Mrs Goldsworthy was reconciled to her relations through her
illness--the greatest peacemaker in families, save death; and for her
sake they made a show of tolerating her husband, after they had given
him some bad hours behind her back. But the whole affair was like a
blight on Redford, which was never the same place again. Mr Pennycuick
had a slight "stroke" on hearing all the bad news at once. It was light
enough to be passed over and hushed up, but his vigour and faculties
declined from that hour with a rapidity that could be marked from day
to day. "A changed man," observed his neighbours, one to another. At
the same time, they hinted that other things were not as they used to
be--that the old man had had losses--that Redford was heavily
burdened--that the proud Pennycuicks, already humbled, were likely to
experience a further fall. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with,
and the dashing four-in-hand withdrawn from the local racecourses and
agricultural show-grounds, of which it had long been the constant and
conspicuous ornament, to be sold at public auction, without reason
given. The great, hospitable house got a character for dullness for the
first time in its history. No lights or laughter flowed from the
windows of the big drawing-room of an evening; the lawns lay dark and
still, while downstairs a rubber of whist or a hand at cribbage with
Jim Urquhart or Mr Thornycroft represented what was left of the
gaieties of the past. These men--these old fogies, as fretful Frances
styled them both--were not of those who shunned Redford because it had
grown dull; on the contrary, they now--according to Frances
again--virtually lived there. And it was the absent pleasure-seekers,
her true kindred, for whom her soul longed.
He who most openly resented the change, having (next to Mary) been most
instrumental in causing it, was Deborah's lover, Claud Dalzell.
He had been none too gracious a lover--although graceful enough, when
all was well--seeing that he had continued his bachelor life, with all
its social obligations, after as before his engagement, and had allowed
this to run to nearly two years, without coming to any effective
understanding about the wedding-day; but when, in the thick of her
troubles, he descended upon Redford merely to denounce the Goldsworthy
marriage as a personal affront, and, as it were, to tax her with it,
then her loving indulgence did not suffice to excuse him.
As usual, he went to his room first, to wash and change. He hated to
pass the door of a sitting-room with the dust of travel on him; he
could not shake hands with equanimity until he had restored his person
and toilet to their normal perfection, which meant more or less the
restoring of his nerves and temper to repose. So he appeared on this
occasion, fresh and finished to the last degree, the finest gentleman
in the world--the very light of Deb's eyes, and the satisfaction of her
own fastidious taste--walking in to her where she awaited him, in the
morning-room, herself 'groomed' to match, with as much care as she had
taken when she had no more serious matter to think of than how to dress
to please him.
He met her, apparently, as usual. She, turning to him as to a rock in a
weary land, flung herself into his arms with more than her usual
self-abandonment.
"Oh, darling!" she breathed, in that delicious voice of hers, "it is
good to see you. I have wanted you so badly."
"I am sorry I did not come before," he replied, kissing her gravely.
"Somebody has been wanted to deal with that extraordinary girl."
"Ah, poor girl! Do you know she is very ill with brain fever? Keziah
has gone to nurse her. It must have been that coming on. She was out of
her mind."
"I should think so--and everybody else too, apparently. What were you
all about, Debbie, not to see this Goldsworthy affair going on under
your noses?"
"It hasn't been going on. It has been Guthrie Carey--until now."
"I am told"--it was Frances who had told him in the passage just
now--"that she refused Carey only the day before."
"She did."
"In order to make a runaway match with this parson fellow. The facts
speak for themselves."
"Ah!" sighed Deb, turning to the tea-table, "I expect we don't know all
the facts."
She meant that he did not know them. He only knew what Frances knew,
and providentially they had been able to keep the episode of the dam
out of the published story. That was the secret of Mary herself, her
husband, her father, and this one sister; and they kept it close, even
from Claud Dalzell. "I will tell him some day when we are married," Deb
had promised herself; but as things fell out, she never did tell him.
And it was on account of her brother-in-law's part in the suppressed
event that she now forbore to call him behind his back what she had not
hesitated to call him before his face--that is, failed to show that she
fully shared her lover's indignation at the MESALLIANCE, and the
scandalous way that it had been brought about.
"But, good heavens!"--Claud took his cup perfunctorily from her hand,
and at once set it down--"are more facts necessary? She has made a
clandestine marriage with a man whose bishop will turn him out of the
church, I hope. They were right, I suppose, in concluding that no one
here would consent to it; and what conceivable circumstances could
excuse such an act?"
"Illness," said Deb. "Madness."
"Nonsense! There's too much method in it. It is obviously but the
climax of a long intrigue--a course of duplicity that I could never
have believed possible in a girl like Mary, although I have always
thought HIM cad enough for anything."
"Have your tea," said Deb, a trifle off-hand; "it will be cold."
And she sat down with her own cup, and began to sip it with a leisurely
air.
"A clandestine marriage," remarked Claud, ignoring her advice,
"logically implies a clandestine engagement. Carey was but a red
herring across the trail. And you ought to have known it, Deb."
"Well, I didn't," said she shortly.
He took a turn up and down the room, trying to preserve his wonted
well-bred calm. But he was intensely irritated by her attitude.
"I cannot understand you," he complained, with a hard edge to his
voice. "I should have thought that you--YOU of all people--would have
been wild--as wild as I am."
She exasperated him with a little laugh and a truly cutting sarcasm.
"It is bad form to SHOW that you are wild, you know, even if you feel
so."
"I am just wondering whether you feel so. You are not used to hiding
your feelings--at any rate, from me. I expected to find you out of your
mind almost."
"What's the use? If I raved till doomsday I couldn't alter anything.
The mischief is done. It is no use crying over spilt milk, my dear."
"You look as if you did not want to cry." "Do I?"
"As if it did not much matter to you whether it was spilt or not." "It
doesn't matter to me, compared with what it matters to her." "Well, it
matters to ME," Claud Dalzell announced, in a high tone, the crust of
his fine manners giving to the pressure of the volcano within. "I can't
stand the connection, if you can. Carey was bad enough, but he had some
claim beside his coat to rank as a gentleman. This crawling ass, who
would lick your boots for sixpence, to have him patting me on the back
and calling himself my brother--Good God! it's too sickening."
"Not YOUR brother," Deb gently corrected him.
"He is mine if he is yours." "Oh, not necessarily!"
"Deb," said Claud, with an air of desperation, planting himself before
her, "what are you going to do?"
She looked up at him with narrowing eyes and stiffening lips.
"What IS there to do?" she returned. "Are you going to put up with
this--this outrage--to condone everything--to tolerate that fellow at
Redford, taking the position of a son of the house, or are you going to
show them both that they have forfeited their right ever to set foot
upon the place again?"
"My sister too, you mean?"
"Certainly--if you can still bring yourself to call her your sister.
She belongs to him now, not to us. She has voluntarily cut herself off
from her world. Let her go. Deb, if you love me--"
He paused, and Deb smiled into his handsome but disgusted face.
"Ah, is that to be a test of love?" she asked. "I understand. I am to
choose between you. Well"--she rose, towering, drawing the big diamond
from her engagement finger--"I am going to her now. I ought to have
been there hours ago, but waited back to receive you. Good-bye! And
pray, don't come again to this contaminated house. We have too horribly
gone down in the world. I know it, and I would not have you compromised
on any account. We Pennycuicks, we don't abandon our belongings,
especially when they may be dying; we sink or swim together." She held
the jewel out to him.
"What rot!" he blurted vulgarly, flushing with anger that was not
unmixed with shame. "Why will you wilfully misunderstand me? Put it on,
Deb--put it on, and don't be so childish."
"I will not put it on," said she, "until you apologise for the things
you have been saying to me, and the manner of your saying them."
"My dear child, I do apologise humbly, if I have said what I shouldn't.
Perhaps I have; but I thought we were past the need for reserves and
for weighing words, you and I. And really, Debbie, you know--"
"Hush!" She stopped him from further arguing; but she did not stop him
from taking her hand and cramming the diamond back into its old place.
"I must go. Father cannot--he is ill himself; and Miss Keene is too
frightfully modest to nurse him alone, so that I must send Keziah back,
and stay--"
"Can't Miss Keene go and send her back, and stay?"
"Oh, she would be no use in such an illness as Mary's. And I must see
for myself how things are--whether they are taking proper care of the
poor, unfortunate child--"
"Is she so very ill? I did not know that."
There was commiseration in his tone, but in his heart he hoped that the
deservedly sick woman would crown her escapades by dying as quickly as
possible. Then, perhaps, he could forgive her.
Deb gave him sundry confidences. On his appearing to take them in a
proper spirit, she gave him some more tea. And so they lapsed into
their normal relations. When she again urged the need for her to be
getting off on her errand of mercy, he magnanimously offered to drive
her. She accepted with a full heart, and her arms about his neck. While
she was getting ready, he repacked his portmanteau, and ordered it to
be put into the buggy.
"It's no use my going back," he said to her, when they were on the
road, "with you away, and your father too ill to see me. I'll put up at
the hotel tonight, and go on to town in the morning. You can send for
me there whenever you want me, you know."
"Just as you like, dear," said Deb quietly; and for the rest of their
journey they talked commonplaces.
When they reached the parsonage gate, from which the maid-of-all-work
and a group of street gossips scattered in panic at their approach, the
lovers shook hands perfunctorily.
"Goodbye, then, for a little while," said Claud. "You don't want me to
come in, do you?"
"Certainly not," said she coldly.
"You know that it is totally against my judgment--and my wishes--that
you go in yourself, Deb?"
"Yes. But one's own judgment must be one's guide."
Thus they parted, each with a grievance against the other--a root of
bitterness to be nourished by much thinking about it, and by the
circumstance that poor Mary neither died nor was repudiated. Claud
drove on to the hotel, to be further disgusted with his accommodation
and his dinner; Deb walked into the house which hitherto she had
visited in a spirit of kindly condescension, to be revolted by the new
aspect which her changed relations with it now gave to its every
feature. Ruby, neglected, with a jam-smeared face--the flustered maid,
tousled, grubby, her frock gaping--the horrible hall, with its
imitation-marble paper and staring linoleum--the prim, trivial,
unaired, unused drawing-room, with its pathetic attempts at
elegance--Deb inwardly curled up at the sight of these things as things
now belonging to the family. When the master of the house came hurrying
in to her, rusty, unshaven, abject, she would have changed places with
a Christian of old Rome facing a lion of the amphitheatre.
"Oh, this is good of you! This is kind indeed!" Mr Goldsworthy greeted
her, and threatened in his grateful emotion to fall at her feet. "I did
not dare to hope--"
But Deb shudderingly swept him aside, with his gratitude and his
excuses and his timid justifications. He could stand up before his
other critics--he had a clear conscience, he said; but before her he
knew himself for what he was. He followed her like a dog to Mary's
room, obeyed her directions like a slave, wept when she consented to
"say no more", and stooped to beg from him a solemn vow and promise
that he would be good to his wife. This was after the doctors had
refused to permit his wife's removal to Redford to be nursed, and after
Redford had practically been in command of his establishment for seven
weeks.
Christmas is the time for reconciliations, and by Christmas Mary was
convalescent--pale as she had never been since childhood, and wearing a
little cap over her shaved head; very humble and gentle, and strangely
docile in her attitude towards her captor, who now gave himself all the
airs of a husband of his class. He was the benevolent despot of his
women-kind--the god of the machine; she was as properly submissive as
if born in the ranks. Negatively so, that is to say; positively, her
manifestations of duty to him took the form of services and endearments
bestowed upon his child and sister. Her first occupation after she
could use her hands was to improve Ruby's wardrobe--the little girl,
now her own, appealed to her motherly heart, a saving interest in her
wrecked life. The poor old ex-housekeeper was the other prop to which
she clung for a footing in the new and alien world which was now all
her home. When Miss Goldsworthy proposed to go out into a situation,
not to "be in the way of" the new wife, and when her brother would have
approved the plan as only right and proper (and as facilitating his
schemes for the raising of the "tone" of his establishment to Redford
level), Mary protested vehemently and with tears, the only occasion of
her showing a Pennycuick spirit since renouncing the Pennycuick name.
The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new
sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use
to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take
the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish."
"Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to
endear himself to his aristocratic wife, he consented to her wish.
The whole Goldsworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the
pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered what
Deb called "decently", and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary
was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a
cheque from her father for 500 pounds amongst them. They did not
forgive her, but they pretended excellently that they did. Without any
pretence at all, they tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end,
they gathered their friends together as usual at Christmas. Mr
Thornycroft and the Urquharts needed no pressing; they came to see Mary
the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without
asking questions. Mr Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were
magnificent--a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the
finest. Deb wrote to Claud: "I suppose we shall see you, as
usual?"--for he had always spent Christmas at Redford unless away on
the other side of the world. He wrote back: "I think not, this time."
He was the only defaulter.
"He will never have a chance to refuse again," said Deb fiercely, as
she tore up his note.
His absence was too marked not to provoke frequent comment, and
whenever it was alluded to in her hearing, her spine stiffened and her
head went up. It was quite evident to her family that the rift in the
lute was serious, and strange to say, it was her father, who might have
been expected to hail the signs, who was most concerned to see them. He
expostulated with her when she spoke bitterly of Billy's son, as once
he had been so ready to do himself.
"Well, my dear," said he, "I can understand it, if you can't. I
wouldn't come myself, if I was in his place, to mix-up with the sort of
thing we've got to mix up with."
"If I can mix up with it--!" quoth proud Deborah.
"Yes, yes--I know; but you must consider the silly way that he's been
reared. I don't like his taking upon himself to criticise what we
choose to do; but no doubt Goldsworthy IS a pretty big pill to
swallow--to a chap like him, always so faddy about breeding and
manners, and that sort of thing."
"If he is too faddy for the society that I can put up with, though it
be that of chimney-sweeps," said Deb, "he is too faddy for me, father."
"Now, my dear, don't talk so," the old man pleaded with her, quite
agitated by her mood. "We all have our little weaknesses--we have to
make allowances for temperament and for bringing up. Don't let a trifle
like this estrange you two--don't, Debbie, for my sake. Let me go down
to my grave feeling that one of you, at least, is safe and happy, and
well provided for."
"Decidedly," thought Deborah, "father is not the same man that he was
before his illness."
She understood the cause of his change of views on her engagement
better a few weeks later.
He had parted with his eldest daughter then, and the emotion of the
event had fatally affected him. Owing to some obscure working of the
"influence" which her social position had brought to her husband, the
latter had been promoted to the charge of a Melbourne parish. The
affair was arranged while they were still at Redford, and just on the
completion of the improvements to the local parsonage. In spite of all
they had done to make this first home fit for her, family and friends
were unanimous in hailing her removal to another and more distant
one--out of the buzz of the gossip of her native neighbourhood--as the
best thing that could have happened. But when it came to the point of
sending her forth to battle with her fate alone for the rest of her
life, the wrench was dreadful. She was the bravest of them all under
the ordeal. The shattered father, whose right hand she had been for so
many happy years, and whose heart was broken with the weight of his
responsibility for her misfortunes, was completely overwhelmed. She had
not been gone twelve hours when Deb found him in his office chair,
unable to rise from it, or to answer her questions. And he never spoke
again. He made signs that he wanted Claud sent for, and when the young
man quickly came, looked significant things at him and Deb, as they
stood by his bedside hand in hand. Then he lapsed into stupor and died,
without waiting for a third stroke.
Through all the shock and sorrow of the time, Claud was Deborah's
mainstay and consolation. He took the role of nearest male relative,
the right to which was undisputed by Mr Goldsworthy, preoccupied with
the important interests of his new parish; also by Mr Thornycroft and
Jim Urquhart, who, of course, "stood by" to serve her as far as she
would allow them. It was Claud who gave the orders for the funeral, and
superintended the ceremonies, and acted as chief mourner; it was Claud
to whom the household looked for direction, as if acknowledging him to
be the new master; it was on Claud's breast that Deb wept--who so
rarely wept--and his word that she obeyed, as if he were already her
husband; and in all that he did for her, and in all that he did not do,
he showed the grace, the tact, the tenderness, the thoughtfulness of
her ideal lover and gentleman.
But there came a day when he fell again below the indispensable
standard--when the rift in the lute, that had seemed closed, gaped
suddenly, and this time beyond repair. It was when, after close
investigation of the deceased man's affairs, and some heated interviews
with one of the executors (Deb being the other), Claud discovered that
the Pennycuick wealth was non-existent--that Redford was mortgaged to
the hilt, and that if the estate was realised and cleared, as Deb
desired it should be, nothing would be left for her and her
sisters--that is to say, a paltry three or four hundred a year amongst
them, less than Deb could spend comfortably on her clothes alone.
He was too upset by the discovery, and a bad quarter of an hour that Mr
Thornycroft had subsequently given him, to preserve that calm demeanour
which was his study and his pride. He came in to Deb where she sat
alone, and expressed his feelings as the ordinary man is wont to do to
the woman who loves and belongs to him.
"What could your father have been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated
her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year
after year, and doing nothing to stop it--not cutting down one of the
living expenses--not giving us the least hint of how things really
were--"
"He gave several hints," said Deb, in that voice which always grew so
portentously quiet when his was raised, "if we had had the sense to
take them. I have been putting two and two together for some time, so
that I am not altogether taken by surprise."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were not here, for one thing. Because it was father's
private business, for another."
"He seems not to have made it his business to take any care of his
children's interests," said Claud bitterly. "Bringing you up as he has
done, with the right to expect that you were to be properly provided
for, and then leaving you literally paupers--"
"Not LITERALLY paupers," corrected Deb gently. "We shall be quite
independent still. And if you want to insult my father now that he is
dead--the best of fathers, if he did have misfortunes in business and
make mistakes--do it somewhere else, not in this room." "You have no
right to take that tone with me, Deb." "No?" She raised sarcastic
eyebrows, under which her deep eyes gleamed. "Well, I suppose I
haven't--now. I forgot my new place. I am very sorry, Claud"--rising,
and making a gesture with her hands that he had seen before--"very
sorry indeed, that I did not know I was going to be a poor woman and a
nobody when you did me the honour to select me to be your wife. Now
that you have shown me that I am disqualified for the position--" she
held out the big diamond, with a cold smile. "That's vulgar, Deb," he
loftily admonished her, fending off her hand. "You know I am not
actuated by those low motives. DON'T let us have this cheap melodrama,
for pity's sake! Put it on."
But no more would she put it on. He had revealed his disappointment
that she was not something more than herself--that beautiful and
adorable self that she quite knew the worth of--and he had permitted
himself to take liberties of speech with her that she instinctively
felt to be provoked by the circumstance that she was no longer rich and
powerful.
Deb's love was great, but her pride was greater.