The new firm of Hannay & Majendie promised to do well. Hannay had a
genius for business, and Majendie was carried along by the inspiration
of his senior partner. Hannay was the soul of the firm and Majendie its
brain. He was, Hannay maintained, an ideal partner, the indefatigable
master of commercial detail.
The fourth year of his marriage found Majendie supremely miserable at
home; and established, in his office, before a fair, wide prospect of
financial prosperity. The office had become his home. He worked there
early and late, with a dumb, indomitable industry. For the first time in
his life Majendie was beginning to take an interest in his business.
Disappointed in the only form of happiness that appealed to him, he
applied himself gravely and steadily to shipping, finding some personal
satisfaction in the thought that Anne and Peggy would benefit by this
devotion. There was Peggy's education to be thought of. When she was
older they would travel. There would be greater material comfort and a
wider life for Anne. He himself counted for little in his schemes. At
thirty-five he found himself, with all his flames extinguished, settling
down into the dull habits and the sober hopes of middle age.
To the mind of Gorst, the spectacle of Majendie in his office was, as he
informed him, too sad for words. To Majendie's mind nothing could well be
sadder than the private affairs of Gorst, to which he was frequently
required to give his best attention.
The prodigal had been at last admitted to Prior Street on a footing of
his own. He blossomed out in perpetual previous engagements whenever he
was asked to dine; but he had made a bargain with Majendie by which he
claimed unlimited opportunity for seeing Edie as the price of his promise
to reform. This time Majendie was obliged to intimate to him that his
reform must be regarded as the price of his admission.
For, this time, in the long year of his exile, the prodigal's prodigality
had exceeded the measure of all former years. And, to his intense
surprise, he found that Majendie drew the line somewhere. In consequence
of this, and of the "entanglement" to which Majendie had once referred,
the aspect of Gorst's affairs was peculiarly dark and threatening.
In the spring of the year they gathered to their climax. One afternoon
Gorst appeared in Majendie's office, sat down with a stricken air, and
appealed to his friend to help him out.
"I thought you _were_ out," said Majendie.
"So I am. It's because I'm so well out that I'm in for it. Evans's have
turned her off. She's down on her luck--and--well--you see, _now_ she
wants me to marry her."
"I see. Well--"
"Well, of course I can't. Maggie's a dear little thing, but--you see--I'm
not the first."
"You're sure of that?"
"Certain. She confessed, poor girl. Besides, I knew it. I'm not a brute.
I'd marry her if I'd been the first and only one. I'd marry her if I were
sure I'd be the last. I'd marry her, as it is, if I cared enough for her.
Always provided I could keep her. But you know--"
"You don't care and you can't keep her. What are you going to do for
her?"
Gorst in his anguish glared at Majendie.
"I can't do anything. That's the damnedest part of it. I'm simply cleaned
out, till I get a berth somewhere."
Majendie looked grave. This time the prodigal had devoured his living.
"You're going to leave her there, then. Is that it?"
"No, it isn't. There's another fellow who'd marry her, if she'd have him,
but she won't. That's it."
"Because she's fond of you, I suppose?"
"Oh, I don't know about being fond," said Gorst sulkily. "She's fond of
anybody."
"And what do you want me to do?"
"I'd be awfully glad if you'd go and see her."
"See her?"
"Yes, and explain the situation. I can't. She won't let me. She goes mad
when I try. She keeps on worrying at it from morning to night. When I
don't go, she writes. And it knocks me all to pieces."
"If she's that sort, what good do you suppose I'll do by seeing her?"
"Oh, she'll listen to reason from any one but me. And there are things
you can say to her that I can't. I say, will you?"
"I will if you like. But I don't suppose it will do one atom of good. It
never does, you know. Where does the woman live?"
He took down the address on the visiting-card that Gorst gave him.
Between six and seven that evening he presented himself at one of many
tiny, two-storied, red brick and stucco houses that stood in a long flat
street, each with a narrow mat of grass laid before its bay-window. It
was the new quarter of the respectable milliners and clerks; and Majendie
gathered that the prodigal had taken some pains to lodge his Maggie with
decent people. He reasoned farther that such an arrangement could only be
possible, given the complete rupture of their relations.
A clean, kindly woman opened the door. She admitted with some show of
hesitation that Miss Forrest was at home, and led him to a sitting-room
on the upper floor. As he followed her he heard a door open; a dress
rustled on the landing, and another door opened and shut again.
Maggie was not in the room as Majendie entered. From signs of recent
occupation he gathered that she had risen up and fled at his approach.
The woman went into the adjoining room and returned, politely
embarrassed. "Miss Forrest is very sorry, sir, but she can't see
anybody."
He wrote his name on Gorst's card and sent her back with it.
Then Maggie came to him.
He remembered long afterwards the manner of her coming; how he heard her
blow her poor nose outside the door before she entered; how she stood on
the threshold and looked at him, and made him a stiff little bow; how she
approached shyly and slowly, with her arms hanging awkwardly at her
sides, and her eyes fixed on him in terror, as if she were drawn to him
against her will; how she held Gorst's card tight in her poor little
hand; how her eyes had foreknowledge of his errand and besought him to
spare her; and how in her awkwardness she yet preserved her inimitable
grace.
He could hardly believe that this was the girl he had once seen in
Evans's shop when he was buying flowers for Anne. The girl in Evans's
shop was only a pretty girl. Maggie, at five-and-twenty, living under
Gorst's "protection," and attired according to his taste, was almost
(but not quite) a pretty lady. Maggie was neither inhumanly tall, nor
inhumanly slender; she was simply and supremely feminine. She was dressed
delicately in black, a choice which made brilliant the beauty of her
colouring. Her hair was abundant, fawn-dark, laced with gold. Her face
was a full short oval. Its whiteness was the tinged whiteness of pure
cream, with a rose in it that flamed, under Maggie's swift emotions, to a
sudden red. She had soft grey eyes dappled with a tawny green. Her little
high-arched nose was sensitive to the constant play of her upper lip; and
that lip was so short that it couldn't always cover the tips of her
little white teeth. Majendie judged that Maggie's mouth was the prettiest
feature in her face, and there was something about it that reminded him,
preposterously, of Anne. The likeness bothered him, till he discovered
that it lay in that trick of the lifted lip. But the small charm that
was so brief and divine an accident in Anne was perpetual in Maggie. He
thought he should get tired of it in time.
Maggie had been crying. Her sobs had left her lips still parted; her
eyelids were swollen; there were little ashen shades and rosy flecks all
over her pretty face. Her diminutive muslin handkerchief was limp with
her tears. As he looked at her he realised that he had a painful and
disgusting task before him, and that there would be no intelligence in
the girl to help him out.
He bade her sit down; for poor Maggie stood before him humbly. He told
her briefly that his friend, Mr. Gorst, had asked him to explain things
to her, and he was beginning to explain them, very gently, when Maggie
cut him short.
"It's not that I want to be married," she said sadly. "Mr. Mumford would
_marry_ me."
"Well--then--" he suggested, but Maggie shook her head. "Isn't he nice to
you, Mr. Mumford?"
"He's nice enough. But I can't marry 'im. I won't. I don't love 'im. I
can't--Mr. Magendy--because of Charlie."
She looked at him as if she thought he would compel her to marry Mr.
Mumford.
"Oh dear--" said Maggie, surprised at herself, as she began to cry again.
She pressed the little muslin handkerchief to her eyes; not making a show
of her grief; but furtive, rather, and ashamed.
And Majendie took in all the pitifulness of her sweet, predestined
nature. Pretty Maggie could never have been led astray; she had gone out,
fervent and swift, dream-drunk, to meet her destiny. She was a creature
of ardours, of tenderness, and of some perverse instinct that it would be
crude to call depravity. Where her heart led, her flesh, he judged, had
followed; that was all. Her brain had been passive in her sad affairs.
Maggie had never schemed, or calculated, or deliberated. She had only
felt.
"See here," he said. "Charlie _can't_ marry you. He can't marry anybody."
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, he's too poor."
"I know he's poor."
"And you wouldn't be happy if he did marry you. He couldn't make you
happy."
"I'd be unhappy, then."
"Yes. And he'd be unhappy, too. Is that what you want?"
"No--no--no! You don't understand."
"I'll try to. What do you want? Tell me."
"To help him."
"You can't help him," he said softly.
"I couldn't help him if 'e was rich. I can help him if he's poor."
He smiled. "How do you make that out, Maggie?"
"Well--he ought to marry a lady, I know. But he can't marry a lady. She'd
cost him pounds and pounds. If he married me I'd cost him nothing. I'd
work for him."
Majendie was startled at this reasoning. Maggie was more intelligent than
he had thought.
She went on. "I can cook, I can do housework, I can sew. I'm learning
dressmaking. Look--" She held up a coarse lining she had been stitching
at when he came. From its appearance he judged that Maggie was as yet a
novice in her art.
"I'd work my fingers to the bone for him."
"And you think he'd be happy seeing you do that? A gentleman can't let
his wife work for him. He has to work for her." He paused. "And there's
another reason, Maggie, why he can't marry you."
Maggie's head drooped. "I know," she said. "But I thought--if he was
poor--he wouldn't mind so much. They don't, sometimes."
"I don't think you quite know what I mean."
"I do. You mean he's afraid. He won't trust me. He doesn't think I'm very
good. But I would be--if he married me--I would--I would indeed."
"Of course you would. Whatever happens you're going to be good. That
wasn't what I meant by the other reason."
Her face flamed. "Has he left off caring for me?"
He was silent, and the flame died in her face.
"Does he care for somebody else?"
"It would be better for you if you could think so."
"_I_ know," she said; "it's the lady he used to send flowers to. I
thought it was all right. I thought it was funerals."
She sat very still, taking it in.
"Is he going to marry her?"
"No. He isn't going to marry her."
"She's not got enough money, I suppose. _She_ can't help him."
"You must leave him free to marry somebody who can."
He waited to see what she would do. He expected tears, and a storm of
jealous rage. But all Maggie did was to sit stiller than ever, while her
tears gathered, and fell, and gathered again.
Majendie rose. "I may tell Mr. Gorst that you accept his explanation?
That you understand?"
"Am I never to see him again?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Nor write to him?"
"It's better not. It only worries him."
She looked round her, dazed by the destruction of her dream.
"What am I to do, then? Where am I to go to?"
"Stay where you are, if you're comfortable. Your rent will be paid for
you, and you shall have a small allowance."
"But who's going to give it me?"
"Mr. Gorst would, if he could. As he cannot, I am."
"You mustn't," said she. "I can't take it from you."
He had approached this point with a horrible dread lest she should
misunderstand him.
"Better to take it from me than from him, or anybody else," he said
significantly; "if it must be."
But Maggie had not misunderstood.
"I can work," she said. "I can pay a little _now_."
"No, no. Never mind about that. Keep it--keep all you earn."
"I can't keep it. I'll pay you back again. I'll work my fingers to the
bone."
"Oh, not for me" he said, laughing, as he took up his hat to go.
Maggie lifted her sad head, and faced him with all her candour.
"Yes," she said, "for you."