The Spinners Part 44

"She is making an excellent recovery," said Ernest, "and I am hoping that, presently, the maternal instinct will a.s.sert itself. I do everything to encourage it. But, of course, when conditions are abnormal, results must be abnormal. She's a very fine and brave woman and worthy of supreme admiration. And worthy of far better and more manly treatment than she has received from you. But you know that very well, Raymond. Owing to the complexities created by civilisation clas.h.i.+ng with nature, we get much needless pain in the world. But a reasonable being should have recognised the situation, as you did not, and realise that we have no right to obey nature if we know at the same time we are flouting civilisation. You think you're doing right by considering Sabina's future. You are a gross materialist, Raymond, and the end of that is always dust and ashes and defeated hopes. I won't bring religion into it, because that wouldn't carry weight with you; but I bring justice into it and your debt to the social order, that has made you what you are and to which you owe everything. You have done a grave and wicked wrong to the new-born atom of life in this house, and though it is now too late wholly to right that wrong, much might yet be done. I blame you, but I hope for you--I still hope for you."

He took the grapes, and Raymond, somewhat staggered by this challenge, found himself not ready to answer it.

"We'll have a talk some evening, Uncle Ernest," he answered. "I don't expect your generation to see this thing from my point of view. It's reasonable you shouldn't, because you can't change; and it's also reasonable that I shouldn't see it from your point of view. If I'm material, I'm built so; and that won't prevent me from doing my duty."

"I would talk the hands round the clock if I thought I could help you to see your duty with other eyes than your own," replied the old man. "I am quite ready to speak when you are to listen. And I shall begin by reminding you that you are a father. You expect Sabina to be a mother in the full meaning of that beautiful word; but a child must have a father also."

"I am willing to be a father."

"Yes, on your own values, which ignore the welfare of the community, justice to the next generation, and the respect you should entertain for yourself."

"Well, we'll thresh it out another time. You know I respect you very much, Uncle Ernest; and I'm sure you'll weigh my point of view and not let Aunt Jenny influence you."

"I have a series of duties before me," answered Mr. Churchouse; "and not least among them is to reconcile you and your aunt. That you should have broken with your sole remaining relative is heart-breaking."

"I'd be friends to-morrow; but you know her."

He went away to the works and Ernest took the grapes to Mrs. Dinnett.

"You'd better not let her have them, however, unless the doctor permits it," said Mr. Churchouse, whereupon, Mary, not trusting herself to speak, took the grapes and departed. The affront embodied in the fruit affected a mind much overwrought of late. She took the present to Sabina's room.

"There," she said. "He's sunk to sending that. I'd like to fling them in his face."

"Take them away. I can't touch them."

"Touch them! And poisoned as likely as not. A man that's committed his crimes would stick at nothing."

"He uses poison enough," said the young mother; "but only the poison he can use safely. It matters nothing to him if I live or die. No doubt he'd will me dead, and this child too, if he could; but seeing he can't, he cares nothing. He'll heap insult on injury, no doubt. He's made of clay coa.r.s.e enough to do it. But when I'm well, I'll see him and make it clear, once for all."

"You say that now. But I hope you'll never see him, or breathe the same air with him."

"Once--when I'm strong. I don't want him to go on living his life without knowing what I'm thinking of him. I don't want him to think he can pose as a decent man again. I want him to know that the road-menders and road-sweepers are high above him."

"Don't you get in a pa.s.sion. He knows all that well enough. He isn't deceiving himself any more than anybody else. All honest people know what he is--foul wretch. Yes, he's poisoned three lives, if no more, and they are yours and mine and that sleeping child's."

"He's ruined his aunt's life, too. She's thrown him over."

"That won't trouble him. War against women is what you'd expect. But please G.o.d, he'll be up against a man some day--then we shall see a different result. May the Almighty let me live long enough to see him in the gutter, where he belongs. I ask no more."

They poured their bitterness upon Raymond Ironsyde; then a thought came into Mary Dinnett's mind and she left Sabina. Judging the time, she put on her bonnet presently and walked out to the road whence Raymond would return from his work at the luncheon hour.

She stood beside the road at a stile that led into the fields, and as Raymond, deep in thought, pa.s.sed her without looking up, he saw something cast at his feet and for a moment stood still. With a soft thud his bunch of grapes fell ruined in the dust before him and, starting back, he looked at the stile and saw Sabina's mother gazing at him red-faced and furious. Neither spoke. The woman's countenance told her hatred and loathing; the man shrugged his shoulders and, after one swift glance at her, proceeded on his way without quickening or slackening his stride.

He heard her spit behind him and found time to regret that a woman of Mary's calibre should be at Sabina's side. Such concentrated hate astonished him a little. There was no reason in it; nothing could be gained by it. This senseless act of a fool merely made him impatient.

But he smiled before he reached North Hill House to think that but for the interposition of chance and fortune, this brainless old woman might have become his mother-in-law.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A TRIUMPH OF REASON

Mrs. Northover took care that her interrupted conversation with Job Legg should be completed; and he, too, was anxious, that she should know his position. But he realised the danger very fully and was circ.u.mspect in his criticism of Richard Gurd's att.i.tude toward 'The Seven Stars.'

"For my part," said Job on the evening that preceded a very important event, "I still repeat that you have a right to consider we're higher cla.s.s than 'The Tiger'; and to speak of the renowned garden as a 'bit of gra.s.s' was going much too far. It shows a wrong disposition, and it wasn't a gentlemanly thing, and if it weren't such a wicked falsehood, you might laugh at it for jealousy."

"Who ever would have thought the man jealous?" she asked.

"These failings will out," declared Mr. Legg. "And seeing you mean to take him, it is as well you know it."

She nodded rather gloomily.

"Your choice of words is above praise, I'm sure, Job," she said. "For such a simple and straightforward man, you've a wonderful knowledge of the human heart."

"Through tribulation I've come to it," he answered. "However, I'm here to help you, not talk about my own bitter disappointments. And very willing I am to help you when it can be done."

"D'you think you could speak to Richard for me, and put out the truth concerning 'The Seven Stars'?" she asked. But Mr. Legg, simple though he might be, was not as simple as that.

"No," he replied. "There's few things I wouldn't do for you, on the earth or in the waters under the earth, and I say that, even though you've turned me down after lifting the light of hope. But for me to see Gurd on this subject is impossible. It's far too delicate. Another man might, but not me, because he knows that I stand in the unfortunate position of the cast out. So if there's one man that can't go to Gurd and demand reparation on your account, I'm that man. In a calmer moment, you'll be the first to see it."

"I suppose that is so. He'd think, if you talked sense to him, you had an axe to grind and treat you according. You've suffered enough."

"I have without a doubt, and shall continue to do so," he answered her.

"I think just as much of you as ever I did notwithstanding," said Mrs.

Northover. "And I'll go so far as to say that your simple goodness and calm sense under all circ.u.mstances might wear better in the long run than Richard's overbearing way and cruel conceit. Be honest, Job. Do you yourself think 'The Tiger' is a finer house and more famous than my place?"

Mr. Legg perceived very accurately where Nelly suffered most.

"This house," he declared, "have got the natural advantages and Gurd have got the pull in the matter of capital. My candid opinion, what I've come to after many years of careful thought on the subject, is that if we--I say 'we' from force of habit, though I'm in the outer darkness now--if we had a few hundred pounds spending on us and an advertis.e.m.e.nt to holiday people in the papers sometimes, then in six months we shouldn't hear any more about 'The Tiger.' Cash, spent by the hand of a master on 'The Seven Stars,' would lift us into a different house and we should soon be known to cater for a cla.s.s that wouldn't recognise 'The Tiger.' What we want is a bit of gold and white paint before next summer and all those delicate marks about the place that women understand and value. I've often thought that a new sign for example, with seven golden stars on a sky blue background, and perhaps even a flagstaff in the pleasure grounds, with our own flag flying upon it, would, as it were, widen the gulf between him and you. But, of course, that was before these things happened, and when I was thinking, day and night you may say, how to catch the custom."

Mrs. Northover sighed.

"In another man, it would be craft to say such clever things," she answered; "but, in you, I know it's just simple goodness of heart and Christian fellows.h.i.+p. 'Tis amazing how we think alike."

"Not now," he corrected her. "Too late now. I wish to G.o.d we had thought alike; for then, instead of looking at my money as I'd look at a pile of road sc.r.a.pings, I should see it with very different eyes. My windfall would have been poured out here in such a fas.h.i.+on that the people would have wondered. This place is my life, in a manner of speaking. My earthly life, I mean; which you may say is ended now. I was, in my own opinion, as much a part of 'The Seven Stars,' as the beer engine. And when uncle died this was my first thought. Or I should say my second, because in the natural course of events, you were the first."

She sighed again and Mr. Legg left this delicate ground.

"If the man can only be brought to see he's wrong about his fanciful opinion of 'The Tiger,' all may go right for you," he continued. "I don't care for his feelings over-much, but your peace of mind I do consider. At present he dares to think you're a silly woman whose goose is a swan. That's very disorderly coming from the man who's going to marry you. Therefore you must get some clear-sighted person to open his eyes, and make it bitter clear to him that 'The Tiger' never was and never will be a place to draw nice minds and the female element like us."

"There's n.o.body could put it to him better than you," she said.

"At another time, perhaps--not now. I'm not clever, Nelly; but I'm too clever to edge in between a man like Gurd and his future wife. If we stood different, then n.o.body would open his mouth quicker than me."

"We may stand different yet," she answered. "There was a good deal of pa.s.sion when we met, and not the sort of pa.s.sion you expect between lovers, either."