If it were true...?
He looked hopelessly at the man, who sat smoking quietly and waiting.
And then again another thought, previously ignored, pierced him like a sword. If it were true; if Amy herself, poor pretty Amy, had indeed been there, were indeed near him now, hammering and crying out like a child shut out at night, against his own skeptical heart ... if it were indeed true that during those two hours she had had her heart"s desire, and had been one with his very soul, in a manner to which no earthly union could aspire ... how had he treated her? Even at this thought a shudder of repulsion ran through him.... It was unnatural, detestable ... yet how sweet...! What did the Church say of such things...? But what if religion were wrong, and this indeed were the satiety of the higher nature of which marriage was but the material expression...?
The thoughts flew swifter than clouds as he sat there, bewildering, torturing, beckoning. He made a violent effort. He must be sane, and face things.
"Mr. Vincent," he cried.
The kindly face turned to him again.
"Mr. Vincent...."
"Hush, I quite understand," said the fatherly voice. "It is a shock, I know; but Truth is a little shocking sometimes. Wait. I perfectly understand that you must have time. You must think it all over, and verify this. You must not commit yourself. But I think you had better have my address. The ladies are a little too emotional, are they not?
I expect you would sooner come to see me without them."
He laid his card on the little tea-table and stood up.
"Good-night, Mr. Baxter."
Laurie took his hand, and looked for a moment into the kind eyes.
Then the man was gone.
II
That was a little while ago, now, and Laurie sitting over breakfast had had time to think it out, and by an act of sustained will to suspend his judgment.
He had come back again to the state I have described--to nervous interest--no more than that. The terror seemed gone, and certainly the skepticism seemed gone too. Now he had to face Maggie and his mother, and to see the grave....
Somehow he had become more accustomed to the idea that there might be real and solid truth under it all, and familiarity had bred ease. Yet there was nervousness there too at the thought of going home. There were moods in which, sitting or walking alone, he pa.s.sionately desired it all to be true; other moods in which he was acquiescent; but in both there was a faint discomfort in the thought of meeting Maggie, and a certain instinct of propitiation towards her. Maggie had begun to stand for him as a kind of embodiment of a view of life which was sane, wholesome, and curiously attractive; there was a largeness about her, a strength, a sense of fresh air that was delightful. It was that kind of thing, he thought, that had attracted him to her during this past summer. The image of Amy, on the other hand, more than ever now since those recent a.s.sociations, stood for something quite contrary--certainly for attractiveness, but of a feverish and vivid kind, extraordinarily unlike the other. To express it in terms of time, he thought of Maggie in the morning, and of Amy in the evening, particularly after dinner. Maggie was cool and sunny; Amy suited better the evening fever and artificial light.
And now Maggie had to be faced.
First he reflected that he had not breathed a hint, either to her or his mother, as to what had pa.s.sed. They both would believe that he had dropped all this. There would then be no arguing, that at least was a comfort. But there was a curious sense of isolation and division between him and the girl.
Yet, after all, he asked himself indignantly, what affair was it of hers? She was not his confessor; she was just a convent-bred girl who couldn"t understand. He would be aloof and polite. That was the att.i.tude. And he would manage his own affairs.
He drew a few brisk draughts of smoke from his pipe and stood up.
That was settled.
It was in this determined mood then that he stepped out on to the platform at the close of this wintry day, and saw Maggie, radiant in furs, waiting for him, with her back to the orange sunset.
These two did not kiss one another. It was thought better not. But he took her hand with a pleasant sense of welcome and home-coming.
"Auntie"s in the brougham," she said. "There"s lots of room for the luggage on the top.... Oh! Laurie, how jolly this is!"
It was a pleasant two-mile drive that they had. Laurie sat with his back to the horses. His mother patted his knee once or twice under the fur rug, and looked at him with benevolent pleasure. It seemed at first a very delightful home-coming. Mrs. Baxter asked after Mr.
Morton, Laurie"s coach, with proper deference.
But places have as strong a power of retaining a.s.sociations as persons, and even as they turned down into the hamlet Laurie was aware that this was particularly true just now. He carefully did not glance out at Mr. Nugent"s shop, but it was of no use. The whole place was as full to him of the memory of Amy--and more than the memory, it seemed--as if she was still alive. They drew up at the very gate where he had whispered her name; the end of the yew walk, where he had sat on a certain night, showed beyond the house; and half a mile behind lay the meadows, darkling now, where he had first met her face to face in the sunset, and the sluice of the stream where they had stood together silent. And all was like a landscape seen through colored paper by a child, it was of the uniform tint of death and sorrow.
Laurie was rather quiet all that evening. His mother noticed it, and it produced a remark from her that for an instant brought his heart into his mouth.
"You look a little peaked, dearest," she said, as she took her bedroom candlestick from him. "You haven"t been thinking any more about that Spiritualism?"
He handed a candlestick to Maggie, avoiding her eyes.
"Oh, for a bit," he said lightly, "but I haven"t touched the thing for over two months."
He said it so well that even Maggie was rea.s.sured. She had just hesitated for a fraction of a second to hear his answer, and she went to bed well content.
Her contentment was even deeper next morning when Laurie, calling to her through the cheerful frosty air, made her stop at the turning to the village on her way to church.
"I"m coming," he said virtuously; "I haven"t been on a weekday for ages."
They talked of this and that for the half-mile before them. At the church door she hesitated again.
"Laurie, I wish you"d come to the Protestant churchyard with me for a moment afterwards, will you?"
He paled so suddenly that she was startled.
"Why?" he said shortly.
"I want you to see something."
He looked at her still for an instant with an incomprehensible expression. Then he nodded with set lips.
When she came out he was waiting for her. She determined to say something of regret.
"Laurie, I"m dreadfully sorry if I shouldn"t have said that.... I was stupid.... But perhaps--"
"What is it you want me to see?" he said without the faintest expression in his voice.
"Just some flowers," she said. "You don"t mind, do you?"
She saw him trembling a little.
"Was that all?"
"Why yes.... What else could it be?"
They went on a few steps without another word. At the church gate he spoke again.
"Its awfully good of you, Maggie ... I ... I"m rather upset still, you know; that"s all."
He hurried, a little in front of her, over the frosty gra.s.s beyond the church; and she saw him looking at the grave very earnestly as she came up. He said nothing for a moment.