Now, what to do for Rose.
Rose had written warm congratulations to her sister, without mentioning any desire for a personal interview. Ever since her marriage, she had refrained from giving invitations to her family, leaving the initiative in social matters to them—a mark of consideration and good taste on her part which they had quite approved of; and intercourse had been limited to afternoon calls, more or less affectionate and informal, but stopping short at meals in common under the roof of either party. Now, however, Deb craved for a fuller sympathy with the sweetest-tempered and kindest-hearted of her sisters, and now it seemed so perfectly easy to go to her house in pursuit of it. She despatched an impulsive note:
"DEAREST,—I want a quiet talk with you about all that has happened. May I come to lunch tomorrow, so as to make a long afternoon of it? If not convenient, fix a day to lunch with me; but I am not so tied as you are, and besides, I should like to have Peter's advice on one or two little matters of business, if it would not bother him—of course, after he comes from town. Don't keep him at home on purpose."
To which Rose replied by telegram:
"Shall expect you early tomorrow for a long day. Peter delighted to place himself at your disposal."
So Deb set off next morning, full of benevolent intentions, to gather poor humdrum Rose and her (in his way) truly worthy husband into the sphere of her golden prosperity. Also, incidentally, to warm herself in the light of faithful and familiar eyes. Since her final dismissal of Claud Dalzell—although she was satisfied with that act, and ready to repeat it again, if necessary—she had been conscious of a personal loneliness, not sensibly mitigated by her crowd-attracting wealth. "Someone of my own" was the want of her warm heart.
And Rose, with no petty grudge for past short-comings, answered that need with open arms. Never was hostess more cordial to honoured guest. Peter also was at home. He had been to town and back again, and now stood upon his spotless doorstep, and anon upon his handsome drawing-room hearthrug, determined that his house should lack nothing befitting the great occasion. It was all in gala dress—newly-arranged flowers, festive lunch-table, the best foot foremost; and yet, whereas there was no hiding the self-seeker in the ingratiating Bennet Goldsworthy, there was no finding him in this proud host and husband, whose desire was only to do his dear wife credit.
Neither of them said, in word or manner, "Why didn't you come like this before?" Deb knew that her welcome would have been the same, and had hard work not to show too frankly her sense of their magnanimity. As it was, she nearly kissed Peter in the hall—such a nice, warm, comfortable, hospitable entrance to as comfortable a home (in its undeniably middle-class style) as she had ever been inside of—the more striking in its effect by contrast with Mary's. Peter's cuffs were like the driven snow; he was charmingly fresh and clean, well barbered and well tailored; grown quite handsome, too, now that he had filled out and matured. As for Rose—"I hear," Frances wrote from Paris, "that poor Rose has become a perfect tub." Mrs Peter was almost as broad as she was long. But what health in the sunny face! What opulent well-being in the full curves of her figure, gowned in a fashion to satisfy even Deb's exigent taste.
They did not tell her it was good of her to come to see them, but they told her in all the languages of courtesy that they were mighty glad she had come. She was taken into the drawing-room—full of soft chairs and sofas that anybody might sit on, and with a fire of clear coals in a grate that glittered with constant polishing. But everything in Peter's establishment seemed to shine with pure cleanliness; he took after his mother, who, modest in other things, was fond of offering a sovereign to anybody who would find a cobweb in her house.
Deb was peeled of her furs by Peter, with the greatest deference and politeness, but with none of the obsequiousness that had sickened her elsewhere; he laid down her sable cloak with the reverence of one who knew its value, and he asked Rose in a whisper if her sister would like a glass of wine before lunch. The smiling matron shook her head, and whispered something else, which sent him out of the room. Then, while he skipped about in the background, attending to the wines and beers, she convoyed the guest to the very luxurious bedroom where head-nurse Keziah dandled the youngest of the Breen children. The rest had had their dinners and gone out a-walking, so as not to be made too much of by a silly mother, if it could be helped. Warm was the greeting between Keziah and her late mistress, and many the questions about Redford and the old folks; but there was no hint that Mrs Moon hankered after the big store-rooms and linen-closets, the dignities and privileges of her former home. Her heart was with Rose's babies now.
"There, what do you think of THIS?" she demanded, as she proudly displayed her charge, and, being invited thereto, condescendingly laid it in Deb's outstretched arms.
It was a pretty, healthy creature, fat, dainty and about two months old, still in the whitest and finest of long clothes. "Little duck!" Deb crooned, and rubbed her cheek almost with passion on its rose-leaf skin. Robert's nose, indeed, was dislocated on the spot.
"Oh, Rosie," she presently blurted out, "I would like to have this child!"
"Would you?" replied Rose, all smiles.
"No, but, seriously and without joking, I really would, you know."
"I daresay," laughed the plump little mother, and her laugh was echoed by Keziah as she passed into the adjoining nursery—to leave the long parted sisters to themselves.
"Now, look here," the guest addressed the hostess, thoughtfully and deliberately, as soon as they were alone, "if you will give her to me, I will bring her up and educate her as perfectly as care and money can do it. She shall take the name of Pennycuick, and be my daughter, and my heiress, and the future representative of the family. And," she added, for her own inward ear, "we can live at home or somewhere, if necessary, where Breens and such will not have the chance to interfere with us."
"As if I would give my baby away," Rose sweetly jeered her—"even for a kingdom!"
"You have five more, and may have another five—or twenty-five. It looks like it."
"But none to spare. Besides, you won't want other people's children when you get your own. How about her being the heiress then?"
"I shall never have children of my own," said Deb, with tightened lips. "That is why I want to adopt one." Rose laughed the idea to scorn.
"Of course you will!" cried she. "You must. All the money in the world is nothing compared with a baby. I wouldn't give one of mine for twenty fortunes—not if I had to earn their keep at the wash-tub."
"Not even for the child's own advantage?"
"It is not to any child's advantage to grow up thinking that its mother did not care to be a mother to it," said Rose. "Nor yet—possibly—to grow up to look down on her."
"Rose!" Deb's guilty face flamed scarlet.
"Or on her father," Rose continued, with soft but firm persistence. "She must have a father too, Deb, and Peter would not give his job away any more than I would give mine. He thinks the world of them all. He is just as good a father as he is a husband," with a lift of head and lighting of eye. "Come to me, my precious!" as the baby whimpered. "Come to its own mother, then! No, no, Debbie dear, you be a mother yourself in the natural and proper way; you will find it a deal better than being rich. Marry some good, kind man straight away, before you waste any more of your young years. I am sure there must be dozens dying to have you."
"Dying to have the handling of Mr Thornycroft's money," said Deb, with a bitterness that surprised her sister.
"Oh, no," said she; "you are sufficient attraction without that."
"I shall never know it. But this," thought Deb, "is a very Breen-like turn that the conversation is taking. These people—and Rose has become one of them—have quite the tradesman's idea of marriage. Any 'good, kind man' will do. They cannot be expected to understand." She watched Rose billowing down into her nursing-chair, and pretended to herself that she was not envious. "It would have been a wildly-rash experiment to adopt this child, and I shall probably live to be thankful that my offer was refused," she inwardly argued, while her beautiful eyes melted at the spectacle of the happy mother snuggling the babe to her bared breast. "It is a charming little creature now, but it would probably grow up common, whatever its education and environment. Blood will tell. And if she took the name of Pennycuick, she could not pass it on. After all, a boy is best."
So Robert Goldsworthy remained in the position his gifts had gained for him.
After an admirable meal—in the course of which Deb made herself most charming to her brother-in-law, while Rose retired as much as possible from the conversation, in order that he might shine to the best advantage—those little matters of business that had been mentioned were discussed. They were trifles invented for the purpose of compliments to Mr Breen, and the serious energy with which he applied himself to each case, and his exhaustive treatment of it, showed his thorough enjoyment of the part alloted to him by the distinguished woman who was so accomplished in the art of giving pleasure—especially to men. Frankly, Deb always preferred a man to talk to, and she was agreeably surprised to find that Peter was very intelligent, and acquainted with several things beside shopkeeping. Rose was simply enchanted to find herself 'cut out' by him. When she was not stealing from the room to leave the coast clear, she was beaming over her needlework in the background, still as a mouse. Not by word or look would she spoil his chance of proving to Deb what he really was—how mistaken in him she and the others had been.
It was Peter who escorted the guest round the garden and stables, Mrs Peter excusing herself. In the well-stocked greenhouse Miss Pennycuick, who was fond of flowers, obtained 'wrinkles' that she declared would be most valuable to her in the management of her Redford houses—which she implied that he must see; in the interview with the carriage horse—Rose had a little brougham, not, as her sisters supposed, for paying calls on other drapers' wives, which she had small leisure for, but for shoppings and airings and taking children to dentists and pantomimes—Miss Pennycuick was instructive in her turn, feeling legs and advising about firing and bandages with the recognised authority of an expert. Old Bruce, padding at his master's heels, was greeted by name, patted and shaken hands with, as if he had never abetted rebels; and the discovery of a litter of choice puppies gave opportunity for the making of a little present, which was graciously received.
After tea, Rose was invited to show her house—a further proof of her sister's tact and powers of divination. Now Peter was left behind—he used the opportunity to cut flowers for Deb to take away with her—and the little matron was in her glory. From top to bottom, and every cupboard and corner, and the numerous up-to-date appliances, and the stocks of silver, linen, china, the ample furnishings of every part, the solid goodness of every bit of material—all was displayed with modest pride, the complacence of one who knows there is nothing to hide or apologise for.
"Isn't it a nice home, Debbie? Could any woman wish for a better home?" she asked again and again, unable to restrain herself.
And Deb, with a few secret reservations, said "Yes" and "No" with kindly warmth, thinking to herself: "Happy child, to be satisfied so easily! How much happier than we who want the moon!"
"I often wonder why I am so blessed," Rose said, in the midst of the house inspection, "when poor Molly, who deserved so much more, lives the life she does. Ah, Deb—what a marriage!"
She spoke of it exactly as Bennet Goldsworthy had spoken of hers—in a spirit compounded of benevolence and contempt, the former element preponderating in him, the latter in her. At the moment she was exhibiting the complete appointments of Peter's dressing-room.
"My husband may be a draper," said she, "but at least he does not shave in my room."
The survey of the house ended at the nurseries. Rose had purposely left the best till last. Her throwing open of the door revealed a picture so charming that it persuaded Deb to accept an invitation to dinner in order that she might do justice to it.
"Oh, what a delightful room!" she cried, as her eyes ran round its pictured walls, glowing in the evening firelight.
"Not large enough now," the smiling mother objected. "We are going to build new ones—a wing at the back—and turn these into bedrooms for the elder children, who will soon be old enough to have their own."
"Oh, what little loves!" Deb then exclaimed, her eyes upon the young inhabitants—five little fat, white, vigorous creatures in various stages of preparation for bed.
"There is one absent," explained Rose, in accents of keen regret. "John, the eldest; he is paying a visit to his grandparents. This is Constance, the second"—a golden-haired girl, enjoying her nightly treat of nursing the new baby. "And this is Kathleen"—a chubby creature in a flannel dressing-gown, waiting for her bath; "and Lucy"—being rubbed down by the nursery underling, Jane; "and Pennycuick"—Deb started at the name, and was uncertain whether it pleased her or not in this connection—the baby but one, in the tub under the hands of old head-nurse Keziah. "ARE they not sweet?"
They really were. Clean-blooded, clear-eyed, well-fed, well-kept, full of life and fun—the pride of the maternal heart was amply justified. Deb plunged into the group delightedly, kissed them, teased them, tickled them, did everything a proper aunt should do; and Rose was in ecstasies.
"Oh, Debbie," she pleaded, "DON'T go yet! Stay with them for a little. Stay and see baby undressed—I always do it myself—and have a bit of dinner with us; you will, won't you? Give me my nursing apron, Jane."
As she tied the sheet of flannel over her smart gown, she whispered to Jane:
"Go down and tell Mr Breen that Miss Pennycuick is going to stay to dinner."
Then she turned up her sleeves, settled herself upon a low chair, and, with bath-tub and belaced toilet basket, and warming night-clothes around her, performed the task that made this hour the happiest of her happy day. As closely as the romping children allowed, Deb watched her, and marvelled at her quick skill and lightness of hand. Who would have thought that little Rose could be so clever? The healthy baby, so deftly handled, raised no protest, but curled her toes as if she enjoyed it; and when all was done, the snowy-robed, perfumed creature was laid to its young mother's generous breast, and sucked itself to sleep in five minutes. Deb, wistfully observant, began to dimly apprehend that to wish Rose's marriage undone would be about as kind as to wish back to earth the dead whom we believe in heaven.
Meanwhile, Peter had been bustling about after such dinner arrangements as he could attend to. Mr Thornycroft himself had never taken more pains to please this guest. Deb enjoyed strawberries for the first time that season, and a glass of wine that even Claud could not have carped at. Coffee was brought to the drawing-room, from which Rose slipped away for a whispered colloquy with her husband in the hall; the result of which was that they came in together to ask Miss Pennycuick to do them the honour of standing godmother to the baby. Deb put the crown upon the gracious day by promptly consenting.
"But that," she thought, with some chagrin, as she rolled homewards—or rather, bedwards—with Peter's flowers in the carriage beside her—"that is the extent of my tether in this direction. A christening mug, and a bit of jewellery on her birthdays—I shall be allowed that; otherwise I can be of no more use to them than if I were a workhouse pauper. They are independent of me and of everybody."
The years passed, and the destinies of our friend began to take final shape. The bread cast upon the waters returned. The chickens came home to roost.
One winter's morning Captain Guthrie Carey brought his ship into Hobson's Bay. The agents of his company sent letters to him there. He took one from the sheaf, and read it carefully—read it four times. Then he tore it into little pieces and dropped it over the side. The pilot and the first officer wondered at the concentrated gravity of his mien, at the faraway look in his cold blue eyes. Yet is was a very short and simple letter. There were no names inside, and it merely said:
"I returned by last mail, and am at the above address. I shall be at home tomorrow afternoon at five. Of course I am seeing nobody, so we shall be quite undisturbed. Be punctual, if possible."
The "above address" was the big house that had belonged to the late Mr Ewing. "Tomorrow afternoon" was but an hour off.
At five precisely Captain Carey shed his ulster in the palatial vestibule, and at the heels of a soft-footed man-servant, marched through the warm hall and up the shallow, muffled stairs to the familiar drawing-room—a long room, the lower end of which was in shadow, and the upper illuminated like a shrine, with rosy lamps projecting from a forest of chimney ornament, and a great bright red fire twinkling upon tiles and brass. The big palms were in their big pots, spreading and bowing over settees and cosy corners; every bowl and vase overflowed with the choicest flowers, although it was wintry June. And the tea-table was ready; the old seductive chairs and tables were grouped upon the Persian hearthrug in the old way, with the sheltering screen half round them. Indications of the desire of the mistress of the house to give him special welcome were too marked and many to be ignored.
He was left here to meditate in solitude for a few minutes, and he did all the meditating that was possible in the time. His heart thumped rather faster than was necessary, but his strong face was a picture of composed determination. Indeed, it was not easy to recognise the young Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate. Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise than that on which he was now engaged.
Leaning his broad shoulders on the ledge of the mantelpiece, and roasting his stout calves at the glorious fire, he watched the distant doorway with narrowed but keenly-glinting eyes. When he saw the dim curtain lift to let in the light from the landing and a slim woman's figure, he straightened himself, and set his teeth hard. It had to be faced and fought, he felt, and the sooner it was over the better for them both.
She came fluttering up to him, with both hands held out. How white they were against the crape! And how wonderfully her complexion and her hair were set off by the black robe and the fine lawn bands at throat and wrists! He loathed the mockery of the widow's weeds, but thought he had never seen her look so lovely.
"Oh, Guthrie! Oh, what YEARS it seems! Were you wondering what had become of me? But I couldn't—somehow I didn't feel that I COULD—before—"
She cast herself into his arms in the most natural way in the world. He laid one of them round her waist lightly, and kissed her brow; then, when she lifted it for the purpose, her mouth—the sweetest woman's mouth that ever made a pair of soft eyes omnipotent. After some seconds of silence, she looked at him questioningly, all a-quiver with nervous excitement. Her delicate cheek was pink like a La France rose.
"It was so good of you to come," she murmured humbly. "It wasn't—it didn't bother you? You were not wanting to do something else, were you, dear?" There was revealed in tone and manner the fact that even selfish Frances had come to care for something more than for herself.
"No—oh, no," he replied, rather breathlessly. "I WAS going up the country this afternoon, but fortunately I got your letter in time."
"Oh, if you had! What should I have done? I couldn't stand it any longer, Guthrie. It is four whole months—since—though it seems like yesterday—"
"And how are you?" he broke in, taking a fresh grip of the sword, as it were.
He held her off from him, glancing at her shoulder, her skirt—anything but her eyes, which were HER sword, two-edged and deadly.
"Oh, don't look at me!" she exclaimed, shrinking. "I hate myself in this horrible gown—I feel so mean and hypocritical—though I do mourn for him, Guthrie. You must not think I feel happy because he is dead—no, indeed; I wish I could! But one must conform to a certain extent, mustn't one? And every respect that I can possibly show to his memory—especially after the way he has treated me! I suppose you heard—" "What?" Guthrie had heard, but asked the question to fill time.
"Five thousand a year," said she, "at my absolute and entire disposal, with no restriction or condition of any sort or kind."
She made the announcement in a level tone, and without a smile, but he detected the triumph and satisfaction underneath; and, feeling much the stronger for it, he observed gravely that the dead man was a good man. "And I always knew it, Francie, worse luck!"
"Oh, so did I! Far—far too good for the likes of me. But—well, we need not talk about that now. We couldn't help ourselves, could we? And the past is past; everything is different now. Oh, Guthrie, what it is to kiss you without feeling that I am doing wrong!"
She kissed him as she said it, pressing him to her. Of course he kissed her back, but his hands on her waist were rigid, as if he wore an evening shirt, and was afraid of her crushing the front of it. She might have noticed this if she had not caught a glimpse of herself at the moment in a mirror behind him.
"One thing," she said, "I did draw the line at. I positively refused to wear a cap. I knew—I knew you couldn't have borne THAT!" Holding her charming head, rippled all over with goldenchestnut curls and coils, just in front of his eyes, she pleaded for confirmation of this statement. "You couldn't have stood seeing me in a cap, could you, Guthrie?" "As far as I can judge," he replied, "nobody asks you to wear caps these days, whether you're a widow or not. Why, the very grandmothers go about in yellow fringes and things, pretending they are thirty or forty, when everybody knows they are twice that, at the least. When I was a youngster, there used to be old ladies—my mother was one; but the race has died out."
"I, at any rate, am not an old lady," Mrs Ewing remarked, with a joyous smile. "My yellow fringes and things are all my own, and so is my complexion, and so are my teeth."
Her smile widened to reveal their pearly excellence. She took his hand, and rubbed the back of it on her downy cheek, and laid the palm on her soft, thick locks. Even yet she did not see that anything was the matter, confident in her still young beauty, and in the fact that he now knew for certain that the bulk of her husband's property was hers. How often she had wondered whether he knew or not, feeling sure that he MUST have heard the news at some of the many ports he had put into since it had become a matter of public knowledge, and why he allowed days and weeks, even months, to pass without making a sign. There had always been the cables, anyway. She put it down to his delicacy, his sense of the awkwardness of the situation, his consideration for her.
"We will have tea first," she said, touching the bell-button. "Then we shall not be disturbed any more. We can talk till dinner-time. Oh, how I wish you could stay for dinner, and a long, long evening! But it is better not to do things of that sort yet, don't you think? Better not to run risks of making scandal now that there's no longer any need for it."
"Much better," said Captain Carey firmly.
"And, after all, there are lots of ways that we can meet without doing anything improper. I have thought of heaps. I can go to Sydney—I can go home, for that matter; I am a perfectly free agent. And we have now less than three-quarters of a year. Guthrie, I want you to let me have the twelve months good. It is a long wait, I know, but we should feel the benefit of it afterwards—"
"Hush-sh!"
She glanced down the room in alarm, and saw the door open to admit the servant she had summoned. He brought teapot and kettle, hot cakes and muffins, and arranged them with unnecessary carefulness on the little table by the fireside. Hostess and guest watched his slow manoeuvres with an impatient but fascinated gaze, and tried to think about something to talk about for his edification, and could not.
"Thank you, Willis; that will do, Willis. I'll ring if I want anything else. I don't know, Captain Carey, whether you are one of those people who despise tea and cake—"
They were alone once more. Captain Carey refused the proffered refreshment. Mrs Ewing, making no effort to persuade him, took a few mouthfuls hastily; then she set her cup down, and with a quick flirt of the hand, extinguished the two pink lamps. They were old-fashioned gas-lamps too.
"We don't want lights to talk by," she said, in a casual way. "The firelight is enough. I think firelight at this hour so much the pleasantest, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," he responded desperately, and indeed was glad of the shelter of a shadow on his face; but he said to himself, with clenched hands and a long indrawn breath, "Now comes the tug-of-war."
A very large and wide sofa, low, deep-seated, full of springs and down pillows, stood in the cosy firelight, a great, tall, curving screen behind it. Mrs Ewing—as she had done many times before—crossed over to this sofa, sank into its yielding depths, and looking up at her companion, patted the empty seat beside her. The man hesitated for an instant, and then—as he had done many times before—obeyed the significant gesture. But now the time for preparation, for hesitation, had expired; it was necessary to brace himself for the decisive deed. Even as she clasped her hands beneath his ear, he unclasped them, gently but firmly, and drew them down. With his back to the firelight, she could not see his face, but he could see hers, and the swift change in its expression. She was puzzled and surprised, but, as her hands were still held fast in his iron fists, resting on his knee, she was not conscious of the state of the case.
"My girl," he said, clearing his throat—she had allowed him so many liberties that this mode of address was quite in order—"you and I can speak plainly to each other. There's no need for us to beat about the bush, is there?"
"Of course not," she replied, all at sea as to what this portended, but jumping to the conclusion that he was going to be proud about the money. "It would be an odd thing if we took to being shy, at this time of day."
"It would, wouldn't it?" He cleared his throat again, and made a fresh start. "Look here, Francie—don't do that! Listen to me child—"
"I am not a child, sir. Allow me to inform you that I was twenty-nine last birthday." She was so pleased to think she was only twenty-nine, rich and free, with her life in her hands, and half a year-from thirty still, when she might have dragged on till she was old and grey, or in her grave! "And why am I not to do that? Since when have you lost your taste for kisses?" Then suddenly, with an anxious cry—"Guthrie! darling! what is the matter with you?"
"Nothing," he said hastily—"nothing, of course, except that we must be serious and sensible, and—and talk things over quietly, dear. As you say, you are not a child. No more am I. We know the ropes, Francie, don't we? We've outgrown the delusions of boys and girls. We've had our experiences as man and woman—eh? You know what I mean. No need to mince matters—to go in for conventional nonsense—you and I. We can talk straight to each other at a time like this?"
As he laboured painfully to explain, without explaining, her face faded like a sunny landscape when a wet fog crawls over it. For, Francie though it was, she loved him—she loved him all she knew.
"Guthrie," she moaned piteously, "have you left off caring for me?"
"No, Francie. Of course I haven't."
"Have you—while I have been away, and in so much trouble—been putting another woman in my place?"
"Certainly not."
"Is it that you don't like to live on his money, Guthrie?"
"I should NOT like to live on it—decidedly not. But the fact is, I haven't given the money a thought." "Then why—why are you like this?"
"I'll tell you, Francie—I'll tell you plainly. It seems infernally brutal—but I'm sure you know I wouldn't say a thing to hurt you if I could help it."
"Oh, go on!"
There were red roses in her cheeks now, and a sparkle that was not all firelight in her eyes.
"It is this, dear—don't try to take your hands away, I am going to keep them; I must have you listen to me till I've quite done—it is this, Francie: Love, as we very well know—I mean our sort of love—is one thing, and marriage another—"
"WHAT? Oh, is THAT it? Ah, ah! I see now."
"Take your own case," said he, with a relentless air. "Haven't you proved it up to the hilt?"
"Proved what?"
"That marriage is a failure."
"Of course, marriage is a failure when it is blundered into as I blundered into mine, when I was too young and ignorant to know a thing about it. That is not saying it would be a failure now."
"It would be a dead failure, Francie. I am absolutely convinced of it."
"Because you have grown tired of me! Because somebody else has got hold of you behind my back! Because—oh, because you men are all alike, thinking of nothing but the amusement of the hour, sucking a woman's life-blood as if she were an orange, and throwing her aside like the useless skin—without honour, without constancy, selfish, heartless, treacherous—"
"Hush, Francie! Don't talk rubbish. I may be like other men—I've no doubt I am—but I'm not all that. When I make an engagement, I keep it. When I take obligations and responsibilities upon me, I do my best to fulfil them. Most men do—decent men; but they never have justice done them in these cases."
"In these cases!" she echoed scornfully. "Everybody knows what their conduct is in these cases. The world is well used to it. Oh, I ought to have known—if I hadn't been the most incredible fool! It was not for want of warnings. But you seemed so different! The idea that you could play with a woman in this way—compromise her—change all her life, and spoil it utterly—and then back out! Oh! oh! Can you sit there and tell me that you have incurred no responsibility in your dealings with me, Guthrie—making me love you as I did—making me a bad woman—unfaithful to my good husband—the most honourable, the most trustful of men—"
"Did I do that? Honour bright now, Francie."
"Oh, this is too much!" she burst out furiously, springing from her seat, and being dragged back by his iron grasp of her hands. "Let me go, sir! I have had insults enough—and in my own house—with no husband to protect me—"
"Sit down," he commanded. "And for God's sake don't—don't go on like that! I can't stand it. I am not insulting you, dear—not wilfully insulting you—not more than I am forced to. I only want us both to understand the case as it is; surely you and I are not afraid to speak out—to face the truth? You are not crying, Francie?"
"No, no! Indeed, I'm not! Don't you flatter yourself! I am not hurt, and I'm not the sort of person to go begging a man to marry me, either. I don't think—I really DON'T think that I am QUITE so poorly off as all that comes to." Here she laughed, but only for an instant. "If you were to go down on your knees before me, Guthrie, I would not have you now, after the things you have said to me."
The statement calmed and strengthened him. He felt able to say the rest.
"Quite right, Francie. Dozens of men will come courting you as soon as you go out again, and any one of them will make you a better husband than I should have done; but not a better friend. I hope you will always remember that."
"Many thanks. Will you be so very kind as to release my hands, Captain Carey? They ache."
"One moment. I want to make sure of the last chance I shall get to explain—to tell you exactly what I mean—you, who are old enough, experienced enough, to understand. I don't want to defend myself, Francie—not at all. I am not the cad to say, 'The woman tempted me, and I did eat.' I don't blame you, dear—I don't blame anybody. A woman is a woman; and a lovely woman like you—well, the way things are managed in this world, I don't believe she can help herself. But look here, Francie, a man is a man too, and a good deal more so. If you were a girl, I wouldn't say this; but you knew—you knew what you were doing when you laid yourself out to be sweet and—and kind to a fellow, as you were to me. Did you take me for an old maid or a Social Purity Society? You know you didn't. A man does his best, but he's too heavily handicapped—I won't say by nature—perhaps by habit, which is second nature—the habit of generations, inherited in his blood—and his case is not on all-fours with your case. And especially when he is a sailor—so cut off—so deprived—Very well. And so it happened—as it happened. Never mind about the right and wrong. What's wrong today may be right tomorrow; and in any case, no arguing can undo what's done. We'll leave that."
She sat before him, panting, and the roses in her cheeks were white. Happily, the fire had grown a little dull by this time.
"For myself," he continued, speaking slowly, as if trying to think things out—"for myself, whether I ought to repent or not, I don't—I can't. Theoretically, I know it is always the man who is in the wrong, and I should have been foully in the wrong—I should be unfit to live—if you had been an unmarried girl, Francie—or if I had been the—the—"
"Oh!" she moaned bitterly, grasping his point of view, if not the plain justice of it. "But I have brought it on myself—I have only myself to thank. I made myself cheap, and must take the consequences."
"It is not that," he said kindly, but still feeling in his unsophisticated brain that it was. "I don't hold you cheap, my dear. I want to disabuse your mind of that idea, that I am throwing anything in your teeth. Good God, I should think not!—it would come ill from me. I have no conventional views about these things—none. But look here now: if you were my wife, I should never see you with another fellow without thinking—well, you know what I should think—and feeling myself like poor old Ewing—Oh, I AM a brute!" It was revealed to him all at once. "Do—DO forgive me!"
"Pray don't apologise!" she cried, in a high, shaking voice. "It is best, as you say, to speak plainly—not to mince matters—especially as there is no one to call you to account for what you say."
"And it would be worse for you, ever so much," he continued earnestly. "Having got into the way of—of this sort of thing—I'm afraid I might be tempted again—that I couldn't honestly promise—in short, the fact of the matter is that we are neither of us domesticated, so to speak—"
"There—that will do" she broke in, coldly furious, but with a volcano in her breast that threatened eruption and devastation shortly. "Will you let me go, Captain Carey? Or must I call my servants to my assistance? I have only servants now."
"Yes, yes"—and he released one hand—"I will, if you'll say you forgive me, Francie. I've made an awful mess of it, I know—"
They rose together, and the other hand was freed. It was the right hand, and she returned it to him immediately.
"Good-bye!" she said, between clenched teeth.
He held her tightly once more.
"May I come and see you again? May I write? I can say it better in writing."
"You have said all that needs to be said. There is no necessity to write. If you write to me, I shall return the letter unopened."
"But why? It is surely absurd for us to put on airs of dignity with one another. Francie, you don't mean us to part like this?"
She stepped quickly across the hearthrug and, with a passionate gesture, pressed the button of the bell—evidently to summon Willis to show him out. So he took up his hat, offended in his turn, and for the first time feeling fairly easy in his mind as to the way he was treating her. But the tragedy of the moment was turned to vulgar comedy by her alarm at the fact that she had struck the bell before relighting the pink lamps.
"Oh, where are the matches?" she whispered excitedly. "I can't find them."
"Here—here!" he cried, fumbling for his own pocket box.
And their flurried hands got mixed as she turned the taps while he applied the light to the burners.
The instant after they had restored the room to its normal condition, the butler appeared. Mrs Ewing turned to him with the amazing self-possession of a woman accustomed to extricate herself at a moment's notice from an awkward fix.
"Willis," she said sweetly—and even smiled as she spoke—"will you please have a cab fetched for Captain Carey? He is rather late for a dinner engagement." The butler acknowledged the order and withdrew. In the light of the pink lamps the late combatants looked strangely at one another.
"And you would have married MARY!" the woman commented upon the issue of the fight. It was both a taunt and an accusation.
The man lifted his brows questioningly, as at a loss to comprehend her meaning.
"Has that anything to do with it?' he asked. 'I don't see the connection."
The sentences were short, but signified many things.
Frances Ewing was a shady name thereafter, to those "in the know". Pennycuick blood and pride notwithstanding, she seemed to lose her own sustaining self-respect when she lost the respect of the man she loved—when he showed her with such barbarous and uncompromising candour the essential difference between a mistress and a wife. Of course, she "got over" that grievous affair, which, for a time, broke whatever heart she had to break. Her freedom and her money, her youth and her beauty, were still hers, and she made the most of them; and that most was a great deal. In her cosmopolitan sets she was a popular and distinguished figure. From one fashionably rowdy Continental resort to another she carried her rich jewels and trappings, and her personal magnetism, and sat down for the season to a campaign of social stratagem and sentimental intrigue—to the indulgence of her unbridled appetite for excitement and the admiration of men. And ever at the end, when it was time to move on to another BIJOU apartment in another place, there was a fresh scalp at her girdle, and nothing, as it were, to show for it, until at last her vanity was tempted with a title, and she married an Italian count, who, if all tales were true, paid the debt that his sex owed her with heavy interest. But those tales did not reach the ears of the sisters at home. To them—with the object of suitably impressing them—she wrote an occasional note, of which half the words were titles of nobility; and the humbler relatives accepted the fact of her unapproachable elevation above them. The Breens made easy jokes upon the subject; Mr Goldsworthy's jealousy of her was overcome by his pride in the connection. "We had a letter from my sister-in-law, the Countess, the other day," he would amiably remark, and proceed to repeat and amplify the fashionable intelligence contained therein, instead of taking away her character as he had been used to do. Deborah was the only sister with whom she can be said to have corresponded, and Deborah had a shrewd suspicion that all was not gold that glittered in Francie's lot. Deborah had the best means of knowing, being herself a world-traveller, and what is called a society woman, as well known in the resorts of such as Frances herself. But although they seemed to run so closely, and so much upon the same lines, there was as wide a gap of social difference and non-intimacy between them as between any two of their family. And Deb was not one to think evil of her own flesh and blood, if it was possible to think good.
She, too, might have filled her letters to Australia with titles of nobility—nobility of a firmer standing than the Countess and her friends could boast of—had she been inclined to do so. A baronial hall, dating from the Conquest—a ducal castle, not to speak of a Royal Presence Chamber—was nothing to Deborah Pennycuick after a while.
To see her on a crowded London staircase, laughing with a prince or a prime minister, was a common object of the season for a number of years; while varnishing days and first nights would have lacked charm for the society reporter who could not place her fine figure and her French gowns in his pictures of these scenes. Goodwood and Cowes were familiar with her striking face and her expert interest in horses and yachts; Highland shooting-lodges, English hunting-fields, claimed her for their own. Southern Europe, the Nile, Bayreuth—in short, wherever social life was bright, comfortable and select, there she turned up promiscuous, as the spirit moved her, to be welcomed open-armed as a matter of course. Men, young and old, continued to pay her homage, which was not just the sort of homage they paid to Frances; proposals of marriage were, or might have been if not nipped in the bud, almost as plentiful as invitations to country houses in the autumn. And she relished it all with singular enjoyment—until she began to feel the approach of that winter and evening of life which has so sharp a chill for those who have loved the sun.
Claud Dalzell was likewise a denizen of the great world that was hers and not Francie's, and, close corporation as it is, they were never far off each other's beat, seldom in ignorance of each other's whereabouts. At the same time, they also did not touch. It was known throughout the great world, which is so small, that there was a deadly feud between them; and tactful hostesses took pains not to bring them into juxtaposition. In public places, when meetings occurred by accident, only the most frigid bows were interchanged.
For, in quite early times, when the Australian heiress, as she was improperly styled, was taking London more or less by storm, she chanced to overhear a brief colloquy not intended for her ears.
"Who is that glorious woman that came in with the duchess? I don't see her just now, but she had a red frock on, with black lace over it—dark hair and diamond stars—not half as bright and fine as her eyes, by Jove!"
"It must be Miss Pennycuick—an Australian lady. She is with the duchess's party."
"Oh, is that Miss Pennycuick? Well, now I can believe what I've heard of her being so charming. She carries it in her face."
"She WAS charming—until she came into her money. That has quite spoilt her."
It was Claud Dalzell who said it, and Deb heard him say it. She moved off out of the press that had brought her within reach of his cold voice—not to be mistaken by her for any other voice—and she vowed through clenched teeth that never again would she come within that distance of him, if she could help it.
The years as they passed only strengthened this determination. Each proud inclination of the head, each ceremonious lift of the hat, added bitterness to their mutual resentment—to his feeling that she was spoiled by her money, and to her feeling that he wilfully misjudged her. The breach was widened by their unconcealed flirtations—a description mentally applied to the most ordinary man-and-woman acquaintanceships on either side, but not inappropriate in all cases. Claud ever loved the company of handsome women who appreciated him; Deb naturally inclined to nice men in preference to the nicest women; and each liked to show the other that he or she was still of high importance to somebody. Rumours of impending marriage were continually being wafted to his ears or hers, but nothing came of them. He was confirmed in luxurious bachelorhood; she was aware of many fortune-hunters, and could not bring herself to value any of her disinterested suitors at the price of her freedom. So the one-time lovers drifted more and more apart, until somehow they lost sight of each other altogether; and meanwhile the years made them old without their knowing it.
She was unreasonably upset on one occasion by the offer of a specific for grey hair from a fashionable London hair-dresser. It was absolutely permanent, harmless and undetectable, he said. "But I am not grey," she indignantly informed him. Whereupon she saw his keen professional eye wander about her brow as he murmured something about the faint beginnings that might as well be checked. At home she studied the matter carefully in a strong light, and called Rosalie, her maid, to aid her. The little Frenchwoman assured her that a microscope was needed to detect a white thread in that beautiful mass of dark nut-brown. With a microscope, no doubt, as many as half a dozen might be discerned dimly, just where it waved back from mademoiselle's face.
That same afternoon she and Rosalie left town for one of their country-house visits. It was a weepy autumn day, and she was not as fresh as usual—the hair-dresser, combined with some troublesome shopping, had tired her—and the disquieting suspicion laid hold of her that she was more easily fatigued than she used to be. While reading her novel in the train, she counted her years, and compared herself with the women she knew whose ages were recorded in the Peerage, and who could therefore be proved to be as old as herself. Some of them were wrinkled hags. Carelessness or ill-health, doubtless, she reflected; and neither charge could be laid at her door. Heigh-ho! That horrid man!
It was dark night when they reached the little station belonging to the mansion that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear. Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as she passed. It was all a matter of course to her these days.
She was too late for the big tea-party; the men had gone to the smoking-room, the women to their own firesides. After a brief but affectionate interview with her titled hostess, Deb was soon at hers, slippered and dressing-gowned, sipping the jaded woman's stimulant, warming the damp and dismalness out of her, assuring herself confidently that she was not an old woman, and had no intention of becoming one.
Certainly, when Rosalie had dressed her, she was entitled to an easy mind. The best of everything tonight, in vindication of her still unimpaired beauty and potency. Shimmering brocade of her favourite red, and lace like fairy work; and then that magnificent satin-white breast and massive throat, and the stately head crowned with the famous five stars, whose flashing made the eye wink, and which yet were dimmed by the light of her dark eyes. She surveyed herself with full content when the last touch had been given her, and her slow sweep a-down corridors and grand staircase was a triumphal march. She knew that her entrance into the crowd downstairs could no more fail of its customary effect than could the appearance of the sun next morning—or, one should rather say, the announcement of dinner to the tired and hungry shooting men.
She was met at the foot of the grand staircase by her host, and immediately surrounded. In the close press of friends she did not notice the strangers; time was too short and they were too many. A lord of her acquaintance, who still hoped to make her his lady, took her into dinner, and called upon all her powers of wit and repartee to meet his conversational tactics during the meal. It was an exhilarating encounter, and of sufficient interest to keep her "eyes in the boat". Moreover, the table was immense, and the chief of the strangers sitting on her side of it, a long way off.
After dinner there was little comedietta played on the boards of the toy theatre belonging to the house. Many of the ladies were in their places before the men, still craving repose after their hard day's work, could hoist themselves from their chairs in the dining-room. Deb, having helped to coach one of the amateur performers, was early in her seat in front. Some of her admirers did manage to squeeze in beside and behind her from time to time, but the particular stranger haughtily held aloof.
Then, when the play was over, there was an impromptu dance, for the theatre was an ANNEXE to the ball-room. It was the young folk who began it, but older ladies joined in, and all the men but the hardened sportsmen, who saw a chance to sneak to their snuggery and gun-talk before the time. The really old women, obviously past their dancing days, sat around, and looked on and gossiped to one another. And for a time Deb sat with them.
She was certainly tired—for her—and the fact struck her that she had not danced for a long time. She had shirked balls, having only too many entertainments to choose from. She thought it likely that she would be stiff and heavy on her feet from want of practice—a horrible idea to her, who had once danced like a feather in the wind. A good stone had been added to her weight since she had last waltzed with satisfaction to herself; that also was not a pleasing thought. So when her dinner lord essayed to entice her, she shook her head. A dozen other men, and the cream of them too—there was comfort in that—followed his example, and made her charming compliments when she said laughingly that she was "too old for these frivolities".
"Too old—gracious heavens!" they apostrophised space. It was heart-warming to hear them.
But they went off easily, and were soon dancing with the young girls—sylphs as airy and agile as she had once been. And by degrees she drew apart from the old ladies and their talk, which she hated to seem, even to herself, to belong to, and presently found herself in the extraordinary position of sitting alone. She leaned back in her chair, and with eyes half shut, looked at the whirling couples, and dreamed of the days—the dances—the youth—that were no more.
She saw, not this splendid saloon, but a shabby small room in an old bush house—the walls not panelled with paintings by R.A.s and starred with clusters of electric lights, but with wreaths of homely evergreens and smelly kerosene lamps. And amid the happy throng that jostled for room to dance there, a girl and a young man, newly betrothed, anticipating an immortal paradise in each other's arms.
And she looked up, and saw Claud Dalzell watching her.
He was horribly aged—illness, it seemed—and had grown quite white—that splendid lover with whom she had danced, as no girl here knew how to dance, in the golden prime of everything! Their eyes met, and there must have been in both pairs something that neither of them had seen before. He crossed to her side at once, and she did not freeze him when he got there.
"How do you do? I have been wondering if you were going to recognise me."
"How do you do? I didn't know you were here. I never saw you until this moment."
"I have been standing there for ten minutes."
"I did not notice. I was thinking—" "You were—deeply. I was trying to guess what you were thinking of."
"I wonder, did you?"
"I wonder. Was it, by any chance"—he dropped his voice—"Five Creeks?"
She was quite startled and discomposed by this extraordinary divination; having no time to decide how she would take it, she filled the embarrassed moment with a laugh.
"Goodness! I'd no idea that my face was such a tell-tale. I believe I was. That funny old room, with ridges in the floor, and the ceiling nearly on your head—how DID we manage to dance in it?"
"Well, we did manage somehow, didn't we?"
They gazed at the figures wheeling past them, blankly unresponsive to casual stares and smiles. They seemed to hear the rotten flood-gates, shut so long ago, creak on their rusty hinges.
"Heard anything of the Urquharts lately?"
"Yes. Alice was married the other day—to a widower with fourteen children. She has not been very happy at home, I fear, with Harold's wife. Harold has the place now, you know. Jim gave it up to him when he married."
"When who married?"
"Harold."
"What's Jim doing?"
"He is my manager at Redford."
Mr Dalzell smiled darkly. "He likes that, I suppose?"
"I don't know whether he likes it or not, I'm sure, but I do. I know that everything's right when he is there."
"Married?" "Lawks, no! The most confirmed old bachelor on the face of the earth."
They fell silent again, still gazing into the room. Deb lay back and fanned herself; Claud leaned forward and nursed his knee. He ought now to have asked news of her sisters, but he avoided mentioning any of them.
"Been back lately, Deb?"
"Not for years, I am ashamed to say."
"Anybody living at Redford?"
"Miss Keene and a few servants only. Too bad, isn't it? Oh, I must go soon and see the old place. But this European life—somehow, the longer you live it the less you feel you can live any other."
"I used to feel that. But now—one gets awfully tired of things—"
"Oh, I don't!"
"But then you keep so horribly young, don't you know."
He turned and looked at her. She flushed up like a girl.
"Thank you. That's a very pleasing compliment, although I know you cannot mean it."
"I'd like not to mean it. I'd like to have found you as old as I am myself."
"How cruel of you! Not that you are such a Methuselah as you would try to make out—"
"There are not five years between us," he broke in sharply.
"I know."
Back went memory in a flash to a succession of childish birthdays, their love-tokens and festive celebrations. His was in November, and his "party" was usually a picnic. Hers was in May, and was "kept" in the house, with big fires and a tea-table crowned with a three-tiered iced cake, and blind-man's-buff and turn-the-trencher in the evening. She recalled wild contests with an imperious little boy, who could never conquer her except by stooping to it; and the self-conscious silliness of their behaviour to each other when they grew from children into boy and girl.
"Not much fun in birthdays now, Deb." He seemed to comment on her thoughts.
"Oh, well!" she sighed vaguely.
And at that instant the music stopped. Someone gave the signal to retire from the ball-room, bedwards. They were parted by the crowd that gathered about them when the dancing ceased, and he did not find her again even to say good-night.