Second String Part 40

Yet this poor pa.s.sion--commonly so ridiculous, even more commonly, among the polite, held ill-bred--must be allowed its features of interest. It is remarkably alert, acute, ingenious, even laborious, in its sweeping of details into its net. It works up its brief very industriously, be the instructions never so meagre--somehow it invites legal metaphor, being always plaintiff in the court of s.e.x, always with its grievance to prove, generally faced with singularly hard swearing in the witness box. It has its successes, as witnessed by notable phrases; there is the "unwritten law," and there are "extenuating circ.u.mstances." The phrases throw back a rather startling illumination on the sport of versifiers and the material of farce. But the exceptional cases have a trick of stamping themselves on phraseology. Most of us are jealous with no very momentous results. We grumble a little, watch a little, sulk a little, and decide that there is nothing in it. Often there is not. Likewise we are ambitious without convulsing the world--or even our own family circle. So with our lives, our loves, our deaths--history, poetry, elegy find no place for them.

Only nature has and keeps a mother's love for the ordinary man, and holds his doings legitimate matter for her interest, nay, essential to her eternal unresting plan. She may be figured as investing the bulk of her fortune in him, as in three per cents.--genius being her occasional "flutter."

Mark Wellgood was an ordinary man, and he was proud of the fact; that must, perhaps, be considered a circ.u.mstance of aggravation. He refused the suggestions of civilization to modify, and of sentiment to soften, his primitive instincts; he was proud of them just as they were. If any man had come between him and his woman--primitive also were the terms his thoughts used--that man should pay for it. If there were any man at all, who could it be but Harry Belfield? If it were Harry Belfield, Wellgood refused to hold him innocent of an inkling of how matters stood between Isobel and Vivien's father--he must have pretty nearly guessed, even if she had not told him. At least there were relations between Vivien herself and the suspected trespa.s.ser. Did they not give cause enough for a father's anger, deep and righteous, demanding vengeance?

They gave cause--and they gave cover. The jealous suitor could use the indignant father's plea, the indignant father's weapons. The lover's revenge would make the father's duty sweet. He was not indifferent to the wrong done to Vivien; yet he almost prized it for the advantage it gave him in his own quarrel. It was not often that jealousy could plume itself on so honourable and so useful an ally!

Single-hearted concern for Vivien would have let Isobel go, as she prayed, and given Harry either his dismissal or the chance to mend his ways in the absence of temptation. Jealousy imperiously vetoed such suggestions. Isobel should not go. Harry should neither be dismissed nor given a fair chance and a fresh start. If he could, Wellgood would still keep Isobel; at least he would punish Harry, if he caught him. For the sake of these things he compromised his daughter's cause, and made her an instrument for his own purposes. And he did this with no sense of wrong-doing. So masterful was his self-regarding pa.s.sion that his daughter's claim fell to the status of his pretext.

So he smoothed his face and watched.

But Isobel too was now on the alert. She was no longer merely resolved that she would behave herself because she ought; she saw that perforce she must. At least, no more secret dealings! Harry must be told that.

The hidden hope that his answer would be, "Open dealings, then, at any cost," beat still in her heart, faintly, yet without ceasing. But if that answer came not, then all must be over. Word must go to him of that before he next came to Nutley. Such consolation as lay in knowing that she would not marry Wellgood should be his also. Then, perhaps, things would go a little easier, and these terrible three weeks slip past without disaster. Terrible--yes; but, alas, the end of them seemed more terrible yet.

Even had the post seemed safe, there was none which could reach Harry before he was due at Nutley again. She had to find a messenger. She decided on Andy Hayes. He was a safe man; he would not forget to fulfil his charge. The very fact of that bit of knowledge he possessed made him in her eyes the safest messenger; if he had not talked about that other thing, he was not likely to talk about the letter; unlikely to mention it in malice, certain not to refer to it in innocence or inadvertence.

And she knew where to find him. Andy had, with Wellgood's permission, resumed his practice of bathing before breakfast in Nutley lake. The stripes of his bathing-suit were a familiar object to her as he emerged from the bushes or plunged into the water; from her window she could watch his powerful strokes. His hour was half-past seven; before eight n.o.body but servants would be about.

Andy, then, emerging from the shrubbery dressed after his dip, found Miss Vintry strolling up and down.

"You're surprised to see me out so early, Mr. Hayes? But I know your habits. My window looks out this way."

"I'm awfully careful to keep well hidden in the bushes."

"Oh yes!" she laughed. "I've not come to warn you off. Are you likely to see Mr. Harry this morning?"

"I easily can; I shall be pa.s.sing Halton."

"I specially want this note to reach him early in the morning. It's rather important. I should be so much obliged if you'd take it; and will you give it to him yourself?"

Andy stood silent for a moment, not offering to take the letter from her hand. She had foreseen that he might hesitate, knowing what he did; she had even thought that his hesitation might give her an opportunity.

Feigning to notice nothing in his manner, she went on, "I must add that I shall be glad if you'll give it to him when he's alone, and if you won't mention it. It relates to a private matter."

Andy spoke slowly. "I'm not sure you'd choose me to carry it if you knew--"

"I do know; at least I never had much doubt, and I've had none since a talk we had together at Halton. Do you remember?"

"I didn't say anything about it then, did I?" asked Andy.

She smiled. "Not in so many words. You saw a great piece of foolishness--the first and last, I need hardly tell you. I'm very much ashamed of it. In that letter I ask Mr. Harry to forget all about it, and to remember only that I am, and want to go on being, Vivien's friend."

It sounded well, but Andy was not quite convinced.

"It's some time ago now. Mightn't you just ignore it?"

"As far as he's concerned, no doubt I might; but I rather want to get it off my own conscience, Mr. Hayes. It'll make me happier in meeting him.

I shall be happier in meeting you too, after this little talk. Somehow that wretched bit of silliness seems to have made an awkwardness between us, and I want to leave Nutley good friends with every one."

She sounded very sincere; nay, in a sense she was sincere. She was ashamed; she did want to end the whole matter--unless that unexpected answer came. At any rate she was--or sounded--sincere enough to make Andy hold out his hand for the letter.

"I'll take it and give it to him as you wish, Miss Vintry. I'm bound to say, though, that, if apologies are being made, I think Harry's the one to make them."

"We women are taught to think such things worse in ourselves than in men. Men get carried away; they're allowed to, now and then. We mustn't."

The appeal to his chivalry--another wrong to woman!--touched Andy.

"That's infernally unfair!"

"It sometimes seems so, just a little. I'm sincerely grateful to you, Mr. Hayes." She held out her hand to him. "You won't think it necessary to mention to Mr. Harry all I've told you? I don't think he was so sure as I was about--about your presence. And somehow it makes it seem worse if he knew that you--"

"I shall say nothing whatever, if he doesn't," said Andy, as he shook hands.

"Thank you again. I don't think I dare risk asking you to be friends--real friends--yet; but I may, perhaps, on the wedding day."

"I've never been your enemy, Miss Vintry."

"No; you've been kind, considerate"--her voice dropped--"merciful. Thank you. Good-bye."

She left Andy with her letter in his hands, and her humble thanks echoing in his ears--words that, in thanking him for his silence, bound him to a continuance of it. Andy felt most of the guilt suddenly transferred to his shoulders, because he had told the Nun--well, very nearly all about it! That could not be helped now. After all, it was Miss Vintry's own fault; she should have done sooner what she had done now. "All the same," thought chivalrous Andy, "I might give Doris a hint that things look a good bit better."

Certainly Isobel Vintry had cause to congratulate herself on a useful morning's work--Harry safely warned, Andy in great measure conciliated.

She felt more able to face Wellgood over the teapot.

The first round had gone in her favour; the zone of danger was appreciably contracted. Her courage rose; her conscience, too, was quieter. She felt comparatively honest. With Wellgood she had gone as near to absolute honesty as the circ.u.mstances permitted. She had broken the engagement; she had even prayed to be allowed to go away, with all that meant to her. Wellgood made her stay. Then, so far as he was concerned, the issue must be on his own head. If that unexpected answer should come in the course of the weeks still left for it, it would be Wellgood's own lookout. As for Vivien--well, she was perceptibly more honest even in regard to Vivien. If she fought still, in desperate hope, for Vivien's lover, she fought now in fairer fas.h.i.+on, by refusing, not by accepting, his society, his attentions, his kisses. She would be nothing to him unless he found himself forced to cry, "Be everything!"

She would abide no longer on that half-way ground; there were to be no more sly tricks and secret meetings. The kisses, if kisses came, would not be stolen, but ravished in conquest from a rival's lips. If sin, that was sin in the grand manner.

At lunch-time a note came for Vivien, brought by a groom on a bicycle.

"Oh, from Harry!" she exclaimed, tearing it open.

Isobel, sitting opposite Wellgood, set her face. She had expected a note to come for Vivien from Harry. She was on her mettle, fighting warily, risking no points. No note should come to her from Harry, to be opened perhaps under Wellgood's eyes; he had been known to ask to see letters, in his matter-of-course way a.s.suming that there could be nothing private in them. Harry's answer to the note Andy delivered was to come to Isobel through Vivien, and to come in terms dictated by Isobel, terms that she alone would understand. She could always contrive to see Vivien's letters; generally they were left about.

"He's so sorry he can't bring Mr. Foot to tennis with him this afternoon; they're going to play golf," Vivien announced, rather disappointed. But she cheered up. "Oh well, it's rather hot for tennis; and I shall see him to-night, at dinner at Halton."

"Does he say anything else?" asked Isobel carelessly.

"Only that he's bored to death with politics." She laughed. "What's worrying him, I wonder?"

For a moment Isobel sat with eyes lowered; then she raised them and looked across to Wellgood. He was not looking at her; he was carving beef. Then it did not matter if her face had changed a little when she heard that Harry was bored with politics. Neither Wellgood nor Vivien had seen any change there might possibly have been in her face.

That trivial observation about politics was the answer--the expected answer, not that unexpected one. It meant, "I accept your decision."

Oddly enough her first feeling, the one that rose instinctively in her mind, was of triumph over Wellgood. Had she expressed it with the primitive simplicity on which he prided himself, she would have cried, "Sold again!" She had got out of her great peril; she had settled the whole thing. He had not scored a single point against her. She had regained her independence of him, and without cost. There was no longer anything for him to discover. He had no more rights over her; he had to renew his wooing, again to court, to conciliate. He had no way of finding out the past; Andy Hayes was safe. The future was again in her hands. Her smile at Wellgood was serene and confident. She was retreating in perfect order, after fighting a brilliantly successful rearguard action.

Even of the retreat itself she was, for the moment at least, half glad.

Fear and longing had so mingled in her dreams of that unexpected answer.

To be free from that crisis and that revelation! They would have meant flight for her, pursued by a chorus of condemning voices. They would have meant at least days, perhaps weeks, of straining vigilance, of harrowing suspense--never sure of her ground, never sure of herself; above all, never sure of Harry. Who, if not she, should know that you never could be sure of Harry? Who, if not she, should know that neither his plighted word nor his hottest impulse could be relied upon to last?

Yes, she was--half glad; almost more than half glad, when she looked at Vivien. In the back of her mind, save maybe when pa.s.sion ran at full flood for those rare minutes, the stolen ten that had come for so few days, had been the feeling that it would be a terrible thing to be--to be "shown up" to Vivien. The sage adviser, the firm preceptress, the model of the virtues of self-control--how would she have looked in the eyes of Vivien, even had the open, the triumphant victory come to pa.s.s?

Really that hardly bore thinking of, if she had still any self-respect to lose.

She walked alone in the drive after lunch--where she had been wont to meet him. Let it all go! At least it had done one thing for her--it had saved her from Wellgood. It had taught her love, and made the pretence of love impossible--the suffering of unwelcome caresses a thing unholy.

Then it was not all to the bad? It left her with a dream, a vision, a thing unrealized yet real; something to take with her into that new, cold, unknown world of strange people into which, for a livelihood's sake, she must soon plunge--must plunge as soon as she had seen Harry married to Vivien!