"It is my Master's business."
Had she read his words in a novel they would have seemed to her
priggish, unnatural, and superlatively impertinent. Spoken by those
thin, perfectly curved lips, they were at least interesting.
"That wasn't what you began about," she said, twisting the rings on her
fingers. The catalogue of her gifts and graces was less a novelty to her
than the reproaches to her virtue.
"No--am I to repeat what I began about? Ah--but I will. I began by
saying what I came here to say: that you, as a married woman, have no
right to turn men's heads and make them long for what can never be."
"But you don't know," she said. "My husband--"
"I don't wish to know," he interrupted. "Your husband is alive, and you
are bound to be faithful to him, in thought, word, and deed. What I saw
and heard in the little copse last night--"
"I do wish you wouldn't," she said. "You talk as if--"
"No," he said, "I'm willing--even anxious, I think--to believe that you
would not--could not--"
"Oh," she cried, jumping up, "this is intolerable! How dare you!"
He had risen too.
"I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not afraid of your anger, nor of
your--your other weapons. Think what you are! Think of your great
powers--and you are wasting them all in making fools of a pack of young
idiots--"
"But what could I do with my gifts--as you call them?"
"Do?--why, you could endow and organise and run any one of a hundred
schemes for helping on God's work in the world."
"For instance?" Her charming smile enraged him.
"For instance? Well--_for instance_--you might start a home for those
women who began as you have begun, and who have gone down into hell, as
you will go--unless you let yourself be warned."
She was for the moment literally speechless. Then she remembered how he
had said: "I am not afraid of--your weapons." She drew a deep breath
and spoke gently--
"I believe you don't mean to be insulting--I believe you mean kindly to
me. Please say no more now. I'll think over it all. I'm not
angry--only--do you really think you understand everything?"
He might have answered that he did not understand her. She did not mean
him to understand. She knew well enough that she was giving him
something to puzzle over when she smiled that beautiful, troubled,
humble, appealing half-smile.
He did not answer at all. He stood a moment twisting his soft hat in his
hands: she admired his hands very much.
"Forgive me if I've pained you more than was needed," he said at last,
"it is only because--" here her smile caught him, and he ended vaguely
in a decreasing undertone. She heard the words "king's jewels," "pearl
of great price."
When he was gone she said "_Well!_" more than once. Then she ran to the
low mirror over the mantelpiece, and looked earnestly at herself.
"You do look rather nice to-day," she said. "And so he's not afraid of
any of your weapons! And I'm not afraid of any of his. It's a fair duel.
Only all the provocation came from him--so the choice of weapons is
mine. And they shall be _my_ weapons: he has weapons to match them right
enough, only the poor dear doesn't know it." She went away to dress for
dinner, humming gaily--
"My love has breath o' roses,
O' roses, o' roses;
And arms like lily posies
To fold a lassie in!"
Not next day--she was far too clever for that, but on the day after that
he received a note. Her handwriting was charming; no extravagances,
every letter soberly but perfectly formed.
"I have been thinking of all you said the other day. You are quite
mistaken about some things--but in some you are right. Will you show me
how to work? I will do whatever you tell me."
Then the Reverend Christopher was glad of the courage that had inspired
him to denounce to his parishioners all that seemed to him amiss in
them.
"I am glad," he said to himself, "that I had the courage to treat her
exactly as I have done the others--even if she _has_ beautiful hair, and
eyes like--like--"
He stopped the thought before he found the simile--not because he
imagined that there could be danger in it, but because he had been
trained to stop thoughts of eyes and hair as neatly as a skilful boxer
stops a blow.
She had not been so trained, and she admired his eyes and hair quite as
much as he might have admired hers if she had not been married.
So now the Reverend Christopher had a helper in his parish work; and he
needed help, for his plain-speaking had already offended half his
parish. And his helper was, as he had had the sense to know she could
be, the most accomplished organiser in the country. She ran the parish
library, she arranged the school treat, she started evening classes for
wood carving and art needlework. She spent money like water, and time as
freely as money. Quietly, persistently, relentlessly, she was making
herself necessary to the Reverend Christopher. He wrote to her every
day--there were so many instructions to give--but he seldom spoke with
her. When he called she was never at home. Sometimes they met in the
village and exchanged a few sentences. She was always gravely sweet,
intensely earnest. There was a certain smile which he remembered--a
beautiful, troubled, appealing smile. He wondered why she smiled no
more.
Her friends shrugged their shoulders over her new fancy.
"It is odd," her bosom friend said. "It can't be the parson, though he's
as beautiful as he can possibly be, because she sees next to nothing of
him. And yet I can't think that Betty of all people could really--"
"Oh--I don't know," said the bosom friend of her bosom friend. "Women
often do take to that sort of thing, you know, when they get tired of--"
"Of?"
"The other sort of thing, don't you know!"
"How horrid you are," said Betty's bosom friend. "I believe you're a
most dreadful cynic, really."
"Not at all," said the friend, complacently stroking his moustache.
Betty certainly was enjoying herself. She had the great gift of enjoying
thoroughly any new game. She enjoyed, first, the newness; and, besides,
the hidden lining of her new masquerade dress enchanted her. But as her
new industries developed she began to enjoy the things for themselves.
It is always delightful to do what we can do well, and the Reverend
Christopher had been right when he said she was a born general.
"How easy it all is," she said, "and what a fuss those clergy-hags make
about it! What a wife I should be for a bishop!" She smiled and sighed.
It was pleasant, too, to wake in the morning, not to the recollection of
the particular stage which yesterday's flirtation happened to have
reached, but to the sense of some difficulty overcome, some object
achieved, some rough place made smooth for her Girls' Friendly, or her
wood carvers, or her Parish Magazine. And within it all the secret charm
of a purpose transfiguring with its magic this eager, strenuous, working
life.
Her avoidance of the Reverend Christopher struck him at first as modest,
discreet, and in the best possible taste. But presently it seemed to him
that she rather overdid it. There were many things he would have liked
to discuss with her, but she always evaded talk with him. Why? he began
to ask himself why. And the question wormed through his brain more and
more searchingly. He had seen her at work now; he knew her powers, and
her graces--the powers and the graces that made her the adored of her
Friendly girls and her carving boys. He remembered, with hot ears and
neck crimson above his clerical collar, that interview. The things he
had said to her! How could he have done it? Blind idiot that he had
been! And she had taken it all so sweetly, so nobly, so humbly. She had
only needed a word to turn her from the frivolities of the world to
better things. It need not have been the sort of word he had used. And
at a word she had turned. That it should have been at _his_ word was not
perhaps a very subtle flattery--but the Reverend Christopher swallowed
it and never tasted it. He was not trained to distinguish the flavours
of flatteries. He never tasted it, but it worked in his blood, for all
that. And why, why, why would she never speak to him? Could it be that
she was afraid that he would speak to her now as he had once spoken? He
blushed again.
Next time he met her she was coming up to the church with a big basket
of flowers for the altar. He took the basket from her and carried it in.
"Let me help you," he said.
"No," she said in that sweet, simple, grave way of hers. "I can do it
very well. Indeed, I would rather."
He had to go. The arrangement of the flowers took more than an hour, but
when she came out with the empty basket, he was waiting in the porch.
Her heart gave a little joyful jump.
"I want to speak to you," said he.
"I'm rather late," she said, as usual; "couldn't you write?"
"No," he said, "I can't write this. Sit down a moment in the porch."
She loved the masterfulness of his tone. He stood before her.
"I want you to forgive me for speaking to you as I did--once. I'm
afraid you're afraid that I shall behave like that again. You needn't
be."
"Score number one," she said to herself. Aloud she said--
"I am not afraid," and she said it sweetly, seriously.
"I was wrong," he went on eagerly. "I was terribly wrong. I see it quite
plainly now. You do forgive me--don't you?"
"Yes," said she soberly, and sighed.
There was a little silence. Her serious eyes watched the way of the wind
dimpling the tall, feathery grass that grew above the graves.
"Are you unhappy?" he asked; "you never smile now."
"I am too busy to smile, I suppose!" she said, and smiled the beautiful,
humble, appealing smile he had so longed to see again, though he had not
known the longing by its right name.
"Can't we be friends?" he ventured. "You--I am afraid you can never
trust me again."
"Yes, I can," she said. "It was very bitter at the time, but I thought
it was so brave of you--and kind, too--to care what became of me. If
you remember, I did want to trust you, even on that dreadful day, but
you wouldn't let me."
"I was a brute," he said remorsefully.
"I do want to tell you one thing. Even if that boy had been holding my
hand I should have thought I had a right to let him, if I liked--just as
much as though I were a girl, or a widow."
"I don't understand. But tell me--please tell me anything you _will_
tell me." His tone was very humble.
"My husband was a beast," she said calmly. "He betrayed me, he beat me,
he had every vile quality a man can have. No, I'll be just to him: he
was always good tempered when he was drunk. But when he was sober he
used to beat me and pinch me--"
"But--but you could have got a separation, a divorce," he gasped.
"A separation wouldn't have freed me--really. And the Church doesn't
believe in divorce," she said demurely. "_I_ did, however, and I left
him, and instructed a solicitor. But the brute went mad before I could
get free from him; and now, I suppose, I'm tied for life to a mad dog."
"Good God!" said the Reverend Christopher.
"I thought it all out--oh, many, many nights!--and I made up my mind
that I would go out and enjoy myself. I never had a good time when I was
a girl. And another thing I decided--quite definitely--that if ever I
fell in love I would--I should have the right to--I mean that I wouldn't
let a horrible, degraded brute of a lunatic stand between me and the man
I loved. And I was quite sure that I was right."
"And do you still think this?" he asked in a low voice.
"Ah," she said, "you've changed everything! I don't think the same about
anything as I used to do. I think those two years with him must have
made me nearly as mad as he is. And then I was so young! I am only
twenty-three now, you know--and it did seem hard never to have had any
fun. I did want so much to be happy."
She had not intended to speak like this, but even as she spoke she saw
that this truth-telling far outshone the lamp of lies she had trimmed
ready.
"You _will_ be happy," he said; "there are better things in the world
than--"
"Yes," she said; "oh, yes!"
Betty did nothing by halves. She had kept a barrier between her and him
till she had excited him to break it down. The barrier once broken, she
let it lie where he had thrown it, and became, all at once, in the most
natural, matter-of-fact, guileless way, his friend.
She consulted him about everything. Let him call when he would, she
always received him. She surrounded him with the dainty feminine spider
webs from which his life, almost monastic till now, had been quite free.
She imported a knitting aunt, so that he should not take fright at long
tete-a-tetes. The knitting aunt was deafish and blindish, and did not
walk much in the rose garden. Betty knew a good deal about roses, and
she taught the Reverend Christopher all she knew. She knew a little of
the hearts of men, and she gently pushed him on the road to forgiveness
from that half of the parish whom his first enthusiastic denunciations
had offended. She rounded his angles. She turned a wayward ascetic into
a fairly good parish priest. And he talked to her of ideals and honour
and the service of God and the work of the world. And she listened, and
her beauty spoke to him so softly that he did not know that he heard.
One day after long silence she turned quickly and met his eyes. After
that she ceased to spin webs, for she saw. Yet she was as blind as he,
though she did not know it any more than he did.
At last he saw, in his turn, and the flash of the illumination nearly
blinded him.
It was late evening: Betty was nailing up a trailing rose, and he was
standing by the ladder holding the nails and the snippets of scarlet
cloth. The ladder slipped, and he caught her in his arms. As soon as she
had assured him that she was not hurt, he said good night and left her.
Betty went indoors and cried. "What a pity!" she said. "Oh, what a pity!
Now he'll be frightened, and it's all over. He'll never come again."
But the next evening he came, and when they had walked through the rose
garden and had come to the sun-dial he stopped and spoke--
"I've been thinking of nothing else since I saw you. When I caught you
last night. Forgive me if I'm a fool--but when I held you--don't be
angry--but it seemed to me that you loved me--"
"Nothing of the sort," said Betty very angrily.
"Then I must be mad," he said; "the way you caught my neck with your
arm, and your face was against mine, and your hair crushed up against my
ear. Oh, Betty, if you don't love me, what shall I do? For I can't live
without you."
Betty had won.
"But--even if I had loved you--I'm married," she urged softly.
"Yes--do you suppose I've forgotten that? But you remember what you
said--about being really free, and not being bound to that beast. I see
that you were right--right, right. It's the rest of the world that's
wrong. Oh, my dear--I can't live without you. Couldn't you love me?
Let's go away--right away together. No one will love you as I do. No
one knows you as I do--how good and strong and brave and unselfish you
are. Oh, try to love me a little!"
Betty had leaned her elbows on the sun-dial, and her chin on her hands.
"But you used to think ..." she began.
"Ah--but I know better now. You've taught me everything. Only I never
knew it till last night when I touched you. It was like a spark to a
bonfire that I've been piling up ever since I've known you. You've
taught me what life is, and love. Love can't be wrong. It's only wrong
when it's stealing. We shouldn't be robbing anybody. We should both work
better--happiness makes people work--I see that now. I should have to
give up parish work--but there's plenty of good work wants doing. Why,
I've nearly finished that book of mine. I've worked at it night after
night--with the thought of you hidden behind the work. If you were my
wife, what work I could do! Oh, Betty, if you only loved me!"
She lifted her face and looked at him gravely. He flung his arm round
her shoulders and turned her face up to his. She was passive to his
kisses. At last she kissed him, once, and drew herself from his arms.
"Come," she said.
She led him to the garden seat in the nut-avenue.
"Now," she said, when he had taken his place beside her, "I'm going to
tell you the whole truth. I was very angry with you when you came to me
that first day. You were quite right. That boy had been holding my hand:
what's more, he had been kissing it. It amused me, and if it hurt him I
didn't care. Then you came. And you said things. And then you said you
weren't afraid of me or my weapons. It was a challenge. And I determined
to make you love me. It was all planned, the helping in your work--and
keeping out of your way at first was to make you wish to see me. And,
you see, I succeeded. You _did_ love me."
"I do," he said. He caught her hand and held it fiercely. "I deserved it
all. I was a brute to you."
"I meant you to love me--and you did love me. I lied to you in almost
everything--at first."
"About that man--was that a lie?" he asked fiercely.
"No," she laughed drearily. "That was true enough. You see, it was more
effective than any lie I could have invented. No lie could have added a
single horror to _that_ story! And so I've won--as I swore I would!"
"Is that all," he said, "all the truth?"
"It's all there's any need for," she said.
"I want it all. I want to know where I am--whether I really was mad last
night. Betty--in spite of all your truth I can't believe one thing. I
can't believe that you don't love me."
"Man's vanity," she began, with a flippant laugh.
"Don't!" he said harshly. "How dare you try to play with me? Man's
vanity! But it's your honour! I know you love me. If you didn't you
would be--"
"How do you know I'm not?"
"Silence," he said. "If you can't speak the truth hold your tongue and
let me speak it. I love you--and you love me--and we are going to be
happy."
"I will speak the truth," said Betty, giving him her other hand. "You
love me--and I love you, and we are going to be miserable. Yes--I will
speak. Dear, I can't do it. Not even for you. I used to think I thought
I could. I was bitter. I think I wanted to be revenged on life and God
and everything. I thought I didn't believe in God, but I wanted to spite
Him all the same. But when you came--after that day in the porch--when
you came and talked to me about all the good and beautiful things--why,
then I knew that I really did believe in them, and I began to love you
because you had believed them all the time, and because.... And I didn't
try to make you love me--after that day in the porch--at least, not very
much--oh, I do want to speak the truth! I used to try so _not_ to try.
I--I did want you to love me, though; I didn't want you to love anyone
else. I wanted you to love me just enough to make you happy, and not
enough to make you miserable. And so long as you didn't know you loved
me it was all right: and when you caught me last night I knew that you
would know, and it would be all over. You made up your mind to teach me
that there are better things in the world than love--truth and honour
and--and--things like that. And you've taught it me. It was a duel, and
you've won."
"And you meant to teach me that love is stronger than anything in the
world. And you have won too."
"Yes," she said, "we've both won. That's the worst of it--or the best."
"What is to become of us?" he said. "Oh, my dear--what are we to do? Do
you forgive me? If you are right, I must be wrong--but I can't see
anything now except that I want you so."
"I'm glad you loved me enough to be silly," she said; "but, oh, my dear,
how glad I am that I love you too much to let you."
"But what are we to do?"
"Do? Nothing. Don't you see we've taught each other everything we know.
We've given each other everything we can give. Isn't it good to love
like this--even if this has to be all?"
"It's all very difficult," he said; "but everything shall be as you
choose, only somehow I think it's worse for me than for you. I loved you
before--and now I adore you. I seem to have made a saint of you--but
you've made me a man."
* * * * *
One wishes with all one's heart that that lunatic would die. The
situation is, one would say--impossible. Yet the lovers do not find it
so. They work together, and parish scandal has almost ceased to patter
about their names. There is a subtle pleasure for both in the
ceremonious courtesy with which ever since that day they treat each
other. It contrasts so splendidly with the living flame upon each
heart-altar. So far the mutual passion has improved the character of
each. All the same, one wishes that the lunatic would die--for she is
not so much of a saint as he thinks her, and he is more of a man than
she knows.