Godfrey would be reasonable. He wished to have this list ready to produce for the consolation of his immediate family circle. They—Mrs. Ledstone and his daughter—must be told. It would be sure to "get to" them somehow, and Mrs. Ledstone enjoyed the prestige of having a weak heart; it would never do for a thing like this to get to her without due precautions. Angry as he was with his son, he did not wish the boy to run the risk of having that on his conscience! As a fact, the way things get to people is often extremely disconcerting. It is a point that Shaylor's Patch ought to have considered.
In view of the weak heart—Mrs. Ledstone never exposed it to the sceptical inspection of a medical man—he told Amy first, Amy concerning whom it seemed to be settled that she would never be married, although she was but just turned twenty-five. He showed Amy the letter from Godfrey his son; he indicated the crowning atrocity with an accusing forefinger.
"Oh, she made him put that in," said Amy, with contemptuous indifference—and an absolute discernment of the truth.
Mr. Ledstone boiled over. "The impudence of it!"
Amy looked down at her feet—shod in good stout shoes, sensible, yet not ugly; she was a great walker and no mean hockey player. "I wonder what she's like," said Amy. "I've seen Mr. Maxon's name in theMailquite often. What did you think of him, daddy?" She had always kept the old name for her father.
Mr. Ledstone searched for a description of his impressions. "He didn't strike me as very sympathetic. He didn't seem to feel with us much, Amy."
"Hates the very idea of us, I suppose," remarked Amy. She turned to Godfrey's letter again; a faint smile came to her lips. "He does seem to be in love!"
"The question is—how will mother take it?"
"Yes, of course, dear," Amy agreed, just a trifle absently. Yet, generally considered, it is a large question; it has played a big part, for good and evil, in human history.
Mrs. Ledstone—a woman of fifty-five, but still pretty and with prettily surviving airs of prettiness (it is pleasant to see their faded grace, like the petals of a flower flattened in a heavy book)—took it hardly, yet not altogether with the blank grief and dismay, or with the spasm of the heart, which her husband had feared for her. She did indeed say, "The idea!" when the crowning atrocity—the suggestion that Winnie should be brought to see her—was mentioned; and she cordially endorsed the list of kindred and friends who need know nothing about it. Also she paid a proper and a perfectly sincere tribute to outraged proprieties. But behind all this was the same sort of interest as had appeared in her daughter's comments—and had existed more explicitly in her daughter's thoughts. These Maxons—this Mrs. Maxon, for the husband was a subordinate figure, although with his own interest—had abruptly made incursion into the orderly life of Woburn Square, not merely challenging its convictions, but exciting its curiosity, bringing it suddenly into contact with things and thoughts that it had seen only in the newspapers or (in Amy's case) now and then at the theatre, where dramas "of ideas" were presented. Of course they knew such things happened; one may know that about a thing, and yet find it very strange when it happens to oneself.
"There was always something about that boy," said Mrs. Ledstone. The vagueness was extreme, but pride lurked in the remark, like onion in the salad.
And she, like her husband, was immeasurably comforted by the news that there would be no proceedings. "His career won't suffer, father." She seemed to draw herself up, as though on the brink of moral laxity. "But, of course, it must be put a stop to at once." She read a passage in Godfrey's letter again. "Oh, what a goose the boy is! His head's turned; you can see that. I suppose she's pretty—or what they call smart, perhaps."
"The whole thing is deplorable, but the grossest feature is the woman's effrontery." The effrontery was all the woman's—an unkind view, but perhaps in this case more unkind than unjust. "How could she look you in the face, mother?" Mr. Ledstone squeezed his wife's hand sympathetically.
"Well, we must get him away from her as soon as possible."
A pessimist—one of those easily discouraged mortals who repine at nothing being effected within the brief span of their own generation—might liken the world to a ponderous ball, whereunto are attached five thousand strings. At the end of each somebody is tugging hard; but all of them are tugging in different directions. Universal effort, universal fatigue—and the big ball remains exactly where it was! Here was Winnie, heart and soul in her crusade, holding it great, almost holy. But the only idea in Woburn Square was to put an end to it as soon as possible!—And meanwhile to cover it up, to keep it quiet, to preserve the possibility of being able to say no more about it as soon as it was happily over. No proceedings! What a comfort!
"Of course we can have nothing to do with her. But what about him—while it lasts, I mean?" Mr. Ledstone propounded the question. "We ought to mark our—our horror."
"Yes, father, but we can't abandon the poor boy because he's been deluded. What do you think, Amy? After all, you're a grown-up woman now." (Mrs. Ledstone was defending herself against an inward sense of indelicacy in referring to the matter before her unmarried daughter.)
"Oh, the more we can get him here, the better," was Amy's view. "He'll realize how we feel about it then."
"Amy's right," the father declared emphatically. "And so are you, mother. We mustn't abandon him. We must bring our influence to bear."
"I want to hear the poor boy's own story—not a letter written with the woman at his elbow," said Mrs. Ledstone.
"Will he come without her?" Amy asked.
"Without her—or not at all! It's my duty to shield you and your mother, Amy. And now, really, I must read my paper." In the excitement of the morning, in his haste to find Cyril Maxon, in his terror of proceedings, he had omitted the rite.
"I haven't been through the wash yet," said Mrs. Ledstone.
"It's time for Snip's walk," added Amy.
Life had to go on, in spite of Winnie Maxon—just as we read that some people lived their ordinary routine throughout the French Revolution.
Snip was Amy Ledstone's Aberdeen terrier—and, let it be said at once, an extremely attractive and accomplished dog; he "died" for the King and whined if one mentioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Amy lavished on him her surplus of affection—what was left after her love for mother, father, and brother, her affection for uncles, aunts, and cousins, and a stray friendship or two which survived from schoolgirl days. Dogs sometimes come in for these windfalls. But to-day her thoughts—as she made her way along the Euston Road and into Regent's Park—were less occupied with Snip than was usually the case. Obstinately they fastened themselves on Winnie Maxon; on more than Winnie Maxon—on ill-regulated affections in general. She had read about them in novels (which are so largely occupied with them), seen them exhibited in plays, pursed her lips over them in newspapers. All that was not the same thing—any more than an earthquake in China is the same thing as a burglary in one's own house. Here they were—actually in the family circle! Not mere "dissipation," but a settled determination to set the rules at naught. What manner of woman was this Mrs. Maxon? What had driven her to it? She had "borne more than any human being could"—so said Godfrey's letter. She now "claimed a little happiness," which "wronged nobody." She only "took what the law ought to give her—freedom from unendurable bondage." The phrases of the letter were vivid in Amy's recollection. A woman who rebelled against the law—ought not her case against it to be heard? Hadn't she at least a right to a hearing? After all, as things stood, she had nothing to do with making it—nothing direct, at any rate. That sounded a plausible plea for Mrs. Maxon. But on the other hand, because she had been wronged, or suffered ill-treatment, or had bad luck, to go on and do what was, by Amy's training and prepossession, the one absolutely unpardonable thing, the thing hardly to be named—"I don't see how she could, whatever she thinks!" exclaimed Amy, as she entered the Broad Walk.
People will, when they are allowed, go to see other people hanged, or to see murderers in their cells, or to watch a woman battling in open court for her fame as for her life. It was something of this sort of interest that fastened Amy's thoughts on Winnie Maxon. There is some admiration, some pity, in the feeling—and certainly a high curiosity about such people in the average mind, the law-keeping, the non-speculative mind, the mind trained to regard conventions as eternities and national customs as laws divine.
Suddenly a smile came on her lips. Would it be very wrong? She and Godfrey had always been "awfully good friends." She would like to be that still. What an awfully good friend he would think her if—if she did not treat Mrs. Maxon as dirt! If she—Amy trembled intellectually as the speculation developed itself—without saying anything about it at home, went to see her, made friends, tried to understand her point of view—called her "Winnie"! Calling her "Winnie" seemed the supreme point, the pivot on which her attitude turned.
Then came a cold doubt. "Will she care to be called Winnie?" "Will she care about seeing me?" "She's pretty, she's smart, she has been in society." Falling in love with a man may not involve a concern about the opinion of his maiden sister. How pretty was Mrs. Maxon, how smart?
Interest in Winnie Maxon accumulated from source after source. Yes, and on Amy Ledstone's part, interest in herself accrued also, mingled with a little uneasiness. She seemed to have travelled far in her meditations—and she had almost forgotten Snip. Yet it was hardly likely that these speculations would in the end issue in much. Amy herself recognized that. They would probably produce nothing save a touch of sympathy, treacherous to her home, in regard to Winnie barren and unexpressed. They could not prevent her from being against Winnie; they could only make her sorry that she had to be. Even so much was a victory—hard won against the prepossessions of her mind and the canons of her life.
The first condition of being able to please yourself is to have enough to live upon. Stephen Aikenhead was entirely right about that. Thrift, exercised by yourself or by some beneficent forerunner, confers independence; you can live upon the world, and yet flout it. (Within the limits of the criminal law, of course, but why be a criminal if you have enough to live upon? You lack the one really good excuse.) Imagine the state of affairs if it were not so—if banks, railways, docks, and breweries could refuse you your dividends on the ground of irregularity in your private life! What a sudden and profound quarter-day reformation of manners among the well-to-do classes opens before our fantastic vision! Really enough to turn the clergy and ministers of all denominations green with envy!
This economic condition was fulfilled for Godfrey Ledstone's establishment—just fulfilled according to Winnie's ideas, and no more. She had a hundred and fifty pounds a year; Godfrey's earnings averaged about two hundred, or a trifle more. His father had been in the habit of giving him a cheque for fifty at Christmas—but that addition could scarcely be relied on now. It was not riches; to one accustomed to Devonshire Street and a rising King's Counsel's income it was by no means riches. But it was enough; with care it would support the small quarters they had taken near Baron's Court Station in West Kensington—a studio, a small dining-room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and "the usual offices" (unusually cramped "the usual offices"). No room for expansion! But they did not mean to expand at present.
Here Winnie sat down to defy or to convert the world. She had to begin the process with her cook-housemaid. Defiance, not conversion, was here certainly the word, and Godfrey was distinctly vexed at Winnie's opening of the matter to the cook-housemaid. Since there were to be no proceedings, need the good woman have been told at all?
The occasion of this—their first—tiff was small, but by no means insignificant. Winnie was holding Godfrey to his promise that he would not be ashamed of her.
"Among our friends, I meant, of course," Godfrey explained. "Among educated thinking people who can appreciate your position and our point of view. But this woman will simply think that you're—well, that you're what you're not, you know."
"How can she, when I told her all about it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Wait till you blow her up about something; you'll see what I mean," said he.
"Then I shall dismiss her." Winnie's proud little face was very flushed.
There were sides of life which Godfrey had observed. They had three cook-housemaids in quick succession, and were approaching despair when Dick Dennehy found them an old Irish woman, who could not cook at all, but was entirely charitable. She had been told about the situation beforehand by Dick; there was no occasion for Winnie to refer to it. Winnie did not, and tried not to feel relieved. Also she ceased to tell the occasional charwomen, who came in "by the day." Godfrey was perhaps right in thinking that superfluous. Dennehy came often, and they had other visitors, some bachelor friends of Godfrey's, others belonging to the Shaylor's Patch frequenters—Mrs. Danford and Mr. Carriston, for example. Mrs. Lenoir also came—not of her own accord (she never did that), but in response to an invitation from Winnie. Godfrey did not seem very enthusiastic about this invitation.
"But you seemed to like her so much at Shaylor's Patch," said Winnie, in surprise.
"Oh yes! Ask her then, if you like." He formulated no objection; but in his mind there was the idea that Winnie did not quite realize how very careful she ought to be—in her position.
Such were the little passing clouds, obscuring for a moment the happiness of one or other of them.
Yet they were very happy. Godfrey was genuinely in love; so was Winnie, and to her there was the added joy—the new wonder—of being free. Free, and yet not lonely. She had a companion and yet not a master. Hers was the better mind of the two. She did not explicitly realize it, but unconsciously and instinctively she took the lead in most of their pursuits and amusements. Her tastes guided their interests and recreation—the books they read, the concerts and theatres which they "squeezed" out of their none too large margin of spare cash. This initiative was unspeakably delightful to the former Mrs. Maxon, an absolutely fresh thing in her life, and absolutely satisfying. This freedom, this liberty to expand, to grow, to develop, was what her nature had craved. Even if she set her love altogether on one side—and how should she?—this in itself seemed to justify her refusal to be any longer Mrs. Maxon and her becoming Mrs. Winifred Ledstone. In fact it was bound up with her love, for half the joy of these new travels and adventures of the mind lay in sharing them with Godfrey.
It still seemed as if everything were possible with a little courage, as if all the difficulties disappeared when boldly faced. Could there have been a difficulty more tremendous than Cyril Maxon? He had vanished into space!
After some six weeks of this pleasant existence—during which the difficulties at least tactfully effaced themselves, save in such trifles as have been lightly indicated—a phenomenon began to thrust itself on Winnie's notice. Godfrey was not a man of much correspondence; he did most of his business in person and conducted other necessary communications mainly by telephone (that was a luxury which they had agreed that they must "run to" at the cost of some other, and unspecified, luxury to be forgone). Now he began to receive a certain type of envelope quite often—three times a week perhaps. It was a mauve envelope, rather larger than the ordinary. Winnie was careful not to scrutinize these envelopes—she did not even inspect the postmarks—but she could not help observing that, though the envelopes were always alike, the handwriting of the address varied. In fact she noted three varieties. Being a woman of some perspicacity, she did not really need to inspect the postmarks. Godfrey had a father, a mother, a sister. They were writing to him, writing rather bulky letters, which he did not read in company, but stowed away in his pocket; they never reappeared, and presumably were disposed of secretly, on or off the premises. Nor did she ever detect him in the act of answering one; but in the course of his work he spent many hours away from home, and he belonged to a modest little club in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; no doubt it had writing-paper.
These mauve envelopes began to afflict the peace, or at least the happiness, of the little household. The mornings on which they came were less cheerful than other mornings; a constraint showed itself in greetings and farewells. They were reminders—ominous reminders—of the big world outside, the world which was being defied. His family was at Godfrey Ledstone—three of his family, and one of them with a weak heart.
Three weeks of the mauve envelopes did their work. One had come on the Saturday; on the Sunday morning Godfrey made an apology to Winnie. He would not be able to join her in their usual afternoon excursion—for a walk, or to a picture gallery, and so forth.
"My mother's not very well—she's not strong, you know. I must go to my people's."
"Of course you must, Godfrey. But—without me?"
"Yes." Passing her on his way to the mantelpiece, he pressed her hand for a moment. Then he stood with his back to her, as he filled his pipe with fingers unusually clumsy. "Oh, I've tried! They've been at me for weeks—you probably guessed—and I've been back at them—letter after letter. It's no use! And yesterday father wrote that mother was really seriously upset." He turned round, and spoke almost fiercely. "Don't you see I must go, Winnie?"
"Of course you must," she said again. "And I can't come if they—if they won't let me in!" She managed a smile. "It's all right. I'll have a walk by myself."
He tried to find a bright side to the situation. "I may have a better chance of convincing them, if I go. I'm no good at letters. And mother is very fond of me."
"Of course you must go," Winnie repeated yet again. What else was there for Winnie to say—with Mrs. Ledstone not strong and really seriously upset?
"I haven't seen any of them for—oh, it must be three months—and I used to go every Sunday, when I was in town."
"Well, you're going to-day, dear. That's all settled!" She went up to him and kissed him daintily. "And we won't despair of them, will we? When do you go?"
"I—I generally used to go to lunch. They want me to. And come away after tea."
"Well, do just what you used to. I hope I shall be doing it with you in a few weeks."
"Oh, I hope so, dearest."
He had not the glimmer of such a hope. To ask him if he had even the wish would have been to put an awkward question. The code wherein he was Bob Purnett's pupil recognizes quite a strict division of life into compartments. He was Winnie's lover of a certainty; quite doubtfully was he her convert. Being her lover was to break the law; being her convert was to deny it. Before he met her, he had been of the people who always contemplate conforming to the law—some day; at the proper time of life, or at the proper time before death—whichever may be the more accurate way of putting it. He was ready to say to the Tribunal, "I have done wrong"—but not to say, "You—or your interpreters—have been wrong." A very ordinary man was Godfrey Ledstone.
So after a solitary lunch (a sausage left cold from breakfast and a pot of tea) Winnie started on a solitary expedition. She took the train from Baron's Court to Hyde Park Corner, with the idea of enjoying the "autumn tints" along by Rotten Row and the Serpentine. But, as she walked, her thoughts were not so much on autumn tints as on Woburn Square—on that family so nearly related to her life, yet so unspeakably remote, to whom she was worse than a menace—she was a present and active curse—who to her were something wrong-headed, almost ridiculous, yet intensely formidable—really the concrete embodiment of all she had to struggle against, the thing through which the great world would most probably hit at her, wound her, and kill her if it could. And both the family and Winnie thought themselves so absolutely, so demonstrably, right! Right or wrong, she knew very well, as she walked on towards the Serpentine, that now—this instant—in Woburn Square they were trying to get her man away from her; to make him ashamed of her (he had sworn never to be), to make him throw her over, to leave her stranded, to the ridicule and ruin of her experiment. With a sudden catch in the breath she added, "And the breaking of my heart!"
Just as she came near to the lake she saw—among the walkers who had till now seemed insubstantial shades to her preoccupied mind—a familiar figure, Hobart Gaynor! Her heart leapt in sudden joy; here was an old, a sympathetic friend, the man who understood why she had done what she had. But Hobart Gaynor was not alone. His radiant and self-satisfied demeanour was justified by the fair comeliness of the girl who walked beside him—his bride, wedded to him a month ago, Cicely Marshfield. Winnie had sent him congratulations, good wishes, and a present; all of which had been cordially acknowledged in a letter written three days before the wedding. The ceremony had taken place in the country, and quietly (because of an aunt's death); no question had arisen as to who was or was not to be asked to attend it.
Her heart went out to Hobart. He had loved her; she had always been very fond of him. In her drab uneventful girlhood he had provided patches of enjoyment; in that awful married life he had now and then been a refuge. She did not know Cicely, but Hobart would surely have chosen a nice girl, one who would be a friend, who would understand it all, who could be talked to about it all? With a happy smile and a pretty blush she met Hobart and his bride Cicely. She saw him speak to her, a quick, hurried word. Cicely replied—Winnie saw the rapid turn of her head and the movement of her lips. He spoke once more—just as Winnie nodded and smiled at him, and he was raising his hand to his hat. Then came the encounter. But before it was fairly begun, Winnie's heart was turned to lead. Hobart's face was flushed; his hand came out to hers in a stiff reluctance. The tall fair girl stood so tall, so erect, looking down, bowing, not putting out a hand at all, ignoring a pathetically comic appeal in her embarrassed husband's eyes.
Winnie's eager words of congratulation, of cordiality and friendship, met with a chilly "Thank you," uttered under an obvious protest, underforce majeure. Winnie set her eyes on Hobart's, but his were turned away; a rigid smile on his lips paid a ghastly tribute to courtesy.
Winnie carried the thing through as briefly as possible. She was not slow to take a cue.
"Well, I'm glad to have run across you," she said, "and when you're settled in, I must come and see you. You won't want to be bothered just yet."
Again Hobart's glance appealed desperately to his wife. But his wife left the answer to him.
"We are a bit chaotic still," he stumbled. "But soon, I hope, Winnie——"
"I'll give you notice. Don't be afraid! Now I must hurry on—good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cicely, with another inclination of her head—it seemed so high above Winnie's, looking down from such an altitude.
"Good-bye, Winnie." A kindliness, queerly ashamed of itself, struggled to expression in Hobart's voice.
When the pair had passed by—after a safe interval—Winnie turned and looked at their retreating figures, the haughty erect girl, dear old Hobart's broad solid back, somewhat bowed by much office work. Winnie was smiling; it is sometimes the only thing to do.
"This isn't my lucky day." So she phrased her thoughts to herself, coupling together the encounter in Hyde Park with what was now—at this moment—going on in Woburn Square; for it was not yet tea-time, and Godfrey's visit would last, according to custom, till after tea.
She got home and waited for him in the dusk of the autumn evening. An apprehension possessed her; she did not know how much effect Woburn Square might have had upon him. But he came in about six, cheerful, affectionate, unchanged. On the subject of his home-visit, however, he was rather reticent.
"They were all very kind—and I really don't think mother's any worse than usual. About her frail ordinary." He seemed inclined to dismiss the matter with this brief summary. "And what did you do with yourself?"
"I took the Tube up to the Park and had a walk." She paused. "I met Hobart and Cicely Gaynor."
"Oh, the happy pair! How were they flourishing?"
"They—well, they warned me off, Godfrey. At least she did—and he had to follow suit, of course."
Godfrey had been helping himself to whisky and soda-water; tumbler in hand, he walked across the studio and back again.
"Hobart's one of the very few people in the world I'm really fond of."
"Well, you know, Winnie, you wanted it this way. I assure you I don't find it altogether comfortable either." He emptied the tumbler in a long draught and set it down on the table.
She jumped up quickly, came to him, and clasped her arms round his neck; she could but just reach, for he was tall.
"And they've all been at me—and at you about me—in Woburn Square too, I suppose?"
"On my honour, you weren't once mentioned the whole time, Winnie. They were all three just awfully kind, and glad to see me."
Winnie's face wore much the same smile as when she had regarded Cicely Gaynor's erect back in retreat from her.
"That was rather clever of them," she remarked. "Never to have mentioned me!"
"Are you being quite just?" He spoke gently and kissed her.
"No, dear," she said, and burst into tears. "How can I be just when they're trying to take you from me?"
"Neither they nor anybody else can do that."
And then—for a space again—she believed her lover and forgot the rest.
But on the Monday morning there came two mauve envelopes. Winnie was down first as it chanced—and this time she looked at the postmarks. Both bore the imprint, "W.C.," clearly indicative of Bloomsbury. Winnie smiled, and proffered to herself an excuse for her detective investigation.
"You see, I thought one of them might be from Cicely Gaynor. I'm quite sure she uses mauve envelopes too."
The world of propriety seemed to be draping itself in mauve—not, after all, a very cheerful colour.
Godfrey came in, glanced at the two mauve envelopes, glanced across at Winnie, and put the envelopes in his pocket. After a silence, he remarked that the bacon was very good.
As autumn turned to winter, Godfrey's Sundays at Woburn Square firmly re-established themselves as a weekly custom. Winnie could hardly deny that in the circumstances of the case they constituted a fair compromise. Woburn Square had a right to its convictions, no less than had Shaylor's Patch; it was not for her to deny that, however narrow she thought the convictions; and it would be neither just nor kind in her, even if it proved possible, to separate Godfrey from his family. At all events, as the visits became regular, the mauve envelopes arrived less frequently; some consolation lay in that, as one sound buffet may be preferred to a hundred pinches. She tried to reconcile herself to finding her own amusements for Sunday, and Godfrey, in loyalty, perhaps in penitence, dedicated Saturday's half-holiday to her instead. Yet a weight was on her spirit; she feared the steady unrelenting pressure of Woburn Square, of the family tie, the family atmosphere, Mrs. Ledstone's weak heart. In truth she had greater cause for fear than she knew, more enemies than she realized. There was her lover's native and deeply rooted way of looking at things, very different from the way into which she had forced or cajoled him. There was the fact that it was not always only the members of the family whom he met in Woburn Square.
In spite of Godfrey's absence and Hobart Gaynor's defection, Winnie was not without friends and distractions on her Sundays. Sometimes Dick Dennehy would come, quite unshaken in his disapproval, but firm also in his affection, and openly scornful of Woburn Square. "You'd be bored to death there," he told her. "And as for the principle of the thing, if you can turn up your nose at the Church Catholic, I should think you could turn it up at the Ledstone family."
A reasonable proposition, perhaps, but not convincing to Winnie. The Church Catholic did not take her lover away from her every Sunday or fill her with fears about him.
Mrs. Lenoir would come sometimes, or bid Winnie to tea with her. With the stateliness of her manner there was now mingled a restrained pity. Winnie was to her a very ignorant little woman, essaying a task meet only for much stronger hands, and needing a much higher courage—nay, an audacity of which Winnie made no display. When her first passion had worn off, what she had got and what she had lost would come home to her. She was only too likely to find that she had got nothing; and she had certainly lost a great deal—for Mrs. Lenoir was inclined to make light of Cyril Maxon's "crushing." She was quite clear that she would not have been crushed, and thought the less of Winnie's powers of resistance. But, being a sensible woman, she said nothing of all this—it was either too late or too soon. Her view showed only in that hint of compassion in her manner—the pity of the wayworn traveller for the youth who starts so blithely on his journey.
Winnie found consolation and pleasure in discussing her affairs with both of these friends. Another visitor afforded her a healthy relief from the subject. Godfrey had brought Bob Purnett to the studio one day. His first visit was by no means his last. His working season had set in; he hunted five days a week; but it was his custom to get back to town on Saturday evening and to spend Sunday there. So it fell out, naturally and of no malice aforethought, that his calls generally happened on Sunday afternoons, when Godfrey was away; sometimes he would stay on and share their simple supper, often he would take the pair out to dinner at a restaurant, and perhaps come back again with them—to talk and smoke, and so go home, sober, orderly, and in good time—ready for the morrow's work.
Winnie and he were wholesome for one another. She forgot her theories; he kept better company than was his wont. They became good comrades and great friends. Godfrey was delighted; his absences on Sunday seemed in a way condoned; he was not haunted by the picture of a lonely Winnie. He ceased to accuse himself because he enjoyed being in Woburn Square, and therefore enjoyed it the more and the more freely. To be glad your lover can be happy in your absence is a good and generous emotion—whether characteristic of the zenith of passion is another question.
Accustomed rather to lavishness than to a thrifty refinement, Bob marvelled at the daintiness of Winnie's humble establishment. He admired—and in his turn pitied. His friend's circumstances were no secret to him.
"I wonder how you do it!" he would exclaim. "Do you have to work awfully hard?"
"Well, it sometimes seems hard, because I didn't used to have to do it. In fact I used to be scolded if I did do it." She laughed. "I'm not pretending to like being poor."
"But you took it on fast enough, Mrs. Ledstone. You knew, I mean?"
"Oh yes, I knew, and I took it on, as you call it. So I don't complain."
"I tell you what—some day you and Godfrey must come for a spree with me. Go to Monte Carlo or somewhere, and have a high old time!"
"I don't believe I should like Monte Carlo a bit."
"Not like it? Oh, I say, I bet you would."
"I suppose it's prejudice to condemn even Monte Carlo without seeing it. Perhaps we shall manage to go some day. I think Godfrey would like it."
"Oh, I took him once, all right, with—with some other friends."
"And all you men gambled like anything, I suppose?"
"Yes, we did a bit." Bob was inwardly amused at her assumption of the nature of the party—amused, yet arrested by a sudden interest, a respect, and a touch of Mrs. Lenoir's pity. If there had been only himself to confess about, he would have confessed.
"You want keeping in order, Mr. Purnett," she said, smiling. "You ought to marry, and be obliged to spend your money on your wife."
She puzzled Bob. Because here she was, not married herself! He could not get away from that rigid and logical division of his—and of many other people's, such as Dennehy and the like.
"I'm not a marrying man. Heaven help the woman who married me!" he said, in whimsical sincerity.
She saw the sincerity and met it with a plump "Why?"
Bob was not good at analysis—of himself or other people (though he was making a rudimentary effort over Winnie). "The way a chap's built, I suppose."
"What a very conclusive sort of argument!" she laughed. "How's Godfrey built, Mr. Purnett?"
"Godfrey's all right. He'd settle down if he ever got married."
The theories came tumbling in through the open door. Cowardly theories, had they refused an opening like that!
"Well, isn't he?" asked Winnie, with dangerously rising colour.
Bob Purnett was a picture of shame and confusion.
"I could bite my tongue out, Mrs. Ledstone—hang it, you don't think I'm—er—what you'd call an interfering chap? It's nothing to me how my friends choose to—to settle matters between themselves. Fact is, I just wasn't thinking. Of course you're right. He—well, he feels himself married all right. And so he is married all right—don't you know? It's what a chap feels in the end, isn't it? Yes, that's right, of course."
The poor man was terribly flustered. Yet behind all his aghastness at his blunder, at the back of his overpowering penitence, lay the obstinate question—could she really think it made no difference? No difference to a man like Godfrey Ledstone, whom he knew so well? Submerged by his remorse for having hurt her, yet the question lay there in the bottom of his mind. People neither regular nor irregular, people shifting the boundaries (really so well settled!)—how puzzling they were! What traps they laid for the heedless conversationalist, for the traditional moralist—or immoralist!
"Oh, I don't expect you to understand!" Winnie exclaimed petulantly. "I wonder you come here!"
"Wonder I come here! Good Lord!" He reflected on some other places he had been to—and meant to go to again perhaps.
"You're a hopeless person, but you're very kind and nice." The colour faded gradually and Winnie smiled again, rather tremulously. "We won't talk about that any more. Tell me how the chestnut mare shapes?"
Yet when she heard about the mare, she seemed no more than passably interested, and for once Bob was tongue-tied on the only subject about which he was wont to be eloquent. He could not forgive himself for his hideous inexplicable slip; because he had sworn to himself always to remember that Mrs. Ledstone thought herself as good as married. But so from time to time do our habits of thought trip up our fair resolutions; a man cannot always remember to say what he does not think, essential as the accomplishment is in society.
Winnie regained her own serenity, but could not restore his. She saw it, and in pity offered no opposition when he rose to go. But she was gracious, accompanying him to the door, and opening it for him herself. He had just shaken hands and put on his hat, when he exclaimed in a surprised tone, "Hullo, who's that?"
The studio stood a little back from the street; a small flagged forecourt gave access to it; the entrance was narrow, and a house projected on either side. To a stranger the place was not immediately easy to identify. Just opposite to it now there stood a woman, looking about her, as though in doubt. When the door opened and the light of the hall gas-jet streamed out, she came quickly through the gate of the forecourt and up to the house.
Bob Purnett emitted only the ghost of a whistle, but Winnie heard it and looked quickly at him. There was no time to speak before the visitor came up.
"Is this Mrs. Godfrey Ledstone's?" she began. Then, with a touch of surprise, she broke off, exclaiming, "Oh, you, Mr. Purnett!" It was not surprise that he should be there at all, but merely that she should chance to come when he was there.
"Yes, er—how are you?" said Bob. "I—I'm just going."
"If you know this lady, you can introduce me," Winnie suggested, smiling. "Though I'm afraid I'm receiving you rather informally," she added to the visitor. "I'm Mrs. Ledstone."
"Yes," said the visitor. She turned quickly on Bob. "Mr. Purnett, please say nothing about this to—to Godfrey."
"It's his sister." Bob effected the introduction as briefly as possible, and also as awkwardly.
"They don't know I've come, you see." Amy Ledstone spoke jerkily.
"Oh, that's all right, Miss Ledstone. Of course, I'm safe." He looked desperately at Winnie. "I—I'd better be off."
"Yes, I think so. Good-bye. Do come in, Miss Ledstone." She laughed gently. "You've surprised us both, but I'm very glad to see you, even though they don't know you've come. Good-bye again, Mr. Purnett."
She stood aside while Amy Ledstone entered the house, then slowly shut the door, smiling the while at Bob Purnett. After the door was shut, he stood where he was for several seconds, then moved off with a portentous shake of his head. He was amazed almost out of his senses. Godfrey's sister! Coming secretly! What for? More confusion of boundaries! He thought that he really had known Woburn Square better than this. The memory of his terrible slip, five minutes before so mercilessly acute, was engulfed in a flood of astonishment. He shook his head at intervals all the evening, till his companion at dinner inquired, with mock solicitude, where he had contracted St. Vitus's dance, and was it catching?
Amy Ledstone was in high excitement. She breathed quickly as she sat down in the chair Winnie wheeled forward. Winnie herself stood opposite her visitor, very still, smiling faintly.
"I came here to-day because I knew Godfrey wouldn't be here. Please don't tell him I came. He won't be back yet, will he?"
"Not for an hour later than this, as a rule."
"I left him in Woburn Square, you know."
Winnie nodded.
"And made my way here."
"From what you say, I don't suppose you've come just to call on me, Miss Ledstone?"
"No." She paused, then with a sort of effort brought out, "But I have been wanting to know you. Well, I'd heard about you, and—but it's not that."
"Please don't be agitated or—distressed. And there's no hurry."
"I wonder if you know anything of what daddy—my father—and mother are doing—of what's going on at home—in Woburn Square?"
"I suppose I can make a guess at it." She smiled. "First the letters, then the visits! Didn't you write any of the letters?"
"Yes—some." She stirred restlessly. "Why shouldn't I?"
"I haven't blamed you. No doubt it's natural you should. But then—why come here, Miss Ledstone?"
"How pretty you are!" Her eyes were fixed intently on Winnie's face. "Oh, it's not fair, not fair! It's not fair to—to anybody, I think. Do you know, your name's never mentioned at home—never—not even when we're alone?"
"That part of it is done in the letters, I suppose? What am I called? The entanglement, or the lamentable state of affairs—or what? I don't know, you see. If you don't talk about me, we don't talk much about you here either."
"Oh, well, it is—bad. But that's not what I meant—not all I meant, at least." She suddenly leant forward in her chair. "Does Godfrey ever talk of the people he meets besides ourselves?"
"No, never. I shouldn't know anything about them, should I?"
"Has he ever mentioned Mabel Thurseley?"
"Mabel Thurseley? No. Who is she?"
"They live near us—in Torrington Square. Her mother's a widow, an old friend of ours."
"No, Godfrey has never said anything about Miss Thurseley."
"She's rather pretty—not very, I think. They're comfortably off. I mean, as we think it. Not what you'd call rich, I suppose." She was remembering Mrs. Maxon.
"My idea of riches nowadays isn't extravagant. But please tell me why you're talking to me about Miss Thurseley. Did you come here to do that?"
"Yes, I did. You're never mentioned to her either. That's it."
Winnie had never moved through the talk. Her slim figure, clad in close-clinging black, was outlined against the grey wall of the studio.
"Oh, that's it! I see."
"So I had to come. Because how is it right? How is it decent, Mrs. Maxon?"
Winnie let the name pass, indeed hardly noticed it. "Wouldn't your ideas be considered rather eccentric?" she asked, with a smile.
"Oh, I feel—I don't have ideas," murmured Amy Ledstone.
"In your home I'm considered the thing that exists, but isn't talked about—that's done and got over."
Again Amy's fixed gaze was on her companion. "Yes," she said, more than half assenting to Winnie's description of herself, yet with a doubt whether "thing" were wholly the word, whether, if "thing" were not the word, the home doctrine could be altogether right.
"What about her then?" she went on.
"What about——?"
"Why, Mabel—Mabel Thurseley."
"Oh yes! Well, I suppose she—she knows what everybody knows—she knows what often happens."
"Oh, but while it's absolutely going on here! They might have waited a little at all events."
"You mean that—it's happening?"
Amy's figure rose erect in her chair again.
"Try and see if you can get him to utter Mabel's name to you!"
Winnie was struck with the suggestion. Her interest in her visitor suddenly became less derivative, more personal. She looked at Amy's passably well-favoured features and robust physique. There was really nothing about her to suggest eccentric ideas.
"Oh, do please sit down! Don't stand there as if you were turned to stone!" Amy's appeal was almost a wail. The slim figure was so motionless; it seemed arrested in its very life.
"I like you. It's very kind of you. I—I'm trying to think.... I can't take your word for it, you know. I love him—I trust him."
Amy fidgeted again uncomfortably. "Daddy and mother are always at him. They think it—it will be redemption for him, you see."
"Yes, I suppose they do—redemption!" Suddenly she moved, taking two steps nearer to Amy, so that she stood almost over her. "And you think——?"
Amy looked up at her, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, I don't know! What am I to think? Why did you do it? Why did you make everything impossible either way? Somebody must be miserable now!"
"Somebody was miserable before—I was. And I've been happy for a bit. That's something. It seems to me only one person need be miserable even now. Why is that worse?"
The clock struck six. Amy started to her feet in alarm.
"He might come back a little sooner than usual—we finish tea about half-past five. By the Tube——" She was nervously buttoning her jacket. "If he caught me!" she murmured.
"Caught you here?"
"Oh, how can I go against them? I'm not married—I have to live there."
Winnie stretched out her thin arms. "Would you be with me if you could? Would you, Amy? I had such a bad time of it! And he was mine first, you know."
Amy drew back ever so little. "Don't!" she gasped. "I really must go, Mrs.—oh, I really must go!"
"Yes, you must go. He might come back soon now. Shall we ever meet again, I wonder?"
"Oh, why did you?"
"It's not what I did. It's what you think about it."
"Because you seem to me wonderful. You're—you're so much above him, you know."
"That doesn't help, even if it's true. I should hate to believe it."
"Good-bye. You won't let anybody know I came? Oh, not Godfrey?"
"You may trust me—and Mr. Purnett too, I think."
"Oh yes; I can trust him. Good-bye!"
Without offering her hand, far less with any suggestion of a more emotional farewell, Amy Ledstone drifted towards the door. This time Winnie did not escort or follow her guest. She stood still, watching her departure. She really did not know what to say to her; Amy's attitude was so balanced—or rather not balanced, but confused. Yet just before the guest disappeared, she found herself calling out: "I am grateful, you know. Because thinking as you do about me——"
Amy turned her head for a moment. "Yes, but I don't know that you'll come worst out of it, after all," she said.
Then Winnie was left alone, to wait for Godfrey—and to see whether he would make mention of Mabel Thurseley's name, that entirely new and formidably significant phenomenon.
When holiday seasons approach, people of ample means ask: "Where shall we go?"; people of narrow: "Can we go anywhere?" The imminence of Christmas made Winnie realize this difference (no question now, as in days gone by, of Palestine and Damascus); but the edge of it was turned by a cordial invitation to spend Friday till Tuesday (Saturday was Christmas Day) at Shaylor's Patch. Her eyes brightened; her old refuge again looked peaceful and comforting. She joyfully laid the proposal before Godfrey. He was less delighted; he looked rather vexed, even a little sheepish.
"They do jaw so," he objected. "Arguing about everything night and day! It bores a chap."
"You weren't bored when you were there in the summer."
"Oh, well, that was different. And I'm afraid mother will be disappointed."
"About the Sunday, you mean? Mightn't you run up for the day?"
He laid his hand on her shoulder. "I say, I leave it to you, Winnie. I leave it absolutely to you—but mother's set her heart on my spending Christmas with them. I've never missed a Christmas all my life, and—well, she's not very well, and has a fancy about it, you see."
"Do it, of course, Godfrey. And come down to me on Sunday." Winnie was now determined that Woburn Square should have no grievances, except the great, inevitable, insuperable one.
"You are a good sort, Winnie." He kissed her cheek.
"But I don't know how you'll shift for yourself here!"
"Oh, I'll put up in Woburn Square for a couple of nights, and do a theatre on Friday perhaps."
So it was settled, with some embarrassment on Godfrey's part, with a faint smile on Winnie's. He would have two nights and a whole day at Woburn Square; and he had never mentioned Mabel Thurseley's name, not even though Winnie had made openings for him, had tried some delicate "pumping." And with whom did he think of "doing a theatre" on Friday night?
Godfrey Ledstone—with whom everything was to have been straightforward, all above-board—found himself burdened with a double secret. He couldn't bring himself to tell Winnie of Mabel Thurseley. In the early days of his renewed intercourse with Mabel, he had half-heartedly proposed to his mother that the girl should be informed of his position; he had been tearfully prayed not to advertise the shame of his family. He had lost any sort of desire to advertise it now. He could not now imagine himself speaking of the matter to Mabel—telling her, right out, that he was living and meant to live with a woman who was not his wife in law; wives of any other sort were so entirely outside Mabel's purview. That he had been a bit of a rake—she would understand that, and perhaps in her heart not dislike it; but she would not understand and would thoroughly dislike Winnie Maxon. Anyhow, by now it was too late; he had played the bachelor too long—and, as a flattering if remorseful inner voice whispered, too successfully—on those Sundays in Woburn Square, whither Mabel often came, whence it was easy to slip across to Torrington Square. Mr. and Mrs. Ledstone never grudged him an hour's leave of absence if it was spent in calling on Mrs. Thurseley, their esteemed friend and neighbour.
It was not that he had conceived any passionate love for Mabel. An amiable, steady, rather colourless girl, and (as Amy Ledstone said) not very pretty, she was hardly likely to engender that. He had not for her—and probably never could have—the torrent of feeling which carried him off his feet at Shaylor's Patch, and made him dare everything because of Winnie's bidding. And he was still very fond of Winnie herself. But the pull of the world—of his old world—was strong upon him; Mabel embodied it. Bob Purnett had been right about him; in his scheme of life, after the gaieties of youth, came "settling down." And when it came to seeing things as they were, when the blurring mists of passion lifted, he found it impossible to feel that life with Winnie was settling down at all. Life with Winnie—was that being settled, tranquil, serene, ready to look anybody in the face? No, it was still to be irregular, to have secrets, to be unable to tell people with whom you spent your time. It was neither one thing nor the other; it was the bond, without the guerdon, of service, it was defiance without the pleasures of lawlessness.
Covertly, persistently, let it in justice be added lovingly, his mother and father worked upon him. The old pair showed diplomacy; they made no direct attack on Winnie nor upon his present mode of life; they only tried to let him see what a much pleasanter mode of life was open to him, and what joy he would give those who loved him best in the world if only he would adopt it. Bringing grey hairs with sorrow to the grave—not a pleasant thing for a son to feel that he is doing! Without scruple they used Mabel Thurseley in their game; without scruple they risked the girl's happiness; their duty, as they saw it, was to their son, and they thought of him only. Mabel had no throng of suitors and none of the arts of a coquette. The good-looking young man soon made his impression, and soon perceived that he had made it. All looked easy, and this time really straightforward. It was a powerful assault to which he exposed himself when he once again began to frequent Woburn Square.
Amy Ledstone looked on, irritable, fretful, in scorn of herself, calling herself a traitor for having told Winnie of Mabel, and a coward for not daring to tell Mabel about Winnie. But she dared not. A lifelong habit of obedience, a lifelong custom of accepting parental wisdom even when she chafed under it, the tyranny of that weak heart, were too much for her. She lacked the courage to break away, to upset the family scheme. And to work actively for Winnie was surely a fearful responsibility, however strongly she might pity her? To work for Winnie was, in the end, to range herself on the side of immorality. Let Winnie work for herself! She was warned now—that was enough and more than enough. Yet Amy's sympathy made her cold and irritable to her brother. He misconstrued the cause of her attitude, setting it down to a violent disapproval of Winnie and a championship of Mabel Thurseley. The old people petted, Amy kept him at arm's length, but to Godfrey their end and purpose seemed to be the same.
"Winnie doesn't realize what I go through for her," he often thought to himself, when his sister was cross, when his mother said good-bye to him with tears in her eyes, when his father wrung his hand in expressive silence, when he manfully made himself less agreeable than he knew how to be to Mabel Thurseley.
Yet—and the fact was significant—in spite of all, it was with a holiday feeling that, after seeing Winnie off to Shaylor's Patch, he packed his bag and repaired home—he thought of Woburn Square as home. He was greeted with great joy.
"Fancy having you with us for two whole days!" said his mother.
"Like old times!" exclaimed his father, beaming with smiles on the hearthrug.
The theatre had been arranged for. Mrs. Ledstone's health forbade her being a member of the party, but Mr. Ledstone was ready for an outing. Amy would go; and Mabel Thurseley had been invited to complete the quartette. Amy looked after her father, to Godfrey fell the duty of squiring Miss Thurseley. They had good seats in the dress-circle; Mr. Ledstone, Amy, Mabel, Godfrey—that was the order of sitting. The play was a capital farce. They all got into high spirits, even Amy forgetting to chide herself and content to be happy. Mabel's life was not rich in gaiety; she responded to its stimulus readily. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes grew bright and challenging. She made a new appeal to Godfrey.
"I can't let her think me a fool." So he excused his attentions and his pleasure in them.
"I suppose you go a lot to the theatre, don't you?" she asked. "I expect you'reblasé!"
"No, I don't go much."
"Why not? Don't you care about going alone?"
"Now why do you assume I need go alone?"
"No, of course you needn't! How silly of me! Do you ever take—ladies?" She was roguish over this question.
"Yes, now and then."
"Mamma wouldn't let me go alone with a man."
"Oh, we don't ask mamma. We just go."
"Do you go out somewhere every evening?"
"Oh no. I often stay at home, and read—or work."
He had said nothing untrue, but it was all one big lie, what he was saying—a colossal misrepresentation of his present life. The picture his last answer raised in her mind—the man alone in his lonely room, reading or working! Poor man, all alone!
"We girls get into the way of thinking that bachelors are always gay, but I suppose they're not?"
"Indeed they're not." Godfrey's answer was decisive and rather grim.
"Or else," she laughed, "they'd never want to marry, would they?"
"Anyhow, one gets tired of gaiety and wants something better." His eyes rested on hers for a moment. She blushed a little; and the curtain rose on the second act.
"How your mother adores you!" she began at the next interval. "She'd die for you, I think. She says you're the best son in the world, and have never given her any trouble."
Godfrey's conscience suffered a twinge—no less for his mother than for himself.
"I'm afraid mothers don't know all about their sons, always."
"No, I suppose not. But there are some people you know you can trust."
"Come, I say, you're making me out too perfect by half!"
She laughed. "Oh, I don't accuse you of being a milksop. I don't like milksops, Mr. Godfrey."
So she went on, innocently showing her interest and her preference, and in the process making Godfrey feel that his family and himself were accomplices in a great and heinous conspiracy. But there was still time to get out of it, to put an end to it. There were two ways out of it, just two and no more, thought Godfrey. Either she must be told, or there must cease to be anything to tell her.
But the sternest moralist would hardly demand that momentous decisions and heart-rending avowals should be made on Christmas Day. That surely is a close time? So thought Godfrey Ledstone, and, the religious observances of the day having been honoured by all the family, the rest of it passed merrily in Woburn Square. The Thurseleys, mother and daughter, came to spend the afternoon, and came again to dinner.
"So good of you to take pity on us," said Mrs. Thurseley, a soft-voiced pleasant woman, who was placid and restful, and said the right thing. She would make an excellent mother-in-law—for some man.
Like the old-fashioned folk they were, they had a snapdragon and plenty of mistletoe and plenty of the usual jokes about both. As there was nobody else on whom the jokes could plausibly be fastened (Mr. Ledstone's reminiscences of his own courting tended towards the sentimental, while the subject was, of course, too tender in widowed Mrs. Thurseley's case), they were naturally pointed at Mabel and Godfrey. Mabel laughed and blushed. Really Godfrey had to play his part; he could not look a fool, who did not know how to flirt. He ended by flirting pretty hard. He had his reward in the beams of the whole circle—except Amy. She seemed rather out of humour that Christmas; she pleaded a headache for excuse. When Mrs. Ledstone said good-night to her son, she embraced him with agitated affection, and whispered: "I feel happier than I've done for a long while, Godfrey darling."