"Oh, I knew it."
"Anything else isn"t your business at all. I never understood why the pater told you."
"There are just two decent things for you to do, G.o.dfrey--let Mabel alone or drop Mrs. Maxon."
His own feelings, most concisely put, most trenchantly interpreted! His vague consciousness that the thing came to that was crystallized into an ultimatum. Against this he could not maintain his peevish resentment at his sister"s interference or his a.s.sumed prudishness over her talking about Winnie. The pretext of shame would not serve, and his weak nature turned for help to a stronger. She was sitting by the table, rigid, looking straight before her. He sat down by her, laying his pipe on the table.
"By Jove, you"re right! I"m in an awful mess. Which is it to be, Amy?"
"Oh, that"s not my business. But you needn"t be a sneak to both of them, need you?"
He laid his hand on hers, but she drew hers away sharply. "You don"t understand how I was led into it. I say, you"re not going to--to give me away to Mabel, are you?"
"No. I"m afraid of father and mother. I believe I ought to, but I daren"t."
"I say, above all things, for heaven"s sake, don"t think of that!"
"But you say you proposed it yourself, G.o.dfrey."
He jumped up from his chair in an agony of restlessness. He had proposed it, but only as a thing to be rejected. He had proposed it, but that was weeks ago--when he had not been coming to Woburn Square for very long, and had not seen so much of Mabel Thurseley. The idea seemed quite different now. He stared ruefully at Amy. His entreaty, her reply, threw a cold, cruel light on the recent workings of his mind. He saw now where he was going, where he was being led and driven, by love, by scorn, by the world he had been persuaded to think himself strong enough to defy--his world, which had only one name for Winnie Maxon.
He was exasperated. Why did the two things rend him asunder, like wild horses?
"Well, what is it to be, Amy?" he asked again.
The maiden sister sat unmoved in her chair, her eyes set on the ugly brown paper on the wall opposite. Her voice came level, unimpa.s.sioned, with a suggestion of dull despair.
"What"s the good of asking me, G.o.dfrey? What do I know about it? n.o.body has ever loved me. I"ve never even been in love myself. I don"t know what people do when they"re in love. I don"t know how they feel. I suppose I"ve been awfully unkind to you?"
"Well, of course, a fellow isn"t himself." He turned sharp round on her.
"It was only to last as long as we both wanted--as long as we both wanted one another. O Lord, how can I talk about it, even to you?"
"You needn"t mind that. I"ve seen her. I went to see her. I asked her if she knew anything about Mabel. She didn"t. Does she now? I think her wonderful. Miles above you or me, really. Oh, I know she"s--she"s whatever daddy and mother would choose to call her. But you made her that--and you might as well play fair, G.o.dfrey."
"I don"t understand you, Amy. I thought you--of all people----How in the world did you come to go and see her? When?"
"One Sunday, when I knew you were here."
"She never said a word to me about--about Mabel Thurseley."
"She never would. I"m not taking her part. But I should like my brother to be a man."
"She"s never told me that you came. I can"t understand your going."
He was opposite to her now. She raised her eyes to his, smiling bitterly.
"Don"t try. Still, she"s a woman, and my brother"s--friend."
"Oh, you don"t know a thing about it!"
"I said so. I know it. That"s how it is with girls like me. Girls! Oh, well! If I did know, I might be able to help. I"m not your enemy, really, G.o.dfrey."
"Everybody makes it fearfully hard for me. I--I want to keep faith, Amy."
"You"re not doing it."
He threw himself into the big arm-chair that flanked the grate and its dying fire. He broke out against Winnie in a feeble peevishness: "Why did she make me do it? Any fool could have seen it would never work!"
"You needn"t have done it," she retorted mercilessly.
"Needn"t have done it? Oh, you don"t know anything about it, as you say.
What could you know? If you did know, you"d understand how men--yes, and by George, women too--do things. Things they can"t stand by, and yet want to, things that are impossible, and yet have been done and have to be reckoned with. That"s the way it happens."
Full of despair, his voice had a new note of sincerity. Amy looked across the table at him with a long, scrutinizing gaze.
"I expect I haven"t allowed for all of it," she said at last. "I expect I don"t know how difficult it is." She rose, moved round the table, and sat on the arm of the big chair beside him. "I"m sorry if I"ve been unkind, dear. But"--she caressed his hair--"don"t be unkind to her--not more than you can help."
"To Mabel?" He was looking up to her now, and whispering.
"Oh no," she smiled. "You"re going to marry Mabel. You aren"t married to Mrs. Maxon, you see." She kissed his brow. "Make it as easy as you can for Winnie."
"By G.o.d, I love Winnie!"
Again her hand smoothed and caressed his hair. "Yes, but you can"t do it," she said. "I don"t think I could. But mightn"t you tell her you can"t? She"s got more courage than you think, G.o.dfrey." She rose to her feet, rather abruptly. "You see, when she knows the truth about you, she won"t care so much, perhaps."
Her brother made her no answer; he lay back in the big chair, staring at the dead fire. Nor did she seem to have any more to say to him. She had said a good deal in the whole conversation, and had summed up a large part of it in her last sentence. When Winnie knew all about him she might not care so much! Was that true--or was it the judgment of the maiden sister, who thought that love was dependent on esteem?
"I"m going to bed. I"ve been a wet blanket this Christmas, G.o.dfrey."
"My Lord, what a Christmas!"
For the capital farce, and the merry dinner, the snapdragon, mistletoe, and jokes were all forgotten. The woman who knew nothing about the matter had set the matter in its true light. With another kiss, a half-articulate "My dear!" and a sudden sob, she left him to the contemplation of it.
CHAPTER XIII
CHRISTMAS AT SHAYLOR"S PATCH
On Christmas Eve Winnie had regained her old haven at Shaylor"s Patch.
It seemed as restful and peaceful as ever, nay, even to an unusual degree, for the only other guest was Dennehy, and Dennehy and Alice (again home for holidays) exercised some restraining force on sceptical argument. Both father and mother were intent on giving the child "a good time," and Stephen at least could throw himself into a game with just as much zest as into a dispute or a speculation. Here, too, were holly and mistletoe; and, if not a snapdragon, yet a Christmas tree and a fine array of presents, carefully hidden till the morrow. As they had preceded the Faith, so the old observances survived all doubts about it.
But though the haven was the same, the mariner was in a different case.
When she had come before, Shaylor"s Patch had seemed the final end of a storm-tossed voyage; now it was but a harbour into which her barque put for a few hours in the course of a journey yet more arduous, a journey which had little more than begun; the most she could look for was a few hours of repose, a brief opportunity to rest and refit. Her relation towards her friends and hosts was changed, as it seemed to her, profoundly; she looked at Stephen and Tora Aikenhead with new eyes. The position between them and her was to her feelings almost reversed. They were no longer the intrepid voyagers to whose stories her ignorance hearkened so admiringly. In ultimate truth, now newly apparent, they had made no voyages; from the safe recesses of the haven they did but talk about the perils of the uncharted sea. She was now the explorer; she was making the discoveries about which they only gossiped and speculated.
She remembered Mrs. Lenoir"s kindly yet half-contemptuous smile over Stephen"s facile theories and easy a.s.surance of his theories" easy triumph. She was not as Mrs. Lenoir by the difference of many years and much knowledge; for Mrs. Lenoir still had that same smile for her. None the less, something of the spirit of it was in her when she came the second time to Shaylor"s Patch.