IIIDAVID AND FLORA
“Itcannot be, my dear,” the Canon repeated. So inexorable was his voice, in all its kindness, that his daughter Flora felt that it could not, indeed be.
But it was Lucilla who had launched the “it” in question, and it was to Lucilla that the parental negative had been already addressed no less than three times.
“If I am thus patient with this strange persistence of yours, Lucilla,” said the Canon, his voice deepening after a fashion which indicated not at all obscurely that he might not continue to be patient very much longer, “if I am thus patient, it is because I do you the justice to believe that it is sisterly affection for our poor Valeria and her little one, and not a mere restless desire for change, that has induced you to put forward this astonishing proposal. But consider the folly and selfishness of this scheme, my child. You propose to spend money—which we can ill afford, any of us—and sacrifice time and strength in a wild rush overseas, an insensate dash through an unknown country, in search of your sister’s new home. No doubt you say to yourself ‘I am the winged Messenger of the Gods. I fly to take help and comfort to our erring one.I will assist this new little life that is coming into the world.’ You picture to yourself a triumphal progress—a rapturous welcome—the acclamations of a New World. But you deceive yourself, Lucilla. You deceive yourself grossly.”
Flora felt herself colouring as she bent over her needlework. A display of violent emotion as that into which Canon Morchard was now working himself by force of his own eloquence, was always distasteful to her, and she felt a vicarious shame for Lucilla, convicted of such presumptuous flights of fancy.
Flora was astonished at the calm of her sister’s reply, when it came.
“But I don’t, Father. I hadn’t any idea of doing anything but travelling to Canada in the ordinary way, and being with Val when her new baby arrives. You know, it is dreadfully soon after her first one, and she really isn’t——”
“Have a care, Lucilla! Who are you to question the time and seasons appointed by the All-seeing Wisdom for the bestowal of the infinite blessing of children?”
If Lucilla represented an infinite blessing to Canon Morchard, the fact was not over evident at the moment. His brow was thunderous as he gazed at her.
“It is Valeria’s own choice that has sent her into a far country. She might have been at our very gates, had she but willed it so.”
“Well,” said Lucilla reasonably. “I don’t think if Val had been so near us as all that, she would have written and begged one of us to come to her. It’s just because she’s out there, such a long way off, andwith no one to help her, that she’s frightened. Why, she may not even be able to get a servant.”
“Poor child!” The Canon’s voice softened. “The way of transgressors is hard. But two wrongs never yet made a right, Lucilla. I recognize the generous impulse that moves you—if I spoke sharply just now, it was only from my intense wish to see you do justice to your ownreallynoble character, my child. Believe me, your duty lies here, in the state to which it has pleased God to call you.”
Lucilla’s brows contracted slightly, after her short-sighted fashion, but it was not at all with an effect of vexation, but rather of some slight perplexity.
At last she said:
“Could Flora go?”
Flora, startled, looked at her father. For a moment it occurred to her that perhaps he would be willing to spare her. Her heart leapt at the thought of seeing Val, and Val’s babies. A vista of new experiences, of hitherto undreamed-of independence, startled even whilst it pleasantly excited her.
Then her father said: “My dear, of what are you thinking? Your zealous desire to befriend one sister makes you strangely inconsiderate of the other. Flora is neither accustomed to responsibility, nor is she very robust in health. Certainly, were it a clear question of duty, one could put all that aside—but the call would have to be unmistakable, the leading beyond all question. I can see no such indications here.”
Flora, quietly bent over her needlework once more, was ashamed of the realization that she was disappointed.
Inwardly, she offered instant expiation for the rebellious moment, consciously addressing herself to the personal Divinity by whom, she had always been taught, every hair of her head was numbered.
The reflection came, in immediate consolation, that she was not without her spiritual glory, by this very act of resignation.
“They also serve who only stand and wait,” she thought.
The Canon had often quoted this to Flora, and indeed to any of his children who showed a desire for alien activities.
Flora might be said to have stood and waited for some time now. It occurred to her that if Lucilla went to Canada, responsibilities at home, other than passive ones, would become her own portion. The thought did not displease her. Flora, too, though far less consciously than Valeria, had sometimes glimpsed the sterility of her days.
“Lucilla, you know where to seek counsel, I believe,” said Canon Morchard gravely. “I make all due allowance for your natural, loving impulse towards our poor Valeria—all due allowance. If your heart bleeds for her, how much more does not mine? But there are times when we must do violence to our natural feelings and I believe that some such necessity is upon you now. Deny yourself, my daughter, and He will bless the sacrifice both to you and to our dear one far away.”
“But who will look after her when her baby is born?” said Lucilla reflectively.
“Lucilla, where is your trust?”
“Mostly in myself, I think,” said Lucilla gently. “I really shouldn’t feel it right not to go to Val, Father. I hope you will forgive me.” She spoke so gently, with so simple a note of sincere regret in her quiet voice, that the Canon, to Flora’s perceptions, appeared to overlook the slightly blasphemous implication in the first words of her sentence.
“No man is more averse than myself from tampering with another’s conscience,” he said, with gravity and displeasure. “You are no longer a child, Lucilla, but have a care lest self-will should blind you. I have long since warned you of the danger of self-complacency. I lay no commands upon you, but I do most earnestly beg, my child, that you will submit your own judgment to a higher Tribunal than any earthly one, before coming to any decision. Commune with your own heart, Lucilla, and be sure that self-seeking is not lurking under the guise of loving-kindness.”
The Canon went out of the room and Flora and Lucilla were left together.
It was evident that Lucilla saw no urgent necessity for complying with her father’s advice and communing with her own heart. She sat down at her writing-table, wrote for a few moments, and read over what she had written. Then she handed the half-sheet of notepaper to Flora.
It bore the announcement that a lady wishing shortly to travel to Canada, would give her services on the journey in return for part passage.
“But you mean to go, then?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I thought Father advised you to think it over?”
“I did think it over. Didn’t you hear me say just now that I should think it wrongnotto go to Val?”
“You are setting your own judgment up above Father’s,” Flora pointed out coldly.
“I suppose so,” Lucilla assented, seeming rather surprised, as though such an aspect of the case had not hitherto presented itself to her.
Flora softened.
“I can’t help being glad you’re going to be with poor Val when she wants you. And oh, Lucilla! You’ll see little Georgie!”
“I know. I wish you could, too.”
“So do I.” She suddenly caught her breath. “Not that I should do what you’re doing, for a moment. I don’t see how youcan, in direct opposition to Father’s advice.”
“I’m sorry you see it like that,” said Lucilla gently. “Now, Flora, as I may have to take my passage when I can get it, without much notice, I’d like to arrange one or two things with you. Would you like me to give Ethel a month’s notice? She’s a bad housemaid, but if you’d rather she stayed on till——”
“Lucilla, you talk as though it were all settled!”
“My dear, itisall settled. I told you that my mind was made up.”
“You know that Father will miss you most terribly? And, though he never speaks about it, he still grieves dreadfully over Adrian.”
“I know. That hasn’t really got anything to do with it, though, has it? If you keep on Ethel, you will have to make certain that she——”
“I can’t talk about Ethel now, Lucilla. I’ll do thebest I can, if you really do go. Don’t think I’m unkind, please. I do understand that it must be a great temptation, after poor Val’s letter saying how much she wants you. I daresay if she’d written like that to me,” said Flora with an effort, “that I might have felt it dreadfully difficult to refuse to go to her.”
Lucilla paused on her way to the door, and looked at her sister with friendly, reflective interest.
“But you would have refused?”
“Isn’t it always safest,” said Flora diffidently, and yet with the implacable certainty of rightness, too, “isn’t it always safest, when there’s a choice—or what looks like a choice—to do whatever one likes least?”
“Lucilla!” called the Canon’s voice.
She opened the door.
“No, I shouldn’t call that a very good rule, myself. You’ll let me know about Ethel as soon as you can, won’t you? Her month’s trial will be up next Wednesday.”
“Lucilla!”
“I’m coming, Father.”
She went.
Flora let her work drop into her lap and folded her hands, allowing her thoughts to wander.
Could it be right to feel that the wrong-doing of another might prove to be one’s own opportunity, come at last? She felt herself to have striven for so long with the endeavour to prove faithful in that which was least, all the time stifling resentment that no greater, more heroic task should be set her. She had always felt herself to be “little Flora” to her father, a child, to be petted and sheltered, and in the minute introspectionof a nightly examination of conscience, she had frequently to reproach herself bitterly for an ungrateful longing to emerge sometimes from the shielded into the shielding. If Lucilla went away, their father would be alone, deserted except for Flora. David was in India. He wrote very seldom, and then never of coming home. Even his letters to Flora herself, always his favourite sister, were neither confidential nor frequent. Val was married, in Canada, and was claiming Lucilla’s presence almost as a right. Adrian, in London, was the subject of daily intercession at St. Gwenllian but it was known to all his children that the Canon would not again receive Adrian at home until he should have severed all connection with the atheist, Hale.
How they had failed their father, all of them! Flora resolved passionately that she herself would never fail him. Prayer was the form of self-expression most natural to her, and she made ardent inward supplication that if Lucilla were permitted to follow her own way, good might come of it, and she herself prove worthy of her sacred filial charge. No such exaltation of spirit could be indulged in when Lucilla’s decision had been openly accepted, and her preparations begun.
She preserved all her usual even cheerfulness, and her conversation was rather more severely practical than before.
“Don’t let the key of the storeroom out of your own possession, Flossie, please. I’m sure both the maids are trustworthy, but it’s no use breaking rules.”
And:
“Remembernotto order anything eggy when Mr. Clover comes to a meal. He can’t eat eggs.”
“I mean to do my very best for everyone while you’re away. But of course it won’t be the same for Father.”
“I expect it will, if you’re careful,” said Lucilla kindly. “Don’t let her put flavourings into everything, though—he can’t bear them.”
She seemed not at all preoccupied with less material considerations.
Even at the last, she bade them good-bye without any of that aspect of remorse which Flora privately considered that she ought to have worn.
The Canon was very kind and forbearing, and said at the last moment:
“I hope and believe that you children understand what is meant by large-mindedness, and that I myself am the last man in the world to deny to each individual the right of an independent judgment. You are acting according to your lights, Lucilla, and I am willing—nay, eager—to believe in the sincerity of your motives. God bless you, my dearest one, and prosper your mission.”
Lucilla’s farewell was affectionate, but not at all emotional, Flora was always undemonstrative by instinct, and it was only the Canon whose eyes were moist, and whose voice shook.
Nevertheless, he turned to his remaining child after a moment and spoke very firmly.
“You may wonder, little Flora, that I have no reproach for Lucilla. She is leaving home against myadvice, against my wishes. I believe that she deceives herself. But Lucilla means well—she means well. As we go through life, we learn to be very tolerant, very patient, to understand better what is meant by forgiveness ‘unto seventy times seven’.”
He smiled at her.
“You and I must have some pleasant tête-à-tête evenings, Flora, now that we are left to bear one another company. I should like to rub up some of my old Italian lore. Shall we undertake some such task as Dante’sParadisofor our leisure time?”
Flora assented, gratified.
Their days fell into a routine that suited her well, and although in her daily and nightly prayers Flora mentioned the names of both Adrian and Lucilla as candidates for Divine Mercy, she was not really conscious of any very earnest personal wish for the return of either to St. Gwenllian.
“Onthe 18th November, suddenly, at Bombay, David, beloved elder son of Canon Morchard of St. Gwenllian Vicarage....”
Owen Quentillian was away from Stear when he read the announcement, with a strong sense of shock.
Why should David Morchard die?
He wrote to the Canon, and also, after a little hesitation, to Flora Morchard.
As he half expected, Flora’s reply told him more than the Canon’s numerous pages.
“My Dear Owen:“Thank you for your letter. We knew that you would be sorry, and would understand what this must be to my father, and all of us. He is so brave and good, and everyone is kindness itself. We do not know anything at all except the bare fact, which was cabled from the Regimental headquarters, and it will probably be another three weeks before letters can reach us. If you like, I will write again when they do. We shall want to see you very much when you get back to Stear. Father speaks of you so often, as though it would be a comfort to him to see you again.“Yours sincerely,“Flora Morchard.”
“My Dear Owen:
“Thank you for your letter. We knew that you would be sorry, and would understand what this must be to my father, and all of us. He is so brave and good, and everyone is kindness itself. We do not know anything at all except the bare fact, which was cabled from the Regimental headquarters, and it will probably be another three weeks before letters can reach us. If you like, I will write again when they do. We shall want to see you very much when you get back to Stear. Father speaks of you so often, as though it would be a comfort to him to see you again.
“Yours sincerely,“Flora Morchard.”
The Canon’s minute legible handwriting covered several pages, and he, like Flora, but at far greater length, emphasized the kindness shown to him.
“My people here have shown feeling such as I dare hardly dwell upon, lest I overset altogether such composure as I may have won. Some of them, of course, remember our dear, dear fellow well, young though he was when he left us. But even those who never knew him speak such words as well-nigh break one’s heart with gratitude and pity and tenderness. I tell myself that whatever is, must be best, and yet, Owen, the longing, that I can only trust may not be repining, to have had but one day—one hour—together, before this blow fell! It was so long since we had spoken together! And sometimes I reproached him for his long silences, for the absence of the details that one longed for, in his letters home. How could I, ah, howcould I, I now ask myself sadly, who will receive no more letters from him again. How one learns to be gentle, as the years go on, but the day comes when each unloving word, each selfish thought, comes back to break one’s heart! And yet, Owen, who could have thought thatIshould be left, who have seen nigh on three-score years, and that strong, gallant lad taken in the very strength of his manhood. Truly, God’s ways are not our ways.“It does not bear writing of. We must have many long talks together, when you are with us again. What a contrast to that first visit of yours, Owen, when our numbers were yet unbroken, save indeed that first, great gap that only Lucilla and the dear lad who is gone, could realize. At least, their mother has one with her!“When you first came to us after the war, it was to give us direct news of our beloved boy. I seem to remember some merry gatherings then, with Lucilla and Flora ‘making musik,’ and Valeria all fun and brightness—I can write of her freely, dear Owen, can I not—the old wound is healed now?—and Adrian still the veriest boy, the light and sunshine of the house.“You will find change and stillness and emptiness about the old place, now. All are scattered, only Flora left in the empty nest. I can find no words to tell you what she has been, Owen. Friend, companion, daughter, comforter! Of all my children, Flora and Lucilla are the two who have never failed me, never failed their own higher selves. And Lucilla, as you know, is away from us at present. Poor child! What a punishment for her self-will in leaving us.“Flora and poor Clover have spared me in every possible way these days, and whilst I have them, I can indeed never think myself wholly desolate. Letters will not reach us yet awhile from India, and one longs, and yet dreads, to receive them. There may be one from our poor lad himself—yet why do I call him ‘poor,’ when he is so far more blest than we who are left? We can only conjecture that cholera or fever struck him down, he said nothing of sickness in his last letter, and whatever it was must have come upon him with fearful suddenness. One can only hope and pray that the Infinite Mercy allowed him time to meet the dread King of Terrors as one knows that he would have wished to do, but all, all is in other hands than ours.“I have said nothing of your letter, dear Owen, my heart is too full. Let me answer it in person. Both Flora and I look for your return with eagerness and hope to persuade you to come to us at least for a day or two. You knew our loved one, and it is not so long since you and he met. How I envy you that meeting now! We have heard of it all in detail, I know, but you will have patience, and go over it all once more with us. The only thing that gives one courage to face the present (saving always that far-reaching Comfort which oneknowsto be there, but which poor humanity cannot alwaysfeel) is a mournful, tender lingering over the past. Nor must you fear that I always weep, dear Owen—there is often absolute rest and joy in dwelling on the past happiness that one knows to be only a shadow and faint forecasting of the Joy that is to come.“Bless you, dear fellow, and though I have said solittle of thanks for all the sympathy and understanding in your dear letter, do not think of me as anything but profoundly touched and grateful.“Sorrowfully and ever affectionately yours,“Fenwick Morchard.”
“My people here have shown feeling such as I dare hardly dwell upon, lest I overset altogether such composure as I may have won. Some of them, of course, remember our dear, dear fellow well, young though he was when he left us. But even those who never knew him speak such words as well-nigh break one’s heart with gratitude and pity and tenderness. I tell myself that whatever is, must be best, and yet, Owen, the longing, that I can only trust may not be repining, to have had but one day—one hour—together, before this blow fell! It was so long since we had spoken together! And sometimes I reproached him for his long silences, for the absence of the details that one longed for, in his letters home. How could I, ah, howcould I, I now ask myself sadly, who will receive no more letters from him again. How one learns to be gentle, as the years go on, but the day comes when each unloving word, each selfish thought, comes back to break one’s heart! And yet, Owen, who could have thought thatIshould be left, who have seen nigh on three-score years, and that strong, gallant lad taken in the very strength of his manhood. Truly, God’s ways are not our ways.
“It does not bear writing of. We must have many long talks together, when you are with us again. What a contrast to that first visit of yours, Owen, when our numbers were yet unbroken, save indeed that first, great gap that only Lucilla and the dear lad who is gone, could realize. At least, their mother has one with her!
“When you first came to us after the war, it was to give us direct news of our beloved boy. I seem to remember some merry gatherings then, with Lucilla and Flora ‘making musik,’ and Valeria all fun and brightness—I can write of her freely, dear Owen, can I not—the old wound is healed now?—and Adrian still the veriest boy, the light and sunshine of the house.
“You will find change and stillness and emptiness about the old place, now. All are scattered, only Flora left in the empty nest. I can find no words to tell you what she has been, Owen. Friend, companion, daughter, comforter! Of all my children, Flora and Lucilla are the two who have never failed me, never failed their own higher selves. And Lucilla, as you know, is away from us at present. Poor child! What a punishment for her self-will in leaving us.
“Flora and poor Clover have spared me in every possible way these days, and whilst I have them, I can indeed never think myself wholly desolate. Letters will not reach us yet awhile from India, and one longs, and yet dreads, to receive them. There may be one from our poor lad himself—yet why do I call him ‘poor,’ when he is so far more blest than we who are left? We can only conjecture that cholera or fever struck him down, he said nothing of sickness in his last letter, and whatever it was must have come upon him with fearful suddenness. One can only hope and pray that the Infinite Mercy allowed him time to meet the dread King of Terrors as one knows that he would have wished to do, but all, all is in other hands than ours.
“I have said nothing of your letter, dear Owen, my heart is too full. Let me answer it in person. Both Flora and I look for your return with eagerness and hope to persuade you to come to us at least for a day or two. You knew our loved one, and it is not so long since you and he met. How I envy you that meeting now! We have heard of it all in detail, I know, but you will have patience, and go over it all once more with us. The only thing that gives one courage to face the present (saving always that far-reaching Comfort which oneknowsto be there, but which poor humanity cannot alwaysfeel) is a mournful, tender lingering over the past. Nor must you fear that I always weep, dear Owen—there is often absolute rest and joy in dwelling on the past happiness that one knows to be only a shadow and faint forecasting of the Joy that is to come.
“Bless you, dear fellow, and though I have said solittle of thanks for all the sympathy and understanding in your dear letter, do not think of me as anything but profoundly touched and grateful.
“Sorrowfully and ever affectionately yours,“Fenwick Morchard.”
Quentillian folded the letter and put it away.
He mentally visualized the silent and grief-stricken house, and his heart contracted strangely.
Valeria had gone, and would come back no more. Her heart was given to her new life, to her new country. Lucilla was with her. Adrian—the Adrian of the Canon’s tender love and pride—had never been. David, who had not wanted to come home, who had left “long intervals” between his scanty letters—David was dead.
There was only Flora left at St. Gwenllian.
He thought that he could see her, remote and austere, either devoid of capability for human emotion, or regarding emotional display as rebellion against Heaven. He had never known which. Flora would move about the cold, silent house, and write the letters, and give the orders, and remember the sane, everyday things that must be done. She would be helped by the eager, anxious curate. Mr. Clover would remember things, too, but he would not, like Flora, accomplish them in silence. He would suggest, and remind, and humbly and timidly deprecate his own efforts.
Quentillian could see the Canon, too.
The Canon would spare himself nothing, but he would break down, with gusts of overwhelming sorrow and bitter remorse for his own want of resignation.He would write, and write, and write, in the lonely study, often blinded with tears, yet deriving his realest comfort from the outward expression of his grief.
Quentillian could accept that, now, could realize it as the interpretation of a sincerity at least as complete as his own.
Within the fortnight, he went to St. Gwenllian. It was all very much as he had pictured it to himself. Only Flora was a little, a very little, less remote than he had expected to find her.
He thought that she dreaded the arrival of the letters from India, and feared their effect upon her father.
When the mail did arrive, the letters were brief, and said that David Morchard had died in hospital of dysentery after three days’ illness. The colonel of the regiment wrote in praise of a career interrupted abruptly, and a parcel of effects was promised.
There was no more.
“Such letters have become so sadly common in the last few years,” said the Canon wistfully. “How can one hope that in each individual case the writer will realize the yearning with which one looks for one personal touch—one word to show that all was well.”
“Perhaps they will write from the hospital—the chaplain or the matron,—when they send the things,” Quentillian suggested.
He, too, was faintly disappointed and puzzled at the reticence of the letters.
Flora’s face, set in its sad composure, told him nothing of her feelings.
But the day following brought him enlightenment from Flora herself.
They were sent out for a walk together.
“Take her for a walk, dear Owen,” said the Canon solicitously. “Flora is pale, and cold. She has shut herself up too much of late. Go, my child, I shall do very well, and can find only too much to occupy me. Enjoy the fresh air.”
Flora made no protestations of inability to enjoy herself, nor any assumption of indispensability at home. It was the Canon, again, who suggested an errand to a distant cottage, and she acquiesced without comment.
It was a cold, grey day, with swiftly moving masses of cloud and a chill in the wind. Flora and Owen walked quickly, and at first neither spoke. Then Flora said:
“How much, exactly, were you a friend of David’s?”
His own surprise made Quentillian realize afresh how very seldom it was that Flora initiated any topic of a personal nature.
“We were not intimate,” he replied.
“It was more the time that you spent with us here, when you were a little boy, than anything else, that established a relationship between you?”
“I suppose it was.”
“I think you are very much interested in people, and Lucilla says that you are very observant,” said Flora, smiling a little. “Would you mind telling me, quite dispassionately, if David was popular with other men—the officers in his regiment, for instance?”
He did not understand at what her question aimed, but replied with unhesitating candour.
“I should say he was very popular. He was a good sportsman, and everyone liked him, although as far as I know he wasn’t a man of intimate friendships. That type isn’t.”
“No. You see, Owen, there have been no letters from people who were in India with him, although you say he was popular. Only just those few lines from the Colonel. And I was afraid before—and I’m afraid now—” She stopped.
“Of what?”
“That it wasn’t dysentery, or anything like that. That they’re keeping the truth from us out of pity, or to save some scandal. I—I can’t get it out of my mind, Owen.”
He heard her with something that was not altogether surprise. Subconsciously, he felt that his own uneasiness had been only dormant.
“Have you anything beyond intuition, to go upon?”
“No.”
“Why have you told me?”
He felt certain that she had not spoken merely in order to be reassured, nor in order to find relief. Speaking was no relief to Flora, so far as Owen could see.
“I want you to try and find out definitely.”
“Yes. And supposing I do, supposing that what you fear is true—” he hesitated.
“That David took his own life?” said Flora, shuddering. “Then, don’t you see, Owen, I shall haveto tell Father—or else to make it absolutely certain that no one will ever tell him.”
“You can’t,” said Owen gently.
“But I must,” she told him, with the same intensity. “He’s had a great deal to bear already, and this would be worse than anything. Suicide is a mortal sin. Bodily separation, one can resign oneself to—heisresigning himself, poor Father, to separation from nearly all those whom he loves,—but suicide would mean eternal separation. It would be worse than anything—the loss of David’s soul.”
“I see.”
Quentillian did indeed see.
“Val, and Adrian, and David—they’ve all gone away from him,” said Flora. “Only he knows there is another life, so much more real and enduring than this one, to which he looks. It means everything to him. If David did do—that—then the hope of meeting him again, in eternity, is gone.”
Quentillian felt the force of her low-spoken, anguished statement.
“You are taking it for granted that a suspicion—which after all, rests on very little indeed—is true.”
“You see, if I am to safeguard my father from this thing, I can’t very well afford to wait and do nothing, just because there’s quite a big chance that it isn’t true at all. The chance that itistrue, may be infinitesimal—the hundredth chance, if you like—but it’s that which I’ve got to think about, not the other. Optimism doesn’t carry one far enough, in preparing a line of defence.”
“I agree with you.”
“I don’t think that either you or I are optimists, Owen,” said Flora, faintly smiling.
“No.”
“That’s why I want you to help me. Can you make enquiries at any of the headquarter places in London where they might know something?”
“I can try.”
“Thank you very much,” said Flora, as though his unenthusiastic assent had closed the subject.
They went along the muddy road in silence.
It was from no sense that it was necessary to break it, that Quentillian spoke again at last.
“Will Lucilla come back to England at once?”
“I don’t think so. She promised to stay till the spring. You know Val has another little boy? I wish we could see them, but Father will never really be happy about Val, I’m afraid. He forgave her, long ago, but he doesn’t forget things, ever, I don’t think.”
“I don’t consider that the Canon had anything to forgive,” said Quentillian in tones of finality.
“Buthedoes.”
If Quentillian had expected a certain meed of recognition for the magnanimity of his point of view, he was not destined to be gratified. Flora spoke rather as one giving utterance to an obvious platitude.
“Is Val happy?”
“Very. She has exactly what she always really wanted. Sometimes they have a servant, but most of the time she does everything herself, and has occasional help. She is so happy with the two little boys, too, all her letters are about them, and about the house, and all they’re doing to improve it. She’s got the life thatshe was really meant for, and after all, isn’t that what makes happiness?”
“I suppose it is. She was meant for the primitive things, you think?”
“Lucilla always said so. There is the cottage, Owen. Will you wait outside, or come in?”
“I should like to come in with you.”
Life was inartistic, Quentillian reflected whimsically, while Flora delivered her father’s message to a middle-aged woman in an apron.
To accord with all literary conventions, there should have been a sick child in the cottage, and Flora’s tender soothing of its fretfulness should have proved a revelation of the unfulfilled maternal instinct within her.
But there was no sick child to provide acloufor Quentillian’s observations in psychology, and he was by no means assured of Flora’s powers of soothing. Rather would she urge the silence of resignation.
He was convinced that never in her life had Flora Morchard been the centre of a pretty picture. That her personality seldom dominated any scene was not, he felt, from any conscious effacement, but from an innate and instinctive withdrawal of her forces to some unseen objective, to her infinitely worth while. He reflected with dismay on his own undertaking to make enquiries concerning the death of David Morchard. But he did not think that Flora, whatever the result of the enquiries, would be dismayed. Dismay implied mental disarray, a quality of taken-abackness. Flora, as she would herself have told him, was strong in a strength not her own.
They walked back together almost in silence.
“Your little expedition did Flora good,” the Canon told Quentillian that evening. “I am grateful to you, dear fellow, very grateful. Let us see something of you still, from Stear. It means a great deal to us both. There must not be ‘good-bye’ between us, save for the beautiful old meaning of the word, ‘God by you.’ God by you always, dear Owen.”
Quentillian went to London, made no discoveries at all, and wrote to Flora.
She replied, thanking him, in the briefest of notes. A week later he received another letter from her.
“My Dear Owen:“The Indian mail came in yesterday, and brought me a letter from David, written a week before he died. He asked me to break it to my father that a Major Carey, in his regiment, was on his way home to take divorce proceedings against his wife, citing David as co-respondent. David asked me in the letter to do anything I could for Mrs. Carey, as she is by herself, with no relations in England. The case was to be undefended, and David had decided to leave the Army and come to England as soon as possible to marry Mrs. Carey. I gather that he was very unhappy, especially at having to leave the regiment. I still do not know whether he found a dreadful solution to the whole question, in taking his own life.“Mrs. Carey has written to Father, a strange note, which he showed me. She says nothing of the divorce proceedings, but only writes as a great friend of David’s, imploring to be allowed to see us. Naturally, Father is only too anxious to see her, and as she saysthat she is on her way to Scotland at once, we are coming to London on the 10th so as to meet her.“I have told Father nothing whatever of David’s letter to me. I cannot imagine that Mrs. Carey will want to make the facts known to him, but I shall be able to judge better when I have seen her, which I have decided to do, by myself, before the appointment with Father.“I can arrange this a great deal better with your help than without it, therefore will you come and see us on the evening we arrive—Thursday the 10th, at about six o’clock, Carrowby’s Hotel?“Please destroy this letter.“Yours sincerely,“Flora Morchard.”
“My Dear Owen:
“The Indian mail came in yesterday, and brought me a letter from David, written a week before he died. He asked me to break it to my father that a Major Carey, in his regiment, was on his way home to take divorce proceedings against his wife, citing David as co-respondent. David asked me in the letter to do anything I could for Mrs. Carey, as she is by herself, with no relations in England. The case was to be undefended, and David had decided to leave the Army and come to England as soon as possible to marry Mrs. Carey. I gather that he was very unhappy, especially at having to leave the regiment. I still do not know whether he found a dreadful solution to the whole question, in taking his own life.
“Mrs. Carey has written to Father, a strange note, which he showed me. She says nothing of the divorce proceedings, but only writes as a great friend of David’s, imploring to be allowed to see us. Naturally, Father is only too anxious to see her, and as she saysthat she is on her way to Scotland at once, we are coming to London on the 10th so as to meet her.
“I have told Father nothing whatever of David’s letter to me. I cannot imagine that Mrs. Carey will want to make the facts known to him, but I shall be able to judge better when I have seen her, which I have decided to do, by myself, before the appointment with Father.
“I can arrange this a great deal better with your help than without it, therefore will you come and see us on the evening we arrive—Thursday the 10th, at about six o’clock, Carrowby’s Hotel?
“Please destroy this letter.
“Yours sincerely,“Flora Morchard.”
Quentillian, as he read Flora’s unvarnished statements, felt a sensation as of being appalled.
He could not believe that Flora, fanatically single-minded as her determination to shield her father from the knowledge of the truth might be, had any conception of the difficulties that probably lay before her, and he asked himself also whether she had in any degree realized what the consequences must be to the Canon, far more than to herself, of a deception that should break down half way.
His absolute conviction of Flora’s inflexibility, and his own strong sense of the impertinence, in both the proper and the colloquial sense of the word, of offering unasked advice, were not enough to restrain him from the mental composition of several eloquent and elaborate expositions of opinion. But they sufficed to restrainhim from transferring the eloquence to a sheet of notepaper.
He went to Carrowby’s Hotel, to keep the appointment summarily made by Flora.
“You dear man!”
The Canon’s exclamation of pleasure rang through the dingy hotel sitting-room in which Quentillian found them. He always showed the same pleasure in seeing Owen, and Owen’s old sense of inadequacy had insensibly given place to a rather remorseful gratitude.
“Is this the doing of Flora? She told me that she should notify you of our coming, but it is good to meet with a friend’s face so early. Our stay is to be a very brief one. I have to return home for the Sunday. I cannot leave all in Clover’s hands. Besides, I trust there will be no need. You know the errand on which we are come?”
“I told him in my letter,” said Flora.
“This lady, this Mrs. Carey, had seen much of our dear fellow in India and her letter is full of feeling—full of feeling. She heard nothing of our tragedy until she landed in England. It seems that she had been in ill-health for some time, she writes of complete prostration, and is on her way to Scotland now. So you will understand our hasty journey hither. Has it not indeed been with us, ‘Ask and ye shall receive’? Flora, here, knows what my yearning has been for one word with those who knew him, who had been with him recently. And behold! it has been given unto me, ‘full measure, heaped up, pressed down and running over’.”
The Canon leant back. He looked very tired and old.
“Do you see her tomorrow morning, sir?”
“We go to her, Owen. She is good enough to receive us on Saturday morning, and I understand that she leaves that evening. Tomorrow I have a conference in the afternoon, but the morning is our own.”
He gazed wistfully at Owen.
“I had thought of a memorial window to the beloved David, and this is an opportunity which may not come again. I have the name of a place to which I half thought of going, if it be not too trying for little Flora.”
“Let me accompany you,” said Quentillian.
It was evidently what the Canon wished.
“Will you, dear lad? I own that I should be glad of your arm, aye, and your presence. Flora is overwrought and overtired.”
She did indeed look very ill, not at all to Quentillian’s surprise.
“She has been taking too much thought for me, dear child,” said the Canon, Quentillian could not help thinking with more truth than he realized. “I wish Flora to take some rest. Let the expedition tomorrow be yours and mine, Owen. Tell me, my daughter, what time am I free?”
“Tomorrow morning, till twelve o’clock. Your conference is at two.”
“Flora is my deputy secretary,” said the Canon smiling. “I trust it all to her, and her memory is unfailing. She is indeed my right hand.”
“Will you come at ten o’clock tomorrow, Owen, and start from here?” said Flora abruptly.
He assented, determined to obtain an opportunity of speaking to her alone. If he was to assist Flora in a scheme of concealment against which he inwardly revolted strongly, he must at least know of what that scheme consisted. His indignation waxed in proportion to his anxiety, until Flora said to him with deliberation:
“Ought we to keep you any longer, Owen? I’ll ring for the lift.” The suggestion took them both out of the room, and she closed the door after her.
“What is it you’re doing?” said Quentillian, his urgency too great for a choice of words.
She leant against the passage wall, white and rather breathless, but spoke low and very distinctly, as though to impress her facts upon him.
“Listen—I want you to be quite clear about it. The appointment with Mrs. Carey is for tomorrow—Friday morning. I’m going to her house. I’m certain from her letter, that she’s not a woman to be trusted. I don’t know why she wants to see us, but I think it’s to tell us things—things about David. I shall know when I’ve seen her.”
“But your father thinks the appointment is for Saturday?”
“I told him it was. I wrote the letter to arrange it.”
“And how are you to prevent his going there on Saturday?”
“She leaves for Scotland on Friday night.”
“You know that for certain?”
“Of course I do, Owen. One doesn’t leave thesethings to chance. But I shall telephone on Saturday and find out if she’s really left.”
“I still don’t understand altogether. How can you explain to the Canon that this lady isn’t there, when he goes by appointment to see her?”
“I shall have made a mistake. I’m keeping his engagements written down for him. And I shall have written down this engagement for Saturday, instead of for Friday. He will go exactly one day too late.”
“Flora, you can’t do it.”
She lifted tired eyes to his face, overwrought to the point of fanaticism.
“Don’t waste time. Only tell me if I can count on you. All I want you to do is to keep Father out, with you, tomorrow morning. I shall be at Mrs. Carey’s at half-past ten and I promise to be back here before one o’clock.”
“Suppose this lady is not what you think her, and you find that she will be—discreet—is your father to be disappointed of his hopes of seeing her?”
“I may be able to arrange something. Perhaps she’d put off going to Scotland, and see him on Saturday after all. It would be all right then, wouldn’t it? Or I might even be able to tell her the whole thing,” said Flora wistfully. “It isn’t very likely, though.”
He did not think that it was.
“You see, you didn’t see her original letter, and I did. It was the letter of a very hysterical person. She might say almost anything, I imagine and—well, there’s a good deal that mustn’t be said, isn’t there?”
It was incontrovertible, but Quentillian said roughly:
“I detest maneuvering, it’s utterly unworthy of you. All this juggling with dates and letters——”
“It’s no use doing things by halves,” said Flora stubbornly. “Yes or no, Owen, are you going to back me up if necessary?”
“If I say no, will it deter you from going through with this insane performance?”
“Of course it won’t.” She actually smiled. “What would be the sense of making up one’s mind if it’s to be unmade again just because one’s friends don’t agree with one?”
“Very well.” He shrugged his shoulders as one in desperation.
She evidently accepted it as the assent, however ungracious, that he meant it to be.
“Thank you very much,” said Flora with brief finality.
Florafollowed Mrs. Carey’s maid upstairs, feeling as though the beating of her heart were causing each breath she drew to crowd thickly upon the next one.
Mrs. Carey’s house—she supposed it was Mrs. Carey’s house—was a very tiny one indeed, and looked tinier by reason of the number of pictures, draperies, and flowers that covered every available corner of the steep staircase and the small landing.
The drawing-room was small, too, and so dark that the maid turned on the rose-shaded electric lights as she ushered Flora into the empty room.
“Mrs. Carey isn’t down yet. I’ll tell her you’re here, m’m.”
“Mrs. Carey is expecting me. Please say that it is Miss Morchard.”
The maid went away.
“Unpunctual,” reflected Flora. “She said half-past ten.”
She gazed round the room, which confirmed the impression of Mrs. Carey’s personality that Flora had already received from her pale mauve notepaper, her methods of expressing herself in writing, and that which she knew of her relations with David Morchard.
Nearly everything in the room was rose-colour, except the walls, which were grey, and laden with sketches, brackets, and a shelf on which stood innumerable framed and unframed photographs, nearly all of them of men.
A minute writing-table, set corner ways, overflowed with papers, and more photographs, including one that Flora recognized instantly, although it had never been sent to St. Gwenllian.
The chair in front of the table supported a number of illustrated papers.
“Untidy,” was Flora’s next verdict.
She had resolutely closed the avenues of her mind to emotion and speculation alike. The habits of observation, which she mentioned in private spiritual consultation with her father as her own tendency towards a lack of charity, she knew subconsciously to possess a steadying effect.
A quantity of cigarette ash in a small receptacle, presumably placed there on the previous evening, and ageneral atmosphere of unopened windows, did not serve to modify Flora’s already unenthusiastic judgments.
Neither did Mrs. Carey’s delay in making her appearance.
When she at last came in, it was difficult to see what could possibly have delayed her, since she had apparently only stepped out of bed into a wadded silk kimono, a lace boudoir cap, and fur-bordered bedroom slippers.
She looked younger than Flora had expected her to be, and her little pallid face was pretty enough, with violet semi-circles under big, light blue eyes and a general air of fragility. Although nearly as tall as Flora herself, she was slight enough to produce an effect of daintiness, the adjective that Flora immediately felt certain would appeal to her most.
A short, thick plait of fair hair fell over her shoulders, and a certain babyish plaintiveness of utterance made Flora think of Olga Duffle.
“I’m sure you’re David’s sister,” said Mrs. Carey, to which proof of intuition her visitor offered no reply, thinking the fact sufficiently self-evident.
“Oh, do sit down. You must forgive me coming in like this, but I’m not strong, and I arrived worn out after an awful voyage—and then to get this news! Do you smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
“Do you mind if I do? I smoke too much, but my nerves are in an awful state. A doctor friend of mine—the dearest thing—made me promise faithfully never to inhale, but I’m afraid I do. It was the ship’s doctor,on the way home, as a matter of fact. There were one or two nice men on board, but the women were dreadful. Miss Morchard, I should think other women generally confide in you, don’t they, and like you most awfully. Now, I’mnotenormously popular with other women. I don’t mean that I haven’t got women-friends, devoted ones, who’d do anything in the world for me—but most of my very best pals have been men. It’s funny, isn’t it? Your brother was one of mydearestfriends.”
The blue eyes looked warily at Flora.
“That’s why I felt I had to see you, and oh! you are so like him! It’s hardly like talking to a stranger at all!”
It certainly was not, Flora reflected.
“I feel I’m so dreadfully in the dark—I know nothing. Only the awful, awful fact. When I got the cable—it was cabled to me, by a dear friend at Government House—when I read it, I simply didn’t believe it. I said, ‘It can’t be true.’ But it was.”
Flora did not feel it incumbent upon her to reply.
“When your father got my letter, I daresay he was astonished, but I’m frightfully impulsive, Miss Morchard, and I felt Imustknow more or I should go mad. That’s why I begged you to let me see you. I’m a thoroughly unconventional woman, as you may perhaps have guessed, and I always act on impulse.”
Flora looked at the frightened, furtive little face, and wondered what purpose and what concealment lay behind the flood of words.
“I’m going to be perfectly frank with you, becauseI feel I can trust you. May I call you Flora? My name is Maisie—a silly little name, isn’t it, but my friends all say it suits me. I don’t know why. Tell me, did David write to you about me? He said he was going to, but it was such a—such a short time before——”
Mrs. Carey’s tongue moistened her lips as though they were dry.
“I don’t know whether you’ve ever lived abroad, but if you haven’t, you don’t know what the East is like for people who have to live there. There’s a frightful amount of slander and gossip going on, and people put a wicked construction on all sorts of innocent things. It’s awful. It used to make me simply miserable. You see, live and let live has always been my motto. I like to go my own way, and have my own friends, and not do any harm to anybody, but simply be happy in my own little way. After all, it’s what God meant for all of us, isn’t it? But in India one can’t do that. My dear, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like. I went out when I was awfully young—I was married at twenty—and I know for a fact that the most beastly things have been said about me. You see, I feel I can tell you this quite frankly, Flora, because of your being David’s favourite sister. I know you’ll understand, and that I can trust you.”
Again that anxious, furtive glance was shot at her from under Mrs. Carey’s long lashes.
“I’ve had heaps of men friends, of course—especially in the Regiment. I’m going to beperfectlyhonest with you, and own up that one or two of them got rather silly, and fancied themselves in love with me.That wasn’t my fault, was it? I just wanted to be friends, you know. A nice woman can do such a lot for young men. I couldn’t help it—possibly—if they went and fancied themselves in love with me. Now could I? But would you believe it, people—it was mostly women, I must say, and some of them actually called themselves my friends—went and invented the most disgusting lies about me. Out of jealousy, you know. I was a good ten years younger than any of them, as it happened, and you’d have thought the Colonel’s wife, or anyone like that, might have wanted to mother me a little bit. (I lost my own mother when I was only fourteen, and had a rotten time at home.) But instead of that, my dear,insteadof that, they simply spread these filthy stories about me and all my best friends. However, I don’t want to go into all that. It was soon after I first went out, and of course nobody who really knew me believed for an instant that there was anything in it. They heard something about it at Government House, you know, and the Governor was simply furious, I believe. My friend in the Secretariat told me about it. The Governor said that Mrs. Carey was the only real lady in the place, as well as being the prettiest woman in India. Of course, that may have been nonsense, because I happen to know that he did like me most awfully—personally, I mean—but I know I was most awfully touched at his taking up the cudgels for me like that. It showed what the people who reallymatteredthought of me, didn’t it, and after all, the Governor of a place does represent the King, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Flora.
It was the first appeal to which she had felt able to give any assent.
“You said that so like David!” cried Mrs. Carey clasping her hands together. “We were the greatest friends, and he used to come to me about everything. I used to tell him to marry....”
Another pause, and another look.
“I always want my young-men friends to marry. That just shows, doesn’t it, what nonsense it is for anyone to talk as though there were anything wrong about it? I don’t know whether your brother ever hinted anything to you, in his letters, about any horrid gossip. Between ourselves, he used to get angry, I know, at the things that were sometimes said, and of course he knew that I wasn’t—well, very happy. You’re not married, I know, so perhaps you won’t understand what it means to a woman, especially a very sensitive one, which I am, to have a husband who is jealous. I’m not blaming Fred, exactly, I suppose he can’t help it, and he was madly in love with me when we married. Of course, I was much too young and ignorant of life to marry, but I had an awfully unhappy home, and if it hadn’t been Fred, it would have been somebody else—men were always pestering me, somehow. Besides, people made mischief between us. How people can be wicked enough to come between husband and wife, I can’t think! I’ve been through hell once or twice in my life, I can tell you!”
Looking at the fear and the craftiness and the sensuality written on Maisie Carey’s small, ravaged face, Flora could believe it without difficulty.
“I don’t really know why I’m telling you all this,exactly. It’s not like me. I’m terribly reserved, really. But you’ve got such an awfully nice face, somehow, and you’re David’s sister. I can’t tell you how fond I was of David—we were just tremendous chums. It upset me awfully, that he should die in that sudden way.”
She began to cry in a convulsive, spasmodic way.
Flora still remained silent.
“I wish you’d tell me if he ever wrote anything to you about me,” sobbed Mrs. Carey.
In the midst of the tears which seemed to be really beyond her own control, Flora caught a glimpse as of a terrible anxiety. She suddenly knew that in the answer to that last, sobbed-out question lay, for Mrs. Carey, the crux of their interview.
“He did write,” said Flora. “But what he wrote is safe with me. It will never go any further.”
The figure in the gay silk kimono seemed to cower further back into the armchair, but there was no self-betraying exclamation.
“I suppose he told you about Fred and me?”
“And about himself too,” said Flora.
“Men are all alike! Why did he want to tell you?”
“So that I could tell my father and sister. David was afraid of Father.”
“Your father knows?” This time the note of alarm was undisguised.
“No. The letter was only found and posted after the ones that told us of David’s death. And I have told my father nothing.”
Mrs. Carey broke into vehement, hysterical speech.
“There’s nothing to tell! You people at home makesuch mountains out of molehills. I swear to you that there was nothing between us, that I never——”
Flora interrupted her.
“He told me everything,” she repeated. “He told me that the case would be undefended, and that he was coming home to marry you. So you see I know.”
“You! What can you, who’ve never married, never seen anything of life, know of things? You see evil where none exists—you’re like all these good and holy people ... intolerant....” Tears poured unchecked down her face, making streaks across the white powder. “You don’t evenbeginto know what I’ve gone through. My husband is a beast—abeast. You don’t know what that means.”
She flung herself backwards, almost prone, and wept hysterically.
“What are you going to do?” said Flora.
“Kill myself!”
The rhetorical answer came almost automatically.
Flora waited for a moment and then said very gently:
“As you say, I don’t know anything about these things, but perhaps you would tell me what you want. We might think of some way of making things better. And you can see for yourself that your secret—and David’s—is safe with me. I’ve deceived my father, sooner than let him guess. I don’t think he need ever know, now.”
“Why don’t you want him to know?” said Mrs. Carey with sudden curiosity that seemed to check her crying.
“It would make him very unhappy. He was proudof David and he thinks that David had a career before him. Perhaps you’ve read in books,” said Flora, speaking as though to a child, “about people thinking death is better than dishonour. Well, my father is like that.”
“He’s a parson, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Carey shrugged her shoulders.
“Where is your husband now?” Flora enquired. She felt that she could ask this woman questions without fear or rebuff, but she thought that it would be for her to disentangle the truth from the false in Mrs. Carey’s replies.
“Fred’s in Scotland. He’s staying with his mother. She’s a beastly old woman and I hate her. If she’d been a decent sort, you’d think she’d have used her influence to put things right between us, now wouldn’t you? But she’s never let Fred alone ever since we married. Always telling him tales about me, and saying I’m extravagant, and a flirt, and wanting to know why I’ve never had a baby. It’s not my fault if I’ve got rotten health, now is it? I’ve always been delicate. I’m sure I only wish I had got a child. It might have made Fred nicer to me, and I should have had something to care for.”
She began to cry again.
“I’m sure I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Perhaps you think I’m mad.”
“I’m dreadfully sorry for you,” said Flora truthfully.
“You’re a dear.” Mrs. Carey dropped the hostility out of her voice abruptly. “No one knows what I’vegone through. And now about David—it’s simply awful!”
“Did you really mean to marry David, after your divorce?”
“I’d better tell you the whole story, I suppose,” said Mrs. Carey. She dried her eyes and her voice insensibly hardened from self-pity into tones of satisfaction.
“I suppose I’ve always been attractive to men. I can’t help it, after all. And I daresay I’ve played the fool, in my time—in fact I don’t deny it. But David and I were simply tremendous friends, to begin with. He was frightfully sorry for me, too. Everybody knew that Fred was simply hateful to me, and made a scene if I so much as went out riding with another man. He quite liked your brother, though, at first, I will say that for him. We used to have him to dinner pretty often, and one of the subalterns to make a fourth, and play Bridge. Well, I never guessed that your brother did more than just like me as a great friend, as heaps of men did—how could I? I used to advise him to marry, often and often. Some nice girl at home, who’d come out and look after him. Those boys all drink more than is good for them, out there, if they’ve no wife to look after them. And David used to talk nonsense about having no use for girls, and having met his ideal too late, but of course I never took it seriously. Heaps of men say things like that to one, now don’t they? We used to go out riding together a good deal, and of course I danced with him. (That’s another of the ways in which Fred is so frightfully selfish. He can’t dance himself ever since he was wounded in the war, so he hates me to.) Then people began to say theusual horrid things. The women out there are all cats, and besides, a good many of them wanted David for themselves. I didn’t take any notice. I think it’s so much more dignified not to, don’t you? As I said to the Colonel’s wife, when she had the impertinence to speak to me about it, I neverhavetaken any notice of gossip, and I’m not going to begin now. I simply go my own way, and let people say what they choose. It doesn’t matter to me if they’ve got horrible minds. It’s themselves that are hurt by it, I always think, not me. But I think women are much braver and more unconventional than men, don’t you? David minded ever so much more than I did, when he found people were talking about us. Well, things were going from bad to worse between Fred and me, and one night he was so perfectly hateful to me that I got frightened. He was—not drunk, but not altogether sober. And I ran into the compound and down the road to David’s bungalow. He shared it with another man, but the other man was away shooting. You see, I was so frightened and upset that I didn’t know what I was doing, and I just felt I must go to someone who’d take care of me.”
Mrs. Carey swallowed, as though something in her throat were hurting her, and lit another cigarette with a hand that trembled.
“It was a frightfully imprudent thing to do, I suppose, but I’ve never pretended to be a particularly prudent woman. I daresay I should have been much happier if I’d been less impulsive, all my life, but after all, one can’t change one’s nature, can one? Besides, I was nearly out of my mind. Fred came to find menext morning. I was far too miserable and terrified to go back to him that night. We had scene after scene, after that, and he threatened me with divorce proceedings.”
She glanced at her motionless auditor.
“I may have been a careless fool, and I’ll go as far as to say that I’ve flirted with other men, but it was wicked of Fred to think of such a thing as divorce—to ruin my reputation, and spoil David’s career.”
“Why was the case to be undefended?” said Flora steadily.
“Why—why, don’t you see, when it all came to a crisis, I told David how utterly wretched my whole life was, and how I couldn’t bear it and should kill myself, and we had to talk things over, and see what could be done with Fred, who was like a madman. And then it all came out—I mean David said I was the only woman he could ever care for, and if I was free, wouldn’t I marry him, and let him try to make up to me for everything.”
“Why was the case to be undefended?”
“It would make less of a scandal if it was all done quietly. I—I didn’t feel I could face the other.”
In the truth of that last assertion, Flora could believe absolutely.
“I think I know the rest,” she said. “David was going to send in his papers, and come home to England as soon as possible after you and Major Carey, and you’d promised to marry him when the decree had been made absolute.”
“How do you know those legal terms?” said Mrs.Carey, pouting like a child that is trying to show displeasure.
Flora did not pursue the irrelevance. She was following a chain of thought in her own mind.
“Davidwasin love with this woman. Otherwise he wouldn’t have written and asked me to do anything I could for her. As for leaving the case undefended—well, they probably hadn’t got a defence to put up. He meant to marry her—probably wanted to marry her. Besides he’d have felt that he owed it to her. And though he was afraid of Father, and very unhappy about sending in his papers, and though he may have had glimpses of what she really is—David wasn’t the sort to let her down.He didn’t kill himself.”
The certainty came to Flora with a rush of relief so profound that she could almost have thanked little Mrs. Carey for unwittingly bringing her to it.
It was characteristic of her that, instead, she glanced at her watch and said:
“I can only stay another twenty minutes, and we shall probably not meet again. Are you going to Scotland tonight?”
“Indeed I am. Fred is there now, at his mother’s, telling her all sorts of horrible things about me, I suppose. They’ve both written to me.”
“What is your husband going to do?”
“I don’t know.” She began to cry again. “His mother, for once in her life, wants to patch things up between us. She’s one of your religious people, and she thinks divorce is awful.”
“I don’t know whether a divorce is still possible, now that David——”
Mrs. Carey broke into a sort of howl that, in its reminiscence of a beaten animal, made Flora feel sick.
“That’s just it—Fredisa beast! He thinks there were other people—other men—as well.”
“Oh,” said Flora, and shuddered violently.
“You’ve been rather a dear, so I don’t mind telling you that your brother is out of it now, whatever happened. Oh, I don’t know what’ll happen. I never cared for anybody like I did for David—never. I was ready to go through anything for him, and we could have started fresh somewhere, and no one would have thought anything of it. People aren’t so narrow-minded as they used to be. He’s the only man I’ve ever loved!”
Flora felt no inclination to point out to the unhappy woman the inconsistency of her various statements.
She even found it easy enough to believe that Maisie Carey for the moment thought herself to be speaking the truth when she said that David was the only man she had ever loved.
“I’m sorry for you,” she said gently. “And I’m grateful to you, because you’ve taken a great weight off my mind. My brother asked me to do anything I could for you. Is there anything?”
“I don’t know whatyoucould do, I’m sure. It isn’t even as though you were married. Not that you haven’t been sweet to me, listening like this. You do believe in me, don’t you? Even if you hear beastly stories about me, ever, you’ll know they aren’t true, won’t you?”
She put out a hand that still trembled, to Flora, butshe went on speaking rapidly, as though not daring to wait for an assent that might not come.
“You’re awfully like David, in some ways, you know. It’s been a comfort to see you. Don’t tell your father about my troubles. Just say I was a friend of David’s, you know. I’m glad he didn’t come with you. I hate parsons, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, and I’m so frightfully nervous and upset that I might have said anything. I wish you could have seen Fred—he always says I haven’t got any decent women-friends. Perhaps you could have made him give me another chance.”
“Don’t you think he will?”
“How do I know? He’s written me a horrid letter, and pages and pages of cant from my mother-in-law. I believe if I promised to live at their hateful place, right away in Scotland, and keep within my allowance, and never have any fun at all, Fred would chuck the army and manage the estate for his mother. Can you see me in thick boots and a billycock hat, trudging up and down those hills to go and carry tracts to some wretched old woman in a cottage?”
She laughed melodramatically.
“No,” said Flora, “I can’t see you doing that. But I shouldn’t think you’d have to. Couldn’t you come here, for part of the year?”
“I suppose I could. I don’t know. Fred got this house to please me, when we were first married. He’d have done anything for me, then. I little knew what a life he was going to lead me later on!”
Flora rose.
“I’ve got to go. I will burn the letter that David wrote me, about you. Only one person knows whatwas in it, besides myself, and he will never repeat it.”
“Was that your father?”
“No, oh, no. My fathermustn’tknow, ever.”
Flora paused for a moment, then judged that it would be useless to make any appeal to Mrs. Carey’s discretion. For her own sake, she might keep silence as to her relationship with David Morchard, and a fresh emotional disturbance would eventually displace the episode—to her, it could be no more—from her mind.
Mrs. Carey looked at her curiously.
“Of course, I remember you told me that your father didn’t know. Then are you engaged?”
“No,” said Flora, colouring slightly.
“All men are beasts—you’re quite right to have nothing to do with them. I’ve had such a rotten time, what with Fred’s jealousy, and other men never letting me alone, that I sometimes wish I’d stayed an old maid, like you,” said Mrs. Carey.
Flora recognized the impulse that sought to inflict a scratch, where Mrs. Carey’s self-revelation had left her vanity disturbed with the instinctive fear that she had not been taken at her own valuation.