Brook felt in his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokes
generally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life,
from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lighting
with great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, and
presently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just where
Clare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes his
pipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite still
in his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of the
terrace.
He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlike
the self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousness
was anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what she
might be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her his
former mood returned, and he felt that he was not ashamed of what he had
done and said. Then he realised, all at once, for the second time, that
Clare had been on the platform on that first night, and he tried to
recall everything that Lady Fan and he had said to each other.
No such thing had ever happened to him before, and he had a sensation of
shame and distress and anger, as he went over the scene, and thought of
the innocent young girl who had sat in the shadow and heard it all. She
had accidentally crossed the broad, clear line of demarcation which he
drew between her kind and all the tribe of Lady Fans and Mrs. Cairngorms
whom he had known. He felt somehow as though it were his fault, and as
though he were responsible to Clare for what she had heard and seen. The
sensation of shame deepened, and he swore bitterly under his breath. It
was one of those things which could not be undone, and for which there
was no reparation possible. Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For a
man who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he was
singularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he had
told her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick and
choose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he might
have chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare should
have understood nothing--if he had only known that she had been sitting
up there by the cross in the dark. And again he cursed himself bitterly.
It was not because her knowing the facts had spoilt everything and
given her a bad impression of him from the first: that might be set
right in time, even now, and he did not wish her to marry him believing
him to be an angel of light. It was that she should have seen something
which she should not have seen, for her innocence's sake--something
which, in a sense, must have offended and wounded her maidenliness. He
would have struck any man who could have laughed at his sensitiveness
about that. The worst of it--and he went back to the idea again and
again--was that nothing could be done to mend matters, since it was all
so completely in the past.
He sat on the wall and pulled at his briar-root pipe, which had gone out
and was quite cold by this time, though he hardly knew it. He had plenty
to think of, and things were not going straight at all. He had pretended
indifference when his mother had told him how Lady Fan meant to get a
divorce and how she was telling her intimate friends under the usual
vain promises of secrecy that she meant to marry Adam Johnstone's son as
soon as she should be free. Brook had told her plainly enough that he
would not marry her in any case, but he asked himself whether the world
might not say that he should, and whether in that case it might not
turn out to be a question of honour. He had secretly thought of that
before now, and in the sudden depression of spirits which came upon him
as a reaction he cursed himself a third time for having told Clare
Bowring that he loved her, while such a matter as Lady Fan's divorce was
still hanging over him as a possibility.
Sitting on the wall, he swung his legs angrily, striking his heels
against the stones in his perplexed discontent with the ordering of the
universe. Things looked very black. He wished that he could see Clare
again, and that, somehow, he could talk it all over with her. Then he
almost laughed at the idea. She would tell him that she disliked him--he
was sick of the sound of the word--and that it was his duty to marry
Lady Fan. What could she know of Lady Fan? He could not tell her that
the little lady in the white serge, being rather desperate, had got
herself asked to go with the party for the express purpose of throwing
herself at his head, as the current phrase gracefully expresses it, and
with the distinct intention of divorcing her husband in order to marry
Brook Johnstone. He could not tell Clare that he had made love to Lady
Fan to get rid of her, as another common expression put it, with a
delicacy worthy of modern society. He could not tell her that Lady Fan,
who was clever but indiscreet, had unfolded her scheme to her bosom
friend Mrs. Leo Cairngorm, or that Mrs. Cairngorm, unknown to Lady Fan,
had been a very devoted friend of Brook's, and was still fond of him,
and secretly hated Lady Fan, and had therefore unfolded the whole plan
to Brook before the party had started; or that on that afternoon at
sunset on the Acropolis he had not at all assented to Lady Fan's mad
proposal, as she had represented that he had when they had parted on the
platform at Amalfi; he could not tell Clare any of these things, for he
felt that they were not fit for her to hear. And if she knew none of
them she must judge him out of her ignorance. Brook wished that some
supernatural being with a gift for solving hard problems would suddenly
appear and set things straight.
Instead, he saw the man who brought the letters just entering the hotel,
and he rose by force of habit and went to the office to see if there
were anything for him.
There was one, and it was from Lady Fan, by no means the first she had
written since she had gone to England. And there were several for Sir
Adam and two for Lady Johnstone. Brook took them all, and opened his own
at once. He did not belong to that class of people who put off reading
disagreeable correspondence. While he read he walked slowly along the
corridor.
Lady Fan was actually consulting a firm of solicitors with a view to
getting a divorce. She said that she of course understood his conduct on
that last night at Amalfi--the whole plan must have seemed unrealisable
to him then--she would forgive him. She refused to believe that he would
ruin her in cold blood, as she must be ruined if she got a divorce from
Crosby, and if Brook would not marry her; and much more.
Why should she be ruined? Brook asked himself. If Crosby divorced her on
Brook's account, it would be another matter altogether. But she was
going to divorce Crosby, who was undoubtedly a beast, and her reputation
would be none the worse for it. People would only wonder why she had not
done it before, and so would Crosby, unless he took it into his head to
examine the question from a financial point of view. For Crosby was, or
had been, rich, and Lady Fan had no money of her own, and Crosby was
quite willing to let her spend a good deal, provided she left him in
peace. How in the world could Clare ever know all the truth about such
people? It would be an insult to her to think that she could understand
half of it, and she would not think the better of him unless she could
understand it all. The situation did not seem to admit of any solution
in that way. All he could hope for was that Clare might change her mind.
When she should be older she would understand that she had made a
mistake, and that the world was not merely a high-class boarding-school
for young ladies, in which all the men were employed as white-chokered
professors of social righteousness. That seemed to be her impression, he
thought, with a resentment which was not against her in particular, but
against all young girls in general, and which did not prevent him from
feeling that he would not have had it otherwise for anything in the
world.
He stuffed the letter into his pocket, and went in search of his father.
He was strongly inclined to lay the whole matter before him, and to ask
the old gentleman's advice. He had reason to believe that Sir Adam had
been in worse scrapes than this when he had been a young man, and
somehow or other nobody had ever thought the worse of him. He was sure
to be in his room at that hour, writing letters. Brook knocked and went
in. It was about eleven o'clock.
Sir Adam, gaunt and grey, and clad in a cashmere dressing-jacket, was
extended upon all the chairs which the little cell-like room contained,
close by the open window. He had a very thick cigarette between his
lips, and a half-emptied glass of brandy and soda stood on the corner of
a table at his elbow. He had not failed to drink one brandy and soda
every morning at eleven o'clock for at least a quarter of a century.
His keen old eyes turned sharply to Brook as the latter entered, and a
smile lighted up his furrowed face, but instantly disappeared again; for
the young man's features betrayed something of what he had gone through
during the last hour.
"Anything wrong, boy?" asked Sir Adam quickly. "Have a brandy and soda
and a pipe with me. Oh, letters! It's devilish hard that the post should
find a man out in this place! Leave them there on the table."
Brook relighted his pipe. His father took one leg from one of the
chairs, which he pushed towards his son with his foot by way of an
invitation to sit down.
"What's the matter?" he asked, renewing his question. "You've got into
another scrape, have you? Mrs. Crosby--of all women in the world. Your
mother told me that ridiculous story. Wants to divorce Crosby and marry
you, does she? I say, boy, it's time this sort of nonsense stopped, you
know. One of these days you'll be caught. There are cleverer women in
the world than Mrs. Crosby."
"Oh! she's not clever," answered Brook thoughtfully.
"Well, what's the foundation of the story? What the dickens did you go
with those people for, when you found out that she was coming? You knew
the sort of woman she was, I suppose? What happened? You made love to
her, of course. That was what she wanted. Then she talked of eternal
bliss together, and that sort of rot, didn't she? And you couldn't
exactly say that you only went in for bliss by the month, could you? And
she said, 'By Jove, as you don't refuse, you shall have it for the rest
of your life,' and she said to herself that you were richer than Crosby,
and a good deal younger, and better-looking, and better socially, and
that if you were going to make a fool of yourself she might as well get
the benefit of it as well as any other woman. Then she wrote to a
solicitor--and now you are in the devil of a scrape. I fancy that's the
history of the case, isn't it?"
"I wish you wouldn't talk about women in that sort of way, Governor!"
exclaimed Brook, by way of answer.
"Don't be an ass!" answered Sir Adam. "There are women one can talk
about in that way, and women one can't. Mrs. Crosby is one of the first
kind. I distinguish between 'women' and 'woman.' Don't you? Woman means
something to most of us--something a good deal better than we are, which
we treat properly and would cut one another's throats for. We sinners
aren't called upon to respect women who won't respect themselves. We are
only expected to be civil to them because they are things in petticoats
with complexions. Don't be an ass, Brook. I don't want to know what you
said to Mrs. Crosby, nor what she said to you, and you wouldn't be a
gentleman if you told me. That's your affair. But she's a woman with a
consumptive reputation that's very near giving up the ghost, and that
would have departed this life some time ago if Crosby didn't happen to
be a little worse than she is. She wants to get a divorce and marry my
son--and that's my affair. Do you remember the Arab and his slave?
'You've stolen my money,' said the sheikh. 'That's my business,'
answered the slave. 'And I'm going to beat you,' said the sheikh.
'That's your business,' said the slave. It's a similar case, you know,
only it's a good deal worse. I don't want to know anything that happened
before you two parted. But I've a right to know what Mrs. Crosby has
done since, haven't I? You don't care to marry her, do you, boy?"
"Marry her! I'd rather cut my throat."
"You needn't do that. Just tell me whether all this is mere talk, or
whether she has really been to the solicitor's. If she has, you know,
she will get her divorce without opposition. Everybody knows about
Crosby."
"It's true," said Brook. "I've just had a letter from her again. I wish
I knew what to do!"
"You can't do anything."
"I can refuse to marry her, can't I?"
"Oh--you could. But plenty of people would say that you had induced her
to get the divorce, and then had changed your mind. She'll count on
that, and make the most of it, you may be sure. She won't have a penny
when she's divorced, and she'll go about telling everybody that you have
ruined her. That won't be pleasant, will it?"
"No--hardly. I had thought of it."
"You see--you can't do anything without injuring yourself. I can settle
the whole affair in half an hour. By return of post you'll get a letter
from her telling you that she has abandoned all idea of proceedings
against Crosby."
"I'll bet you she doesn't," said Brook.
"Anything you like. It's perfectly simple. I'll just make a will,
leaving you nothing at all, if you marry her, and I'll send her a copy
to-day. You'll get the answer fast enough."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Brook, in surprise. Then he thoughtfully relighted
his pipe and threw the match out of the window. "I say, Governor," he
added after a pause, "do you think that's quite--well, quite fair and
square, you know?"
"What on earth do you mean?" cried Sir Adam. "Do you mean to tell me
that I haven't a perfect right to leave my money as I please? And that
the first adventuress who takes a fancy to it has a right to force you
into a disgraceful marriage, and that it would be dishonourable of me to
prevent it if I could? You're mad, boy! Don't talk such nonsense to me!"
"I suppose I'm an idiot," said Brook. "Things about money so easily get
a queer look, you know. It's not like other things, is it?"
"Look here, Brook," answered the old man, taking his feet from the chair
on which they rested, and sitting up straight in the low easy chair.
"People have said a lot of things about me in my life, and I'll do the
world the credit to add that it might have said twice as much with a
good show of truth. But nobody ever said that I was mean, nor that I
ever disappointed anybody in money matters who had a right to expect
something of me. And that's pretty conclusive evidence, because I'm a
Scotch-man, and we are generally supposed to be a close-fisted tribe.
They've said everything about me that the world can say, except that
I've told you about my first marriage. She--she got her divorce, you
know. She had a perfect right to it."
The old man lit another cigarette, and sipped his brandy and soda
thoughtfully.
"I don't like to talk about money," he said in a lower tone. "But I
don't want you to think me mean, Brook. I allowed her a thousand a year
after she had got rid of me. She never touched it. She isn't that kind.
She would rather starve ten times over. But the money has been paid to
her account in London for twenty-seven years. Perhaps she doesn't know
it. All the better for her daughter, who will find it after her mother's
death, and get it all. I only don't want you to think I'm mean, Brook."
"Then she married again--your first wife?" asked the young man, with
natural curiosity. "And she's alive still?"
"Yes," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "She married again six years
after I did--rather late--and she had one daughter."
"What an odd idea!" exclaimed Brook. "To think that those two people are
somewhere about the world. A sort of stray half-sister of mine, the
girl would be--I mean--what would be the relationship, Governor, since
we are talking about it?"
"None whatever," answered the old man, in a tone so extraordinarily
sharp that Brook looked up in surprise. "Of course not! What relation
could she be? Another mother and another father--no relation at all."
"Do you mean to say that I could marry her?" asked Brook idly.
Sir Adam started a little.
"Why--yes--of course you could, as she wouldn't be related to you."
He suddenly rose, took up his glass, and gulped down what was left in
it. Then he went and stood before the open window.
"I say, Brook," he began, his back turned to his son.
"What?" asked Brook, poking his knife into his pipe to clean it.
"Anything wrong?"
"I can't stand this any longer. I've got to speak to somebody--and I
can't speak to your mother. You won't talk, boy, will you? You and I
have always been good friends."
"Of course! What's the matter with you, Governor? You can tell me."
"Oh--nothing--that is--Brook, I say, don't be startled. This Mrs.
Bowring is my divorced wife, you know."
"Good God!"
Sir Adam turned on his heels and met his son's look of horror and
astonishment. He had expected an exclamation of surprise, but Brook's
voice had fear in it, and he had started from his chair.
"Why do you say 'Good God'--like that?" asked the old man. "You're not
in love with the girl, are you?"
"I've just asked her to marry me."
The young man was ghastly pale, as he stood stock-still, staring at his
father. Sir Adam was the first to recover something of equanimity, but
the furrows in his face had suddenly grown deeper.
"Of course she has accepted you?" he asked.
"No--she knew about Mrs. Crosby." That seemed sufficient explanation of
Clare's refusal. "How awful!" exclaimed Brook hoarsely, his mind going
back to what seemed the main question just then. "How awful for you,
Governor!"
"Well--it's not pleasant," said Sir Adam, turning to the window again.
"So the girl refused you," he said, musing, as he looked out. "Just like
her mother, I suppose. Brook"--he paused.
"Yes?"
"So far as I'm concerned, it's not so bad as you think. You needn't
pity me, you know. It's just as well that we should have met--after
twenty-seven years."
"She knew you at once, of course?"
"She knew I was your father before I came. And, I say, Brook--she's
forgiven me at last."
His voice was low and unsteady, and he resolutely kept his back turned.
"She's one of the best women that ever lived," he said. "Your mother's
the other."
There was a long silence, and neither changed his position. Brook
watched the back of his father's head.
"You don't mind my saying so to you, Brook?" asked the old man, hitching
his shoulders.
"Mind? Why?"
"Oh--well--there's no reason, I suppose. Gad! I wish--I suppose I'm
crazy, but I wish to God you could marry the girl, Brook! She's as good
as her mother."
Brook said nothing, being very much astonished, as well as disturbed.
"Only--I'll tell you one thing, Brook," said the voice at the window,
speaking into space. "If you do marry her--and if you treat her as I
treated her mother--" he turned sharply on both heels and waited a
minute--"I'll be damned if I don't believe I'd shoot you!"
"I'd spare you the trouble, and do it myself," said Brook, roughly.
They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and might
be, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the same
way, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook's last speech.
"It's settled now, at all events," he said in a decided way, after a
long time. "What's the use of talking about it? I don't know whether you
mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon."
Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward,
looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on
his knees, and his hands hanging down.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Let us try and look at it quietly, boy.
Don't do anything in a hurry. You're in love with the girl, are you? It
isn't a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at
your age?"
"Gad!" exclaimed Brook, half angrily. "I know it! that's all. I can't
live without her. That is--it's all bosh to talk in that way, you know.
One goes on living, I suppose--one doesn't die. You know what I mean.
I'd rather lose an arm than lose her--that sort of thing. How am I to
explain it to you? I'm in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to
marry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can't say
that I don't know what married life means."
"Other people's married life," observed Sir Adam, grimly. "You know
something about that, I'm afraid."
"What difference does it make?" asked Brook. "I can't marry the daughter
of my father's divorced wife."
"I never heard of a case, simply because such cases don't arise often.
But there's no earthly reason why you shouldn't. There is no
relationship whatever between you. There's no mention of it in the table
of kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn't kindred or
affinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may do
much more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father's
divorced wife when you are to have forty thousand pounds a year, Brook.
I've found it out in my time. You'll find it out in yours. And it isn't
as though there were the least thing about it that wasn't all fair and
square and straight and honourable and legal--and everything else,
including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury
wouldn't have married me the second time, because the Church isn't
supposed to approve of divorces. But I was married in church all right,
by a very good man. And Church disapproval can't possibly extend to the
second generation, you know. Oh no! So far as its being possible goes,
there's nothing to prevent your marrying her."
"Except Mrs. Crosby," said Brook. "You'll prove that she doesn't exist
either, if you go on. But all that doesn't put things straight. It's a
horrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mother
say if she knew? You haven't told her about the Bowrings, have you?"
"No," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "I haven't told her anything. Of
course she knows the story, but--I'm not sure. Do you think I'm bound to
tell her that--who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it's anything like not
fair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I'll
tell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, of
course."
"Of course," assented Brook. "You can't do that, unless we go away.
Besides, as things are now, what's the use?"
"She'll have to know, if you are engaged to the daughter."
"I'm not engaged to Miss Bowring," said Brook, disconsolately. "She
won't look at me. What an infernal mess I've made of my life!"
"Don't be an ass, Brook!" exclaimed Sir Adam, for the third time that
morning.
"It's all very well to tell me not to be an ass," answered the young
man gravely. "I can't mend matters now, and I don't blame her for
refusing me. It isn't much more than two weeks since that night. I can't
tell her the truth--I wouldn't tell it to you, though I can't prevent
your telling it to me, since you've guessed it. She thinks I betrayed
Mrs. Crosby, and left her--like the merest cad, you know. What am I to
do? I won't say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything--and if I were
low enough to do that I couldn't say it to Miss Bowring. I told her that
I'd marry her in spite of herself--carry her off--anything! But of
course I couldn't. I lost my head, and talked like a fool."
"She won't think the worse of you for that," observed the old man. "But
you can't tell her--the rest. Of course not! I'll see what I can do,
Brook. I don't believe it's hopeless at all. I've watched Miss Bowring,
ever since we first met you two, coming up the hill. I'll try
something--"
"Don't speak to her about Mrs. Crosby, at all events!"
"I don't think I should do anything you wouldn't do yourself, boy," said
Sir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. "All I say is that the
case isn't so hopeless as you seem to think. Of course you are heavily
handicapped, and you are a dog with a bad name, and all the rest of it.
The young lady won't change her mind to-day, nor to-morrow either,
perhaps. But she wouldn't be a human woman if she never changed it at
all."
"You don't know her!" Brook shook his head and began to refill his
refractory pipe. "And I don't believe you know her mother either, though
you were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, she
won't let her daughter marry your son. It's not as though anything could
happen now to change the situation. It's an old one--it's old, and set,
and hard, like a cast. You can't run it into a new mould and make
anything else of it. Not even you, Governor--and you are as clever as
anybody I know. It's a sheer question of humanity, without any possible
outside incident. I've got two things against me which are about as
serious as anything can be--the mother's prejudice against you, and the
daughter's prejudice against me--both deuced well founded, it seems to
me."
"You forget one thing, Brook," said Sir Adam, thoughtfully.
"What's that?"
"Women forgive."
Neither spoke for some time.
"You ought to know," said Brook in a low tone, at last. "They forgive
when they love--or have loved. That's the right way to put it, I think."
"Well--put it in that way, if you like. It will just cover the ground.
Whatever that young lady may say, she likes you very much. I've seen her
watch you, and I'm sure of it."
"How can a woman love a man and hate him at the same time?"
"Why do jealous women sometimes kill their husbands? If they didn't love
them they wouldn't care; and if they didn't hate them, they wouldn't
kill them. You can't explain it, perhaps, but you can't deny it either.
She'll never forgive Mrs. Crosby--perhaps--but she'll forgive you, when
she finds out that she can't be happy without you. Stay here quietly,
and let me see what I can do."
"You can't do anything, Governor. But I'm grateful to you all the same.
And--you know--if there's anything I can do on my side to help you, just
now, I'll do it!"
"Thank you, Brook," said the old man, leaning back, and putting up his
feet again.
Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Then
he got his hat and went off for a solitary walk to think matters over.
They were grave enough, and all that his father had said could not
persuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. There
was a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not remember
ever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with bent
head.