The Creators Part 86

"He wasn't your husband then."

"Don't you see that his being my husband robs the situation of its charm, the vagueness that might have been its danger?"

"Jinny--it never answers--a double arrangement."

"Why not? Why not a quadruple arrangement if necessary?"

"That would be safe. It's the double thing that isn't. You've got to think of Hugh."

"Poor darling, as if I didn't."

"I mean--of him and her."

"Together? Is that your----Oh, I can't. It's unthinkable."

"You might have thought of her, then."

"I did. I did think of her."

"My dear--you know what's the matter with her?"

"That," said Jane slowly, "is what I thought of. She might have been happy if it hadn't been for me."

"That was out of the question," said Sophy, with some asperity.

"Was it? Well, anyhow, she's happy now."

"Jinny, you're beyond anything. Do you mean to tell me that was what you did it for?"

"Partly. I had to have some one. But, yes, that's why I had Gertrude."

"Well, if you did it for Gertrude it was cruel kindness. Encouraging her in her preposterous----"

"Don't, Sophy. There couldn't be anything more innocent on earth."

"Oh, innocent, I dare say. But I've no patience with the folly of it."

"I have. It might so easily have been me."

"You? I don't see you making a fool of yourself."

"I do. I can see myself making an eternal fool. _You_ wouldn't, Sophy, you haven't got it in you. But I could cry when I look at Gertrude. We oughtn't to be talking about it. It's awful of us. We've no right even to know."

"My dear, when it's so apparent! What does Hugh think of it?"

"Do you suppose I've given her away to him?"

"I imagine he knows."

"If he does, he wouldn't give her away to me."

"I'm afraid, dear, she gave herself away."

"Don't you see that that makes it all the worse for her? It makes it horrible. Think how she must have suffered before she _could_. The only chance for her now is to have her back, to face the thing, and let it take its poor innocent place, and make it beautiful for her, so that she can endure it and get all the happiness she can out of it. It's so little she can get, and I owe it to her. I made her suffer."

Sophy became thoughtful.

"After all, Jinny," she said, "you _are_ rather a dear. All the same, if Gertrude wasn't a good woman----"

"But she _is_ a good woman. That's why she's happy now."

Sophy arranged her motor-veil, very thoughtfully, over and around a smile.

This conversation had thrown light on Jinny, a light that to Sophy's sense was beautiful but perilous, hardly of the earth.

XLIII

Down in the garden at Roehampton, Gertrude and Frances Heron were more tenderly and intimately discussing the same theme.

Frances was the only one of the Brodricks with whom tenderness and intimacy were possible for one in Gertrude's case. She was approachable through her sufferings, her profound affections, and the dependence of her position that subdued in her her racial pride.

Gertrude had confessed to a doubt as to whether she ought or ought not to have gone back.

"I don't know," said Frances, "that it was very wise."

"Perhaps not, from the world's point of view. If I had thought of _that_----" she stopped herself, aware that scandal had not been one of any possibilities contemplated by the Brodricks.

"_I_ was not thinking of it, I a.s.sure you," said Frances. "I only wondered whether it were right." She elucidated her point. "For you, for your happiness, considering----"

"I'm not thinking of my own happiness, or I couldn't do it. No, I couldn't do it. I was thinking"--her voice sank and vibrated, and rose, exulting, to the stress--"of _his_."

Frances looked at her with gentle, questioning eyes. Hugh's happiness, no doubt, was the thing; but she wondered how Gertrude's presence was to secure it.

Slowly, bit by bit, with many meditative pauses, many sinkings of her thought into the depths, as if she sounded at each point her own sincerity, Gertrude made it out.

"Mrs. Brodrick is very sweet and very charming, and I know they are devoted. Still"--Gertrude's pause was poignant--"still--she _is_ unusual."

"Well, yes," said Frances.

"And one sees that the situation is a little difficult."

Frances made no attempt to deny it.

"It always is," said Gertrude, "when the wife has an immense, absorbing interest apart. I can't help feeling that they've come, both of them, to a point--a turning point, where everything depends on saving her, as much as possible, all fret and worry. It's saving him. There are so many things she tries to do and can't do; and she puts them all on him."