CHAPTER SIXTEENReward of Virtue
WHILE Mr. Trimblerigg still went in clouds of glory, high and uplifted on popular applause, Davidina, back from one of her adventurous expeditions and already preparing for the next, came to see him. She viewed him up and down admiringly.
‘You don’t look much the worse for it,’ she said.
‘I don’t know that I am,’ he replied genially, even while his dodging mind was at guess as to what exactly she meant by worse. ‘But it’s taken me off my work a good deal; and I was wanting holiday.’
‘Take it,’ said Davidina, ‘I’ll pay.’
‘Oh, it isn’t a question of paying,’ he returned. ‘Besides, if it were, I’m the better off of the two of us, now.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘You see, I made lucky investments.’
Davidina almost loved him; that hit at himself was so good-humoured and playful and apposite.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but it was a narrow squeeze.’
‘It was,’ he replied, ‘but I like being squeezed. It suits me. Then I always do my best.’
‘Jonathan,’ said his sister, ‘I’m beginning to admire you. If I didn’t know you so well, you’d take me in too—almost.’
‘My dear Davidina, that is the last thing I have ever wished to do,’ he said. ‘Hopeless adventures do not appeal to me.’
She laughed, and let the argument drop to say: ‘By the way, what are you now? What do you call yourself?’
‘I still call myself Jonathan Trimblerigg,’ was his reply. ‘I don’t propose taking a title, even if it were offered me.’
‘It’s fifteen years since Uncle Phineas died,’ said Davidina, ‘and I’ve a reason for asking.’
So? Here was Davidina proposing to broach the subject on which till now no word had ever been uttered between them. It did not exactly surprise him; he had always believed that Davidina had a conscience; but often he had wondered if, convinced in her own mind upon the point at issue, she would trouble to tell him of it—unless spitefully to enjoy his disappointment.
But there was no longer any question of disappointment now. In the fold of True Belief, Mr. Trimblerigg knew that he could not have done anything like what he had now accomplished, or have attained to such a standing or such prospects. Nevertheless—had the bait been larger—for there the door stood open waiting for him—who knows? The great fusion of the Free Churches, in a form to include True Belief, might have come earlier, and he might have remained Free Evangelical in practice and yet qualified in the letter and in the spirit for that deferred benefit which he was now denying himself.
‘I asked,’ said Davidina, ‘because I see that next Sunday you are going down to preach to your old congregation at Mount Horeb.’
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan, ‘they’ve asked me. It’s the first time such a thing has happened, and my text is not going to be the repentant Prodigal, either. I haven’t changed. We shall just go on where we left off.’
‘That’s why I’m asking—what you call yourself. Do you still reckon yourself a True Believer?’
‘I reckon that what I believe is true; but I do not regard myself as a True Believer in the technical sense. I don’tthink I ever was. A Relative Believer, Davidina, is what I am.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said Davidina, ‘in a way. Uncle Phineas left me a letter of instruction—not legal; but still I take it as binding. If you had remained a True Believer till now, I was to go shares with you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg had long since, in his own mind, got the better of Uncle Phineas and his £200 a year. But now he saw his chance of getting the better of Davidina. So he said quietly: ‘I know that, he told me.’
Davidina stared. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘He showed me the letter,’ said Jonathan.
‘And you never said anything!’ cried Davidina, astonished.
‘Well, I did say something in a way. I mentioned the letter to you once; but as you chose to say nothing about it, I left it at that.’
‘And you trusted me?’ inquired Davidina.
‘Absolutely. But very soon after that, you see, it didn’t matter. I got turned out.’
Mr. Trimblerigg was now feeling very happy, for he saw that Davidina was right out of her bearings. But without appearing to notice this unusual phenomenon he went quietly on:
‘After all it’s a good thing as it happens. If you had to divide with me now you wouldn’t have enough for your expeditions.’
‘Plenty,’ she assured him. ‘Ah, to be sure, I haven’t told you. And yet that’s why it was important that I should know; for I didn’t suppose his old two hundred would matter to you much now. But the other day I got news: opening a new quarry they struck a seam of somethingelse quite unexpected; it isn’t exactly plumbago, or Cumberland lead as they call it; but it’s rather like it; and as a consequence the property is up to something like twenty times its value.’
Mr. Trimblerigg took it very quietly; he made no sign; even now he was not sure that he wished things differently. He had a great desire, for his own spiritual comfort, to get the better of Davidina, just once.
‘Well, I congratulate you,’ he said; ‘where will the next expedition be? The Sahara, Persia, Arabia? It looks as if you were going to be a famous woman traveller; you’ve always had the pluck and the brain; and now you’ve got the means for it.’
‘Do you mind, Jonathan?’ she asked him.
‘Mind? I’m delighted.’
‘This is the first time,’ she confessed, ‘that you’ve ever taken me by surprise. You knew, and you didn’t say anything. You knew, and you let them turn you out. You knew, and you trusted me.’
‘I’ve always trusted you.’
‘Well, I haven’t always trusted you. In fact, I’ve always suspected you.’
‘I know it, my dear Davidina, but as it amuses you and had left off hurting me—why not?’
‘And now,’ she went on, as if he had not interrupted her, ‘I don’t know whether to suspect you or not.’
‘You’d much better,’ he said.
‘The truth is I’m puzzled!’
‘The truth often is very puzzling,’ assented Jonathan, ‘it’s so relative.’ Then he got up and stretched himself like a cat enjoying the sun.
‘And I still think,’ said Davidina decidedly, ‘that you arecapable of being a villain, and a blood-thirsty villain too, if it suited you.’
Mr. Trimblerigg continued to stretch and to smile at her.
‘Oh, Davidina,’ he said, ‘you are a comfortable person to talk to!’
And at that he let her go. For once, just for once in his life he had got the better of her. Davidina was puzzled at him. It was a great event.
And a week later he received from Davidina a voluntary transfer duly executed of one-half of the property, which at its prospectively enhanced value would make him comfortably off for life. It meant, it must mean, that at last he had won her approval. ‘Thou Davidina seest me!’ had no longer its old discomfort for him. In her eye too, as in everybody’s, there was a blind spot, and he had managed to hit it.