VIII

"I asked for you," he said when she stood there, "because I heard from

the flyman who drove me from the station to the inn that he had brought

you here yesterday. We had some talk, and he mentioned it."

"You didn't know I was here?"

"No. I knew only that you had had, in London, all that you told me, that

day, to do; and it was Mona's idea that after your sister's marriage you

were staying on with your father. So I thought you were with him still."

"I am," Fleda replied, idealizing a little the fact. "I'm here only for

a moment. But do you mean," she went on, "that if you had known I was

with your mother you wouldn't have come down?"

The way Owen hung fire at this question made it sound more playful than

she had intended. She had, in fact, no consciousness of any intention

but that of confining herself rigidly to her function. She could already

see that, in whatever he had now braced himself for, she was an element

he had not reckoned with. His preparation had been of a different

sort--the sort congruous with his having been careful to go first and

lunch solidly at the inn. He had not been forced to ask for her, but she

became aware, in his presence, of a particular desire to make him feel

that no harm could really come to him. She might upset him, as people

called it, but she would take no advantage of having done so. She had

never seen a person with whom she wished more to be light and easy, to

be exceptionally human. The account he presently gave of the matter was

that he indeed wouldn't have come if he had known she was on the spot;

because then, didn't she see? he could have written to her. He would

have had her there to let fly at his mother.

"That would have saved me--well, it would have saved me a lot. Of course

I would rather see you than her," he somewhat awkwardly added. "When the

fellow spoke of you, I assure you I quite jumped at you. In fact I've no

real desire to see Mummy at all. If she thinks I _like_ it--!" He sighed

disgustedly. "I only came down because it seemed better than any other

way. I didn't want her to be able to say I hadn't been all right. I dare

say you know she has taken everything; or if not quite everything, why,

a lot more than one ever dreamed. You can see for yourself--she has got

half the place down. She has got them crammed--you can see for

yourself!" He had his old trick of artless repetition, his helpless

iteration of the obvious; but he was sensibly different, for Fleda, if

only by the difference of his clear face, mottled over and almost

disfigured by little points of pain. He might have been a fine young man

with a bad toothache; with the first even of his life. What ailed him

above all, she felt, was that trouble was new to him: he had never known

a difficulty; he had taken all his fences, his world wholly the world of

the personally possible, rounded indeed by a gray suburb into which he

had never had occasion to stray. In this vulgar and ill-lighted region

he had evidently now lost himself. "We left it quite to her honor, you

know," he said ruefully.

"Perhaps you've a right to say that you left it a little to mine." Mixed

up with the spoils there, rising before him as if she were in a manner

their keeper, she felt that she must absolutely dissociate herself. Mrs.

Gereth had made it impossible to do anything but give her away. "I can

only tell you that, on my side, I left it to her. I never dreamed either

that she would pick out so many things."

"And you don't really think it's fair, do you? You _don't_!" He spoke

very quickly; he really seemed to plead.

Fleda faltered a moment. "I think she has gone too far." Then she added:

"I shall immediately tell her that I've said that to you."

He appeared puzzled by this statement, but he presently rejoined: "You

haven't then said to mamma what you think?"

"Not yet; remember that I only got here last night." She appeared to

herself ignobly weak. "I had had no idea what she was doing; I was taken

completely by surprise. She managed it wonderfully."

"It's the sharpest thing I ever saw in _my_ life!" They looked at each

other with intelligence, in appreciation of the sharpness, and Owen

quickly broke into a loud laugh. The laugh was in itself natural, but

the occasion of it strange; and stranger still, to Fleda, so that she

too almost laughed, the inconsequent charity with which he added: "Poor

dear old Mummy! That's one of the reasons I asked for you," he went

on--"to see if you'd back her up."

Whatever he said or did, she somehow liked him the better for it. "How

can I back her up, Mr. Gereth, when I think, as I tell you, that she has

made a great mistake?"

"A great mistake! That's all right." He spoke--it wasn't clear to her

why--as if this declaration were a great point gained.

"Of course there are many things she hasn't taken," Fleda continued.

"Oh yes, a lot of things. But you wouldn't know the place, all the

same." He looked about the room with his discolored, swindled face,

which deepened Fleda's compassion for him, conjuring away any smile at

so candid an image of the dupe. "You'd know this one soon enough,

wouldn't you? These are just the things she ought to have left. Is the

whole house full of them?"

"The whole house," said Fleda uncompromisingly. She thought of her

lovely room.

"I never knew how much I cared for them. They're awfully valuable,

aren't they?" Owen's manner mystified her; she was conscious of a return

of the agitation he had produced in her on that last bewildering day,

and she reminded herself that, now she was warned, it would be

inexcusable of her to allow him to justify the fear that had dropped on

her. "Mother thinks I never took any notice, but I assure you I was

awfully proud of everything. Upon my honor, I _was_ proud, Miss Vetch."

There was an oddity in his helplessness; he appeared to wish to persuade

her and to satisfy himself that she sincerely felt how worthy he really

was to treat what had happened as an injury. She could only exclaim,

almost as helplessly as himself: "Of course you did justice! It's all

most painful. I shall instantly let your mother know," she again

declared, "the way I've spoken of her to you." She clung to that idea as

to the sign of her straightness.

"You'll tell her what you think she ought to do?" he asked with some

eagerness.

"What she ought to do?"

"_Don't_ you think it--I mean that she ought to give them up?"

"To give them up?" Fleda hesitated again.

"To send them back--to keep it quiet." The girl had not felt the impulse

to ask him to sit down among the monuments of his wrong, so that,

nervously, awkwardly, he fidgeted about the room with his hands in his

pockets and an effect of returning a little into possession through the

formulation of his view. "To have them packed and dispatched again,

since she knows so well how. She does it beautifully"--he looked close

at two or three precious pieces. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce

for the gander!"

He had laughed at his way of putting it, but Fleda remained grave. "Is

that what you came to say to her?"

"Not exactly those words. But I did come to say"--he stammered, then

brought it out--"I did come to say we must have them right back."

"And did you think your mother would see you?"

"I wasn't sure, but I thought it right to try--to put it to her kindly,

don't you see? If she won't see me, then she has herself to thank. The

only other way would have been to set the lawyers at her."

"I'm glad you didn't do that."

"I'm dashed if I want to!" Owen honestly declared. "But what's a fellow

to do if she won't meet a fellow?"

"What do you call meeting a fellow?" Fleda asked, with a smile.

"Why, letting _me_ tell her a dozen things she can have."

This was a transaction that Fleda, after a moment, had to give up trying

to represent to herself. "If she won't do that--?" she went on.

"I'll leave it all to my solicitor. _He_ won't let her off: by Jove, I

know the fellow!"

"That's horrible!" said Fleda, looking at him in woe.

"It's utterly beastly!"

His want of logic as well as his vehemence startled her; and with her

eyes still on his she considered before asking him the question these

things suggested. At last she asked it. "Is Mona very angry?"

"Oh dear, yes!" said Owen.

She had perceived that he wouldn't speak of Mona without her beginning.

After waiting fruitlessly now for him to say more, she continued: "She

has been there again? She has seen the state of the house?"

"Oh dear, yes!" Owen repeated.

Fleda disliked to appear not to take account of his brevity, but it was

just because she was struck by it that she felt the pressure of the

desire to know more. What it suggested was simply what her intelligence

supplied, for he was incapable of any art of insinuation. Wasn't it at

all events the rule of communication with him to say for him what he

couldn't say? This truth was present to the girl as she inquired if Mona

greatly resented what Mrs. Gereth had done. He satisfied her promptly;

he was standing before the fire, his back to it, his long legs apart,

his hands, behind him, rather violently jiggling his gloves. "She hates

it awfully. In fact, she refuses to put up with it at all. Don't you

see?--she saw the place with all the things."

"So that of course she misses them."

"Misses them--rather! She was awfully sweet on them." Fleda remembered

how sweet Mona had been, and reflected that if that was the sort of plea

he had prepared it was indeed as well he shouldn't see his mother. This

was not all she wanted to know, but it came over her that it was all she

needed. "You see it puts me in the position of not carrying out what I

promised," Owen said. "As she says herself"--he hesitated an

instant--"it's just as if I had obtained her under false pretenses."

Just before, when he spoke with more drollery than he knew, it had left

Fleda serious; but now his own clear gravity had the effect of exciting

her mirth. She laughed out, and he looked surprised, but went on: "She

regards it as a regular sell."

Fleda was silent; but finally, as he added nothing, she exclaimed: "Of

course it makes a great difference!" She knew all she needed, but none

the less she risked, after another pause, an interrogative remark. "I

forget when it is that your marriage takes place?"

Owen came away from the fire and, apparently at a loss where to turn,

ended by directing himself to one of the windows. "It's a little

uncertain; the date isn't quite fixed."

"Oh, I thought I remembered that at Poynton you had told me a day, and

that it was near at hand."

"I dare say I did; it was for the 19th. But we've altered that--she

wants to shift it." He looked out of the window; then he said: "In fact,

it won't come off till Mummy has come round."

"Come round?"

"Put the place as it was." In his offhand way he added: "You know what I

mean!"

He spoke not impatiently, but with a kind of intimate familiarity, the

sweetness of which made her feel a pang for having forced him to tell

her what was embarrassing to him, what was even humiliating. Yes indeed,

she knew all she needed: all she needed was that Mona had proved apt at

putting down that wonderful patent-leather foot. Her type was misleading

only to the superficial, and no one in the world was less superficial

than Fleda. She had guessed the truth at Waterbath and she had suffered

from it at Poynton; at Ricks the only thing she could do was to accept

it with the dumb exaltation that she felt rising. Mona had been prompt

with her exercise of the member in question, for it might be called

prompt to do that sort of thing before marriage. That she had indeed

been premature who should say save those who should have read the matter

in the full light of results? Neither at Waterbath nor at Poynton had

even Fleda's thoroughness discovered all that there was--or rather, all

that there was not--in Owen Gereth. "Of course it makes all the

difference!" she said in answer to his last words. She pursued, after

considering: "What you wish me to say from you then to your mother is

that you demand immediate and practically complete restitution?"

"Yes, please. It's tremendously good of you."

"Very well, then. Will you wait?"

"For Mummy's answer?" Owen stared and looked perplexed; he was more and

more fevered with so much vivid expression of his case. "Don't you think

that if I'm here she may hate it worse--think I may want to make her

reply bang off?"