"I was simply telling you something that I thought you ought to know,"
she said. "It is what everybody is saying--that you and she have been meeting every day for weeks, sitting in the Park after dark together, going to the theatre. People draw their own conclusions, I suppose."
"How much have you told father of this?" he demanded.
"I don"t know at all what father has heard," she answered.
"You"ve been that girl"s enemy since the first moment that she came here," he continued, growing angrier and angrier at her quiet indifference. "Now you"re trying to damage her character."
"On the contrary," she answered, "I told you because I thought you ought to know what people were saying. The girl doesn"t matter to me one way or another--but I"m sorry for her if she thinks she cares for you. That won"t bring her much happiness."
Then suddenly her impa.s.sivity had a strange effect upon him. He could not answer her. He left them both, and went up to his room.
As soon as he had closed the door of his bedroom he knew that his bad time was come upon him. It was a physical as well as a spiritual dominion. The room visibly darkened before his eyes, his brain worked as it would in dreams suggesting its own thoughts and wishes and intentions. A dark shadow hung over him, hands were placed upon his eyes, only one thought came before him again and again and again. "You know, you have long known, that you are doomed to make miserable everything that you touch, to ruin every one with whom you come in contact. That is your fate, and you can no more escape from it than you can escape from your body!"
How many hours of this kind he had known in Spain, in France, in South America. Often at the very moment when he had thought that he was at last settling down to some decent steady plan of life he would be jerked from his purpose, some delay or failure would frustrate him, and there would follow the voice in his ear and the hands on his eyes.
It was indeed as though he had been pledged to something in his early life, and because he had broken from that pledge had been pursued ever since ...
He stripped to the waist and bathed in cold water; even then it seemed to him that his flesh was heavy and dull and yellow, that he was growing obese and out of all condition. He put on a clean shirt and collar, sat down on his bed and tried to think the thing out. To whomsoever he had done harm in the past he would now spare Maggie and his father. He was surprised at the rush of tenderness that came over him at the thought of Maggie; he sat there for some time thinking over every incident of the last three weeks; that, at least, had been a good decent time, and no one could ever take it away from them again. He looked at her picture in the locket and realised, as he looked at it, a link with her that he had never felt with any woman before. "All the same," he thought, "I should go away. She"d mind it at first, but not half as much as she"d mind me later on when she saw what kind of a chap I really was. She"d be unhappy for a bit, but she"d soon meet some one else. She"s never seen a man yet except me. She"d soon forget me. She"s such a kid."
Nevertheless when he thought of beginning that old wandering life again he shrank back. He had hated it--Oh! how he"d hated it! And he didn"t want to leave Maggie. He was in reality beginning to believe that with her he might pull himself right out of this mora.s.s of weakness and indecision in which he had been wallowing for years. And yet what sort of a life could he offer her? He did not believe that he would ever now be able to find this other woman whom he had married, and until he had found her and divorced her Maggie"s position would be impossible. She, knowing nothing of the world, could disregard it, but HE knew, knew that daily, hourly recurrence of alights and insults and disappointments, knew what that life could make after a time of women in such a position; even though she did not mind he would mind for her and would reproach himself continually.
No, it was impossible. He must go away secretly, without telling her ... Then, at that, he was pulled up again by the thought of his father.
He could not leave him until this crisis, whatever it might be, was over. A very little thing now might kill him, and at the thought of that possibility he jumped up from his bed and swore that THAT catastrophe at least must be prevented. His father must live and be happy and strong again, and he, Martin, must see to it.
That was his charge and his sacred duty above all else.
Strong in this thought he went down to his father"s room. He knocked on the door. There was no answer, and he went in. The room was in a mess of untidiness. His father was walking up and down, staring in front of him, talking to himself.
At the sound of the door he turned, saw Martin and smiled, the old trusting smile of a child, that had been, during his time abroad, Martin"s clearest memory of him.
"Oh, is that you? Come in."
Martin came forward and his father put his arm round his neck as though for support.
"I"m tired--horribly tired." Martin took him to the shabby broken arm-chair and made him sit down. Himself sat in his old place on the arm of the chair, his hand against his father"s neck.
"Father, come away--just for a week--with me. We"ll go right off into the country to Glebeshire or somewhere, quite alone. We won"t see a soul. We"ll just walk and eat and sleep. And then you"ll come back to your work here another man."
"No, Martin. I can"t yet. Not just now."
"Why not, father?"
"I have work, work that can"t be left."
"But if you go on like this you"ll be so that you can"t go on any longer. You"ll break down. You know what the doctor said about your heart. You aren"t taking any care at all."
"Perhaps ... perhaps ... but for a week or two I must just go on, preparing ... many things ... Martin."
He suddenly looked up at his son, putting his hand on his knee.
"Yes, father."
"You"re being good now, aren"t you?"
"Good, father?"
"Yes ... Not doing anything you or I"d be ashamed of. I know in the past ... but that"s been forgotten, that"s over. Only now, just now, it"s terribly important for us both that you should be good ... like you used to be ... when you were a boy."
"Father, what have people been saying to you about me?"
"Nothing--nothing. Only I think about you so much. I pray about you all the time. Soon, as you say, we"ll go away together ... only now, just now, I want you with me here, strong by my side. I want your help."
Martin took his father"s hand, felt how dry and hot and feverish it was.
"I"ll be with you," he said. "I promise that. Don"t you listen to what any one says. I won"t leave you." He would like to have gone on and asked other questions, but the old man seemed so worn out and exhausted that he was afraid of distressing him, so he just sat there, his hands on his shoulders, and suddenly the white head nodded, the beard sank over the breast and huddled up in the chair as though life itself had left him; the old man slept.
During the next four days Martin and Maggie corresponded through the fair hands of Jane. He wrote only short letters, and over them he struggled. He seemed to see Maggie through a tangled mist of persons and motives and intentions. He could not get at the real Maggie at all, he could not even get at his real feelings about her. He knew that these letters were not enough for her, he could feel behind her own a longing for something from him more definite, something that would bring her closer to him. He was haunted by his picture of her sitting in that dismal house, a prisoner, waiting for him, and at last, at the end of the four days, he felt that he must, in some way or other see her. Then she herself proposed a way.
"To-morrow night (Friday)," she wrote, "the aunts are going to a meeting. They won"t return until after eight o"clock. During most of that time Martha will be in the kitchen cooking, and Jane (who is staying late that night) has promised to give me a signal. I could run out for quarter of an hour and meet you somewhere close by and risk getting back. Jane will be ready to let me in. Of course, it may fail, but things can"t be worse than they are ... I absolutely forbid you to come if you think that this can make anything worse for you at home.
But I MUST see you, Martin ... I feel to-night as though I couldn"t stand it any longer (although I"ve only had five days of it!), but I think that if I met you, really you, for only five minutes, I could bear it then for weeks. Let me know if you agree to this, and if so where we could meet about 7.30."
The mere thought of seeing her was wonderful. He would not have believed a month ago that it could have come to mean so much to him.
He wrote back:
"Yes. At the corner of Dundas Street, by the Pillar Box, 7.30."
He knew that she had been to that dark little street with her aunts to see Miss Pyncheon.
The night, when it came, was misty, and when he reached the place she was at once in his arms. She had been there more than five minutes, she had thought that he was not coming. Martha had nearly caught her ...
He kissed her hair and her eyes and her mouth, holding her to him, forgetting everything but her. She stayed, quiet, clinging to him as though she would never let him go, then she drew away.
"Now we must walk about or some one will see us," she said.
"We"ve only got five minutes. Martin, what I want to know is, are you happy?"
"Yes," he said.
They walked like ghosts, in the misty street.
"Well, then I am," she said. "Only your letters didn"t sound very happy."
"Can you hold on till after the New Year?" They were walking hand in hand, her fingers curled in his palm.
"Yes," she said. "If you"re happy."