XIX
"You're going this afternoon, Mark, after all?"
"If you've no objection, Sir Julian."
"My dear fellow, I'm always trying to persuade you that Saturday afternoon and Sunday were not meant for work."
Mark laughed, not sounding very much amused.
"Report progress after you've got there and let me know when you're likely to be back."
Mark nodded.
Sir Julian put his hand upon the younger man's shoulder with a gesture of intimacy unusual to him.
"Don't hurry back."
"Thanks very much," said Mark, with equal brevity and sincerity.
As Mark Easter went into the estate office, whither Sir Julian had driven him, he looked round with the smile that, after all, never altogether failed him.
"I might get some good golf down there."
"Yes," Sir Julian assented gravely, after an instant's pause. "You might get some good golf down there. I hope you will."
He did not go near the College that morning, but found himself wondering very much whether or not Mark had done so.
Instinct, rather than conscious volition, took him that afternoon down to the sea-wall, to find Miss Marchrose.
Mark had gone, and she herself would leave the College, probably before his return, and Sir Julian thought that it would not matter very much now if he offered her such solace as could be afforded by his understanding, complete as he felt it to be, of their wordless drama.
It was an afternoon of west-country weather, and the very spray was misty and soft as it curled upwards from a grey, still sea. This time there was no high wind to contend with, as on the day when they had walked the length of the sea-wall, and she had told him about her life in London and the story of Clarence Isbister.
He could discern her slim figure braced against the wall as he crossed the sand-dunes and came towards her.
When she turned her face to him, he saw with a shock, that was not altogether surprise, that it was pale and blurred with crying and that her eyes looked as though she had been weeping all night.
The faint elusive beauty, such as it was, had left her face altogether; but her voice, veiled with exhaustion, retained all the quality that gave it charm.
She said, with rather tremulous directness:
"I thought that perhaps you'd come. I was hoping you would."
"Then I'm glad I came," said Sir Julian. "Are you warm enough, sitting here?"
"Yes, I think so. I don't want to walk, I'm tired."
It was obvious that she was very much tired indeed.
"I am very sorry," said Julian simply, and his tone implied a deeper regret than the compassion that he felt for her evident fatigue.
"You are going to let me talk about it now, aren't you?" she asked, with a sort of childish urgency in her voice.
"Anything you like, or that is of any use to you," he replied levelly.
The necessity of self-expression is singularly strong in human nature. Sir Julian surmised that the only outlet in the case of Miss Marchrose's vehement and highly-strung personality lay in the exercise of a certain gift for elementary sincerity that made of her words something more than self-analytical outpouring.
"He has gone away," she said tonelessly. "But even before he went away I knew how it all was. I have been the most utter fool. You could hardly believe what a fool I've been. You know I told you the other day that I'd hardly ever been happier than I've been here?"
"I remember."
"Well, even then, I half knew that it was because of him. And very soon afterwards I knew it quite. And it seemed to me that I couldn't stop myself.... The thing I cared about was doing work for him, and being with him, and just at first it didn't occur to me that it would ever be anyone's business but mine. I mean, I never thought that anyone would notice, or that it would matter if they did."
Sir Julian thought of his own crusade against the thing that he termed officiousness.
"But of course," said Miss Marchrose, "I've had experience of business life, and I knew that in any office, the—the sort of things that make talk can never be tolerated for a minute. It's always stopped at once. Generally they send the woman away. And I thought that very likely that would happen to me, sooner or later."
"And you didn't mind? I understand," said Julian.
"No, I didn't mind," she repeated forlornly enough. "I seem to have got to a place where I can't feel ashamed of anything—otherwise I suppose that I shouldn't be telling you this."
"I think," said Julian slowly, "that you can put that idea of shame quite out of your mind. It has always struck me as a very much misapplied emotion. There is nothing to be ashamed of in anything that is true. The only thing that is shameful is pretence. You are talking to me now on a plane where pretence can have no possible existence, and therefore, if it is of any help to you, go on speaking what is in your mind. I can do nothing for you, but I am here, and I will listen to you. And I shall never repeat to any living soul those of your thoughts which you choose to speak aloud in my hearing."
He leant over the wall, gazing with absent eyes at the grey expanse of sea that his soul loved, and remained immovable.
"You're quite right," she said, "I want to speak about it. I do want to speak about it. Rather like that day when I wanted to talk about Clarence Isbister, and you let me.
"You do understand, don't you? I knew that Mr. Easter was married. He told me so himself, quite soon. And I heard about his wife, a little, you know—from other people at the College as well. At the very beginning I was only just sorry, and then I minded very much, and then, after a little while, I thought it wasn't going to matter. To him, you know."
"Tell me what you mean," said Julian gently.
"I suppose I mean that, anyway, it wouldn't have mattered much to me. I know that there are these standards of right and wrong. I was taught things—but I know quite well really that they wouldn't have weighed in the balance against happiness. I suppose that's what is meant by an unprincipled person. Somehow I thought that he was going to feel like that too. I daresay," said Miss Marchrose, simply enough, "that it is because I have never been loved by anyone (except poor Clarence, whom you can hardly count) that I thought that. Such little things seemed to me to mean a great deal. I read indications into things—you know—and all the time they must have meant nothing at all."
"I don't think that altogether," Julian said, entirely against his saner judgment.
"Whatdoyou think?" she asked with a kind of listless curiosity.
"I can only give you conjecture. I know nothing at all, and you see, men don't talk to one another, much. In this case especially, of course, I have nothing whatever to guide me but my own conjectures."
"Tell me," she said.
"I think he was very much attracted by you," said Sir Julian, with perfect directness, and noted against his will the instant flush of brilliant colour that the words brought to her face.
"But Mark has ideals too, you know, as well as principles. If he ever contemplated eventualities, he knew that he had no right to ask you—to——"
"To ask of me what I was prepared to give;" she finished the sentence calmly.
"Do you know what that would have involved, altogether?"
"Perhaps I do and perhaps I don't," she said indifferently. "The point is, that I was prepared to take my risks."
"In any direction?"
"In any direction," she assented, without vehemence.
"I see."
Hers might indeed be the daring of ignorance, but Sir Julian felt very little doubt that she had spoken in perfect accordance with fact, as regarded her own capabilities. One by one there filtered through his mind, and were rejected, the arguments that he knew himself entitled to use. What of morality, of Mark Easter's work, of his two children, of a future grey with unspoken possibilities for themselves and for others?
Her reckless impulse had not been put to the test; would never be put to the test.
Sir Julian let the rest alone.
"I don't know, quite, when I first realised that I—I had been making the people at the College talk," she said, and again she coloured. "It was only a few days ago that it began, and then I had that horrible feeling that everything was soundlessly working up to a crisis, and that sooner or later something must snap. You know?"
"Yes, I know."
"It was after Iris Easter's wedding, I think. And at first I was glad that it had come. Oh, you don't know, you can't imagine, whatfoolsgirls can be. How they can imagine and fancy and plan things, till it all seems true, and they try to go on into real life with the romance that they've been living in their dreams and fancies. And it doesn't come true. Mine didn't come true. Even if I was wrong and absolutely wicked even to let myself imagine what I did imagine, it was just as real to me as if things had been all right. It meant just as much to me as it does to a girl like Iris Easter, who knows that the man she cares for can ask her to marry him."
"Perhaps it meant more," said Sir Julian.
She gave him a glance of gratitude out of her shadow-encircled eyes.
"But when the people at the College suddenly began to watch—and talk—and look at me—then I thought that it was going to—to—well," said Miss Marchrose desperately, "to give me my chance."
"Tell me what happened."
"Nothing happened. Only, you see, at the end of twenty-four hours I saw that he was—well, just frightened. He didn't want there to be a crisis. He never had wanted it."
Sir Julian, who was Mark's friend, involuntarily paid tribute to the truth of her description. Mark had been afraid.
No wonder that Miss Marchrose had capitulated, after all. The citadel for which she had been prepared to stand siege had been only the flimsiest of castles in the air. The cause for which she had held that no casualties could be too heavy had no existence outside her own imagination.
She spoke again.
"So, though I know I've been crying, in a little while I shall be glad that he's gone. Nothing can ever be worse than the last few days. They're over now."
"They're over now," repeated Sir Julian. "Do you want to stay on at the College next week, or had you better not go back on Monday at all?"
"I don't know," she said, in a bewildered way. "Mr. Fuller has been extraordinarily kind to me. And, anyhow, I shall be gone before Mr. Easter comes back. I told him that yesterday."
"You saw him, then?"
"He came to my office to say good-bye to me."
She waited a little and then said, with something that was half a laugh in her voice, although the tears had welled into her eyes again:
"He said, 'Good-bye, Annie Laurie.'"
"Poor Mark!" said Julian in a low tone.
Presently he made her walk, afraid of the sunless spring afternoon for her.
"Where are you going to, when you leave?" he asked her.
"London, I suppose. I can get another post there and this won't affect my references," she answered, unconsciously using Alderman Bellew's phrase.
"Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you," said Sir Julian rather hopelessly, neither thinking that there was likely to be anything that he could do, nor that there was much probability of her applying to him.
She made reply with candour.
"I think you've done everything that you can do, Sir Julian. I'm—I'm not trying to thank you. Will you leave me here, when you go back?"
"I can take you to the farm, or wherever you want to go."
"I would rather stay here a little while longer, by myself. Then I shall be all right," she said, like a child.
He left her.
"Perhaps," said Sir Julian to himself, as he climbed the sand slopes with long strides, "perhaps I ought to have said 'Good-bye,' or 'Remember' or 'God bless you,' or something like that to her. But whatever the rights or the wrongs of her point of view, her sincerity is worthy of respect. And I will mock her unhappiness with no catchwords, poor child."
As he went towards Culmhayes in the gathering dusk, he met a frantically-bicycling figure violently urging forward a machine that was devoid of lights.
"Fuller!"
"Sir Julian?"
Fairfax Fuller came to attention, as it were, with a promptitude that nearly sent him over his handle-bars head foremost.
"You had better not go through Culmouth at that rate and without a light, surely?" said Sir Julian mildly. "Can I give you a match?"
"Are my lamps out?" enquired Mr. Fuller negligently.
Sir Julian felt convinced that they had never been lit, but he handed the Supervisor a box of matches without observation.
"Thank you, Sir Julian. The fact is," said Fuller, with an air of candour, "that I'm upset and I hardly know what I'm doing."
"What's wrong?"
"This resignation," elliptically said the Supervisor.
"My dear chap, I'm very sorry about it, but we've got to make the best of it. I've told Miss Marchrose that we accept her resignation from a week yesterday."
Mr. Fuller groaned.
"May I ask, Sir Julian, whether you have any idea where the girl is now?"
"Isn't it Saturday afternoon?" was Sir Julian's rather pointed reply.
Mr. Fuller brushed aside this suggestion of the liberty of the individual.
"I'm uneasy about her. I tell you quite frankly, Sir Julian, that I didn't like her looks this morning. One never knows."
"She strikes me as level-headed enough, you know, Fuller."
Mr. Fuller bent down and examined his rear light, but Sir Julian knew very well by the mere set of his shoulders that he remained, and would continue to remain, entirely of his own opinion.
"I think that's all right now. Just as well not to run any risks, perhaps," easily observed Mr. Fuller, once more preparing himself to bestride his machine.
"Good evening, Sir Julian."
"Good evening."
He watched the red glimmer of Fuller's rear light shoot away into the dusk, and then descry a sudden curve.
"By Jove!" said Sir Julian.
Mr. Fairfax Fuller, guided by some unexplained instinct, had swept away from the road and taken the path that led down to the sea-wall. The incident, for reasons which he did not seek to analyse, rather amused Sir Julian as he went on his way.
His thoughts remained occupied round the subject until he entered his own house, to find it in possession of the two most unwelcome guests possible, in the persons of Miss and Master Easter.
"Daddy went away at lunch-time and we're all alone," proclaimed Ruthie with pathos. "And Sarah said, she said—Sarah said, to come and see if Lady Rossiter wouldn't like to invite us to tea."
Sir Julian had his own opinion to the amount of liking bestowed by his wife upon the suggested festivity, but evidently she had fallen a prey to Sarah's unblushing design for dispensing for a while with the society of her charges.
"We'll all sit round the table and have nursery tea," said Lady Rossiter, brightly endeavouring to make the best of a situation that, from the Rossiters' point of view, left much to be desired.
"Have you any of you heard from Auntie Iris?" enquired Julian.
"She wrote to Daddy, and she sent her love to us. She didn't say anything about that baby," remarked Ruthie in a tone of regret.
Sir Julian felt that Edna could have dealt with Miss Easter's tendency to call a spade a spade a good deal more fully had he not been present. He could almost hear the few strong, tender phrases in which she would have bade the child refrain from the public consideration of such matters of eugenics as now appeared to be engaging her attention.
Proceedings varied but little when Mark Easter's children were entertained at Culmhayes. Sir Julian began by indifference, proceeded to annoyance, and ended in a mood but little removed from infanticide. Edna remained forbearing throughout, but became less maternal and more repressive as the necessity for repressment increased.
Ruthie monopolised the conversation with as much determination as ever; Ambrose whined quite as much as usual, and surpassed himself in the degree of stickiness to which he attained; and theséanceended with the usual violent quarrel between the two and their eventual expulsion from the room and from the house—Ruthie rampant and Ambrose in tears—and the inevitable valedictory wish expressed by the host that they should never be permitted to return.
Edna said, "Poor motherless children," in a tone that sounded rather more evidently exasperated and less compassionate than she had intended it to sound, and Sir Julian retired to the smoking-room.
He remembered presently that Edna probably knew nothing of the complete victory signalised by Miss Marchrose's resignation from the College staff; but he realised that the episode, in all essentials, was already past.
That which he termed "atmosphere" was dissipated, and he knew that it was almost as an afterthought that Edna, that evening, asked him whether Miss Marchrose was going.
"Yes, she is."
"At once?"
"I don't know. I've left her to settle that with Fuller."
"She must go before Mark comes back. It's far better so."
"I think probably she will."
"Julian, I've been thinking about her. And it seems to me," said Edna, "that we must help her. God knows, I can judge no one, least of all to condemn, but I think that her weakness and recklessness are going to make life terribly, terribly hard for her. And I, for one, can't see her drift away like that without one effort to help."
The depth of Sir Julian's disapproval for the suggested scheme of philanthropy left him bereft of speech. Finally he observed:
"In my opinion, Edna, you have done rather too much already. Leave her alone."
"What do you mean? Julian, you carry your mania against officiousness too far. Indeed you do. What are we here for, unless it is to help one another?"
Sir Julian shrugged his shoulders.
"I knew the character of this woman before she ever came here—I couldn't help knowing it—I saw her trying to wreck Mark, as she nearly wrecked poor Clarence. I believe that I have saved Mark—and I thank God for it, very humbly, and very proudly. As for her, I hold no brief against her. I condemn no one, and I seek only to help her.... If she cares to turn to me now, all the love that Icangive that poor, struggling, feeble soul is waiting for her."
"I don't think she will ask you for it, Edna."
Sir Julian thought of many things. For a moment he wondered whether he should say them aloud. Then the habit of apathy that had possessed him for a number of years asserted itself anew, and he did as he had almost always done—he left things alone.
The episode was past.
He told himself so again, with a faint sense of surprise that already it should rank as an episode merely.
There had been no calamity, and, as Edna had said, nothing had been put into words.
He revised the collection of infinitesimal ripples that had momentarily disturbed the atmosphere common to the little groups of people with whom he was concerned.
Almost each one had contributed vibrations in a greater or lesser degree.
Miss Farmer, Miss Sandiloe, young Cooper—each and all of them had tittered a little, wondered a little, talked foolishly.
Auntie Iris—for the life of him, Julian could not feel as angry with pretty, ridiculous Iris as he thought that her folly deserved—Iris, too, had played out her little comedies, her childish attempts at directing the hand of fate.
Old Alderman Bellew—Julian gave only an instant's half-amused recollection to the dogmatic condemnations and assertions of old Alderman Bellew. He had merely found it easy to follow the lead given him, after all.
On the thought of Edna's many activities Sir Julian dwelt not at all. Somewhere at the back of his mind lingered the echo of her specious gospel, her creed of "giving out."
For himself, he preferred to think that the trend of events had been in no way deflected by all that Edna had done and said.
The whole had been fated to remain an episode, devoid of climax.