A week had worked wonders with Grandmother Cardover. She had fallen a
victim to Vi’s charm and, in that strange way that old folks have, had
warmed her age at the fire of Vi’s youth. There was an unmistakable
change in her; the somberness of her dress was lightened here and there
with a dash of colored ribbons. As long as I could remember, the only
ornaments she had permitted herself were of black jet, as befitted her
widowed state. But now the woman’s instinct for self-decoration had
come to life. Vi’s exquisite femininity had made her remember that she
herself was a woman. She had rummaged through her jewelry and found
a large gold-set cameo brooch, which she wore at her throat, and some
rings, and a long gold chain, which she now wore about her neck, from
which her watch was suspended.
Vi’s vivid physical beauty and intense joy in life had broadened the
horizons of everyone in the house, and set them dreaming. Ruthita,
coming down from London, had at once become infatuated. From day to day
she had prolonged Vi’s visit, now with one excuse, now another. They had
brought Dorrie down to stay with Vi at the shop--little Bee’s Knee as
my Grannie called her, because she was so tiny and a bee’s knee was the
smallest thing she could think of with which to compare her. It was many
years since a child’s prattle had been heard about that quiet house.
Vi’s comradeship with her little daughter finished the persuading of my
grandmother that she was safe and good. All virtuous women believe in
the virtue of a woman who is fond of children.
They were sitting down to lunch in the keeping-room when I entered.
“Why, if it isn’t Dante!”
The greeting I received was in welcome contrast to the cold, guarded
reserve of the past seven days. A place was made for me at table between
my grandmother and Ruthita. It was a gay little party that waited,
watching me curiously across the dishes and plates, to hear my news.
Just then I preferred the cosiness of my grandmother’s shop to the
chilly dignity of Woadley Hall. Outside the sunshine slanted across the
courtyard, leaving one half in shadow, the other golden white. The maid,
coming in and out from the kitchen in her rustling print-dress, with her
smiling country face, was a pleasanter sight than the butler at Woadley.
From the shop came the smell of tar and rope and new-made bread.
Everything was so frank and kindly, and unashamed of itself. Here in
the keeping-room of the ship-chandler’s shop we were humanly
intimate--“coxy-loxy” as my grandmother would have expressed it.
I told a sorrowful tale at first, which seemed to foreshadow a sorrowful
ending. I spoke of the stiff formality of my reception, the garnished
gentility which had marked my intercourse with Sir Charles, the withheld
confidence--the fact that my mother’s name was scarcely mentioned.
Ruthita’s hand sought mine beneath the table; I could feel the fingers
tremble.
“This morning,” I said, “he called me into his study. He told me that I
must leave within the hour and that our friendship could go no further.”
“The old rascal!” exclaimed Grandmother Cardover, bringing down her
knife and fork on her plate with a clatter. “What was he a-doin’,
gettin’ you there to Woadley? He must ’a’ known what we all expected.”
I tilted back my chair, putting on an expression of long-suffering
melancholy. “He wanted to see what I was like, I suppose. His chief
reason was that he wanted to make a new will.”
Babel broke loose. Why hadn’t I told them earlier? Why had I harrowed
up their feelings for nothing? What were the particulars? I was cruel to
have kept them in suspense.
Grandmother Cardover was hysterical with joy. She wanted to run out into
the streets and tell everybody. She began with the maid in the kitchen,
and would have gone on to the men in the bake-house if I hadn’t stopped
her by appealing to her curiosity, saying there was more to tell. As
for Ruthita, she just put her arms about me and laid her head on
my shoulder, crying for sheer gladness. Little Bee’s Knee looked on
open-mouthed, shocked that grownups should behave so foolishly. Vi gazed
at me with a far-away stare in her eyes, picturing the might-have-beens,
and I gazed back at her across the gulf that widened between us.
Discretion was thrown to the wind. When Vi gathered Dorrie to her and
began to excuse herself, she was told that she must stay and make one of
the family. Then the story was told again with the new perspective.
With shame and self-reproach I look back and perceive how carelessly I
accepted all Ruthita’s admiration. My new good fortune promised nothing
for her; yet she could rejoice in it. In her shy girl’s world, had I
known it, I figured as something between a faery-prince and a hero.
Through me she looked out into a more generous world of glamour than
any she had personally experienced. Poor little Ruthita, with her
mouse-like timidity! She had lived all her days in a walled-in garden,
treading the dull monotonous round of self-sacrificing duties. No one
ever credited her with a career of her own. No one stopped to think that
she might have dreams and a will of her own. They told her what to do
and let their gratitude be taken for granted. She humored my father when
he was discouraged, did the housekeeping, and took shelter behind the
superior social grace of the Snow Lady. We all loved her, but we made
the mistake of not telling her--we supposed she knew. All the strong
things that men and women do together, all love’s comedy and tragedy,
were so much hearsay to her.
That afternoon and evening she sat beside me holding my hand with frank
affection, making me feel that in loving Vi I was stealing something
that belonged to her. More than that, I was feeling for this woman,
who had been nothing to me a few weeks ago, a quality of kindness and
consideration that I had always withheld from the child-friend who had
tiptoed her way up to womanhood beside me.
After tea we mounted to the drawing-room, which was over the shop
and faced the street. It was usually occupied only on Sundays and
feast-days, or when a visiting Methodist minister had been apportioned
to my grandmother for entertainment. Faded engravings of sacred subjects
and simpering females elaborately framed, hung upon the walls. On the
mantelshelf stood some quaint specimens of Ransby china--red-roofed
cottages with grapes ripening above the porch, and a lover coming up
the path while his lady watched him from the window. The chairs were
upholstered in woolwork on canvas, which my grandmother had done in
her youth. In one corner stood a heavy rosewood piano on which all the
family portraits were arranged. In this room comfort was sacrificed to
appearance--the furniture was sedate rather than genial. Nothing was
haphazard or awry. The mats and antimacassars never budged an inch from
their places. No smell of beer, or cheese, or baking bread vulgarized
the sacred respectability of its atmosphere.
Here, as we sat together talking, the light began to fade. Heavy
footsteps of sailors in their sea-boots, passing down the street from
the harbor to the cottages, only emphasized the quiet. We watched the
sky grow pink behind the masts of shipping, then green, then gray.
Cordage and rigging were etched distinctly against the gloom of the
oncoming night. At the top of the street a light sprang up, then
another, then another. The lamp-lighter with his long pole and ladder
passed by. Now with the heavy tread of men’s feet the tip-a-tap of
girls’ footsteps began to mingle. Sometimes a snatch of laughter would
reach us; then, as if afraid of the sound it made, it died abruptly
away. While we talked in subdued voices, it seemed to me that all the
sailor-lovers with their lassies had conspired to steal by the house
that night. I fell to wondering what it felt like to slip your arm about
the waist of a woman you loved, feel her warmth and trust and nearness,
feel her head droop back against your shoulder, see her face flash up
in the starlight and know that, while your lips were trembling against
hers, she was abandoning herself soul and body to you in the summer
dusk.
Dorrie had crept into her mother’s lap. Her soft breathing told that she
was sleeping. One small hand, with fingers crumpled, rested against her
mother’s throat. Someone had called to see Grandmother Cardover, so Vi,
Ruthita, and I were left alone together. Sitting back in our chairs
out of reach of the street-lamp, we could not see the expression on one
another’s faces.
“I would give all the world to be you, Mrs. Carpenter,” Ruthita
whispered.
“To be me! Why? I sometimes get very tired of it.”
“If I were you I should have Dorrie. It must be very sweet to be a
mother. Why is it that she always calls you Vi and never mother?”
“She picked that up from her father. I never corrected her
because--well, because somehow I like it. It makes me seem younger.”
“You don’t need to _seem_ young,” I interrupted.
“How old do you think I am?”
“About the same age as myself and Ruthita.”
She laughed. “That couldn’t be; Dorrie is eight.”
“Then I give up guessing.”
“I’m twenty-seven. I was little more than a child, you see, when I
married.”
“Mother married early,” said Ruthita, “and my papa was only twenty at
the time. She says that early marriages turn out happiest.”
Vi made no answer. The silence grew awkward. We could almost hear one
another’s thoughts trying to hide. Why had she explained in that tone of
half-apology, “I was little more than a child; you see, when I married.”
Why didn’t she say something now? Was it because an early marriage
had proved for her disastrous? Then, if it had, what moral obligation
separated us? Who was this husband who could dispense with her for a
year, and yet had the power to stretch out his arm across the Atlantic
and thrust me aside?
She leant forward. The light from the street-lamp kindled her face and
smoldered in her hair. She had the wistful, rapt expression of a young
girl, ignorant as yet of the bitter-sweet of love, who dreams of an
ideal lover. I felt then that her soul was virgin; it had never been a
man’s possession. It was almost mine.
Ruthita’s remark about the happiness of early marriages was forgotten,
when Vi returned to the subject. “They may be sometimes,” she said,
speaking doubtfully.
She caught my eye resting on her. Conscious that her qualification had
divulged a secret, she hurried into an implied defense of her husband.
“I had a letter from Mr. Carpenter this morning. He’s lonely. He says
he can’t bear to be without me any longer. He wants me to return home at
once. He’s not seen Dorrie for nearly a year. He’s afraid she’ll forget
him entirely. If I don’t go to him, he says he’ll come and fetch me.
It’s been horrid of me to stay away so long. When we left, we only
intended to be gone for three months. Somehow the time lengthened. I
wanted to see so much. He’s been too easy with me. He’s been awfully
kind. He always has been kind. He treats me like a spoilt child.”
She had been speaking so eagerly and hurriedly that she had not
heard the creaking of the stairs. Through the darkness I could see
my grandmother standing in the doorway. Vi turned to Ruthita with a
pretense of gaiety, “No wonder you English don’t understand us. Don’t
you think that American husbands are very patient?”
“I’m sure I do,” said Ruthita. “What makes them so different from
English husbands?”
“They love their wives.”
It was impossible to tell from the bantering tone in Vi’s voice, whether
she spoke the last words in cynicism or sincerity.
Grandmother Cardover took her literally. Her national pride was touched.
She believed that an aspersion had been cast on the affection of all
married Englishmen. She advanced into the room with suspicions aroused,
bristling with morality. “If that’s what they call love in America,” she
snorted, “then it’s glad I am that I was born in Ransby. ‘They shall be
one flesh’--that’s what the Holy Book says about marriage. And ’ow can
you be one flesh if you stay away from one another a twelvemonth at a
time? Why, when my Will’am was alive, I never slept a night away from
’im, from the day we was married to the day he died.”
The darkness about her seemed to quiver with indignation. I could see
her gray curls bobbing, and hear the keys hanging from her waist jangle,
as she trembled. Ruthita cowered close to me, shocked and frightened.
Dorrie woke and began to whimper to be taken to bed. We all waited for a
natural expression of anger from Vi.
She set Dorrie on to her feet very gently, whispering to her mothering
words, telling her not to cry. Drawing herself up, she faced into the
darkness. When she spoke there was a sweet, low pleading in her voice.
“Mrs. Cardover, you took me too seriously. I’m sorry. You misunderstood
me. I believe all that you have said--a wife ought to be her husband’s
companion. There have been reasons for my long absence, which I cannot
explain; if I did, you might not understand them. But I want _you_
always to believe well of me. I have never had such kindness from any
woman as you have given me.”
I heard my Grannie sniffle. Vi must have heard her. She left Dorrie and,
running across the room, put her arms about her. I heard them blaming
themselves, and taking everything back, the way women do when they ask
forgiveness. I lifted Dorrie into my arms, and Ruthita and I tiptoed
from the room.
Presently they came down to us. Grandmother Cardover was smiling
comically, as though she was rather pleased at what had happened. Vi
said that she must be going. Ruthita and I volunteered to accompany her
back to her lodgings. So the storm in the tea-cup ended, leaving me with
new materials for conjecture and reflection.
On the way up the High Street we chatted volubly, trying to overlay what
had occurred with a new impression. We talked against time and without
sincerity. When we had reached the black flint house and the door had
shut, Ruthita snuggled close to me with a relieved little sigh. Ever
since my return from Woadley she had been waiting for this moment of
privacy. With a sweet sisterly air of proprietorship she slipped her arm
through mine. We turned down a score and struck out across the denes
to the north beach, where we could be quiet. A wet wind from the sea
pattered about our faces, giving Ruthita an excuse to cling yet more
closely.
You would not have called Ruthita beautiful in those days. She lacked
the fire that goes with beauty. She was too humble in her self-esteem,
too self-effacing. But one who had looked closely would have discerned
something more lasting than mere physical beauty--the loveliness of
a pure spirit looking out from her quiet eyes. She was one of those
domestic saints, unaware of their own goodness, that one sometimes finds
in middle-class families; women who are never heard of, who live only
through their influence on their menfolk’s lives.
Her features were small, but perfect. Her figure slight, and buoyant in
its carriage. Her complexion white, but ready to suffuse with color at
the least sign of appreciation. Her glory was in her hair, which was
black and abundant as night. From a child I had always thought that her
feet and hands were most beautiful in their fragile tininess. I never
told her any of these flattering observations, which would have meant
so much if put into words. Brothers don’t--and I was as good as her
brother.
“Don’t you think,” said Ruthita, “that there’s something awfully queer
about Mrs. Carpenter’s marriage? I’ve been with her nearly a week now,
and I’ve never heard her mention her husband until to-night.”
“And Dorrie doesn’t speak of him either.”
“No, I’ve noticed that.”
Then Ruthita surprised me. “Do you know, Dante, I think to marry the
wrong man must be purgatory.”
I was amused at the note of seriousness in her voice.
“Ruthie, to hear you speak one’d suppose you’d been in love. Have you
ever thought that you’ll have to marry some day?”
“Of course I have.”
“What’ll he have to be like?”
She held her tongue. My jauntiness had made her shy. “Come, Ruthie,” I
said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I hate to own that you’re grown up. I
didn’t think you’d given a thought to marriage. Tell me, what’ll he have
to be like?”
I halted, swinging her round so she had to look up in my face. She wore
a hunted look of cornered perplexity.
“I’ve never spoken of these things even to mother,” she said. “They all
treat me as though I were still a child.”
I wondered what was her trouble. The searchlight swept her. I saw the
eagerness for confession on her trembling mouth.
The fire which her beauty had always lacked leapt up. I was amazed
at the transformation. She looked reckless. The mask of maidenly
tranquillity had slipped aside; I saw all the longing of her unnoticed
womanhood focused for an instant in her eyes. The search-light traveled
out to sea again. I repeated, “What must he be like?”
She reached up to me, so that her lips almost touched mine. “I think he
must be like you,” she whispered.
Of all answers that was the last I had expected. I had thought myself on
the brink of some great discovery--that she, too, had some secret lover.
I slipped my arm about her and we strolled on through the darkness
in silence. Ahead the harbor-lights, reflected across the water, drew
nearer. We climbed the beach and the sea-wall, and made our way across
the denes to the town.
“You’re all wrong,” I said. “Some day, when you do fall in love, you’ll
get a better standard.”
We entered the lamp-lit town. For the rest of the evening we did not
say much. I was thinking how easy it is for two people to live always
together and yet never to understand each other. Who would have guessed
that little Ruthita had this hunger to be loved?
While we were seated at breakfast next morning, someone walked across
the shop and tapped on the door of the keeping-room. Before any of us
could spring up, Lawyer Seagirt entered.
“Keep your seats. Keep your seats,” he said cheerily. “I’m sure you’ll
excuse this early call when you hear what I’ve come about.”
With his back to the empty fireplace, he straddled the hearthrug, bowing
first to my grandmother, then to Ruthita. Then he settled his gaze on
me, with the beaming benevolence of a bachelor uncle. He cleared his
throat.
“Ahem! Ahem! Mr. Cardover, I congratulate you. After you left yesterday,
Sir Charles spoke of you with considerable feeling. He expressed
sentiments concerning you which from him meant much--much more than
if uttered by any other man. For many years he has honored me with his
confidence, yet on no occasion do I remember him to have displayed so
much emotion. Of course all this is strictly between ourselves and must
go no further.”
Like three mandarins we nodded.
“It is my pleasant duty to have to inform you, Mr. Cardover, that Sir
Charles has been pleased to make you an allowance. It will be paid
quarterly on the first day of January, April, July, and October, and
will be delivered to you through my hands.”
Again he halted. Grandmother Cardover, losing patience, forgot her
manners. “God bless my soul,” she exclaimed, “how the man maunders! How
much?”
“Madam,” said Lawyer Seagirt, “the amount is four hundred pounds per
annum.”
The good man had never found himself so popular. He was made to sit down
to table with us, despite his protests that he had breakfasted already.
The money might have been coming out of his own pocket for all the
fuss we made of him. Every now and then the fact of my prosperity would
strike Grandmother Cardover afresh. Throwing up her hands she would
exclaim, “Four ’undred pounds, and he’s got two ’undred already from his
fellowship! It’s more than I’ve ever earned in any year with all my wear
and tear. Just you wait till his pa ’ears about it!”
That morning I took Ruthita to Norwich. She was puzzled when I told her
to get ready to come. All the way over in the train she kept trying to
guess my purpose. The truth was I had contrasted her with Vi. Vi was not
only exquisite in herself, but as expensively exquisite as fine clothes
could make her. Ruthita, on the other hand, had the appearance of making
the most genteel impression at the minimum expenditure of money. My
father’s means were narrow, and she was not his daughter; therefore
the Snow Lady insisted on making most of her own and Ruthita’s dresses.
Rigid economies had been exercised; stuffs had been turned, and dyed,
and made over again. Now that I could afford it, I was determined to see
what fine feathers could do for this shy little sister.
When the gowns came home, even Ruthita was surprised at the prettiness
that filmy muslins and French laces accentuated in her.
“My word, Ruthie, you’re a dainty little armful. You won’t have to
wait long for that lover now,” I told her, when she came down into the
keeping-room to show herself to me.
She pouted and made a face at me like a child. “I don’t want lovers,”
she laughed. “I only want my big brother.”
When she had gone upstairs my grandmother turned to me. “You can go too
far with her, Dannie.” She only called me Dannie when she was saying
something serious or a little wounding. “You can go too far with her,
Dannie. I should advise you to be careful.”
“What are you driving at?” I asked bluntly.
“Just this, that however you may pretend to one another, she isn’t your
sister and you aren’t her brother. Any day you may wake something up in
her that you didn’t mean to.”
“Stuff and nonsense,” I replied. “At heart she’s only a child.”
“All I can say is you’re going the right way to work to make her a
woman,” my grandmother said shortly.
That afternoon I persuaded Ruthita to put on all her finery and come
for a walk on the esplanade. I wanted her to lose her timidity and to
discover for herself that she was as good as anybody. I felt a boyish
pride in walking beside her; she was my creation--I had dressed her.
We had passed the pier and entered the long trim walk, lined with
sculptured Neptunes, which runs along the seafront from Ransby to
Pakewold, when a figure which had a morbid interest for me came in
sight. It was that of a buxom broad-hipped woman, handsome in her own
bold fashion, leading by the hand an over-dressed, half-witted child. As
she drew nearer, the rouge on her face became discernible. She strolled
with a swagger through the fashionable crowd, eyeing the men with sly
effrontery. She was known in Ransby by the nickname of “Lady Halloway.”
She was the bathing-machine man’s daughter, and had been the victim of
one of my cousin’s earliest amorous adventures. It was commonly believed
that he was the father of her child.
Since the news had got abroad that I had supplanted Halloway in my
grandfather’s favor, she had glowered at me, with undisguised hostility,
whenever we met.
As we passed, Ruthita’s parasol just touched her. It was the woman’s
fault, for she had crowded us purposely. I raised my hat, muttering an
apology, and was on the point of moving forward, when she wrenched the
parasol from Ruthita’s hand and flung it to the ground. Ruthita stared
at her too surprised to say a word. The woman herself, for the moment,
was too infuriated to express herself. All the bitterness of a deserted
mistress, the pent-up resentment against years of contempt and the
false pride with which she had brazened out her shame among her
fellow-townsmen, came to the surface and found an excuse for utterance.
People nearest to us halted in their promenade and, gathering round,
began to form the nucleus of an audience. An audience for her oratory
was what “Lady Halloway” most desired. Her lips were drawn back from her
teeth and her hands were clenched; anger re-created her into something
almost magnificent and wholly brutal. When she spoke, she addressed
herself to Ruthita, but her eyes were fixed on mine in vixenish
defiance. The over-dressed, top-heavy oddity at her side steadied
himself by clinging to her skirts, gazing from one to the other of us
with a vacant, wondering expression.
I picked up Ruthita’s parasol and handed it back to her, whispering that
she should go on. The woman heard me.
“Yes, go on, my fine lady,” she sneered in savage sarcasm. “Go on.
You’re too good ter be zeen a-talkin’ wi’ the likes o’ me. Yer know wot
I am. I’m a woman wot’s fallen. I ain’t too bad, ’owsomever, for
Mr. Cardover to diddle me out o’ my property. He’s a grand man, Mr.
Cardover, wi’ ’is high airs and proud ways. And where do ’e get
them from, I ax. From old Cardover’s bake-’ouse around the corner ter be
sure, and from ’is mawther, wot ran orf wi’ ’is father and ’ad the
good luck ter get married.”
I interrupted her. “I’m very sorry for you,” I said, “but you’ve got
to stop this at once. You don’t know what you’re saying, neither does
anyone else. Please let us pass.”
She stepped in front of us with her plump arms held up in fighting
attitude, blocking our path.
“Zorry for me. Zorry for me,” she laughed, still addressing Ruthita. “I
doan’t want ’is zorrow. Your man’s a thief, my gal, and it’s the likes
o’ him wot despises me--me as should be Lady Halloway if I ’ad me
rights, me as should be livin’ at Woadley ’All as zoon as Sir Charles
be dead and gorn. ’E says ’e’s zorry for me, wi’ the lawful heir,
the child ’e ’as robbed, a-standin’ in ’is sight. The imperdence
of ’im!”
She gave the idiot’s hand a vicious jerk, swinging him in front of her,
so that the lawful heir began to holloa. Someone who had newly joined
the crowd, inquired what was up.
“Wot’s up, you axed. This gentleman, as ’e calls ’isself, told ’is
gal to barge inter me. That’s wot’s up, and I won’t stand it. ’E’s
robbed my kid, wot was heir, o’ wot belongs ter ’im. And ’e’s
robbed my ’usband, for ’e’s as good as my ’usband in the sight o’
almighty Gawd. ’E treats me like a dorg and tells ’is gal to barge
inter me, and ’e thinks I’ll stand it.”
While she had been exploding I had tried to back away from her, but
she followed. Now a policeman’s helmet showed above the heads of the
spectators. Just then the bathing-machine man strolled up from the beach
out of curiosity. Seeing his daughter the center of disturbance,
he fought his way to the front and seized her by the wrists with a
threatening gesture. “Yer fool, Lottie,” he panted, “when are yer goin’
ter be done a-disgracin’ o’ me?”
For a moment she was cowed. But as he dragged her away to the
bathing-machines, she tore one hand free and shook her fist at me.
“’E’s comin’ down to-morrer,” she shouted. “I’ve writ and told ’ im
wot you’ve been a-doin’ at Woadley.”
Ruthita was trembling all over with disgust and excitement. I took her
back to the shop. When I was alone with my grandmother I asked her what
kind of a woman Lottie was.
“As nice and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby,” she answered,
“until that rascal, Lord Halloway, ruined her.”
Next day I had a chance of judging for myself the worth of Lord
Halloway. In the afternoon, just as I was going out, I was told that
he was waiting to see me in the shop. I went to meet him prepared for
trouble. I found a tall, aristocratic man of about thirty-five, filling
up the doorway, looking out into the street with his legs wide apart. He
was swinging his cane and whistling softly. The impression one got from
his back-view was that he was extremely athletic. When he turned round
I saw that he was magnificently proportioned, handsome, high
complexioned, and graceful to the point of affectation. When he smiled
and held out his hand, his manner was so winning that every prejudice
was for the moment swamped. He had the instinctive art of charm.
“Awfully sorry to have to meet you like this for the first time,” he
said. “We’re second-cousins, aren’t we? Strange how we’ve managed to
miss one another, and being members of the same college and all.”
He had removed his hat, and was leaning against the door-jamb, with
his legs crossed. I watched him narrowly while he was talking. I had
expected to see a cultured degenerate--the worst type of bounder.
Instead of being exhausted and nervous with a spurious energy, he was
almost military in his upright carriage. He had a daredevil air of
careless command, which was so much a part of his breeding that it
was impossible to resent it. A man would have summed up his vices and
virtues leniently by saying that he was a gay dog. A good woman might
well have fallen in love with him, and excused the attraction that his
wickedness had for her by saying that she was trying to convert him.
The only sign of weakness I could detect was a light inconsequent laugh,
strangely out of keeping with the virility of his height and breadth; it
was like the vain and meaningless giggle of a silly woman.
I asked him if he would not come inside. He shook his head, saying that
this was not a social visit, but that he had come to apologize. Then he
faced me with an openness of countenance which impressed me as manly,
but which might have been due to shamelessness.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am for the beastly row you had
yesterday. Lottie’s not a bad sort, but she gets fancies and they run
away with her. I’ve talked with her, and I can promise you it won’t
happen again. She’s been writing me angry letters for the past week,
ever since you made it up with Sir Charles. I was afraid something like
this would happen, so I thought I’d just run down. I wish I’d managed to
get here earlier.”
He stopped suddenly, gazing toward the keeping-room door. Ruthita came
out and crossed the shop. She had on one of her new dresses and was on
her way to tea with Vi.
He followed her with his eyes till she was gone. There was nothing
insulting in the gallantry with which he admired her; he seemed rather
surprised--that was all. For a minute he continued conversing with me in
an absent-minded manner, then he wished me good-by, hoping that we might
meet again in Oxford. I walked out on to the pavement and watched him
down the street. Then I hurriedly fetched my hat and followed.
It might have been accidental and I may have been over-suspicious, but
his path lay in the same direction as Ruthita’s; he never walked so
quickly as to overtake her or so slowly as not to keep her well in
sight. When she entered the old flint house, he hesitated, as though
the purpose of his errand was gone; then, seeing me out of the tail of
his eye, he turned leisurely to the left down a score. Next day I heard
that he had departed from Ransby.
I could not rid myself for many days of the impression this incident had
created. Like a Hogarth canvas, it typified for me the ugly nemesis
of illicit passion in all its grotesque nakedness. There was horror
in connecting such a man as Halloway with such a woman as Lottie. The
horror was emphasized by the child. Yet Lottie had once been “as nice
and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby,” until he destroyed
her. Doubtless at the time, their sinning had seemed sweet and
excusable--much the same as the love of any lover for any lass. Only the
result had proved its bitterness.
This thought made me go with a tightened rein. When impulse tempted
me to give way, the memory of that woman with her half-witted child,
brazening out her shame before a crowd of pleasure-seekers on the sunlit
esplanade, sprang into my mind and turned me back like the flame of a
sword.