Majendie owned to a pang of shame as he turned from Maggie's door. In
justice to Gorst it could not be said that he had betrayed the
passionate, perverted creature. And yet there was a sense in which
Maggie's betrayal cried to Heaven, like the destruction of an innocent.
Majendie's finer instinct had surrendered to the charm of her appealing
and astounding purity, by which he meant her cleanness from the mercenary
taint. He had seen himself contending, grossly, with a fierce little
vulgar schemer, who (he had been convinced) would hang on to poor Gorst's
honour by fingers of a murderous tenacity. His own experience helped him
to the vision. And Maggie had come to him, helpless as an injured child,
and feverish from her hurt. He had asked her what she had wanted with
Gorst, and it seemed that what Maggie wanted was "to help him."
He said to himself that he wouldn't be in Gorst's place for a good deal,
to have that on his conscience.
As it happened, the prodigal's conscience was by no means easy. He called
in Prior Street that evening to learn the result of his friend's
intervention. He submitted humbly to Majendie's judgment of his conduct.
He agreed that he had been a brute to Maggie, that he might certainly do
worse than marry her, and that his best reason for not marrying her was
his knowledge that Maggie was ten times too good for him. He was only
disposed to be critical of his friend's diplomacy when he learned that
Majendie had not succeeded in persuading Maggie to marry Mr. Mumford.
But, in the end, he allowed himself to be convinced of the futility, not
to say the indecency, of pressing Mr. Mumford upon the girl at the moment
of her fine renunciation. He admitted that he had known all along that
Maggie had her own high innocence. And when he realised the extent to
which Majendie had "got him out of it," his conscience was roused by a
salutary shock of shame.
But it was to Edith that he presented the perfection of his penitence.
From his stillness and abasement she gathered that, this time, her
prodigal had fallen far. That night, before his departure, he confirmed
her sad suspicions.
"It's awfully good of you," he said stiffly, "to let me come again."
"Good of me? Charlie!" Her eyes and voice reproached him for this
strained formality.
"Yes. Mrs. Majendie's perfectly right. I've justified her bad opinion of
me."
"I don't know that you've justified it. I don't know what you've done. No
more does she, my dear. And you didn't think, did you, that Walter and I
were going to give you up?"
"I'd have forgiven you if you had."
"I couldn't have forgiven myself, or Walter."
"Oh, Walter--if it hadn't been for him I should have gone to pieces this
time. He's pulled me out of the tightest place I ever was in."
"I'm sure he was very glad to do it."
"I wish to goodness I could do the same for him."
"Why do you say that, Charlie?"
The prodigal became visibly embarrassed. He seemed to be considering the
propriety of a perfect frankness.
"I say, you don't mind my asking, do you? Has anything gone wrong with
him and Mrs. Majendie?"
"What makes you think so?"
"Well, you see, I've got a sort of notion that she doesn't understand
him. She's never realised in the least the stuff he's made of. He's the
finest man I know on God's earth, and somehow, it strikes me that she
doesn't see it."
"Not always, I'm afraid."
"Well--see here--you'll tell her, won't you, what he's done for me?
That ought to open her eyes a bit. You can give me away as much as
ever you like, if you want to rub it in. Only tell her that I've chucked
it--chucked it for good. He's made me loathe myself. Tell her that I'm
not as bad as she thinks me, but that I probably would be if it hadn't
been for him. And you, Edie, only I'm going to leave you out of it."
"You certainly may."
"It's because she knows all that already; and the point is to get her to
appreciate him."
Edith smiled. "I see. And I'm to make what I like of you, if I can only
get her to appreciate him?"
"Yes. Tell her that, as far as I'm concerned, I respect her attitude
profoundly."
"Very well. I'll tell her just what you've told me."
She spoke of it the next day, when Anne came to read to her in the
afternoon. Anne was as punctual as ever in her devotion, but the passion
of it had been transferred to Peggy. The child was with them, playing
feebly at her mother's knee, and Anne's mood was propitious. She listened
intently. It was the first time that she had brought any sympathy into a
discussion of the prodigal.
"Did he tell you," said she, "what Walter did for him?"
"No."
"Nor what had happened?"
"No. I didn't like to ask him. Whatever it was, it has gone very deep
with him. Something has made a tremendous difference."
"Has it made him change his ways?"
"I believe it has. You see, Nancy, that's what Walter was trying for. He
always had that sort of hold on him. That was why he was so anxious not
to have him turned away."
Anne's face was about to harden, when Peggy gave the sad little cry that
brought her mother's arms about her. Peggy had been trying vainly to
climb into Anne's lap. She was now lifted up and held there while her
feet trampled the broad maternal knees, and her hands played with Anne's
face; stroking and caressing; smoothing her tragic brow to tenderness;
tracing with soft, attentive fingers the line of her small, close mouth,
until it smiled.
Anne seized the little hands and kissed them. "My lamb," she said, "what
are you doing to your poor mother's face?" She did not see, as Edith saw,
that Peggy, a consummate little sculptor, was moulding her mother's face
into the face of love.
"I should never have dreamed," said Anne, "of turning him away, if I had
thought he was really going to reform. Besides, I was afraid he would be
bad for Walter."
"It didn't strike you that Walter might be good for him?"
"It struck me that I had to be strong for Walter."
"Ah, Walter can be strong for all of us." She paused on that, to let it
sink in. Anne's face was thoughtful.
"Anne, if you believed that all I've said to you was true, would you
still object to having Charlie here?"
"Certainly not. I would be the first to welcome him."
"Then, will you write to him of your own accord, and tell him that, if
what I've told you is true, you'll be glad to see him? He knows why you
couldn't receive him before, dear, and he respects you for it."
Anne thought better of Mr. Gorst for that respect. It was the proper
attitude; the attitude she had once vainly expected Majendie to take.
"After all, what have I to do with it? He comes to see you."
"Yes, dear; but I shan't always be here for him to see. And if I thought
that you would help Walter to look after him--will you?"
"I will do what I can. My little one!"
Anne bowed her head over the soft forehead of her little one. She had a
glad and solemn vision of herself as the protector of the penitent. It
was in keeping with all the sanctities and pieties she cherished. She had
not forgotten that Canon Wharton (a saint if ever there was one) had
enjoined on her the utmost charity to Mr. Gorst, should he turn from his
iniquity.
She was better able to admit the likelihood of that repentance because
Mr. Gorst had never stood in any close relation to her. His iniquity had
not profoundly affected her. But she found it impossible to realise that
Majendie's influence could count for anything in his redemption. Where
her husband was concerned Anne's mind was made up, and it refused to
acknowledge so fine a merit in so gross a man. She was by this time
comfortably fixed in her attitude, and any shock to it caused her
positive uneasiness. Her attitude was sacred; it had become one of the
pillars of her spiritual life. She was constrained to look for
justification lest she should put herself wrong with God.
She considered that she had found it in Majendie's habits, his silences,
his moods, the facility of his decline upon the Hannays and the Ransomes.
He was determined to deteriorate, to sink to their level.
To-night, when he remarked tentatively that he thought he would dine at
the Hannays', she made an effort to stop him.
"Must you go?" said she. "You are always dining with them."
"Why?--do you mind?" said he.
"Well--when it's night after night--"
"Is it that you mind my dining with the Hannays, or my leaving you?"
"I mind both."
"Oh--if I'd thought you wanted me to stay--"
She made no answer, but rose and led the way to the dining-room.
He followed. Her arm had touched him as she passed him in the doorway,
and his heart beat thickly, as he realised the strength of her dominion
over him. She had only to say "Stay," and he stayed; or "Come," and she
could always draw him to her. He had never turned away. His very mind was
faithful to her. It had not even conceived, and it would have had
difficulty in grasping, the idea of happiness without her.
To-night he was profoundly moved by this intimation of his wife's desire
to have him with her. His surprise and satisfaction made him curiously
shy. He sat through two courses without speaking, without lifting his
eyes from his plate; brooding over their separation. He was wondering
whether, after all, it had been so inevitable; whether he had
misunderstood her; whether, if he had had the sense to understand, he
might not have kept her. It was possible she had been wounded by his
absences. He had never explained them. He could not tell her that she
had made him afraid to be alone with her.
The situation, which he had accepted so obediently, had been more than
a mere mortal man could endure. Especially in the terrible five minutes
after dinner, before they settled for the evening, when each sat waiting
to see if the other had anything to say. Sometimes Majendie would take up
his book and Anne her work. She would sew, and sew, patient, persistent,
in her tragic silence. And when he could bear it no longer, he would put
down his book and go quietly away, to relieve the intolerable constraint
that held her. Sometimes it was Anne who read, while he smoked and
brooded. Then, in the warm, consenting stillness of the summer evenings
(they were now in June), her presence seemed to fill the room; he was
possessed by the sense of it; by the sound of her breathing; by the
stirring of her body in the chair, or of her fingers on the pages of her
book; and he would get up suddenly and leave her, dragging his passion
from the sight of her.
As he considered these things, many perplexities, many tendernesses,
stirred in him and kept him still.
Anne watched him from the other end of the table, and her thoughts
debased him. He seemed to her disagreeably incommunicative, and she had
found an ignoble explanation of his mood. There had been too much salt in
the soup, and now there was something wrong with the salmon. He had not
responded to her apology for these accidents, and she supposed that they
had been enough to spoil his evening with her.
She had come to consider him a creature grossly wedded to material
things.
"It's a pity you stayed," said she. "Mrs. Hannay would have given you a
better dinner."
He had nothing to say to so preposterous a charge. His eyes were fixed
more than ever on his plate. She saw his face flush as he bowed his head
in eating; she allowed her fancy to rest in its morbid abhorrence of the
act, and in its suspicion of its grossness. She went on, lashed by her
fancy. "I cannot understand your liking to go there so much, when you
might go to the Eliotts or the Gardners. They're always asking you, and
you haven't been near them for a year."
"Well, you see, the Hannays let me do what I like. They don't bother me."
"Do the Eliotts bother you?"
"They bore me. Horribly."
"And the Gardners?"
"Sometimes--a little."
"And Canon Wharton? No. I needn't ask."
He laughed. "You needn't. _He_ bores me to extinction."
"I'm sorry it is my friends who are so unfortunate."
"It's your husband who's unfortunate. He is not an intellectual person.
Nor a spiritual one, either, I'm afraid."
He looked up. Anne had finished her morsel, and her fingers played
irritably with the hand-bell at her side. Poor Majendie's abstraction had
combined with his appetite to make him deplorably slow over his dinner.
She still sat watching him, pure from appetite, in resignation that
veiled her contempt of the male hunger so incomprehensibly prolonged. He
had come to dread more than anything those attentive, sacrificial eyes.
"I'm awfully sorry," he said, "to keep you waiting."
She rang the bell. "Will you have the lamp lit in the drawing-room or the
study?"
He looked at her. There was no lamp for him in her eyes.
"Whichever you like. I think I shall go over to the Hannays', after all."
He went; and by the lamp in the drawing-room Anne sat and brooded in her
turn.
She said to herself: "It's no use my trying to keep him from them. It
only irritates him. He lets me see plainly that he prefers their society
to mine. I don't wonder. They can flatter him and kow-tow to him, and I
cannot. He can be a little god to them; and he must know what he is to
me. We haven't a thought in common--not a feeling--and he cannot bear to
feel himself inferior. As for me--if I've married beneath me, I must pay
the penalty."
But there was no penalty for her in these reflections. They satisfied
her. They were part of the curious mental process by which she justified
herself.