The Honour of the Clintons Part 26

The Squire had gone through a terrible time since Humphrey had left him to go down to the Dower House, with the words, "Whatever you do, or don't do, I'm going to fight hard to save our name." All the usual outlets through which he was accustomed to relieve the pressure of an offence were denied him. Irritability would cause remark. And this was too deep and dreadful an offence to create irritability. High words would not a.s.suage it; cries raised to heaven about the ingrat.i.tude of mankind, and his own liability to suffer from it, had been used too often over small matters to make them anything but a mockery as applied to this great one. He was stricken dumb by it.

The night was black all around him. There was no light to guide his steps. Even the one he had already taken he was in doubt about, now he had taken it. He did not question his own action in refusing to cut the knot. He had simply felt unable to do it, and had followed that light, as far as it had led him. But when Humphrey had gone away to find d.i.c.k, and ask him to provide money for Gotch, without telling him why it _must_ be found, somewhere or other, he had hoped that d.i.c.k would consent; and this troubled him.

When he went upstairs to dress for dinner, after sitting motionless in the library for over an hour, he locked the door and knelt down by the bed in his dressing-room and prayed to G.o.d for help in his trouble and guidance in his difficulties. He had felt increasingly, as he sat and thought downstairs, that prayer was the only thing that would help him; but he could not kneel down in the library, and it was dishonouring to G.o.d Almighty not to kneel down when you prayed. So he went upstairs, earlier than his wont, to the bedside at which he had said his daily and nightly prayers for over forty years. He never slept in this bed; it was the altar of his private devotions, which were never pretermitted, although by lapse of time they had slid into a kind of home-made liturgy, which demanded small effort of spirit, and less of mind. But now he prayed earnestly, with bowed head and broken words, repeating the Lord's Prayer at the close of his pet.i.tions, and rising from his knees purged somewhat of his fears, and supported in his deep trouble.

At dinner he was a good deal silent, but not perceptibly brooding over disclosures made to him, as Humphrey had feared of him. He even smiled once or twice, and spoke courteously to his wife and affectionately to Joan. He took Joan's hand in his as she pa.s.sed him to go out of the room with her mother, and she gave him a hug, and a kiss, which he returned. She thought that Humphrey had told him about Bobby Trench's engagement, and this was his way of showing that she was finally forgiven for rejecting that fickle suit. But it was his desire to find contact with innocence, and the tranquillity of his home, that had prompted the caress.

"d.i.c.k has gone up to London," he said, raising his eyes, when Humphrey had shut the door and come back to the table.

"Yes," said Humphrey. "But Virginia had the money, and said that d.i.c.k would like her to give it. He had told her that Gotch ought to be helped to go away."

"He never said that to me," said the Squire, with no clear sense of relief at the news, except that it meant that a decision had been taken out of his hands.

"Well, he had said it to her, or she wouldn't have done it. She and I went to Gotch together. She said just the right things, and he was as grateful as possible. He takes it that he's forgiven for holding out.

I told him that you wouldn't do it yourself after all you had said, but you had withdrawn your opposition."

"Why do you say these things, Humphrey?" asked the Squire, in a pained and almost querulous voice. "None of them are lies, exactly, but they are not the truth, either."

"I shouldn't care if they _were_ lies," said Humphrey. "I'm long past caring about that."

The Squire sighed deeply. "I won't talk about it over the table," he said, rising, and leaving his gla.s.s of port half full. "We will go and ask Joan to play to us, and talk in my room later."

As Joan played, he sat in his chair thinking. Relief was beginning to find its way into his sombre thoughts. He took it to be in answer to his prayer. If you took your difficulties to G.o.d, a way of escape would be opened out. The old aunts who had brought him up in his childhood had impressed that upon him, and he had never doubted it, although he had had no occasion hitherto to try the experiment. He had not made it a subject of prayer when Walter had so annoyed him by refusing to take Holy Orders with a view to the family living, and insisted on studying medicine, which no Clinton had ever done before; or when Cicely had gone off to stay in London without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave; or when d.i.c.k had gone against his strong wishes and insisted upon marrying Virginia; or when Humphrey had come to him with debts; or even when Joan had refused to make a marriage which he thought to be well for her to make. Soothed by Joan's playing, his thoughts ran reflectively through these and other disturbances and difficulties that had marked his otherwise equable, prosperous life, and he saw for the first time how little he had really had to complain of.

But that enlightenment only seemed to deepen the black shadows that lay in the gulf opened out before him. The props of position and wealth that had sustained him were of no avail here. They had supported him in other troubles; they would only make this one worse to bear. It would find him stripped naked for the world to jeer at. This was the sort of trouble in which a man wanted help from above.

And the help had come, promptly; perhaps all the more promptly because he had acted uprightly. He could not have given in to Humphrey's request, whatever the consequences, knowing what he did. But that it should have been immediately met, in a way to which no objection could be taken, elsewhere, seemed to show that it was not the will of G.o.d that disgrace should overwhelm the innocent as well as the guilty. He could look that disgrace in the face now, or rather in the flank, as a peril past; and he went through almost unendurable pangs as he did so.

He turned in his chair, and the perspiration broke out on his brow as the horror of what he had escaped came home to him. He thanked G.o.d that he had acted aright. If he had pictured to himself fully what might come from his refusal, he might have stained his honour with almost any act that would avert such appalling humiliation.

When he and Humphrey were alone together he spoke with more of his usual manner than he had hitherto done. "I can't justly complain of what you have done," he said. "Whether it would have been right to take any steps to save Susan herself from the consequence of what she has done--to hush it up--fortunately we haven't got to decide on. We can leave that in the hands of a higher power."

"She has been pretty well punished already," said Humphrey. "Right or wrong, I'm going to do what I can to keep the rest of her life from being ruined. Thank G.o.d, it _has_ been done."

"Well, I think I can say 'Thank G.o.d' too. Others would have had to suffer--grievously--and, after all, no wrong has been done to anybody.

With regard to Gotch, I can wash my hands of it. I couldn't have given him money myself, knowing what I did, and you must take the responsibility of it--with d.i.c.k."

"Oh, I'll take the responsibility," said Humphrey with a shade of contempt. "It won't trouble my conscience much."

"But now we have to consider what is to be done," said the Squire. "I can't have Susan here, Humphrey. She must never come here again. I won't add to your troubles, my boy, by talking about what she has done.

I couldn't trust myself to do it. But I couldn't see her and behave as I always have done. It would be beyond my power."

"Very well," said Humphrey shortly. "I'll shoulder that, with the rest."

The Squire looked at him. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"What do you mean? With her?"

"Yes. How are you going to live together, after this?"

"As we always have done. I took her for better or worse. I'm going to do my duty by her. I'm going to protect her first of all from suffering any more; and then I'm going to help her to live it down--with herself. I haven't helped her much, so far. She is weak, and I've been weak with her--weak and selfish. I've got something more in me than I've shown yet, and now's the time to show it, and to help her on as well as myself."

The Squire was deeply touched. "My dear boy," he said, "I'm glad to hear you talk like that. Yes, you're right; you must be right. One can't judge of her leniently, perhaps, but what she must have gone through at the time of that trial--and before! You will be able to work on her; and n.o.body else could. Perhaps, later on--I don't know--I might bring myself---"

"I don't know that you need. I am going to take her away for some time--for some years, perhaps."

"What! You're not going to live in your new house?"

"No. I couldn't, yet awhile. So far, I've talked as if nothing mattered except getting clear of this horrible exposure that threatened us. I can't feel that anything does matter much until that is done.

But that's not all I have been thinking of, father, since this blow came to me. It has gone pretty deep. I couldn't go on living the same sort of life, under rather different surroundings, but amongst people that we have known, and who would expect us to be just the same as we have always been. We've got to start together afresh, and get used to ourselves--to our new selves, if you like to put it so. We're going abroad. Susan is ill now, and we can make it seem natural enough. We shall stay abroad for some time, and then I shall let the house, if I can, so that it won't seem odd that we shouldn't come back. In a few years, if we want to, we can come back; and then perhaps we shall live there."

"Well, it wants thinking over carefully, Humphrey; but I think you are right. Still, I shouldn't like to lose sight of you--for years."

Humphrey was silent.

"I don't know--perhaps I was rather hasty, just now, when I said I couldn't have Susan here. I couldn't, now. But later on---- Oh, my boy, I don't want to make it harder for you than it is already. You've set yourself a big task. G.o.d help you to carry it through! Bring her here, Humphrey, in a year or so. I'm your father; I'll do what I can to help you."

"Thank you, father. You've been very good."

"If you want any money----"

"Oh no. We shan't be spending much--not for a long time."

Neither spoke for some minutes. Then the Squire frowned and cleared his throat. "There's one thing that has to be done," he said.

"The--the taking of that necklace--Lady Sedbergh's--she has had this loss----"

"You mean about paying back the money. I've thought of that. I must do it by degrees. That's one reason why I'm going abroad. I can save more than half my income."

"Oh, you've thought of that."

"Yes. You didn't suppose I was going to hush it up, and do nothing about the money! I've not quite come down to that, father."

"Oh no, no, my boy. Only--well, it didn't occur to me for some time.

But how could you do it--if it were left to you? How could you send money by degrees?"

"I haven't thought much about how to do it. Perhaps I should have to wait until I had got it all. Then I could send it in a lump, from some place where it couldn't be traced."

The Squire spoke after a thoughtful pause. "I don't like that, Humphrey."

"Well, there is plenty of time to think out a way. I haven't got a penny of it yet."

"No; and it can't wait until you have saved it. I should never have a moment's peace of mind while it was owing. I must help you there, Humphrey. It's what I can do to help."

"Oh no, father. It's part of the price. I mean to pay it. It will keep it before us--going short. I wish I could have raised the money at once. I wish you hadn't made old Aunt Laura put that clause into her will."

The Squire rather wished he hadn't, too. Seven thousand pounds was a large sum to find. Something like thirty thousand pounds had been left to Humphrey, with reversion to Walter and his children. But the Squire had advised that Humphrey should be restrained from antic.i.p.ation of his life interest, and this had been effected.

"Well," he said, "that's done. But this money must be paid at once.

It will only be fair to the others, Humphrey, that it shall come off your share. But I will find it for you now. If you like to pay it, or some of it, back again, I won't say no. But that shall be as you like.