"Yes, you told me you"d sold a pair." Anna nodded significantly.
Christine smiled. She was reflecting how many crises of life demand a departure from veracity, and what art resides in the choice of a lie.
She had chosen one which, implying that Anna was in her confidence, pleased and quieted that young woman, and sent her off home without any suspicions as to the visit or its connection with the financial crisis otherwise than through the horses.
She did not ask Anna in to tea, because John would be there, home early from the City, waiting. Now that the thing was done, she was minded to make as light of it as possible. Since she had been compelled to go, let John forget under what pressure and how unwillingly she had gone. Thus the faintest breath of suspicion would be less likely to rest on her secret. She trusted to her self-control; she would chaff him a little before she told him of the success of her mission.
But the first sight of his face drove the idea out of her head. It might be safer for her; it would actually be not safe for him. She was convinced of this when she saw the strain in his eyes and how his whole figure seemed in a tension of excitement. She closed the door carefully behind her.
"Well," he cried, "what news? By G.o.d, I"ve been able to do no work! I haven"t been able to think of anything else all day. Don"t--don"t say you"ve failed!"
"No," she said, opening her purse, "I haven"t failed. Here"s a cheque from Lord Caylesham. It"s post-dated, but only a day or two. That doesn"t matter?"
She came to him and gave him the cheque. He put it on the table and rested his head on his arm. He seemed almost dazed; the stiffness had gone out of his body.
"By Jove, he"s a good sort! By Jove, he is a good sort!" he murmured.
"He was very kind indeed. He made no difficulties. He said he was sure he could trust you, and was glad to help you. And he sent his remembrances and good luck to you, John."
She had taken off her fur coat and her hat as she was speaking, and now sank down into a chair.
"By Jove, he is a good sort!" John suddenly sprang up. "It means salvation!" he cried. "That"s what it means--salvation! I can pay my way. I can look people in the face. I shan"t bring the business to ruin and shame. Oh, I"ve had my lesson--I go steady now! And if I don"t pay these good chaps every farthing call me a scoundrel! They are good chaps, Grantley and old Caylesham--devilish good chaps!"
"Don"t go quite off your head, John dear! Try to take it quietly."
"Ah, you take it quietly enough, don"t you, old girl?" he exclaimed, coming up to her. "But you"ve done it all--yes, by heaven you have! I know you didn"t like it; I know you hated it. You"re so proud, and I like that in you too. But it wasn"t a time for pride, and you put yours in your pocket for my sake--yes, for my sake, I know it. We"ve had our rows, old girl, but if ever a man had a good wife in the end, I have, and I know it."
He caught hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet, drawing her towards him at the same time.
"Quietly, John," she said, "quietly."
"What, don"t you want to give me a kiss?"
"I"ll give you a kiss, but quietly. Poor old John!"
She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Now let me go! I--I"m tired."
"Well, you shall rest," he said good-naturedly, and let her go.
She sank back in her seat and watched him turn to the cheque again.
"It"s salvation!" he repeated, and paid no heed to a sudden quick gasp of breath from her throat.
Even Caylesham would have allowed that he had no suspicion. But Christine sat a prey to vague forebodings. She felt as though the thing were not finished yet. The dead would not bury its dead.
CHAPTER X
THE FLINTY WALL
There was one point about Jeremy Chiddingfold"s system of philosophy--if that name may be allowed to dignify the rather mixed a.s.sortment of facts and inferences which he had gathered from his studies: This point was that there was no appeal against facts. Nature was nature, feelings were feelings, and change was development. One thing was right to-day; it became wrong to-morrow without ceasing to have been right yesterday. Let there be an end of ignorant parrot-like chatter about inconsistency. Is evolution inconsistency? Inconsistency with what? He put this question and kindred ones quite heatedly to Mrs. Mumple, who did not at all understand them, and to whom they savoured of unorthodoxy; she had ever distrusted a scientific education. If Jeremy could have put his case in a concrete form, he would have won her sympathy. But she did not know where such general principles would stop, and she had heard that there were persons who impugned the authority of Moses.
Jeremy did not care much about Mrs. Mumple"s approval, though he tried his arguments on her as a boxer tries his fists on a stuffed sack (she suggested the simile). He did not expect to convince her, and would have been rather sorry if he had. In her present mental condition she was invaluable as a warning and a b.u.t.t. But it was exasperating that Mrs.
Hutting should hold antique, ludicrous, and (in his opinion) in the end debased views about social intercourse between the s.e.xes--in fact (to descend to that concrete which Jeremy"s soul abhorred) about girls of seventeen taking walks with young men of twenty-two. Mrs. Hutting"s views on this point imposed on Jeremy proceedings which he felt to be unbecoming to a philosopher. He had to scheme, to lie in wait, to plan most unlikely accidents, on occasion to palter with truth, to slip behind a waggon or to hide inside a barn. A recognition on Mrs.
Hutting"s part of nature, of facts, and of development would have relieved Jeremy from all these distasteful expedients.
But Mrs. Hutting was an old-fashioned woman. She obeyed her husband--usually, however, suggesting on what points he might reasonably require obedience. She expected her daughter to obey her. And she had her views, which she had enforced in a very quiet but a very firm way.
Modern tendencies were not in favour at the rectory; that being established as a premise, it followed that anything which was disapproved of at the rectory was a modern tendency; wherefore clandestine and spuriously accidental meetings between young men and young women were a modern tendency, or, anyhow, signs of one--and of a very bad one too. No ancient instances would have shaken Mrs. Hutting on this point; the train of logic was too strong. Certainly Dora never tried to shake her mother"s judgment, or to break the chain. For Dora was old-fashioned too. She admitted that clandestine and spuriously accidental meetings were wrong. But sometimes the clandestine character or the spuriousness of the accident could be plausibly questioned; besides, a thing may be wrong, and yet not be so very, very bad. And the thing may be such fun and so amusing that--well, one goes and tries not to be found out. On these ancient but not obsolete lines Miss Dora framed her conduct, getting thereby a spice of excitement and a fearful joy which no duly licensed encounters could have given her. But she had no doubt that Mrs. Hutting was quite right. Anna Selford"s critical att.i.tude towards her parents was not in the rectory way.
"Suppose she"d seen us!" Dora whispered behind the barn, as the rectory pony-chaise rolled slowly by.
"We"re doing nothing wrong. I should like to walk straight out and say so."
"If you do, I"ll never speak to you again."
"I hate this--this dodging!"
"Then why don"t you take your walks the other way? You know I come here.
Why do you come if you feel like that about it?"
Thus Dora fleshed her maiden sword. It was an added joy to make Jeremy do things which he disliked. And all this time she was snubbing him and his tentative approaches. Lovers? Certainly not--or of course she would have told mamma! Accepted Jeremy? No--she liked to think that she was trifling with him. In fine, she was simply behaving shamefully badly, in a rapturously delightful way; and to see a pretty girl doing that is surely a refreshing and rejuvenating sight!
Well, the word pretty is perhaps a concession to Jeremy. The only girl in the place is always pretty. Dora was, at any rate, fresh and fair, lithe and clean-limbed, gay and full of fun.
A dreadful peril threatened, with which Dora appalled her own fancy and Jeremy"s troubled heart. At seventeen school is still possible--a finishing-school. Mrs. Hutting had brandished this weapon, conscious in her own mind that the rectory finances would hardly suffice to put an edge on it. Dora did not realise this difficulty.
"You remember that time we were seen? Well, there was an awful row, and mamma said that if it happened once again I should go--for a year!"
Jeremy felt that something must be done, and said so.
"What could I do?"
That was a little more difficult for Jeremy.
"You must take pains to avoid me," said Dora, schooling her lips to primness. "You don"t want to get me sent away, do you?"
Certainly these spring months were very pleasant to Miss Dora. But, alas, calamity came. It happened in Milldean just as it might have happened in the West End of London. The school-teacher said something to the post-mistress. There was n.o.body much else to say anything--for the wise-eyed yokels, when they met the youth and the maid, gave a shrewd kindly nod, and went on their way with an inarticulate but appreciative chuckle. However the school-teacher did say something to the post-mistress, whence the something came to Mrs. Hutting"s ears. There was another "row," no doubt even more "awful." The finishing-school was brandished again, but, after a private consultation on finance, put aside by the rector and Mrs. Hutting. Another weapon was chosen. Mrs.
Hutting dictated a note, the rector wrote and sealed it; it was sent across to Old Mill House by the gardener, addressed to "Jeremy Chiddingfold, Esq." In fact no circ.u.mstance of ceremony was omitted, and Dora watched the messenger of tyranny from her bedroom window. In the note (which began "Sir") Jeremy was plainly given to understand that he was no gentleman, and that all relations between the rectory and himself were at an end.
Jeremy stumped up and down the room, furiously exclaiming that he did not care whether he was a gentleman or not. He was a man. That was enough for him, and ought to be enough for anybody. Mrs. Mumple was positively frightened into agreeing with him on this point. But however sound the point may be, relations with the rectory were broken off! What was to be done? Jeremy determined to go to town and lay before Grantley and Sibylla the unparalleled circ.u.mstances of the case. But first there was--well, there would be--one more stolen meeting. But it was not quite of the sort which might have been antic.i.p.ated. Dora"s levity was gone; she played with him no more. But neither did she follow the more probable course, and, under the influence of grief and the pain of separation, give the rein to her feelings, acknowledge her love, and exchange her vows for his. The old-fashioned standards had their turn; evidently the rectory upbraidings had been very severe. Every disobedience, every trick, every broken promise rose up in judgment, and declared the sentence to be just, however severe. Jeremy was at a loss how to face this. He had been so convinced that nature was with them, and that nature spelt rect.i.tude. He was aghast at a quasi-theological and entirely superst.i.tious view that no good or happiness could come out of a friendship (Dora adhered obstinately to this word) initiated in such a way. He refused to recognise her wickedness and even his own.
When she announced her full acceptance of the edict, her determination to evince penitence by absolute submission, he could only burst out:
"They haven"t been cruel to you?"