I
"Am I altered?"
She was, and yet was not. In one sense, not so much as he had expected.
In another sense, more. Or was the alteration in himself? Mr Ferguson
was conscious of a curious qualm as he recognised that at least the
thing was possible.
He had told himself, over and over again, not only that he was not a
romantic man, but that there was no romance about the story. He had
loved Helen Sinclair when he was scarcely more than a boy, and when she
was, certainly, nothing but a girl. Sir Matthew Griswold had come her
way, and--well--she had married him. How much her mother had had to do
with the match, and how much she herself had had to do with it, was a
matter Mr Ferguson never could determine. Griswold was scarcely more
than half an Englishman. His mother had left him large estates in South
America. To those estates he had departed with his wife. On those
estates for eighteen--or was it nineteen?--years Lady Griswold had
practically resided.
If Mr Ferguson was broken-hearted when his love forsook him, he
concealed the fact with admirable ability. Indeed, it is an open
question whether, very soon, he did not tell himself that it was just
as well. A poor wife, possibly any sort of wife, might have proved a
drag on his career. For he had a career. And, in a certain way, he had
succeeded in that career to quite a remarkable extent. He was M.P. for
the Culmshire Boroughs. He had made a name in literature. Literature,
that is, of a kind. Not light and fanciful, but matter-of-fact and
solid. He was, in fact, that wholly indescribable personage, a
promising politician. He was beginning to feel, and possibly others
were beginning to feel as well, that there was only one thing needed to
enable him to turn the promise into fulfilment. That thing was money.
He was not, in a positive sense, a poor man. In a relative sense, he
was. He was very far from being as rich as he felt that he ought to be
if he was ever to occupy that position in politics which he would like
to occupy.
Helen Sinclair had sent him a little note when her marriage with Sir
Matthew was finally arranged. Mr Ferguson had not replied to it. She
had particularly desired that he would not reply. After that there had
been no communication between them for years. Mr Ferguson, of course,
was aware that Lady Griswold was still alive. The Griswolds were
sufficiently important personages in English society to be heard of now
and then, even from that remote portion of the world, from an English
social point of view, in which they chose to dwell.
One day a certain young friend of Mr Ferguson's made up his mind to
travel in South America. He came and asked Mr Ferguson if he could make
him known to any persons "over there." The request was, geographically,
rather vaguely worded, but Mr Ferguson, smiling to himself as he wrote,
gave him a note of introduction to Lady Griswold, in case he should
get, say, within a hundred miles of her. That young man got within a
hundred miles of her. He made a long sojourn with the Griswolds. They
made much of him. Lady Griswold even went so far as to write and thank
Mr Ferguson for having thought of her. Mr Ferguson replied to her
letter. The lady replied again. And so, between them, there grew up a
curious correspondence, a correspondence which, if they had only known
it, was in its way pathetic. Perhaps, after a fashion of their own,
they did recognise the pathos of the thing. Then Sir Matthew died. He
was thirty years older than his wife. The widow, in her distress, wrote
to Ronald--Mr Ferguson was once more "Ronald" to her--in her grief.
And, in soothing her sorrow, Mr Ferguson had dropped a hint. When he
wrote again he dropped another hint. And then another, and another, and
another. By degrees the widow began to take the hints. The end of it
was, that, after many years of exile, Lady Griswold had come home.
Mr Ferguson understood quite well that it was because of those hints
which he had dropped that Lady Griswold had come home. He had not
written one plain word. Nothing which she would be able to fasten on
and say, "Did you not write this, or that, and so deceive me?" His
political training had tended to develop the bump of caution which he
had originally possessed. "Non-committal" was the watchword for him. He
was unwilling to commit himself to any person, in any way, on any
subject whatsoever. Experience had taught him, or had seemed to teach
him, that that was the safest policy. But he certainly had dropped
those hints. And, as it appeared to him, with cause.
It is true enough that, since he was left forlorn, he had never thought
of marriage. Never once, until Sir Matthew died. He had discovered, with
an old sensation of surprise, that he had still a tenderness for his
boyhood's love. Though until he saw Lady Griswold's handwriting--she
wrote the same hand which she had written as a girl--he had been
unaware of the fact during all these years. That young man had sent Mr
Ferguson a glowing account of his sojourn with the Griswolds. According
to him, Lady Griswold was the most charming woman in the world. And so
young. The traveller protested that she scarcely looked as if she were
more than twenty. Even allowing for the natural exaggeration of
grateful youth, this sounded well. In her letters Lady Griswold had
herself declared that she felt young. She only had one child, a girl.
That young man scarcely spoke of the girl. Lady Griswold alluded to her
rarely. When Mr Ferguson heard that Sir Matthew had divided his vast
possessions equally between his wife and his daughter, and that the
widow was free to do with her portion exactly what she pleased, his
heart actually throbbed a little faster in his breast. Here was the
wealth he needed to make his standing sure. It was then he dropped a
more decisive hint than any other of the hints which he had dropped,
the hint which had induced Lady Griswold to come home.
She had told him that he was not to meet her on her arrival in her
native land. She would let him know when he was to call on her in town.
She had let him know. He had waited on her command. He had been
conscious of a slight internal fluttering as he came up the stairs. Now
he held her by the hand.
"Am I altered?"
It was when she asked that question that Mr Ferguson had been made
aware of that curious qualm. She had not altered anything like so much
as might reasonably have been expected. She showed not the slightest
sign of having lived in such a very trying climate. She was, perhaps, a
little filled out. Perhaps a little more stately. There was about her
the certain something which so distinctly divides the woman from the
girl. But there was not a wrinkle on her face. Not a line of sorrow or
of care. She looked at him, too, with the eyes of a girl; she certainly
looked very much more like twenty-six than thirty-six. And yet!--
And yet, what? It is rather difficult to put the matter into words. The
truth is, that as he stood in front of her, holding her hand in his,
looking into her eyes, he felt an absolute conviction that this was not
the sort of woman that he cared for. That this was not the sort of
woman that he ever could care for now. But he could not tell her so.
Just as little could he leave her inquiry unanswered.
"No, I do not think that you have altered."
Her womanly perception was not to be deceived.
"You are saying that to please me. I see you do think that I have
altered."
"I think that you have grown younger."
"Ronald!"
She dropped her eyes, as a young girl might drop her eyes on receiving
her first compliment. The blood showed through her cheeks. He felt that
she expected him to say something else. But he could not say it.
"And me--what do you think of the changes which have taken place in
me?"
She looked up at him shyly, with a shyness which he found curiously
embarrassing.
"You are just what I expected you would be. See here."
Taking him by the hand she led him to a table. On the table lay a
photographic album. The album was of considerable size. It seemed to be
full of photographs. She opened it.
"See," she said, "I have them all. At least, I think I have them all."
The album contained nothing but photographs of Mr Ferguson. He filled
it from cover to cover. When he perceived this was so, he was
tongue-tied. He felt, almost, as if he were some guilty thing. She went
on,--
"I made arrangements with someone over here--he is in a news agency, or
something. I told him to find out whenever you were photographed and to
send me copies. So you see that I have been able to follow the changes
which have taken place in you from year to year."
He said nothing. He could say nothing. He could only turn over the
leaves of that photographic album.
"But I not only have your photographs, I have every speech you ever
made. I have read them over and over again. I believe I know some of
them by heart. I have everything you ever wrote. I have records of you
which will surprise you, one day, when you see them, Ronald." She
paused. Then added, half beneath her breath: "And you? Did you take any
interest in me?"
"Were not my letters proofs of that?"
"Yes, indeed! Ah, Ronald, if it had not been for you I should never
have come home."
He was startled.
"But what was there to keep you out of England now?"
"Nothing, only you. I always told myself that I never would come back
unless you wrote and said you wished me to."
He was silent for a second, oddly silent. It was with an effort that he
seemed to speak.
"You take my breath away."
"Do I?" she laughed. "Ronald, instead of being eighteen years, it does
not seem to me as if it were eighteen days since we were parted." Not
eighteen days! It seemed to him as if it had been eighteen hundred
years and more. "I want to tell you all about it. I always said to
myself that I would tell you all about it the very first time I saw
you, if I had to tell you on my bended knees."
"What is there to tell?"
"What is there not to tell! Now sit down and listen."
He had to sit beside her on a couch, and he had to listen. He did not
know how to help it. He would have given something to have known. He
felt that between himself and this woman there was a great gulf fixed.
While she--she seemed to be so happy in his presence as to be
unconscious that anything was wrong. She seemed to be unconscious that
there was a single jarring note which marred the perfect harmony.
"Ronald, do you remember Major Pettifer?"
Pettifer! The mere mention of the name brought back to him the long
passage of the years. Why, Pettifer had been dead these dozen years and
more. He told her so.
"Has he? Well, it was owing to Major Pettifer that I married Sir
Matthew Griswold."
"Owing to Pettifer? How do you mean?"
"He came down with you one day to mother's. At that time mother was
worrying me to marry Sir Matthew, and Sir Matthew himself was worrying
me even worse than mother. Between them I was nearly driven out of my
mind. I chanced to be passing an open window when I overheard a remark
which Major Pettifer addressed to you. 'To you,' he said, 'marrying a
poor girl means ruin.' 'Well,' you answered, 'it shall mean ruin.' Your
words struck me as with a sudden light of revelation. I made up my mind
upon the instant. I told myself that if marrying a poor girl did mean
ruin, then a poor girl you should not marry. Sir Matthew seemed even
older than he was. My mother had told me, with her own lips, that it
was quite possible that he would not live a year. I knew all through
that you never would marry anyone but me. I knew you, Ronald! Even
supposing Sir Matthew lived two years--then I should not be poor. You
would not be ruined by mating yourself with poverty."
She was silent. And he was silent. This was far worse than he could
possibly have expected.
"Do you mean to say that you married Griswold because of some chance
words which you heard Pettifer address to me, a mere fragment of a
conversation to which you did not even possess the key?"
"I do. I simply made up my mind that you should not be ruined by
marrying me, even though, for love of me, you courted ruin. I resolved
that when I became your wife, in every possible sense of the word I
would bring you fortune."
"But during eighteen years of married life have you had no sort of
compensation?"
"I have had the compensation of looking forward, the compensation of
expecting this."
What _could_ he say to her? He vowed that never again would he commit
himself even to the extent of dropping a hint. He ought to have better
learnt the lesson which had been taught him on many and many a
platform.
"You have had children."
"One child--a girl."
"Was she no compensation?"
"Really, I can hardly tell you. I seem to have seen so little of her;
though, of course, she has been with me nearly all the time. But,
somehow, to myself, I never seem yet to have become a mother."
"How old is she?"
"Let me see, she was born the year that I was married, so she must be
nearly eighteen. Frankly, Inez is so different to me in all respects
that she never seems to me to be my daughter. Here she is." If Lady
Griswold did not welcome the opening door, which was possible, she
allowed no sign of annoyance to escape her. "Inez, this is Mr
Ferguson."
Mr Ferguson stood staring, as if spellbound, at the girl who had
entered the room. He felt more than half inclined to rub his eyes. It
was an extraordinary thing. This big-eyed girl, who was so unlike the
fair and stately Lady Griswold that she might almost have belonged to a
different race of human beings, he seemed to have seen many and many a
time in his dreams. He who flattered himself that he was no dreamer.
Her appearance was so familiar to him that he could have drawn her
likeness even before she entered the room. It was odd. It was even
preposterous. Yet it was so. She advanced with outstretched hand. Even
her soft, musical voice, with its faint suggestion of a foreign accent,
seemed familiar to him.
"Mr Ferguson, I have seen you before."
"You have seen me, Miss Griswold? Where?"
"In my dreams."
Her mother interposed.
"In your dreams? Inez, don't be so silly! What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say." She turned to Mr Ferguson. "In your dreams, have
you not seen me?"
Mr Ferguson hardly knew what to make of her, or of himself.
"It is an extraordinary thing, but I do seem to have seen you in my
dreams, many and many a time."
"It was not seeming. It was reality. We have seen each other in our
dreams."
"Inez! Mr Ferguson, let me show you some photographs of our home in
South America." She led Mr Ferguson towards a table on which there was
a large portfolio. As they went, she whispered, "Ronald, I sometimes
really think that Inez is a little mad."
Mr Ferguson answered her never a word. For in an instant of time, in
the flashing of an eye, something seemed to have come into his life
which had never come into it before. For one thing, there had come into
his life the real presence of the ideal woman of his dreams.