Mrs. Mumple moved her fat shoulders in a helpless shrug. She had made out nothing about the matter; she was clear only that Sibylla had somehow been disgracefully ill-used, and that Frank might very well have fallen into the fire. Of these two things she was unalterably convinced.
But she spoke of one of them only; the other was declared in her hostile eyes.
Against his will--perhaps against his promise--Grantley was drawn to his wife"s bedside. He trod very softly. The only light in the room came from the bright flickering flames of the fire. They lit up her face and her throat where she had torn her nightgown apart. He felt the white neck very lightly with his hand. It was warm--healthily warm, not feverish. She had taken no hurt either from storms within or from storms without. She slept deeply now; she would awake all well on the morrow.
She would be herself again on the morrow. He thanked Heaven for that, and then recollected what it meant. Herself was not the woman who murmured "Grantley!" and dreamed of the gold and the fairy ride. Herself was the woman who could not live with him, who had forsaken the child, who had gone to Walter Blake. To that self she would awake to-morrow.
Then was it not better that she should never awake? Ought he not to be praying Heaven for that--praying that the death which had pa.s.sed by him and his son should, in its mercy, take her now?
Aye, that was the easiest way--and from his heart and soul Grantley despised the conclusion. His face set as it had when he faced her in the dingy inn and tore her from her lover"s ready arms. His courage rose unbroken from the ruins of his pride. He would fight for her and for himself. But how? There must be a way.
Suddenly she raised herself in the bed. In an instant he had drawn back behind the curtains. She neither saw him nor heard. For a moment she supported herself on her hand, with the other flinging back her hair over her shoulders. Then, with one of her splendid, lithe, easy movements, she was out of bed and had darted quickly across to the door.
Grantley watched her, holding his breath, in a strange terror lest she should discover him, fearful that in such a case her delusion might still keep its hold on her--fearful too of the outrage his presence would seem if it had left her. She opened the door wider, and stood listening for fully a couple of minutes; it seemed to him that the time would never end. Then she carefully set the door half-way ajar, and turned to come back to her bed. She walked slowly now, and looked towards the fire, stretching out her hands towards it for a moment as she came opposite to it. The flames illuminated her face again, and he saw on her lips a smile of perfect happiness. All was well; there was no crying in the house; the child slept. That was all she thought of, all she cared about; her brain was dormant, but her instinct could not sleep. Now that it was satisfied, with a buoyant spring she leapt on the bed and cuddled the clothes about her happily.
In a few seconds Grantley stole silently from the room. He went downstairs, and he ate and drank: he had touched next to nothing for twelve hours. His blood stirred as warmth and vigour came back to him.
He thanked Heaven that he lived, and the boy lived, that she lived and was with him still. His head was high and his courage unbroken. He looked on what he had been, and understood; yet he was not dismayed.
Guided by the smile on her lips, he had found the way. He had been right to bring her back, or she could not have smiled like that--in all the plenitude of love for the little child, a love that waked while reason slept, but would not let her sleep till it was satisfied. If that was in her who had forsaken the child, so her love for him was in her who had left him to go to Walter Blake. If that were true, then there must be a way.
Somehow, he knew not how, salvation should come through the child. His mind leapt on to a vision of bonds of love joined anew by the link of those little hands.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RISING GENERATION
The Raymores were holding up their heads again--such good reports came from Buenos Ayres. The head of Charley"s department had written a letter to Raymore, speaking highly of the lad"s good conduct and ability, and promising him early promotion. Raymore showed it to Kate, and she read it with tears in her eyes.
"You see he"s going to give him a holiday at Christmas, and let him spend a month with us," said Raymore, pointing out a pa.s.sage in the letter.
"Come on a visit, he says." She looked up with a questioning glance.
Raymore understood the question.
"Yes, my dear," he said gently. "He"ll pay us a visit--many visits, I hope--but his career must lie over there. That"s inevitable, and best on all grounds, I think." He came and took her hand, adding, "We must be brave about that."
"I"ll try," said Kate.
She knew that was the penalty which must be paid. Over here the past would never be utterly buried. Charley would never be quite safe from it. He must buy safety and a fresh start at the price of banishment. His mother faced the bitter conclusion.
"We must make the most of the visits," she sighed. "And, yes, I will be brave."
"We must give him a splendid time while he"s with us," said Raymore, and kissed her. "You"ve been fine about it," he whispered: "keep it up."
The penalty was high, or seemed so to a mother, but the banishment was not all evil. The boy"s absence united them as his presence had never done. At home he had been an anxiety often, and sometimes a cause of distress to them. All that was gone now. He was a bond of union, and nothing else. And his own love for them came out. When he was with them, a lad"s shamefacedness, no less than the friction of everyday life, had half hidden it. His heart spoke out now from across the seas; he wrote of home with longing; it seemed to grow something holy to him. He recounted artlessly the words of praise and the marks of confidence he had won; he was pleading that they made him worthy to pay his Christmas visit home. Whenever his letters came, Raymore and Kate had a good talk together over them; the boy"s open heart opened their hearts also to one another--yes, and to Eva too. They paid more attention to Eva, and were quicker to understand her growth, to see how she reached forward to womanhood, and to be ready to meet her on this new ground. She responded readily, with the idea that she must do all she could to lighten the sorrow and to make Charley"s absence less felt. In easy-going times people are apt to be reserved. The trouble and the worry broke up the crust which had formed over their hearts. All of them--even the boy so far away--were nearer together.
This softened mood and the gentler atmosphere which reigned in the Raymores" household, had its effect on Jeremy Chiddingfold"s fortunes.
It caused both Kate and Raymore to look on at his proceedings with indulgence. They were constantly asking themselves whether they had not been too strict with Charley, and whether the calamity might not have been prevented if they had encouraged him to confide in them more, and to bring his difficulties to them. They were nervously anxious to make no such mistake in regard to Eva. They were even in a hurry to recognise that Eva must consider herself--and therefore be considered--a young woman. A pretty young woman, to boot! And what did pretty young women like--and attract? Eva was not repressed; she was encouraged along her natural path. And it was difficult to encourage Eva without encouraging Jeremy too--that at least was Kate Raymore"s opinion, notwithstanding that she had been made the repository of the great secret about Dora Hutting. "A boy and girl affair!" she called it once to Raymore, and made no further reference to it.
Kate was undoubtedly in a sentimental mood; the small number and the distant advent of the hundreds a year from the dyeing works did not trouble her. Half unconsciously, in the sheer joy of giving Eva pleasure, in the delight of seeing her girl spread her wings, she threw the young folk together, and marked their mutual attraction with furthering benevolence.
"We"ve been happy, after all," she said to Raymore; "and I should like to see Eva happily settled too."
"No hurry!" he muttered: "she"s a child still."
"Oh, my dear!" said Kate, with a smile of superior knowledge; fathers were always like that.
Eva exulted in the encouragement and the liberty, trying her wings, essaying her power with timid tentative flights. Yet she remained very young; her innocence and guilelessness did not leave her. She did not seek to shine, she did not try to flirt. She had not Anna Selford"s self-confidence, nor her ambition. Still, she was a young woman, and since Jeremy was very often at hand, and seemed to be a suitable subject, she tried her wings on him. Then Kate Raymore would nod secretly and significantly at her husband. She also observed that Eva was beginning to show a good deal of character. This might be true in a sense, since all qualities go to character, but it was hardly true in the usual sense. Christine Fanshaw used always to say that Eva was as good as gold--and there she would leave the topic, without further elaboration.
Well, that was the sort of girl Jeremy liked! He saw in himself now a man of considerable experience. Had he not grown up side by side with Sibylla, her whims and her tantrums? Had he not watched the development of Anna Selford"s distinction, and listened to her sharp tongue? Had he not cause to remember Dora Hutting"s alternate coquettishness and scruples, the one surely rather forward (Jeremy had been revising his recollections), the other almost inhuman? Reviewing this wide field of feminine variety, Jeremy felt competent to form a valid judgment; and he decided that gentleness, trustfulness, and fidelity were what a man wanted. He said as much to Alec Turner, who told him, with unmeasured scorn, that his ideas were out of date and sadly retrograde.
"You want a slave," said Alec witheringly.
"I want a helpmeet," objected Jeremy.
"Not you! A helpmeet means an equal--an intellectual equal," Alec insisted hotly. He was hot on a subject which did not seem necessarily to demand warmth because he too had decided what he wanted. He had fallen into a pa.s.sion which can be described only as unscrupulous. He wanted to marry clever, distinguished, brilliant Anna Selford--to marry her at a registry office and take her to live on two pounds a week (or thereabouts) in two rooms up two pairs of stairs in Battersea. Living there, consorting with the people who were doing the real thinking of the age, remote from the fatted _bourgeoisie_, she would really be able to influence opinion and to find a scope for her remarkable gifts and abilities. He sketched this _menage_ in an abstract fashion, not mentioning the lady"s name, and was much annoyed when Jeremy opined that he "wouldn"t find a girl in London to do it."
"Oh, as for you, I know you"re going to become a d.a.m.ned plutocrat," Alec said, with a scornful reference to the dyeing works.
"Rot!" remarked Jeremy, but he was by no means so annoyed at being accused of becoming a d.a.m.ned plutocrat as he would have been a year earlier, before he had determined to seek speedy riches and fame in order to dazzle Dora Hutting, and when he had not encountered the gentle admiring eyes of Eva Raymore. Whatever else plutocrats (if we may now omit the _epiphetus ornans_) may or may not do in the economy and service of the commonwealth, they can at least give girls they like fine presents, and furnish beautiful houses (and fabrics superbly dyed) for their chosen wives. There are, in short, mitigations of their lot, and possibly excuses for their existence.
Jeremy"s state of mind may easily be gauged. The dye works were prominent, but the experience of life was to the front too. He was working hard--and had his heart in his play besides. For his age it was a healthy, and a healthily typical, existence. The play part was rich in complications not unpleasurable. The applause of large admiring brown eyes is not a negligible matter in a young man"s life. There was enough of the old Jeremy surviving to make the fact that he was falling in love seem enough to support an excellent theory on the subject. But on the other hand he had meant the fame and riches for Dora Hutting--to dazzle her anyhow--whether to satisfy or to tantalise her had always been a moot point. In imagination Jeremy had invariably emerged from the process of making wealth and fame either unalterably faithful or indelibly misogynistic, Dora being the one eternal woman, though she might be proved unworthy. It had never occurred to him that he should label the fame and riches to another address. To be jilted may appear ludicrous to the rest of the world, but the ardent mind of the sufferer contrives to regard it as tragic. A rapid transference of affection tends to impair the dignity of the whole matter. Still, large brown admiring eyes will count--especially if one meets them every day. Jeremy was profoundly puzzled about himself, and did not suppose that just this sort of thing had ever occurred before.
Then a deep sense of guilt stole over him. Was he trifling with Eva? He hoped not. But of course there is no denying that the idea of trifling with girls has its own attractions at a certain age. At any rate to feel that you might--and could--is not altogether an unpleasing sensation.
However Jeremy"s moral sense was very strong--the stronger (as he was in the habit of a.s.suring Alec Turner) for being based on pure reason and the latest results of sociology. Whenever Eva had been particularly sweet and admiring, he felt that he ought not to go to Buckingham Gate again until he had put his relations with Dora Hutting on an ascertained basis. He would knit his brow then, and decline to be enticed from his personal problems by Alec"s invitations to general discussion. At this stage of his life he grew decidedly more careful about his dress, not aiming at smartness, but at a rich and sober effect. And all the while he started for Romford at eight in the morning. He was leading a very fine existence.
"These are very roseate hues, Kate," Christine Fanshaw observed with delicate criticism as she sipped her tea. Kate had been talking about Eva and hinting benevolently about Jeremy.
"Oh, the great trouble"s always behind. No, it"s not so bad now, thank heaven! But if only he could come back for good! I"m sure we want roseate hues!"
"I daresay we do," said Christine, drawing nearer the fire. It was autumn now, and she was always a chilly little body.
"Look at those wretched Courtlands! And somehow I don"t believe that Grantley"s marriage has been altogether successful."
She paused a moment, and there had been a questioning inflection in her voice; but Christine made no comment.
"For myself I can"t complain----"
"And you won"t get anything out of me, Kate."
"But we do want the young people to--to give us the ideal back again."
"I suppose the old people have always thought the young people were going to do that. And they never do. They grow into old people--and then the men drink, or the women run away, or something."
"No, no," Kate Raymore protested. "I won"t believe it, Christine.
There"s always hope with them, anyhow. They"re beginning with the best, anyhow!"
"And when they find it isn"t the best?"