Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within her. Was it grief? Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish.
Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips towards it that the rim is stained with blood.
CHAPTER XXV
"We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder circ.u.mstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love we _have_ given is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have come out. The circ.u.mstances of life always give scope for love if they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous flowers will not open to perfection."--M. N.
Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since he had become her mother"s tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and he was quickly aware of Janey"s surprise at seeing him.
He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gate unlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the night, and the rough gra.s.s, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were autumn already.
Mr. Stirling looked with compa.s.sion at Janey"s strained face and sleepless eyes.
"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of Miss Georges."
He saw her wince.
"I am not sure I am," she said hoa.r.s.ely, involuntarily.
"I am quite sure," he said.
There was a moment"s silence.
"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for j.a.pan, and that he has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff"s stupidity was that it was the truth which he blurted out."
"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it."
"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can"t tell why one believes certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff"s voice had that mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knew at once you recognized that. That is why I am here."
Janey looked straight in front of her.
"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff might have been mistaken. But he was not. He was so determined to prove to me that he was not that he unpacked one of his boxes already packed to start for j.a.pan, and got out his last year"s notebooks. I kept one of them. He did not like it, but I thought it was safer with me than with him."
Mr. Stirling produced out of a much-battered pocket a small sketch-book with an elastic band round it, and turned the leaves. Each page was crowded with pencil studies of architecture, figures, dogs, children, nursemaids; small elaborate drawings of door-knockers and leaden pipe-heads; vague scratches of officials and soldiers, the individuality of each caught in a few strokes. He turned the pages with a certain respectful admiration.
"He has the root of the matter in him," he said. "He will arrive."
Janey was not impressed. She thought the sketches very unfinished.
Then he stopped at a certain page. Neither of them could help smiling.
The head waiter, as seen from behind, napkin on arm, dish on spread hand, superb, debonair, stout but fleet.
_Alphonse_ was scribbled under it, _Fontainebleau, Sept. the tenth_, and the year.
Mr. Stirling turned the leaf, turned three or four leaves, all with _Mariette_ scrawled on them. Mariette had evidently been the French chamber-maid, and equally evidently had detained Geoff"s vagrant eye.
Another page. A man leaning back in his chair laughing. _d.i.c.k Le Geyt_ was written under it.
"Is it like him?" asked Mr. Stirling.
"It"s _him_," said Janey.
Yet another page. They both looked in silence at the half-dozen masterly strokes with _Mrs. Le Geyt_ written under them.
"It is unmistakable," Mr. Stirling said. "It is not only she, but it is no one else."
His eyes met Janey"s. She nodded.
He closed the little book, put its elastic band round it, and squeezed it into his pocket.
"Why did you bring that to show me?" she said harshly. It seemed as if he had come to tempt her.
"I knew," he said, "that for the last two days you must have been on the rack, torn with doubt as to the truth of what my miserable nephew had affirmed. You look as if you had not slept since. Anything is better than suspense. Well, now you know it is true."
"Yes, it _is_ true," said Janey slowly, and she became very pale. Then she added, with difficulty, "I knew--we all knew--that d.i.c.k had had some one--a woman--with him at Fontainebleau when he was taken ill. His valet told my aunt he had not gone--alone. And the hotel-keeper told her the same. She ran away when Aunt Jane arrived. Aunt Jane never saw her.
We never knew who she was."
"Till now," said Mr. Stirling softly.
Two long-winged baby-swallows were sitting on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s on the sunny flagged path, resting, turning their sleek heads to right and left. Mr.
Stirling watched them intently.
"Why should anyone but you and I ever know?" he said, with a sigh, after they had flown. He had waited, hoping Janey would say those words, but he had had to say them himself instead.
She did not answer. She could not. A pulse in her throat was choking her. This, then, was what he had come for, to persuade her to be silent, to hush it up. All men were the same about a pretty woman. A great tumult clamoured within her, but she made no movement.
"I may as well mention that I am interested in Miss Georges," he went on quietly. "Don"t you find that rather ridiculous, Miss Manvers? An elderly man of fifty, old enough to be her father. It is quite absurd, and very undignified, isn"t it? You are much too courteous to agree with me. But I can see you think it is so, whether you agree or not. Wise women often justly accuse us silly susceptible men of being caught by a pretty face. I have been caught by a sweet face. I never exchanged a word with Miss Georges till yesterday, so I have not had the chance of being attracted by her mind. And it is not her mind that draws me, it is her face. I have known her by sight for some time. I go to church in order to see her. I called on her two aunts solely in order to make her acquaintance. The elder one, the portentous auth.o.r.ess, is the kind of person whom I should creep down a sewer to avoid; even the saintly invalid does not call out my higher nature."
Mr. Stirling became aware that Janey was lost in amazement. Irony is singularly unsuited to a narrow outlook.
He waited a moment, and then went on, choosing his words carefully, as if he were speaking to some one very young--
"It is quite a different thing to be attracted, and to have any hope of marriage, isn"t it? I have, and had, no thought of marrying Miss Georges. I am aware that I could not achieve it. Men of my age do not exist for women of her age. But that does not prevent my having a deep desire to serve her. And service is the greater part of love, isn"t it?
I am sure _you_ know that, whose life is made up of service of others."
"I am not sure I do," she said stiffly. She was steeling herself against him.
If he found her difficult, he gave no sign of it. He went on tranquilly--
"As one grows old one sees, oh! how clearly one sees that the only people whom one can be any real use to are those whom one loves--with one"s whole heart. Liking is no real use. Pity and duty are not much either. They are better than nothing, but that is all. Love is the one weapon, the one tool, the one talisman. Now we can"t make ourselves love people. Love is the great gift. I don"t, of course, mean the gift of a woman"s love to a man, or of a man"s to a woman. I mean the power to love anyone devotedly, be they who they may, is G.o.d"s greatest gift to _us_ His children. And He does not give it us very often. To some He never gives it. Many people go through life loved and cherished who seem to be denied His supreme blessing--that of being able to love, of seeing that wonderful light rest upon a fellow-creature. And as we poor elders look back, we see that there were one or two people who crossed our path earlier in life whom we loved, or could have loved, and whom we have somehow lost: perhaps by their indifference, perhaps by our own temperament, but whom nevertheless we have lost. When the first spark is lit in our hearts of that mysterious flame which it sometimes takes us years to quench, one does not realize it at the time. I did not.
Twenty-five years ago, Miss Manvers, before you were born, I fell in love. I was at that time a complete egoist, a very perfect specimen, with the superficial hardness of all crustaceans who live on the defensive, and wear their bones outside like a kind of armour. She was a year or two younger than I was, just about Miss Georges" age. Miss Georges reminds me of her. She is taller and more beautiful, but she reminds me of her all the same. I was not sure whether she cared for me.
And I had a great friend. And he fell in love with her too. And I renounced her, and withdrew in his favour. I went away without speaking.
I thought I was acting n.o.bly. He said there was no one like me. Th.o.r.eau had done the same, and I worshipped Th.o.r.eau in my youth, and had been to see him in his log hut. I was sustained in my heartache by feeling I was doing a heroic action. It never struck me I was doing it at her expense.
I went abroad, and after a time she married my friend. Some years later, I heard he was dying of a terrible disease in the throat, and I went to see him. She nursed him with absolute devotion, but she would not allow me to be much with him. I put it down to a kind of jealousy. And after his death I tried to see her, but again she put difficulties in the way.
At last I asked her to marry me, and she refused me."