"Just in, sir--the 2.45 from London, it must be."
"How does she look?"
"Much the same as usual, sir--a little thinner in the face perhaps."
I looked at Loft; he was grinning. So, I suppose, was I. "This is good, Loft."
"You may say that, sir!"
"Did she come alone?"
"No, sir. Her maid--a Frenchwoman, I think, sir--and a young lady. If she"d brought twenty, she"d have found the house all ready for them."
"I"m sure she would. Tell her I"ll come up in half an hour."
Her coming transformed everything for me; it seemed to put life into the place, life into the big dull house on the hill, life into my little den, life into that summer"s day. It was the breaking of a long frost, the awakening from a stupor. The coming that I had always believed in began to seem incredible only now, when it had happened; incredible it seemed that by just walking up the hill I could see Jenny again and hear her voice. Absence and silence had rendered her so distant to sight or sound, so intangible and remote. My last clear memory of her was still at Hatcham Ford--as she asked Fillingford for the loan of his carriage, and, with "G.o.d bless you, Austin," vanished into the night. A man can, I suppose, get on without anyone, if he must; but he cannot always make out how he has managed to do it.
I found her sitting in her old place in the big drawing-room; she wore--whether by purpose or not what was in effect slight mourning, a white summer frock with touches of black. Yes, her face was a little thinner, but it had not lost its serenity. She was less a girl, more a woman--but not a woman prematurely aged.
"Dear Austin!" she said, as I kissed the hand she held out to me.
"You"ve waited a long while--here I am at last! You"ve become famous in the interval--yes, you have. I"ve seen your book, and I wish Leonard could have read it. He"d have liked it. But though you"re famous, still you waited for me!"
"I don"t think you expected me to do anything else."
She smiled at me. "Perhaps not. But, do you know, I"m afraid you"ve done something else than grow famous. Have you grown into an old bachelor?
You look rather like it."
"I expect I have," said I ruefully, and with an anxious gaze at my coat.
"It"s rather an old coat, isn"t it?"
"And the knees of your trousers!" pursued Jenny remorselessly.
They were atrocious--there was no denying it. "There"s been n.o.body to dress for. I"ll order a new suit to-morrow."
"Things begin to move directly I come back, don"t they? Is there any news in the neighborhood?"
I told her my little budget, sketching it in as lightly as I could and with as little reference to herself. She fastened on the news about Eunice Aspenick.
"Grown up, of course, by now, isn"t she? And you say she"s pretty. Very pretty?"
"Not so very, in my judgment. Very fresh and healthy, and rather handsome."
Jenny smiled mysteriously. "Oh, that doesn"t matter--if it comes to no more than that," she said contemptuously. She saw me smiling. "Oh, yes, I"m scheming again!" she declared with a laugh. "Not for myself, though.
I"ve done with schemes about myself."
"At five-and-twenty?"
Jenny grew grave. "Things count, not years--or, anyhow, sooner than years. Have I any friends left?"
She smiled again when I told her of Lady Aspenick"s faction, and how Lady Aspenick still used the road. "Come, that"s not so bad," was her comment, rather playfully than seriously given. "And you ask me no questions?" she said the next moment, rather abruptly.
"No, I don"t want to ask you any questions. I was very much grieved for him."
She nodded. "When I went away with him," she said, "I burned my boats. I wanted them burned, Austin. I was so sick of doubts--and of tricks and maneuvers. Recklessness seemed fine; and everything seemed to have gone out of the world--except me and him. There was some business to be done and I did it--with the surface of my mind; it made no real part of my thoughts. There I was all hatred for what I had been doing--yes, and horrible hatred of having been found out--I"d better be frank about that. I"d been tricking--I wanted to defy. Leonard didn"t mind defying either, did he? That lasted a week--ten days, perhaps. Then the old thing came back--the fear of him, the fear of it. I couldn"t help it--it"s so deep in my blood, Austin. He told me I ought to marry him for my own sake--for his own he was indifferent. I think he really was.
I was terribly afraid but, as you must know from the papers, I agreed, and everything was in train when--he died. That was my fault partly--but only partly. The young man did--make a mistake about me--but he apologized most humbly and courteously. But Leonard wouldn"t take it properly, and picked a quarrel with him the next evening."
"Then it doesn"t seem to have been your fault."
"My being--vulnerable--made Leonard more, even more, than usually aggressive. That"s all. They brought him back to me dying. He lived only about half an hour. We were curiously happy in that half hour--but it was terrible afterwards." She fell into silence, her eyes very sorrowful. Then she turned to me, with a gesture of her hands. "That"s all the story--and it"s for you alone--because you"re Austin."
I took her hand for a moment and pressed it. "For me alone--I thank you."
"A thing like that seems to sweep across life like a hurricane, doesn"t it? Leveling everything, destroying such a lot!"
"You"ve come back to build it all up again."
She smiled for a moment. "So you"ve found that out? But I can"t build it all up. Some things I shall never try to build again. The track of the hurricane will always be left."
"Time, time, time!" said I.
"Not even time. Life"s not over--but it"s life with a difference. I don"t complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat the world, but I won"t cheat myself. I"m not at my old trick of having it both ways for myself, Austin."
She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself, but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane had swept.
"I have no kith or kin; n.o.body is bound to me. The love of my friends is free--free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed.
There is n.o.body who has a right to harbor it against me."
And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that.
"As a private offense against him, or her, I mean--as a personal offense. Of course they"ve a right to their opinions--and with their opinions I expect I should agree."
She would agree with the opinions, but did not feel bound to furnish material for them. She could hardly be blamed there. The candle and the white sheet--in open congregation--have fallen into such general disuse that Jenny could not be asked to revive them. So far she might be excused--people do not expect confessions. But she seemed to underrate what she termed "opinions" even though, as opinions, she thought that she would agree with them. On this subject neither Alison nor Mrs. Jepps would talk of "opinions"; they would use other words. When she said that there was n.o.body who had a right to harbor the affair against her, it was easy to understand her meaning; but her meaning did not exhaust the case. Society claims the right--and has the power--to harbor things against us; hence the gallows, the prisons, and decrees of social banishment. However, this sort of talk was confidential--between her and me only. If society were disposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be very unlike Jenny not to make the thing as easy as possible for society. Often society has no objection to being "cheated"; it will let you shut its eyes to what you have done--strictly on condition that you do not so much as hint that you had any right to do it. But it was doubtful whether Jenny would find all Catsford in this accommodating temper.
"What"s your opinion?" she asked abruptly.
"If I understand you rightly, you did a serious thing; on any theory and to anybody who thinks--never mind his precise views--a very serious thing. But you seem to know that well enough, and more talk about it won"t mend matters."
"It was a wonderful time--my time of defiance--my time of surrender. At least I tried to make it surrender--and my greatest surrender was to consent not to go on defying. While I defied, I could surrender--because I could lose sight of everything in him. He was big enough, Austin! I seemed then to be putting the world--both worlds, if you like--quite out of sight, annihilating them for myself, saying I could get on without them if only I had Leonard--or, rather, if only Leonard would--would swallow me up!" She looked at me with one of her straight candid glances. "Well, he had no objection to that." Her lips curved in a reluctant smile. "You wouldn"t expect him to have, would you? We made a plan. We were to go to Africa--somewhere in British East Africa--and live there--away from everything. Not because of fear or anything of that sort, you know--but because we felt we could get on better there. I wanted to strip myself of everything that made me distinct from him--of all I had or was, apart from him. I knew all the time that here, at home, we should be impossible together; you know I felt that because you watched the whole thing, Austin, and must have known that only that feeling could have kept me from him. Well, I could only try to drive out that fear of him by accepting all it meant--by being quite natural about it--by saying, "I"ve an instinct that you"ll absorb me; I yield to it--only make it easy--give it the best chance--don"t keep me where all sorts of things compel me to struggle against it. Struggling isn"t a possible life; perhaps surrender is. Let"s try." All this was the underlying thing--the real thing that was going on. On the top we were doing all sorts of interesting outside things--he was a wonderful companion--but this was what we were battling out all the time--how to make it work--how we could give our lives a chance of working together.
We both wanted that--and we both knew that it was horribly difficult.
The greatest thing about him is that he knew my side of the difficulty so extraordinarily well. Isn"t that rather rare?"
"To his mind you were a great woman. He called you so to me. That accounts for it."
"How difficult it all is! The more the thing is worth while, the more difficult! Well, we were to try--to be married and go to Africa and try.
Leonard didn"t press marriage on me, but he admitted that he"d prefer it--for a particular reason that I"ll tell you about presently. And I agreed; but neither of us made a great thing of that. Marriage may be a great thing, but I can"t think that marrying just to mend matters is anything very great and sacred, can you? And that was all ours would have come to, of course. It would have been by way of apology."
She had a remorseless mind--most remorseless for herself and her motives. Yet a man might be a bit puzzled how to meet her reasoning.