"Thou vacant house, moated about by peace."Stephen Phillips.
"Thou vacant house, moated about by peace."Stephen Phillips.
"Thou vacant house, moated about by peace."Stephen Phillips.
"Thou vacant house, moated about by peace."
Stephen Phillips.
Mr. Stirling and his nephew were standing in the long picture gallery of Hulver, looking at the portrait of Roger Manvers of Dunwich, who inherited Hulver in Charles the Second's time.
"His grandmother, Anne de la Pole, that pinched-looking old woman in the ruff, would never have left it to her daughter's son if she had had anyone else to leave it to," said Mr. Stirling. "She built Hulver in the shape of an E in honour of her kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. That prim little picture below her portrait shows the house when it was new. It must have looked very much the same then as it does now, except that the hollies were all trimmed to fantastic shapes. Look at the birds and domes and crowns."
"I like them better as they are now," said his nephew, a weak-looking youth with projecting teeth, his spectacled eyes turning from the picture to the renowned avenue of hollies, now stooping and splitting in extreme old age.
"I have often wondered what homely RogerManvers, the burgess of Dunwich, must have felt when old Anne actually left him this place after her only son was drowned. I can so well imagine him riding over here, a careful, sturdy man, not unlike the present Roger Manvers, and having a look at his inheritance, and debating with himself whether he would leave Dunwich and settle here."
"And did he?"
"Yes. The sea decided that for him. A year later it swept away the town of Dunwich as far as Maison Dieu. And it swept away Roger Manvers' pleasant house, Montjoy. And he moved across the borders of Suffolk to Lowshire with all he had been able to save from his old home, and established himself here. I like the way he has hung those wooden-looking pictures of his burgess forbears in their furred cloaks and chains among the brocaded D'Urbans and De la Poles. Roger Manvers tells me that it was old Roger who first took the property in hand, and heightened the Kirby dam, and drained Mendlesham Marsh, and built the Riff almshouses. The De la Poles had never troubled themselves about such matters. And to think of that wretched creature the present owner tearing the old place limb from limb, throwing it from him with both hands! It makes me miserable. I vow I will never come here again."
The caretaker had unshuttered a few among the long line of windows, and the airlessness,the ghostly outlines of the muffled furniture, the dust which lay grey on everything, the faint smell of dry rot, all struck at Mr. Stirling's sensitive spirit and oppressed him. He turned impatiently to the windows.
If it is a misfortune to be stout, even if one is tall, and to be short, even if one is slim, and to be fifty, even if one is of a cheerful temperament, and to be bald, even if one has a well-shaped head, then Mr. Stirling, who was short and stout, and bald as well, and fifty into the bargain, was somewhat heavily handicapped as to his outer man. But one immense compensation was his for an unattractive personality. He never gave it a moment's thought, and consequently no one else did either. His body was no more than a travelling-suit to him. It was hardy, durable, he was comfortable in it, grateful to it, on good terms with it, worked it hard, and used it to the uttermost. That it was not more ornamental than a Gladstone bag did not trouble him.
"Put it all in a book," said his nephew absently, whose eyes were glued to the pictures. "Put it in a book, Uncle Reggie."
Mr. Stirling had long since ceased to be annoyed by a remark which is about as pleasant to a writer as a suggestion of embezzlement is to a bank manager.
"Have you seen enough, Geoff? Shall we go?" he said.
"Wait a bit. Where's the Raeburn?"
"'Highland Mary'? Sold. A pork butcher in America bought her for a fabulous sum. I believe Dick Manvers lost the whole of it on one race. If there is coin in the next world, he will play ducks and drakes with it upon the glassy sea."
"Sold! Good God!" said his nephew, staring horrorstruck at his uncle. "How awful! Pictures ought not to belong to individuals. The nation ought to have them." He seemed staggered. "Awful!" he said again. "What a tragedy!"
"To my mind,thatis more tragic," said Mr. Stirling bluntly, pointing to the window.
In the deserted garden, near the sundial, Janey was standing, a small nondescript figure in a mushroom hat, picking snap-dragons. The gardens had been allowed to run wild for lack of funds to keep them in order, and had become beautiful exceedingly in consequence. The rose-coloured snap-dragons and amber lupins were struggling to hold their own in their stone-edged beds against an invasion of willow weed. A convolvulus had climbed to the sundial, wrapping it round and round, and had laid its bold white trumpet flowers on the leaded disk itself. Janey had not disturbed it. Perhaps she thought that no one but herself sought to see the time there. The snap-dragons rose in a great blot of straggling rose and white and wine-red round her feet. She was picking them slowly, as one whose mind was not following her hand. At a little distanceHarry was lying at his full length on the flags beside the round stone-edged fountain, blowing assiduously at a little boat which was refusing to cross. In the midst of the water Cellini's world-famed water nymph reined in her dolphins.
A yellow stone-crop had found a foothold on the pedestal of the group, and flaunted its raw gold in the vivid sunshine amid the weather-bitten grey stone, making a fantastic broken reflection where Harry's boat rippled the water. And behind Janey's figure, and behind the reflection of the fountain in the water, was the cool, sinister background of the circular yew hedge, with the heather pink of the willow weed crowding up against it.
The young man gasped.
"But it's—it's a picture," he said. And then, after a moment, he added, "Everything except the woman. Of course she won't do."
Geoff's curiously innocent prominent eyes were fixed. His vacant face was rapt. His uncle looked sympathetically at him. He knew what it was to receive an idea "like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought."
The caretaker, whose tea-time was already delayed, coughed discreetly in the hall.
"Come, Geoff," said Mr. Stirling, remorsefully but determinedly, taking his nephew's arm. "We can't remain here for ever."
"It's all right except the woman," said Geoff, not stirring. "Every scrap. It hits you inthe eye. Look how the lichen has got at the dolphins. All splendour and desolation, and the yew hedge like a funeral procession behind. Not a bit of sky above them: the only sky reflected in the water." His voice had sunk to a whisper.
"When you are my age," said Mr. Stirling, "it is just the woman, not some fanciful angel with a Grecian profile and abnormally long legs, but that particular little brown-haired creature with her short face whom you brush aside, who makes the tragedy of the picture. When I think of what that small courageous personage endures day by day, what her daily life must be—but what's the use of talking? Twenty can't hear a word fifty is saying—isn't meant to. Wake up, Geoff. There is another lady in the case. It is past the caretaker's tea-time. Youmustlearn to consider the fair sex, my dear boy. We are keeping her from her tea. Look, Miss Manvers has seen us. We'll join her in the gardens."
One of Mr. Stirling's pleasantest qualities was that he never remembered he was a man of letters. Consequently it was not necessary for him to show that he was still a boy at heart and that he could elaborately forget that he was a distinguished novelist by joining in sailing Harry's boat. Harry scrambled to his feet and shook hands with both men at Janey's bidding, and then he looked wistfully at Geoff as a possible playfellow and smiled athim, an ingratiating smile. But Geoff at twenty, two years younger than Harry, Geoff the artist, the cultured inquirer after famous Raeburns, the appraiser of broken reflections and relative values, only gaped vacantly at him, hands in pockets, without seeing him.
Harry puffed out an enormous sigh and looked back at his boat, and then he clapped his hands suddenly and ran to meet Annette, who was coming slowly towards them across the grass.
Mr. Stirling's eyes and Janey's followed him, and Mr. Stirling felt rather than saw that Janey winced as she looked gravely at the approaching figure.
Geoff's hat was at the back of his sugar-cone of a head. His mild face was transfixed.
"Mrs. Le Geyt," he said, below his breath.
"Our life is like a narrow raft,Afloat upon the hungry sea.Thereon is but a little space,And all men, eager for a place,Do thrust each other in the sea—And each man, raving for a place,Doth cast his brother in the sea."
"Our life is like a narrow raft,Afloat upon the hungry sea.Thereon is but a little space,And all men, eager for a place,Do thrust each other in the sea—And each man, raving for a place,Doth cast his brother in the sea."
"Our life is like a narrow raft,Afloat upon the hungry sea.Thereon is but a little space,And all men, eager for a place,Do thrust each other in the sea—And each man, raving for a place,Doth cast his brother in the sea."
"Our life is like a narrow raft,
Afloat upon the hungry sea.
Thereon is but a little space,
And all men, eager for a place,
Do thrust each other in the sea—
And each man, raving for a place,
Doth cast his brother in the sea."
Half an hour later, when Annette had left them, Mr. Stirling and his nephew turned with Janey towards the tall Italian gates, which Harry was dutifully holding open for them. As Geoff shambled beside him, glancing backwards in the direction of the path across the park which Annette had taken, Mr. Stirling half wished that his favourite sister's only child stared less at pretty women, that he had less tie and hair, and rather more backbone and deportment.
"Uncle Reggie," blurted out Geoff, "that Miss Georges!"
"Well?"
"Has she divorced him? Is that why she's called Miss Georges?"
"I suppose she's called Miss Georges for the same reason that you are called GeoffreyLestrange," said his uncle. "Because it happens to be her name."
"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open, innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away. But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I heard him call her Annette, and——"
Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson, startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape over a dead body.
"You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother."
"I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married."
"They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff. "They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on now. I looked, and—and——"
But Mr. Stirling swept him down.
"That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye."
And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly down the lane.
"Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village, and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed, with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is there?—she looks so very kind,—in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm. But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it——"
"Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling.
"It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would be—stupendous. I see it."
Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him.
"I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified, transfigured.
Mr. Stirling's heart smote him.
"Geoff," he said gently, taking his arm again, and making him walk quietly on beside him, "listen to me. There are other things in the world to be attended to besides pictures."
"No, there aren't."
"Yes, there are. I put it to you. You have made a statement about Miss Georges which will certainly do her a great deal of harm if it is repeated. You blurt out things about her which are tantamount to making a very serious accusation against her character, and then in the same breath you actually suggest that you should make use of her in your picture—when you have done your level best to injure her reputation. Now, as one man of the world to another, is that honourable, is it even 'cricket'?"
Geoff's face became weak and undecided again. The vision had been shattered.
Mr. Stirling saw his advantage, and pressed it with all the more determination because he perceived that Geoff at any rate was firmly convinced of the truth of what he had said, incredible as it seemed.
"You will take no rooms in this village," he said with decision, "and you will start for Japan to-morrow as arranged. I shall see you off,and before you go you will promise me on your oath never to say another word to anyone, be they who they may, about having seen Miss Georges at Fontainebleau, or any other 'bleau,' in that disreputable Dick Le Geyt's company."
Janey's heart beat violently as she walked slowly home.
During the last few weeks she had sternly faced the fact that Roger was attracted by Annette, and not without many pangs had schooled herself to remain friends with her. There had been bitter moments when a choking jealousy had welled up in her heart against Annette. She might have let Roger alone. Beautiful women always hypocritically pretended that they could not help alluring men. But they could. Annette need not have gratified her vanity by trying to enslave him.
But after the bitter moment Janey's sturdy rectitude and sense of justice always came to her rescue.
"Annette has not tried," she would say stolidly to herself. "And why shouldn't she try, if she likes him? I am not going to lose her if she does try. She doesn't know I want him. She is my friend, and I mean to keep her, whatever happens."
Whatever happens.But Janey had never dreamed of anything like this happening. As she walked slowly home with her bunch of snap-dragons, she realized that if Roger knew whatshe and Mr. Stirling knew about Annette, he would leave her. It was not too late yet. His mind was not actually made up—that slow mind, as tenacious as her own. He was gravitating towards Annette. But if she let it reach his ears that Annette had been Dick's mistress he would turn from her, and never think of her as a possible wife again. After an interval he would gradually revert to her, Janey, without having ever realized that he had left her. Oh! if only Roger had been present when that foolish young man had made those horrible allegations!—if only he had heard them for himself! Janey reddened at her own cruelty, her own disloyalty.
But was it, could it be true that Annette with her clear, unfathomable eyes had an ugly past behind her? It was unthinkable. And yet—Janey had long since realized that Annette had a far wider experience of men and women than she had. How had she gained it, that experience, that air of mystery which, though Janey did not know it, was a more potent charm than her beauty?
Was it possible that she might be Dick's wife after all, as that young man had evidently taken for granted?No.No wife, much less Annette, would have left her husband at death's door, and have fled at the advent of his relations. His mistress might have acted like that, had actually acted like that; for Janey knew that when her aunt arrived at Fontainebleau a woman who till then had passed as Dick's wifeand had nursed him devotedlyhaddecamped, and never been heard of again.
Was it possible that Annette had been that woman? Mr. Lestrange had been absolutely certain of what he had seen. His veracity was obvious. And Annette's was not a face that one could easily forget, easily mistake for anyone else. In her heart Janey was convinced that he had indeed seen Annette with her brother, passing as his wife. And she saw that Mr. Stirling was convinced also.
She had reached the garden of the Dower House, and she sank down on the wooden seat round the cedar. The sun had set behind the long line of the Hulver woods, and there was a flight of homing rooks across the amber sky.
Then Annette must be guilty, in spite of her beautiful face and her charming ways! Janey clasped her hands tightly together. Her outlook on life was too narrow, too rigid, to differentiate or condone. Annette had been immoral.
And was she, Janey, to stand by, and see Roger, her Roger, the straightest man that ever walked, and the most unsuspicious, marry her brother's mistress? Could she connive at such a wicked thing? Would Roger forgive her, would she ever forgive herself, if she coldly held aloof and let him ruin his life, drench it in dishonour, because she was too proud to say a word? It was her duty to speak, her bounden duty. Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within her. Was it grief?Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish.
Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips towards it that the rim is stained with blood.
"We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love wehavegiven is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous flowers will not open to perfection."—M. N.
"We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love wehavegiven is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous flowers will not open to perfection."—M. N.
Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since he had become her mother's tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and he was quickly aware of Janey's surprise at seeing him.
He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gateunlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the night, and the rough grass, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were autumn already.
Mr. Stirling looked with compassion at Janey's strained face and sleepless eyes.
"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of Miss Georges."
He saw her wince.
"I am not sure I am," she said hoarsely, involuntarily.
"I am quite sure," he said.
There was a moment's silence.
"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for Japan, and that he has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff's stupidity was that it was the truth which he blurted out."
"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it."
"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can't tell why one believes certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff's voice had that mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knewat once you recognized that. That is why I am here."
Janey looked straight in front of her.
"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff might have been mistaken. But he was not. He was so determined to prove to me that he was not that he unpacked one of his boxes already packed to start for Japan, and got out his last year's notebooks. I kept one of them. He did not like it, but I thought it was safer with me than with him."
Mr. Stirling produced out of a much-battered pocket a small sketch-book with an elastic band round it, and turned the leaves. Each page was crowded with pencil studies of architecture, figures, dogs, children, nursemaids; small elaborate drawings of door-knockers and leaden pipe-heads; vague scratches of officials and soldiers, the individuality of each caught in a few strokes. He turned the pages with a certain respectful admiration.
"He has the root of the matter in him," he said. "He will arrive."
Janey was not impressed. She thought the sketches very unfinished.
Then he stopped at a certain page. Neither of them could help smiling. The head waiter, as seen from behind, napkin on arm, dish on spread hand, superb, debonair, stout but fleet.
Alphonsewas scribbled under it,Fontainebleau, Sept. the tenth, and the year.
Mr. Stirling turned the leaf, turned three or four leaves, all withMariettescrawled on them. Mariette had evidently been the French chamber-maid, and equally evidently had detained Geoff's vagrant eye.
Another page. A man leaning back in his chair laughing.Dick Le Geytwas written under it.
"Is it like him?" asked Mr. Stirling.
"It'shim," said Janey.
Yet another page. They both looked in silence at the half-dozen masterly strokes withMrs. Le Geytwritten under them.
"It is unmistakable," Mr. Stirling said. "It is not only she, but it is no one else."
His eyes met Janey's. She nodded.
He closed the little book, put its elastic band round it, and squeezed it into his pocket.
"Why did you bring that to show me?" she said harshly. It seemed as if he had come to tempt her.
"I knew," he said, "that for the last two days you must have been on the rack, torn with doubt as to the truth of what my miserable nephew had affirmed. You look as if you had not slept since. Anything is better than suspense. Well, now you know it is true."
"Yes, itistrue," said Janey slowly, and she became very pale. Then she added, with difficulty, "I knew—we all knew—that Dick had had some one—a woman—with him at Fontainebleau when he was taken ill. Hisvalet told my aunt he had not gone—alone. And the hotel-keeper told her the same. She ran away when Aunt Jane arrived. Aunt Jane never saw her. We never knew who she was."
"Till now," said Mr. Stirling softly.
Two long-winged baby-swallows were sitting on their breasts on the sunny flagged path, resting, turning their sleek heads to right and left. Mr. Stirling watched them intently.
"Why should anyone but you and I ever know?" he said, with a sigh, after they had flown. He had waited, hoping Janey would say those words, but he had had to say them himself instead.
She did not answer. She could not. A pulse in her throat was choking her. This, then, was what he had come for, to persuade her to be silent, to hush it up. All men were the same about a pretty woman. A great tumult clamoured within her, but she made no movement.
"I may as well mention that I am interested in Miss Georges," he went on quietly. "Don't you find that rather ridiculous, Miss Manvers? An elderly man of fifty, old enough to be her father. It is quite absurd, and very undignified, isn't it? You are much too courteous to agree with me. But I can see you think it is so, whether you agree or not. Wise women often justly accuse us silly susceptible men of being caught by a pretty face. I have been caught by a sweet face. I never exchanged a wordwith Miss Georges till yesterday, so I have not had the chance of being attracted by her mind. And it is not her mind that draws me, it is her face. I have known her by sight for some time. I go to church in order to see her. I called on her two aunts solely in order to make her acquaintance. The elder one, the portentous authoress, is the kind of person whom I should creep down a sewer to avoid; even the saintly invalid does not call out my higher nature."
Mr. Stirling became aware that Janey was lost in amazement. Irony is singularly unsuited to a narrow outlook.
He waited a moment, and then went on, choosing his words carefully, as if he were speaking to some one very young—
"It is quite a different thing to be attracted, and to have any hope of marriage, isn't it? I have, and had, no thought of marrying Miss Georges. I am aware that I could not achieve it. Men of my age do not exist for women of her age. But that does not prevent my having a deep desire to serve her. And service is the greater part of love, isn't it? I am sureyouknow that, whose life is made up of service of others."
"I am not sure I do," she said stiffly. She was steeling herself against him.
If he found her difficult, he gave no sign of it. He went on tranquilly—
"As one grows old one sees, oh! how clearly one sees that the only people whom one can beany real use to are those whom one loves—with one's whole heart. Liking is no real use. Pity and duty are not much either. They are better than nothing, but that is all. Love is the one weapon, the one tool, the one talisman. Now we can't make ourselves love people. Love is the great gift. I don't, of course, mean the gift of a woman's love to a man, or of a man's to a woman. I mean the power to love anyone devotedly, be they who they may, is God's greatest gift tousHis children. And He does not give it us very often. To some He never gives it. Many people go through life loved and cherished who seem to be denied His supreme blessing—that of being able to love, of seeing that wonderful light rest upon a fellow-creature. And as we poor elders look back, we see that there were one or two people who crossed our path earlier in life whom we loved, or could have loved, and whom we have somehow lost: perhaps by their indifference, perhaps by our own temperament, but whom nevertheless we have lost. When the first spark is lit in our hearts of that mysterious flame which it sometimes takes us years to quench, one does not realize it at the time. I did not. Twenty-five years ago, Miss Manvers, before you were born, I fell in love. I was at that time a complete egoist, a very perfect specimen, with the superficial hardness of all crustaceans who live on the defensive, and wear their bones outside like a kind of armour. She was a year or two youngerthan I was, just about Miss Georges' age. Miss Georges reminds me of her. She is taller and more beautiful, but she reminds me of her all the same. I was not sure whether she cared for me. And I had a great friend. And he fell in love with her too. And I renounced her, and withdrew in his favour. I went away without speaking. I thought I was acting nobly. He said there was no one like me. Thoreau had done the same, and I worshipped Thoreau in my youth, and had been to see him in his log hut. I was sustained in my heartache by feeling I was doing a heroic action. It never struck me I was doing it at her expense. I went abroad, and after a time she married my friend. Some years later, I heard he was dying of a terrible disease in the throat, and I went to see him. She nursed him with absolute devotion, but she would not allow me to be much with him. I put it down to a kind of jealousy. And after his death I tried to see her, but again she put difficulties in the way. At last I asked her to marry me, and she refused me."
"Because you had deserted her to start with," said Janey.
"No; she was not like that. Because she was dying of the same disease as her husband. She had contracted it from him. That was why she had never let me be much with him, or afterwards with her. When I knew, I was willing to risk it, but she was not. She hadher rules, and from them she never departed. She let me sit with her in the garden, and to the last she was carried out to her long chair so that I might be with her. She told me it was the happiest time of her life. I found that from the first she had loved me, and she loved me to the last. She never reproached me for leaving her. She was a simple person. I told her I had done it on account of my friend, and she thought it very noble of me, and said it was just what she should have expected of me. There was no irony in her. And she slipped quietly out of life, keeping her ideal of me to the last."
"I think it was noble too," said Janey stolidly.
"Was it? I never considered her for a moment. I had had the desire to serve her, but I never served her. Instead, I caused her long, long unhappiness—for my friend had a difficult temperament—and suffering and early death. I never realized that she was alive, vulnerable, sensitive. I should have done better to have married her and devoted myself to her. I have never wanted to devote myself to any woman since. We should have been happy together. And she might have been with me still, and we might have had a son who would just have been the right age to marry Miss Georges."
"You would not have wanted him to marry her now," said Janey hoarsely. "You wouldnot want her to marry anyone you were fond of."
Among a confusion of tangled threads Mr. Stirling saw a clue—at last.
A dragon-fly alighted on the stone at his feet, its long orange body and its gauze wings gleaming in the vivid sunshine. It stood motionless save for its golden eyes. Even at that moment, his mind, intent on another object, unconsciously noted and registered the transparent shadow on the stone of its transparent wings.
"I think," he said, "if I had had a son who was trying to marry her, I should have come to you just as I have come now, and I should have said, 'Why should anyone but you and I ever know?'"
"No. No, you wouldn't," said Janey, as if desperately defending some position which he was attacking. "You would want to save him at all costs."
"From what? From the woman he loves? I have not found it such great happiness to be saved from the woman I loved."
Janey hesitated, and then said—
"From some one unworthy of him."
Mr. Stirling watched an amber leaf sail to the ground. Then he said slowly—
"How do I know that Annette is unworthy of him? She may have done wrong and still be worthy of him. Do you not see that if I decided she was unworthy and hurried my sonaway, I should be acting on the same principle as I did in my own youth, the old weary principle which has pressed so hard on women, that you can treat a fellow-creature like a picture or a lily, or a sum of money? I handed over my love just as if she had been a lily. How often I had likened her to one! But she was alive, poor soul, all the time, and I only found it out when she was dying, years and years afterwards. Only then did my colossal selfishness confront me. She was a fellow-creature like you and me. What was it Shylock said? 'If you prick us, do we not bleed?' Now, for aught we know to the contrary, Annettemay bealive."
His grave eyes met hers, with a light in them, gentle, inexorable.
"Unless we are careful we may make her bleed. We have the knife ready to our hands. If you were in her place, and had a grievous incident in your past, would anything wound you more deeply than if she, she your friend, living in the same village, raked up that ugly past, and made it public for no reason?"
"But there is a reason," said Janey passionately,—"not a reason that everyone should know, God forbid, but that one person should be told, who may marry her in ignorance, and who would never marry her if he knew what you and I know—never, never, never!"
"And what would you do in her place, in such a predicament?"
"I should not be in it, because when heasked me to marry him I should tell him everything."
"Perhaps that is just what she will do. Knowing her intimately as you do, can you think that she would act meanly and deceitfully? I can't."
Janey avoided his searching glance, and made no answer.
"You can't either," he said tranquilly. "And do you think she would lie about it?"
"No," said Janey slowly, against her will.
"Then let us, at any rate, give her her chance of telling him herself."
He got up slowly, and Janey did the same. He saw that her stubbornness though shaken was not vanquished, and that he should obtain no assurance from her that she would be silent.
"And let us give this man, whoever he may be, his chance too," he said, taking her hand and holding it. He felt it tremble, and his heart ached for her. He had guessed. "The chance of being loyal, the chance of being tender, generous, understanding. Do not let us wreck it by interference. This is a matter which lies between her and him, and between her and him only. It may be the making of him. It would have been the making of me if I could but have taken it—my great chance—if I had not preferred to sacrifice her, in order to be a sham hero."
"Look long, look long in the water Mélisande,Is there never a face but your own?There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande,Your soul must stand alone.All alone in the world Mélisande,Alone, alone."Ethel Clifford.
"Look long, look long in the water Mélisande,Is there never a face but your own?There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande,Your soul must stand alone.All alone in the world Mélisande,Alone, alone."Ethel Clifford.
"Look long, look long in the water Mélisande,Is there never a face but your own?There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande,Your soul must stand alone.All alone in the world Mélisande,Alone, alone."Ethel Clifford.
"Look long, look long in the water Mélisande,
Is there never a face but your own?
There is never a soul you shall know Mélisande,
Your soul must stand alone.
All alone in the world Mélisande,
Alone, alone."
Ethel Clifford.
The long evening was before Janey. Since her stroke, her mother "retired for the night," as the nurse called it, at nine instead of ten. And at nine, Janey came down to the drawing-room and established herself with her work beside the lamp. Harry, whom nothing could keep awake after his game of dominoes, went to bed at nine also.
But to-night, as she took up her work, her spirit quailed at the long array of threadbare thoughts that were lying in wait for her. She dared not think any more. She laid down her work, and took up the paper. But she had no interest in politics. There seemed to be nothing in it. She got up, and taking the lamp in her hand crossed the room and looked at the books in the Chippendale bookcase, the few books which her mother had brought with her from Hulver. They were well chosen, no doubt,but somehow Janey did not want them. Shakespeare? No. Longfellow? No. She was tired of him, tired even of her favourite lines, "Life is real, life is earnest." Tennyson? No. Pepys' Diary? She had heard people speak of it. No. Bulwer's novels, Jane Austen's, Maria Edgeworth's, Sir Walter Scott's? No.Crooks and Coronets? She had only read it once. She might look at it again. She liked Miss Nevill's books. She had read most of them, not intentionally, but because while she was binding them in brown paper for the village library, she had found herself turning the leaves. She especially liked the last but one, about simple fisher-folk. She often wondered how Miss Nevill knew so much about them. If she had herself been acquainted with fishermen, she would have realized how little the dignified authoress did know. Somehow, she did not care to read even one of Miss Nevill's books to-night.
The Magnet, by Reginald Stirling. She hesitated, put out her hand, and took the first of the three volumes from the shelf. She had skimmed it when it came out five years ago, because the Bishop, when he stayed with them for a confirmation, had praised it. Janey had been surprised that he had recommended it when she came to read it, for parts of it were decidedly unpleasant. She might look at it again. She had no recollection of it, except that she had not liked it. Her conversationwith Mr. Stirling had agitated her, but it had also stirred her. Though she did not know it, it was the first time she had come into real contact with an educated and sensitive mind, and one bent for the moment on understanding hers. No one as a rule tried to understand Janey. It was not necessary. No one was interested in her. You might easily love Janey, but you could not easily be interested in her.
The book was dusty. It was obvious thatThe Magnethad not proved a magnet to anyone in the Dower House.
She got out an old silk handkerchief from a drawer and dusted it carefully. Then she sat down by the lamp once more and opened it. Ninetieth thousand. Was that many or few to have sold? It seemed to her a good many, but perhaps all books sold as many as that. She glanced at the first page.
"To a Blessed Memory."
That, no doubt, was the memory of the woman of whom he had spoken. She realized suddenly that it had cost him something to speak of that. Why had he done it? To help Annette? Every one wanted to help and protect Annette, and ward off trouble from her. No one wanted to help or guard her—Janey.
"No one?" asked Conscience.
Janey saw suddenly the yellow leaves on the flags. She had not noticed them at the time. She saw the two baby-swallows sitting on theirbreasts on the sun-warmed stone. She had not noticed them at the time. She saw suddenly, as in a glass, the nobility, the humility, and the benevolence of the man sitting beside her, and his intense desire to save her from what he believed to be a cruel action. She had noticed nothing at the time. She had been full of herself and her own devastating problem. She saw that he had pleaded with her in a great compassion as much on her own account as on Annette's. He had stretched out a hand to help her, had tried to guard her, to ward off trouble from her. This required thought. Janey and Roger could both think, though they did not do so if they could help it, and he did his aloud to Janey by preference whenever it really had to be done. Janey's mind got slowly and reluctantly to its feet. It had been accustomed from early days to walk alone.
A step crunched the gravel, came along the terrace, a well-known step. Roger's face, very red and round-eyed behind a glowing cigarette end, appeared at the open window.
"I saw by the lamp you had not gone to bed yet. May I come in?" Coming in. "My! It is like an oven in here."
"I will come out," said Janey.
They sat down on the terrace on two wicker chairs. It was the first time she had been alone with him since she had met Geoff Lestrange. And as Roger puffed at hiscigarette in silence she became aware that he had something on his mind, and had come to unburden himself to her. The moon was not yet risen, and the church tower and the twisted pines stood as if cut out of black velvet against the dim pearl of the eastern sky.
"I came round this afternoon," said Roger in an aggrieved tone, "but you were out."
It seems to be a fixed idea, tap-rooted into the very depths of the masculine mind, that it is the bounden duty of women to be in when they call, even if they have not thought fit to mention their flattering intentions. But some of us are ruefully aware that we might remain indoors twenty years without having our leisure interrupted. Janey had on many occasions waited indoors for Roger, but not since he had seen Annette home after the choir practice.
"You never seem to be about nowadays," he said.
"I was in the Hulver gardens."
"Yes, so I thought I would come round now."
Roger could extract more creaking out of one wicker garden chair than any other man in Lowshire, and more crackling out of a newspaper, especially if music was going on: that is, unless Annette was singing. He was as still as a stone on those occasions.
"How is Aunt Louisa?"
"Just the same."
"Doctor been?"
"No."
"I was over at Noyes this morning about the bridge. Stirling gave me luncheon. I don't know where I'm going to get the money for it, with Aunt Louisa in this state. It's her business to repair the bridge. It's going to cost hundreds."
Janey had heard all this before many times. She was aware that Roger was only marking time.
"When I was over there," continued Roger, "I saw Bartlet, and he told me Mary Deane—you know who I mean?"
"Perfectly."
"I heard the child, the little girl, had died suddenly last week. Croup or something. They ought to have let me know. The funeral was yesterday."
"Poor woman!"
"She and the old servant between them carried the little coffin themselves along the dyke and across the ford. Wouldn't let anyone else touch it. I heard about it from Bartlet. He ought to have let me know. I told him so. He said he thought Ididknow. That's Bartlet all over. And he said he went up to see her next day, and—and she was gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, gone. Cleared out; and the servant too. Cowell said a man from Welysham had called for their boxes. They never went back to the house after the funeral. I ought to havebeen told. And to-day I get this," Roger pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it out to her. He lit a match, and by its wavering light she read the few lines, in an educated hand:—
"I only took the allowance from you when Dick became too ill to send it, on account of Molly. Now Molly is dead, I do not need it, or the house, or anything of Dick's any more. The key is with Cornell.—M."
"I only took the allowance from you when Dick became too ill to send it, on account of Molly. Now Molly is dead, I do not need it, or the house, or anything of Dick's any more. The key is with Cornell.—M."
"Poor woman!" said Janey again.
"It's a bad business," said Roger. "She was—there was something nice about her. She wasn't exactly a lady, but there reallywassomething nice about her. And the little girl was Dick over again. You couldn't help liking Molly."
"I suppose she has gone back to her own people?"
Roger shook his head.
"She hasn't any people—never knew who her parents were. She was—the same as her child. She loved Dick, but I don't think she ever forgave him for letting Molly be born out of wedlock. She knew what it meant. It embittered her. It was not only her own pride which had been wounded, and she was a proud woman. But Molly! She resented Molly being illegitimate."
"Oh, Roger, what will become of her?"
"Goodness knows."
"Dick oughtn't to have done it," said Roger slowly, as if he were enunciating some new andstartling hypothesis. "But to do him justice I do believe he might have married her if he'd lived. I think if he cared for anybody it was for her. Dick meant well, but he was touched in his head. She ought not to have trusted him. Not quite like other people; no memory: and never in the same mind two days running."
There was a short silence. But Roger had got under way at last. Very soothing at times is a monologue to the weary masculine mind.
"I used to think," he went on, "that Dick was the greatest liar and swindler under the sun. He went back on his word, his written word, and he wasn't straight. I'm certain he ran a ramp at Leopardstown. That was the last time he rode in Ireland. You couldn't trust him. But I begin to think that from the first he had a bee in his bonnet, poor chap. I remember Uncle John leathering him within an inch of his life when he was a boy because he said he had not set the big barn alight. And hehad. He'd been seen to do it by others as well as by me. I saw him, but I never said. But I believe now he wasn't himself, sort of sleep-walking, and he really had clean forgotten he'd done it. And do you remember about the Eaton Square house?"
Of course Janey remembered, but she said, "What about that?"
"Why, he wrote to me to tell me he had decided to sell it only last August, a month before his accident, as he wanted cash. He had clean forgotten he had sold it two years agoand had had the money. Twenty thousand it was."
Puff! Puff!
"Jones, his valet, you know!"
"Yes."
"Jones told me privately when I was in Paris a month ago that Dick couldn't last much longer. Gangrene in both feet. The wonder is he has lived so long. Aunt Louisa will get her wish after all. You'll see he will die intestate, and everything will go to Harry. Pity you weren't a boy, Janey. Dick can't make a will now, that's certain, though I don't believe if he could and wanted to, Lady Jane would let him. But whatever happens, the family ought to remember Jones when Dick's gone, and settle something handsome on him for life. Jones has played the game by Dick."
Janey thought it was just like Roger to be anxious about the valet, when his own rightful inheritance was slipping away from him. For Roger came next in the male line after Dick, if you did not count Harry.
There was a long silence.
"When Dick does go," said Roger meditatively,—"moon looks jolly, doesn't it, peeping out behind the tower?—I wonder whether we shall have trouble with the other woman, the one who was with him when he was taken ill."
"At Fontainebleau?"
"Yes. I hear she was not at all a common person either, and as handsome as paint."
At the back of his mind Roger had a rueful, half-envious feeling that really the luck had been with Dick: one pretty woman after another, while he, Roger, plodded along as good as gold and as dull as ditch water, and only had to provide for the babes of these illicit unions. It did not seem fair.
"Perhaps there is another child there," he said.
"Oh no, no!" said Janey, wincing.
"It's no use saying, 'Oh no, no!' my good girl. It may be, 'Oh yes, yes!' The possibility has to be faced." Roger spoke as a man of the world. "There may be a whole brood of them for aught we know."
"Do you think he may possibly have married this—second one?" said Janey tentatively.
"No, I don't. If he had, she wouldn't have bolted. Besides, if Dick had married anyone, I do believe it would have been Mary Deane. Well, she's off our hands, poor thing. She won't trouble us again, but I don't expect we shall get off as easy with number two."