From this retreat, Irene wrote to her cousin Olga Hannaford, and in the
course of the letter made inquiry whether anything was known at Ewell
about a severe illness that had befallen young Mr. Otway. Olga replied
that she had heard of no such event; that they had received no news at
all of Mr. Otway since his leaving England. This did not allay an
uneasiness which, in various forms, had troubled Irene ever since she
heard that her studious acquaintance had abandoned his ambitions and
gone back to commerce. A few weeks more elapsed, and--being now in
Scotland--she received a confirmation of what Arnold Jacks had
reported. Immediately on reaching Odessa, Piers Otway had fallen ill,
and for a time was in danger. Irene mused. She would have preferred not
to think of Otway at all, but often did so, and could not help it. A
certain reproach of conscience connected itself with his name. But as
time went on, and it appeared that the young man was settled to his
mercantile career in Russia, she succeeded in dismissing him from her
mind.
For the next three years she lived with her father in London; a life
pretty evenly divided between studies and the amusements of her world.
Dr. Derwent pursued his quiet activity. In a certain sphere he had
reputation; the world at large knew little or nothing of him. All he
aimed at was the diminution of human suffering; whether men thanked him
for his life's labour did not seem to him a point worth considering. He
knew that only his scientific brethren could gauge the advance in
knowledge, and consequent power over disease, due to his patient toil;
it was a question of minute discoveries, of investigations
unintelligible to the layman. Some of his colleagues held that he
foolishly restricted himself in declining to experimentalise _in
corpore vili_, whenever such experiments were attended with pain; he
was spoken of in some quarters as a "sentimentalist," a man who might
go far but for his "fads." One great pathologist held that the whole
idea of pursuing science for mitigation of human ills was nothing but a
sentimentality and a fad. A debate between this personage and Dr.
Derwent was brought to a close by the latter's inextinguishable mirth.
He was, indeed, a man who laughed heartily, and laughter often served
him where another would have waxed choleric.
"Only a dog!" he exclaimed once to Irene, apropos of this subject, and
being in his graver mood. "Why, what assurance have I that any given
man is of more importance to the world than any given dog? How can I
know what is important and what is not, when it comes to the ultimate
mystery of life? Create me a dog--just a poor little mongrel puppy--and
you shall torture him; then, and not till then. And in that event I
reserve my opinion of the----" He checked himself on the point of a
remark which seemed of too wide bearing for the girl's ears. But Irene
supplied the hiatus for herself, as she was beginning to do pretty
often when listening to her father.
Dr. Derwent was, in a sense, a self-made man; in youth he had gone
through a hard struggle, and but for his academic successes he could
not have completed the course of medical training. Twenty years of very
successful practice had made him independent, and a mechanical
invention--which he had patented--an ingenuity of which he thought
nothing till some friend insisted on its value--raised his independence
to moderate wealth. For his children's sake he was glad of this
comfort; like every educated man who has known poverty at the outset of
life, he feared it more than he cared to say.
His wife had brought him nothing--save her beauty and her noble heart.
She wedded him when it was still doubtful whether he would hold his own
in the fierce fight for a living; she died before the days of his
victory. Now and then, a friend who heard him speak of his wife's
family smiled with the thought that he only just escaped being
something of a snob. Which merely signified that a man of science
attached value to descent. Dr. Derwent knew the properties of such
blood as ran in his wife's veins, and it rejoiced him to mark the
characteristics which Irene inherited from her mother.
He often suffered anxiety on behalf of his sister, Mrs. Hannaford, whom
he knew to be pinched in circumstances, but whom it was impossible to
help. Lee Hannaford he disliked and distrusted; the men were poles
apart in character and purpose. The family had now left Ewell, and
lived in a poor house in London. Olga was trying to earn money by her
drawing, not, it seemed, with much success. Hannaford was always said
to be on the point of selling some explosive invention to the British
Government, whence would result a fortune; but the Government had not
yet come to terms.
"What a shame it is," quoth Dr. Derwent, "that an honest man who
facilitates murder on so great a scale should be kept waiting for his
reward!"
Hannaford pursued his slight acquaintance with Arnold Jacks, who, in
ignorance of any relationship, once spoke of him to Miss Derwent.
"An ingenious fellow. I should like to make some use of him, but I
don't quite know how."
"I am sorry to say he belongs by marriage to our family," replied Irene.
"Indeed? Why sorry?"
"I detest his character. He is neither a gentleman, nor anything else
that one can respect."
It closed a conversation in which they had differed more sharply than
usual, with--on Irene's part--something less than the wonted gaiety of
humour. They did not see each other very often, but always seemed glad
to meet, and always talked in a tone of peculiar intimacy, as if
conscious of mutual understanding. Yet no two acquaintances could have
been in greater doubt as to each other's mind and character. Irene was
often mentally occupied with Mr. Jacks, and one of the questions she
found most uncertain was whether he in turn ever thought of her with
like interest. Now she seemed to have proof that he sought an
opportunity of meeting; now, again, he appeared to have forgotten her
existence. He interested her in his personality, he interested her in
his work. She would have liked to speak of him with her father; but Dr.
Derwent never broached the subject, and she could not herself lead up
to it. Whenever she saw his name in the paper--where it often stood in
reports of public festivities or in items of social news--her eye dwelt
upon it, and her fancy was stirred. Curiosity, perhaps, had the greater
part in her feeling. Arnold Jacks seemed to live so "largely," in
contact with such great affairs and such eminent people. One day, at
length, a little paragraph in an evening journal announced that he was
engaged to be married, and to a lady much in the light, the widowed
daughter of a Conservative statesman. It was only an hour or two after
reading this news that Irene met him at dinner, and spoke with him of
Hannaford; neither to Arnold himself nor to anyone else did she allude
to the rumoured engagement; but that night she was not herself.
About lunch time on the next day she received a note from Jacks. His
attention had been drawn--he wrote--to an absurd bit of gossip
connecting his name with that of a lady whose friend he was, and
absolutely nothing more. Would Miss Derwent, if occasion arose, do him
the kindness to contradict this story in her circle? He would be
greatly obliged to her.
Irene was something more than surprised. It struck her as odd that
Arnold Jacks should request her services in such a matter as this. In
an obscure way she half resented the brief, off-hand missive. And she
paid no further attention to it.
A month later, she, her father and brother, were on their way to
Switzerland. Stepping into the boat at Dover, she saw in front of her
Arnold Jacks. It was a perfectly smooth passage, and they talked all
the way; for part of the time, alone.
"I think," said Arnold, at the first opportunity, looking her in the
face, "you never replied to a letter of mine last month about a certain
private affair?"
"A letter? Oh, yes. I didn't think it required an answer."
"Don't you generally answer letters from your friends?"
Irene, in turn, gave him a steady look.
"Generally, yes. But not when I have the choice between silence and
being disagreeable."
"You were both silent _and_ disagreeable," said Arnold, smiling. "Do
you mind being disagreeable again, and telling me what your answer
would have been?"
"Simply that I never, if I can help it, talk about weddings and rumours
of weddings, and that I couldn't make an exception in your case."
Arnold laughed in the old way.
"A most original rule, Miss Derwent, and admirable. If all kept to it I
shouldn't have been annoyed by that silly chatter. It occurs to me that
I perhaps ought not to have sent you that note. I did it in a moment of
irritation--wanting to have the stupid thing contradicted right and
left, as fast as possible. I won't do it again."
They were on excellent terms once more. Irene felt a singular pleasure
in his having apologised; it was one of the very rare occasions of his
yielding to her on any point whatever. Never had she felt so kindly
disposed to him.
Arnold was going to Paris, and on business; he hinted at something
pending between his Company and a French Syndicate.
"You are a sort of informal diplomatist," said Irene, her interest keen.
"Now and then, yes. And"--he added with the frankness which was one of
his more amiable points--"I rather like it."
"One sees that you do. Better, I suppose, than the thought of going
into Parliament."
"That may come some day," he answered, glancing at a gull that hovered
above the ship. "Not whilst my father sits there."
"You would be on different sides, I suppose."
Arnold smiled, and went on to say that he was uneasy about his father's
health. John Jacks had fallen of late into a habit of worry about
things great and small, as though age were suddenly telling upon him.
He fretted over public affairs; he suffered from the death of old
friends, especially that of John Bright, whom he had held in
affectionate regard for a lifetime. Irene was glad to hear this
expression of anxiety. For it sometimes seemed to her that Arnold Jacks
had little, if any, domestic feeling.
She wished they could have travelled further together. Their talks were
always broken off too soon, just when she began to get a glimpse of
characteristics still unknown to her. On the journey she thought
constantly of him; not with any sort of tender emotion, but with much
curiosity. It would have gratified her to know what degree of truth
there was in that rumour of his engagement a month ago; some,
undoubtedly, for she had noticed a peculiar smile on the faces of
persons who alluded to it. His apparent coldness towards women in
general might be natural, or might conceal mysteries. So difficult a
man to know! And so impossible to decide whether he was really worth
knowing!
Among intimates of her own sex Irene had a reputation for a certain
chaste severity becoming at moments all but prudery. It did not
altogether harmonise with the tone of highly taught young women who
rather prided themselves on freedom of thought, and to some extent of
utterance. Singular in one so far from cold-blooded, so abounding in
vitality. Towards men, her attitude seemed purely intellectual; no one
had ever so much as suspected a warmer interest. A hint of things
forbidden with regard to any male acquaintance caused her to turn away,
silent, austere. That such things not seldom came to her hearing was a
motive of troubled reflection, common enough in all intelligent girls
who live in touch with the wider world. Men puzzled her, and Irene did
not like to be puzzled. As free from unwholesome inquisitiveness as a
girl can possibly be, she often wished to know, once for all, whatever
was to be learnt about the concealed life of men; to know it and to
have done with it; to settle her mind on that point, as on any other
that affected the life of a reasonable being. Yet she shrank from all
such enquiry, with a sense of womanly pride, doing her best to believe
that there was no concealment in the case of any man with whom she
could have friendly relations. She scorned the female cynic; she
disliked the carelessly liberal in moral judgment. Profoundly
mysterious to her was everything covered by the word "passion"--a word
she detested.
Her way of seeing life on the amusing side aided, of course, her
maidenly severity against trouble of sense and sentiment. This she had
from her father, a man of quips and jokes on the surface of his
seriousness. As she grew older, it threatened a decline of intimacy
between her and her cousin Olga, who, never naturally buoyant, was
becoming so cheerless, so turbid of temper, that Irene found it
difficult to talk with her for long together. Domestic miseries might
greatly account for the girl's mood, but Irene had insight enough to
perceive that this was not all. And she felt uncomfortably helpless. To
jest seemed unfeeling; sympathy of the sentimental sort she could not
give. She feared that Olga was beginning to shrink from her.
Since the Hannaford's removal to London, they had not been able to see
much of each other. Irene understood that she was not very welcome in
the little house at Hammersmith, even before her aunt wrote to ask her
not to come. Lee Hannaford's aloofness from his wife's relatives had
turned to hostility; he spoke of them with increasing bitterness, threw
contempt on Dr. Derwent's scientific work, and condemned Irene as a
butterfly of fashion. Olga ceased to visit the house in Bryanston
Square, and the cousins only corresponded. It was Dr. Derwent's opinion
that Hannaford could not be quite sane; he was much troubled on his
sister's account, and had often pondered extreme measures for her
rescue from an intolerable position.
At length there came to pass the event to which Mrs. Hannaford had
looked as her only hope. The widowed sister in America died, and, out
of her abundance, her children all provided for, left to the unhappy
wife in England a substantial bequest. News of this came first to Dr.
Derwent, who was appointed trustee.
But before he had time to communicate with Mrs. Hannaford, a letter
from her occasioned him new anxiety. His sister wrote that Olga was
bent on making a most undesirable marriage, having fallen in love with
a penniless nondescript who called himself an artist; a man given, it
was suspected, to drink, and without any decent connection that one
could hear of. A wretched, squalid affair! Would the Doctor come at
once and see Olga? Her father was away, as usual; of course the girl
would not be influenced by _him_, in any case; she was altogether in a
strange, wild, headstrong state, and one could not be sure how soon the
marriage might come about.
With wrinkled brows, the vexed pathologist set forth for Hammersmith.