JAMES received Mary's letter, by a happy chance, just as he was about to
ring up his solicitors and ask them to send him some papers that he
wanted to show her next day. When he had read its first few sentences,
he asked for the messenger boy, but his clerk told him that the boy had
already gone. As that was so, he told the man to get him a taxi--he
could very well finish the letter on his way home. While he was waiting,
he walked up and down his room. "This is nonsense!" he told himself.
"This is nonsense--it must be stopped at once!" He got into his taxi
without being aware of any other feeling than his determination that it
must be stopped.
The light in the taxi was bad, and Mary's sloping writing seemed
difficult. He realised that he was not understanding what he read, and
when he had gathered the facts of the affair he put the crumpled sheets
back into his pocket. Then he pulled up the window of the taxi--the
early spring day was cold. Already the other, the emotional aspects of
Mary's conduct were forcing themselves upon his mind, but again and
again he wrenched his thoughts away--he must look at it now, he
insisted, simply in the light of something that had to be stopped. Over
a growing consciousness of disaster he kept his attention busy with the
familiar spaces and buildings that he passed, and with the people in the
streets.
As soon as he reached home he sent for Penn. "What train did Mrs. Heyham
catch?" he asked her.
Penn did not know, Mrs. Heyham had left for Victoria at three. But she
could ask Lang.
It would be ten minutes before the chauffeur came--James went into his
study and took out the letter again. But even now he could not
understand it. She was angry with him about Greta, he supposed, and to
revenge herself she had determined to refuse her consent to his scheme.
Then she had been afraid, she had not dared face him, so she had run
away. He felt the tide of his anger rising to meet the anger he imagined
in her. He could not doubt for a moment which was the stronger and the
more effective. It was difficult to believe that she could have been
foolish enough to provoke him like this----
At that moment he heard footsteps on the marble floor of the passage and
he tried, instinctively, to resume the usual calm of his expression. But
the muscles of his face, stiffly contracted, would not relax. He faced
Lang, coming in at the door, with a deep frown.
"What train did Mrs. Heyham take, Lang?" he asked again.
"I don't know, sir. We got to Victoria at about 3.20 and Mrs. Heyham
told the porter to take her things to the cloak-room."
With a great effort James made himself smile. "That's all right," he
said; "then she is probably going by the later train, as she arranged."
He thought rapidly. His letter had reached him at half-past four--she
had probably handed it in soon after four. It was nearly half-past five
now. After what she had said in the letter, it was unlikely that her
luggage would still be there, though she might, of course, have been
bluffing.
He wondered for a moment whether he would go to Victoria himself, but he
was too angry. He'd be damned if he'd hang around any cloak-room for
her. "What's Heyham doing--looking for his wife?" She should come back
without that.
He turned to Lang. "Go to Victoria at once," he said, "and find out, if
you can, what train Mrs. Heyham took. The man in the cloak-room may know
at what time she came for the luggage. If it is still there, wait until
she comes and tell her that I have been obliged to change my plans and
cannot leave London to-night. If Mrs. Heyham decides to come back, bring
her home--if not, see her comfortably into her train."
Lang looked intelligently at his master, as if he were memorising these
instructions. Then, with his usual, "Yes, sir," he went.
When the door had shut, James, without seeing it, looked slowly round
the room. He had become aware of a curious light, giddy sensation. His
mind seemed to be inactive, open, and blank. Suddenly his blood rushed
to his head and he found himself trembling under a storm of rage.
For a moment he thought of Mary as an angry peasant thinks of an animal.
She was his--his possession--his woman--and she had defied him. Words
came to his lips that old Clarkson, years ago, had used of the factory
girls, but as he stood there with his hands clenched and his red,
distorted face thrust forward, he could not even speak them coherently.
Presently the inhibiting pressure of his wrath grew less, and he turned
to stride rapidly up and down the room. His anger, as it became clearer,
had not shrunk, but only grown more vindictive and more intense. He saw
Mary now as an embodiment of greed and treachery. Was she not, after
all, Julius's sister?--he had been a fool to marry into such a family!
All these years he had toiled at the business, working as much for her
as for himself, and now, after taking all that she could get, she was
angry with him, and for her revenge she ruined him. This was her answer
to his years of love and care. He had loved her--he shivered with
humiliation when he thought how abject he had sometimes been, how he had
respected her, hung on her moods, twisted himself into ecstasies of
sentimental gallantry! He had treated himself like dirt, because he had
been afraid of wounding her damned delicacy--while she, in all
probability, had been laughing at him! It had amused her to see him
making a fool of himself over her imaginary fine feelings! She had been
so sure of him that she had dared to tell him to his face that she did
not love him!
He had adored her, and she, all the time, had been leading her own life,
her double life, throwing him enough affection to keep him blind when he
was at home. As soon as it suited her, she left him, left him to tell
his son and his daughters--to tell everyone--that his wife had run away.
Left him to explain why she had seen fit to do such a thing. He
shuddered again with hatred and disgust.
At last, tired of walking, he threw himself into his great arm-chair.
Mary imagined, no doubt, that he would forgive her. Forgive--he struck
the arm of the chair with his open hand--while there was blood in
his body, he would not forgive. She should come back, and she
should sign the papers, and then, after that, he would live as he
liked--treacherous--treacherous and cold-blooded! She had left him to
explain to Trent, her prig of a son, why she had gone----
His anger mastered him again, he could not breathe properly, he bent
over the side of the chair that he had gripped with shaking hands. When
he tried to rise it seemed to him, for a moment, that he could not.
At this he became alarmed. "Mustn't go on like this!" he told himself,
and instantly his muscles relaxed and he fell back in the chair, while
rings of light seemed to shift before his eyes. When he sat up, wiping
his hand across his wet forehead, he had collected himself, his anger
was finally under his control. He was able to think about what he had
better do, what he should say to Trent, what Lang would have found.
He left the chair and walked slowly to his desk. His desk, broad,
massive, designed and equipped solely to serve his purpose, reassured
him and gave him back for a moment his sense of dignity. With its smooth
leather under his arms he could not doubt of his success--he had planned
so many things at that desk, and compelled so much success. There were a
hundred reasons why Mary should return at once, before anyone knew, if
only he could get them in order. His head was full of them already--they
crowded upon him. There must be a hundred ways, too, of forcing her to
come back if only he could find them. He had merely to think, to set his
brain to work. Unfortunately he did not want to think. He wanted to be
angry, to give full scope to his indignation, and to find that the sheer
force of it had brought her back. Since his childhood James had
respected his anger. It was an important weapon, dreaded and deprecated
by thousands of human beings. And since it was always effective he had
lost the habit of calling it in question or asking himself whether it
could be unjust. Now it seemed strange to him that, angry as he was,
nothing happened. If Mary had been there she would have been terrified
by his anger; now, simply because she had gone, because there was a
little space between them, it was nothing to her. He did not understand
clearly what was the matter, but he felt an odd sensation of discomfort,
of discouragement, of frustration. He sought in his mind, vaguely, for
some violent thing that he could do--something that would prove his
power. Then he brought himself sharply back to the matter in hand.
"What's wrong with me?" he thought. "Why am I doing nothing? By this
time I ought to have decided what I mean to do!"
His discouragement deepened and with it grew a fear of this strange
incapacity. "I'm not usually like this," he thought--if only Mary had
been there, there was so much that he could have said to her! But she
was gone.
He made a last effort to think of some way of finding her immediately.
He could put the screw on to the manager of the bank and make him give
up her address--he could set detectives to find her. But he did not care
for either of these plans. The manager would not like going back on
Mary, nor did he believe in any but the acquisitive powers of
detectives. Sooner or later of course Mary, being a woman, would give
herself away; meanwhile he must wait.
He must wait--impotent, tortured by his own useless rage--the notion
appalled him. He was not a man who was accustomed to wait, to
suffer--every force that was in him struggled against the idea. Then, as
he could still find no immediate solution, his alarm returned. The state
of affairs was wrong, unnatural, something must be the matter. "Perhaps
I was too angry," he thought, "I have upset myself!" He walked to a
small mirror that hung over a side table and looked at himself in the
glass. He looked tired and shaken, he decided, and with the thought came
a sensation of weakness and fatigue. He turned away from the mirror and
went back, mechanically, to his desk. "After all," he thought, "I am
getting old--I can't stand these things as I used to!" It was a moment
before he grasped the significance of the words.
Then his hatred of Mary blazed out again. That was why she had done
it--he was old--she had taken advantage of his age--ten years ago she
would not have dared to defy him! She had left him, as he saw it now,
with the callous indifference of youth. She was younger than he--she had
not borne the burden of ceaseless work! She was a woman, she worshipped
strength--to her he was merely an old man, whose strength was leaving
him.
Then he made an effort to restore his own confidence. Mary was
wrong--she would find out her mistake--only that morning he had felt as
young as ever! But he could not deceive himself, he knew that ten years
ago he would have taken action instead of wasting his time among ideas.
"Here I sit," he thought; "I tell myself that I must do something, find
something to do, and still I sit doing nothing!" He was seized again, as
he had been seized the night before, with profound despondency.
Something was wrong, but its causes lay outside the habitual action of
his mind. He sat on, not attempting now to cope with the stream of
thoughts that passed before him. He missed, though he did not know it,
Mary's audience and her sympathy.
At twenty minutes past six Lang came back with the car. He had done his
best, he said, to make the man at the cloak-room attend to him, and the
man had admitted finally that he believed, though he wasn't sure, that
Mrs. Heyham had fetched her luggage about an hour after she put it in.
James nodded, and Lang went. In another half-hour Trent would be back
from the works. He took Mary's letter from his pocket and read it again
to see if there was anything in it that he could not show to Trent. The
boy, after all, was his partner. He would have to have an explanation of
some sort. Plausible explanations of Mary's flight began to develop
themselves in James's mind. He did not want Trent to know about
Greta--Trent was such a prig. But as the clock struck half-past he
decided, in a sudden access of impatience, that he would go out and
leave the letter behind him for Trent to find. He would have dinner
somewhere where there was a crowd of people. He couldn't face a
tongue--tied meal with Trent staring at him across the table, and the
servants coming in and out of the room. He couldn't face, either,
Trent's surprise and his damn-fool questions. The boy was all right when
he'd thought a thing over, but he wasn't quick.
He wrote on a sheet of paper, "I will talk this over with you after
dinner, J. A. H.," and put it with the letter into a large envelope
which he addressed to his son. Then, leaving it on the hall table, he
went upstairs to dress. If he had dinner early he would be less likely
to see anyone he knew.
Trent, when he came in, a little tired, picked up the envelope and tore
it open on his way upstairs. He read James's note with a feeling of
impatience. Some difficulty had arisen, he supposed, in the way of the
new company. Trent did not share James's interest in the new company.
The scheme was his father's. It did not afford him the pleasure of
admiring his own ingenuity, and it seemed to him that the new
arrangements tended to lessen his importance. He would be on the Board
of the new Company, but only as one director among many, and he had not
been able to follow his father's sudden delight in cinematographs and
the building of cinema palaces. He had agreed to the scheme because it
would make him, if it went well, a richer man, but he sometimes grew
tired of discussing and praising it. He glanced, now, at the other
envelope, and it was with a shock that he recognised his mother's
writing. James had not spoken to him of Mary's attitude, and as the
months went by he had forgotten his fears. Now they revived, and with
them came a slight feeling of superiority. "I knew there would be
trouble," he said to himself as he went into his room.
Trent's room was carefully furnished and tidy. Even his golf-clubs and
his riding boots seemed evidence less of enjoyment than of the
gentlemanly nature of his pursuits. Although he would have to dress in
half an hour he changed his shoes, washed his hands, and brushed his
hair before he sat down in a comfortable chair to read Mary's letter.
He read it through slowly, after his first start of surprise, and then,
as he could not remember a word of it, he read it again. He was
amazed--his mother had never seemed to him that sort of woman. He had
always thought of her as a good, charming woman, a woman he was very
fond of. Now she had done this astonishing thing--he realised, for the
first time, that his mother and father were not merely parents, that
they lived lives of their own, like his and his friends'. "My father
can't," he even admitted, "be a very easy man to live with"--he could
see that Mary had been very unhappy when she wrote her letter.
But there his sympathy ended. Mary was a wife, she had no right to
behave as she was doing. Trent had always felt very strongly that
upper-class Englishwomen, in a way, are sacred; sacred to the noble task
of maintaining the ideals of English men and children. He had never
doubted that any woman whom he might love would recognise the force of
this obligation. He was very fond of his mother--it was most perplexing!
He tried to think the matter over calmly. Whatever had happened it was
absurd to suppose that she couldn't do all the thinking she liked while
his father was at the office. If, as the letter seemed to indicate,
there was some emotional difficulty between them, that only made matters
worse. In such a case an open breach was not only wrong and foolish, it
was indelicate. If what she really wanted was time to get used to the
idea of selling the business then she had still no right to run away and
take counsel of strangers instead of discussing the affair with her
husband and son. She was hopelessly in the wrong, even when one looked
at it, as he was doing, from her own point of view. When one thought of
the consequences of her action----
He left his chair and began to walk, like his father, up and down the
room. Walking, his thoughts came faster and less coherently. Why had she
done it?--it was a terrible thing to do! And in what a false position it
left them all!
Even he would suffer--why, more especially he! With a pang he remembered
Lady Hester. If her family knew that his mother had done such a thing
they would not let her marry him, however much money he made. For a
moment the poor young man stopped, appalled, then he resumed his pacing.
Hester had probably never heard of such a thing as a mother who ran
away!
It was impossible that his mother could ruin his life, and ruin it for a
mood--a whim--she must not do it, she must not be allowed to do it! She
must be brought back and made to feel how unbecoming--how shameful--her
behaviour was; he felt a slow, irresistible anger rise in his heart. His
mother was disgracing herself, she could claim no mercy. She had
rejected her duty to her husband and children, she had put herself
outside the scope of man's generosity. He had a right to be angry with
her, he said to himself; he did well to be angry!
For a few minutes he was exceedingly angry, then his thoughts began to
move in a different direction. Trent, like his mother, took an interest
in the processes of his own mind. After all it was no use his losing his
head. Anger was foolish and undignified--he sat down again,
deliberately, as if to prove to himself by controlling his muscles that
he could also control his feelings. His mother had taken leave of her
senses, but that was no reason why he should not show self-control. This
was a crisis in his life; he must behave wisely, generously!
He tried hard as he sat there, unfortunate youth, to decide on a wise
and generous line of conduct. But all that he could think of were his
ruined hopes, his wounded feelings, the cruelty and treachery of what
Mary had done. He did not feel generous, he felt deeply vindictive. He
wanted to be wise and calm, but his resentment seemed to press on him,
depriving him of the power of ordering his thoughts. He felt a desire to
punish his mother, to make her suffer in return for the suffering she
was causing him. He struggled against this feeling, but he was
astonished by its strength. "It is extraordinary," he thought, "I am not
a vindictive man; I have every wish to behave well, and yet when my
whole desire is simply to be just I am prevented from thinking clearly
by this primitive instinct of revenge! It is true then, after all, that
civilisation is only a cloak for barbarism!" This, in its way, was
satisfactory. To the end of his life Trent would treat himself with more
respect as a person, under the surface, of untamably savage instincts.
But even this interesting discovery did not remove the oppression of his
annoyance. When he finally found relief it was in an outbreak of
indignation against women in general. He was not worried by any need to
be just towards women in general. This was what came--his thoughts ran
easily--of women interfering in men's affairs. This was what came of
women setting themselves up to be judges of life and conduct without
balance or judgment or experience; they lost their heads and everyone
else had to bear the consequences. His mother, doubtless--he felt less
angry with her already--had been led away. She had talked things over,
in the gabbling indecent fashion women have, with some of her friends,
possibly with that ridiculous secretary. They had sympathised with her
and persuaded her to behave like this. Possibly even Rosemary had known
about it. All women nowadays were filled with the same spirit of
presumption and ingratitude. His mother had merely been a little more
rash, a little weaker, than the others. The whole thing came, he went on
to explain to himself, of educating women and encouraging them to
express their absurd opinions. His mother had been carried away by the
feeling that half the business was hers--that, of course, was her
father's fault. Now, although she knew nothing whatever of business, she
was not prepared to let anything pass that did not meet with her
approval. She had obviously got some idea of responsibility into her
head--as if a woman would be responsible for an enormous modern
business. There were women who mixed themselves up in business, of
course, women who were thoroughly unsexed, and the others didn't
understand that and were wild to imitate them. Look at Rosemary and her
economics!--Laura, too, had been nearly as bad until she married. He was
going on to conclude that early marriage and no education was what was
right for women--a woman, to Trent's taste, was enough when she was
healthy, pretty, affectionate, and tactful--when he remembered that no
one had ever educated his mother and that she had indubitably married
and married young. He was forced to admit that now these impossible
ideas had got into the air there was no telling whom they would not
attack.
He dressed, at last, without having forgiven Mary, but with his
good-humour towards himself restored by this proof that he could conquer
his impulses and face misfortune in a philosophical spirit.
Soon after he had left the dining-room and settled himself comfortably
in the study, his father returned. James had had an excellent and
encouraging dinner, and he walked into the room with the brisk, bustling
air of a man who is prepared at every point both with plans of action
and explanations of them. He dropped into his particular chair and
selected a cigar before he spoke. Then he glanced suspiciously at his
son. "You've read your mother's letter, I take it," he began.
Trent replied that he had.
"Well, what do you think about it?"
Trent waited a moment before he answered. He could see that his father
was uneasy--probably, then, there had been some sentimental dispute
between his parents, and James was afraid that he would question him
about it. He chose his words carefully. "I don't think my mother can
quite realise what she is doing," he said.
James was greatly relieved. He nodded. "We must remember," he conceded,
"that your mother hasn't been at all well lately, and the excitement of
the wedding was probably too much for her!"
Trent agreed with him. They looked at one another, and then James turned
to the ash-tray on the table by his side. There was not yet, however,
any ash upon the tip of his cigar. "In a way, of course, my dear
fellow," he said, "if this gets about you are the greatest sufferer."
Trent moved uncomfortably. He did not care to be reminded of his
possible sufferings.
"Of course," his father was saying, "the position, if it becomes public
property, makes me look very foolish. And it is extremely inconvenient
to have the arrangements for the reconstruction hung up like this for
want of your mother's consent. Only yesterday Mansfield and Sir Ezra
Swiney agreed to be on the Board of the new Company. But in the long run
that hits you as hard as it hits me, and in other ways your prospects
are affected in a way that mine can't be." He leaned forward towards his
son in a solicitous, fatherly manner. Trent's answering, "Yes," was
stiff.
"Now just for the present," James went on, "I haven't got your mother's
address. I've thought of a way by which we shall probably be able to get
it in a day or two, say a week, but meanwhile there's no time to be
lost. Your mother says that the bank will forward letters--I think on
the whole, if you agree with me, that you'd better write at once and
point out to her what she's doing. It is no good at all my writing or I
would. But if she gets a letter from you explaining that this attitude
of hers makes your marriage impossible, I think it's ten chances to one
that she'll change her mind. She's fond of you, Trent, and when she's in
her right mind she's a good mother. Besides, I expect she's feeling a
bit scared now that the thing is done. If I were you I would write
to-night."
Trent leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling to avoid the
compelling affection of his father's eye. He rejected an impulse to
refuse indignantly, and considered the matter as thoroughly as he could.
Consideration did not make James's plan seem more attractive. It was
undignified, it was beastly--Trent had never written such a letter in
his life, and he could not imagine himself writing it. A letter is a
thing that one can keep--he thought of Mary reading his entreaties over
again afterwards, when the urgency of the affair had died away--perhaps
showing them to Lady Hester--"This, my dear, was what brought me back!"
Trent, in defence of his own dignity, was capable of a certain amount of
imagination; moreover, in the depths of his heart he felt that emotional
pressure of this sort was unfair. Before dinner he had been prepared, so
he thought, to use any possible means of bringing Mary back. Now that he
was asked to dirty his own fingers he felt a little sorry for his
mother. James was talking very calmly now and in a very kind and
reasonable way, but Trent had worked with his father for some years, and
he would not have cared, himself, to face such a home-coming. After all,
Mary had gone away because she thought she was acting right, and James
had not given any clear account of what it was that he had done to make
her go.
Meanwhile James stared at his son. "Damn the boy!" he thought, "I wonder
what it is that makes me always rub him up the wrong way. Well--" he
said, as Trent did not seem inclined to speak.
Trent sat up and looked at him. "Do you know, sir," was the most tactful
way he could put his objection, "I doubt whether my writing would be
very much good? My mother has gone away, as far as I can see, because
she wants to think business matters over--she must have considered the
effect it would have on my plans before she went. To bring her back we
must persuade her that what she is doing isn't right."
"She can hardly imagine that it is right to ruin your prospects."
James's tone was becoming less smooth.
"I think," his son went on, "that we ought to write a letter, either
from you or from both of us, as you prefer, to say that for her own sake
as well as for ours we must ask her to come back, but if she comes we
will guarantee her reasonable time and opportunities for satisfying
herself about the reconstruction." That seemed to Trent a very handsome
offer.
To James, already in conflict with his temper, it seemed merely
aggravating. "Nonsense!" he said, "you don't realise, my dear fellow,
that the thing is practically arranged. I can't keep eminent business
men like Sir Ezra hanging about from day to day while your mother makes
up her mind!"
"I had no idea that my mother took up that point of view," Trent
suggested. "It seems very sudden!"
James had no answer to this. He knew perfectly well that he had run into
the affair with his eyes open. He had known that Mary might very well
object, and he had disregarded this knowledge. "I'm afraid she must have
been reading Socialistic stuff," he conceded. "It gets hold of women."
He fidgeted a little in his chair.
Trent threw himself back again. Then his father was to blame! He had
seen this coming and he had taken no steps to meet it. He had not even
consulted his able son. "Arranged or not, I don't see how we can get on
without my mother's concurrence," he threw out. "It seems to me that we
are in a thorough mess."
James glared at him. "I have suggested a plan by which I think your
mother's concurrence can be obtained!"
Trent did not answer. He did not mind issuing his commands to women, but
whining to them and badgering them was another matter. It did not fulfil
Trent's idea of decency. But he knew that this obscure feeling which he
could not name even to himself was the last thing in the world to appeal
to his father.
"Well," James urged him, in tones of growing impatience, "I should
really like to know why you don't think my scheme would be very much
good."
Trent's own judicial calm gave way before this insistence. All right
then, his father must have it! "I don't pretend to understand the ins
and outs of the affair," he said slowly; "you haven't told me, and I
don't ask any questions, but it does seem dear to me that the issue lies
between my mother and you. So far as it affects me as a partner, I am
willing that my mother should have time to make such a serious decision,
otherwise I prefer, if you don't mind, to keep out of it as far as I
can; certainly I would rather not involve other people."
James, since his dinner and the birth of his ingenious plan, had
forgotten the general aspect of the affair and concentrated his mind on
the task of persuading Trent. At this defiance, however, the thought of
his plight and his grievances broke through the surface of his immediate
intentions. This was what Mary had exposed him to--this sort of snub
from his son! James cared more for Trent than he let himself admit, and
the young man's attitude wounded his vanity. Trent would prefer to keep
himself out of his father's and mother's affairs!
"Certainly you may keep out, my dear boy," he began disagreeably, while
he felt his way towards something really scathing. "Whether you'll save
your skin by keeping out is another matter. You will agree," he added in
default of a better phrase, "that if you don't think your own interests
are worth looking after there can be no earthly reason why I should
bother about them!"
Trent broke in on him, "Oh, certainly." The last thing he wanted was
that James should make emotional capital out of his unfortunate
affections.
For some time they both sat there covering their silence by activity in
attending to their tobacco. James was feeling sore and disappointed. He
had expected Trent in this matter at least to see eye to eye with him.
He had looked to Trent for comfort and moral support--two things which
he had become accustomed to finding at home in seasons of stress and
confusion. He could not understand now why Trent was hostile. It wasn't
that Trent approved of his mother's action--Trent, the young puppy, took
a far more high and mighty line about women than James had ever done.
His mind moved wearily amid the tangle of Trent's possible motives. The
boy might be acting from laziness, priggishness, cowardice, mere
pig-headedness. In any case he was a damned young fool who didn't care a
rap for his father. James leaned heavily back in his chair and cursed
the man who had sold him his cigars.
Trent, too, was puzzled and upset. He had hoped to impress his father
with his courage and common-sense, he had hoped to cheer him up.
Actually, on the contrary, they had got no nearer to friendly sympathy
than ill-tempered bickering. "Am I in the wrong?" he asked himself.
"Ought I to write the letter?" Every instinct told him that he was
right. His mother was wrong to go away as she had gone, but if they were
to plead with her at all it must be by reasoning with her, by pointing
out her duty, not by working on her feelings. Trent didn't want her
return made a favour to him that he would have to carry for the rest of
his life. Nor was he going to drag Lady Hester, even by remote
allusions, into such an affair. He was right, and his motives in
refusing his father were of the noblest, but, even so, things were
unsatisfactory. He did not want to fence with his father, using his
brains to wound the old man instead of to encourage him. It occurred to
Trent, dimly and for an instant, that in all probability the old man did
not want to wound him either. What was it then that irritated them and
made them quarrel?
At this moment the door opened and the parlour-maid announced Mr. Julius
Trent.
Julius came in with a smiling face. He had come to see Mary eventually,
since the evening was a time when she might be found alone in her
drawing-room, but as his purpose was to borrow money--Mary had been very
kind the day before, and an old creditor whom Julius had forgotten had
sent in his bill that morning--he thought it more politic to say a few
cheerful words to her husband first.
"Evening!" he said; "evening, Trent my boy! How are you all? Settling
down again, I suppose. Any news of the young couple?" He included them
both in the benevolence of his greeting.
The last person James wished to see was Mary's brother Julius. "Good
evening," he said, without shaking hands. "No, we've heard nothing yet."
"And how's poor little Mary?" her tactless brother went on. "Didn't seem
very well when I saw her yesterday--upsetting things, these weddings."
A joke--a mild enough joke--was on his lips, but he checked himself. A
dull straight-laced lot, Mary's family. Even as a boy, James had been
one of the plodding sort. He helped himself to one of James's cigars.
"She wants to see me, I think," he went on, as nobody answered. "Is she
in?"
James was thinking as quickly as he could, so quickly that he forgot to
be annoyed with "poor little Mary." In spite of their old friendship
James had never grown used to this reprobate who spoke of his wife in
familiar terms. Yesterday,--Julius, annoyed at not being made a
director, had been saying things to Mary about the sale! "No," he said
slowly, "I'm afraid she's not in."
Julius stared at him. Mary out alone at this time of night! "Oh, I
suppose she's gone round to Laura's," he suggested. "Women never grow
tired of talking things over. Will she be very late?"
If it really had been Julius who had been making mischief, James was
thinking, Mary's brother or not, he would smash him! He stared heavily
at his guest, but did not speak, and after a minute Trent felt obliged
to say that they did not know.
Julius pulled out his watch. It wasn't yet half-past nine. He was not
going to waste an evening with people like James and Trent. "Oh, very
well," he said. "I expect to-morrow will suit her just as well. You
might tell her from me, that I'll look in to-morrow morning." He smiled
brightly again as he took another cigar.
But at this smile James's fretted self-control gave way. "No, I will
not!" he said. "Mary will not be here to-morrow morning. Your sister, my
good Julius, acting in a manner which you probably think very natural,
has run away!"
"Run away! Mary! Mary!" said Julius, putting the cigar into his pocket,
and automatically helping himself to another. "Well, I'm damned!"
Neither of the others spoke. Trent was annoyed with his father, and
James was annoyed with himself. "What on earth did she want to run away
for?" Julius went on. "She seemed quite happy yesterday!" His
indignation grew. "Well, I must say that's a pretty thing! A woman of
her age running away from her husband!" Where was he to get his money
from now? "It's disgraceful, a shameful way to behave, never heard of
such a thing-- You needn't think I approve of her, James, I can tell you
I'm damned sorry for you!" All the same, he told himself, it was almost
worth losing the money. James left by his wife! Jaw-your-head-off
cock-a-doodle James! Not that that excused Mary. "Perfectly
disgraceful!" he went on, with enthusiasm. "I wonder if she's joined the
Suffragettes? There's no saying what the fair sex won't do nowadays.
Mary, too, of all women. Well, I'm disappointed in her. And if I see her
I shall tell her so-- If I were you I should put my foot down. If once
you give in to this sort of thing----"
James crossed the room and took his brother-in-law by the arm. "The best
thing you can do," he said to Julius, "is to clear out and keep quiet."
Julius looked at him and then at Trent. "I'll keep quiet enough," he
assured them, "for my own sake. It's not the sort of thing I should care
to have Esther know." Then, rubbing his arm, he made for the door. "Of
course I can quite understand you're a bit annoyed," he said when he
reached it, "I should be angry myself."
James turned his back to the door's closing.
Trent returned to the chair he had left when his uncle came into the
room, and James, after a minute, followed his example. There was nothing
that either of them cared to say. They would have to see Julius next
morning and find out how much it would cost to keep him quiet, otherwise
matters were much as they had been.
For nearly an hour they sat there, busy with unprofitable thoughts.
James was wishing that he had kicked Julius. To kick Mary's only brother
would, in some small measure, have relieved his feelings. It would, at
any rate, have been something that he could do. Of all Mary's offences
this was the worst--that she had left him with no one and nothing on
which to wreak his anger. She would go, heaven knows where, carrying his
name at her mercy, while he must remain at home, baffled, thwarted,
pestered by busy-bodies----
This was his mood when his idea came.
To Trent's surprise a joyful light appeared on his father's face. James
left his chair and went over to his desk. "I've got her," he said. "It's
worth it! I don't care what it costs. It's not for nothing I've
subscribed so long to the party funds! When she comes back she shall
find herself Lady Heyham! She's my wife still even if she has run away!
And if she makes a fuss about it I'll call myself Sir Archibald!"
Just then the maid brought in some letters, among them a picture
post-card for Mary from Rosemary. Five minutes before James would have
considered that Mary didn't deserve to have letters sent on; now he was
so pleased with the thought that he could alter her life whether she had
gone or not that he handed it over to Trent to re-address.