In Accordance with the Evidence Part 14

It was not until I had asked her again what was the matter that she spoke.

"It's--it's dreadful!" she moaned. "I--I can see you haven't heard----"

"What is? Come, come!" I said, with some concern but more impatience.

"No, I've not heard anything to take on like this about--unless you mean something about Archie's father?..."

"No, it's nothing to do with Archie's father. Oh, I can't possibly tell you, Jeff----"

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that in that case it was of little use my remaining; but she went on.

"Just a minute," she said. "You haven't heard ... about Louie Causton?"

I was certainly surprised. You will remember that I had not set eyes on Miss Causton since the evening of the breaking-up party, when she had danced twice round the room with me, sought me out again subsequently, and told me what the result had since falsified--that she was returning to the college in the new term.

"No," I said abruptly. "What about her? Nothing wrong, I hope?"

But she only sobbed, "Oh, Jeff!" and with her eyes still closed put out a helpless hand.

I had to approach and take the hand before I learned what the mystery was. I don't know whether you have already guessed it. I hadn't, but for all that my surprise, great as it was, pa.s.sed even in the moment of Kitty's broken whispering in my ear. I had known Louie Causton for a deep, still pool; I don't think any revelation whatever could have added to my respect for her powers of irony and nonchalance; and yet when I say that my surprise pa.s.sed it pa.s.sed only to return. Good gracious!...

I seemed to hear her carefully lackadaisical voice again as she had munched nougat: "So long since I've seen a man, my dear" ... and other circ.u.mstances, unmarked at the time, flashed on me now.

A child!

"Good gracious!" I breathed again in consternation.

My next thought was of Evie.

I was kneeling by Kitty's chair, holding her hand. I asked quickly:

"Does Evie know of this?"

"Yes."

"And does she know you're telling me?"

"Yes."

"And of course Miss Soames does not know?"

"No."

"She thinks as I thought, that it's about Archie's father Evie's so upset?"

"Yes; but perhaps she is about that too a little. I'm horribly upset, Jeff."

This last I took as a hint that the effect of this very startling intelligence on Evie was not the first thing to be considered.

"Yes, yes.... I see...." I murmured.

We were silent, and I felt Kitty's fingers move within my grasp. They pressed mine more closely.

"Don't leave me just yet, Jeff," she begged faintly. She was genuinely prostrated.

"No, no," I said. "Let me think for a minute...."

The next moment my brain was buzzing with thought.

I knew that only some such contact with plain raw actuality as this had been lacking in order to make Evie's transition from girlhood to womanhood complete. No longer now was she the fair young tree standing over its sprinkling of delicate discarded sheaths; this puff of Life's east wind had carried away the last of them. She had heard of these things, and so in a sense knew of them; but that somebody she knew ...

that it should have come so near ... yes, poor shocked heart, that finished it. Archie's insupportable vanities had begun her enlightenment; the menace of his father's condition had touched her with the fringe of its shadow; and now this revelation had come upon her.

Mr Merridew's illness, moreover, had a plainly seen peril for me. I knew that if anything happened Archie would immediately have enough money to marry on, and my own labours--all that I had planned and done from the first moment of my loving her to this present hour when I sat in Kitty Windus' back room holding Kitty's hand--would go for nothing. They, Evie and Archie, would probably marry, and I--I knew this in that moment for a certainty--I, from sheer yielding, should find myself married to Kitty Windus the moment I could sc.r.a.pe the money together.

I gave a soft groan. I don't know whether Kitty supposed my groan the commiseration for Louie Causton.

Yet what else, if I had chosen a different line, could I have done?

Nothing! My shrinking heart cried, Nothing! What was I to have spoken to a young girl of marriage? An Agency clerk--with dazzling hopes! A dweller over a sordid publi-house--and a dreamer of visions! The possessor of a single suit of presentable clothes, the knees of which I was even now deteriorating past remedy--and of a heart tapestried with purple and gold, filled with an almost insensate ambition!

And I saw Evie only at all on the well-nigh insupportable footing that I was the betrothed of Kitty Windus!

Oh, if I had but had two suits of clothes, and thirty-six s.h.i.+llings a week instead of eighteen s.h.i.+llings, I think I would have cut the knot there and then and have sought Evie out that very night and asked her to marry me!

Then after a time I became more practical. Things, even the heart-breaking small things of my life, were after all slowly changing.

One of these things was that my slavery at Rixon Tebb & Masters' was already promising to draw to a close. I have not yet spoken of this. Let me do so, briefly, now.

Once more I had been looking for a billet elsewhere, and this time I had excellent hopes of success. The post for which I had applied would not be vacant for six weeks yet, but I had forced a personal interview with one of my prospective employers, and had done what I had intended to do--impressed him strongly with a sense of my mental capacity. He had promised me his interest, and, unless he forgot it again (which, of course, was not impossible), I might have at least enough for one to live on before long. And once more my wider hopes were, I knew in my soul, not illusions. Soon there would remain only the bond that tied me to Kitty, and, with that broken, I would no longer envy even Archie Merridew that luck and weak charm of his that in the past had so often seemed more valuable than all I possessed.

But Kitty, lying back in her deck-chair, had opened her eyes again. They were full of softness and fright. She spoke.

"I wonder, Jeff--whether----" she said timidly and stopped.

"You wonder what, Kitty?" I asked gently.

"I know how strict you are--and if you say no I won't--but if I might go and see her----"

"Miss Causton?"

"Not if you don't wish it, Jeff----"

I considered.

"Has she asked you to go?"

"No--but if you wouldn't mind--very much----"

It mattered little to me, but I had to pretend to ponder deeply.

I really don't know whether I felt sorrow for Miss Causton or not. She was altogether beyond my comprehension. For all I knew my sorrow might be an impertinence. So I must seem to ponder.

"Where is she?" I asked.