A CHOICE OF EVILS.
The best parlour--the private sitting-room--at the Lion was on the
ground floor, just opposite the private bar, and boasted a large bay
window, commanding a full view of High Street. A low broad bench,
comfortably cushioned, ran round the window, and afforded to Miss Flower
a favourable station from which to observe what was doing in the town.
On fine days, such as ruled just now, when the window was thrown up, the
position also served as a rendezvous to which her growing band of
friends and admirers could resort to exchange compliments, to post her
in the latest news, or just to get a sight of her. Jack Rock would
stroll across from his shop three or four times a day; Andy would stop a
few minutes on his way to or from his lodgings; Billy would stretch his
long legs over the sill and effect an entry; Vivien ask if she might
come in for a few minutes; Chinks cast an eye as he hurried to his
office; the Bird find an incredible number of occasions for passing on
his daily duties. There the Nun sat, surveying the traffic of Meriton,
and fully aware that Meriton, in its turn, honoured her with a
flattering attention. Within the Lion itself she already reigned
supreme; old Mr. Dove was at her feet, so was old Cox and the other
_habitues_ of the private bar; the Bird, as already hinted, was "knocked
silly"--this contemptuous phrase for a sudden passion was Miss Miles'.
Yet even Miss Miles was affable, and quite content to avenge herself for
the Bird's desertion (which she justly conceived to be temporary) by a
marked increase in those across-the-counter pleasantries which she had
once assured her employer were carried on wholly and solely for the
benefit of his business. The fact was that Miss Miles had once
officiated at the bar of a "theatre of varieties," and this constituted
a professional tie between the Nun and herself, strong enough to defy
any trifling awkwardness caused by a wavering in the Bird's affections.
But the Nun's most notable and complete conquest was over Mr. Belfield.
Billy Foot had brought him--not his son Harry--and speedily thereafter
he called on his own account, full of courtly excuses because his wife,
owing to a touch of cold, was not with him; he hoped that she would be
able to come very soon. (Mr. Belfield was engaged on another small
domestic struggle, such as had preceded Andy Hayes' first dinner at
Halton.) Serenely indifferent to the minutiae of etiquette, Miss Flower
allowed it to appear that she would just as soon receive Mr. Belfield by
himself.
He interpreted her permission as applying to more than one visit;
somehow or other, most days found him by the bay window, and generally,
on being pressed, at leisure to come in and rest. They would chat over
all manner of things together, each imparting to the other from a store
of experiences strange to the listener; or together they would discuss
their common friends in Meriton. She liked his shrewd and humorous
wisdom; her directness and simplicity charmed him no less than the
extreme prettiness of her face.
"Well, Miss Flower," he said one morning, "the boys finish their
speechifying to-morrow, and then they'll be more at liberty to amuse
you, instead of leaving it so much to the old stagers."
"And then you'll all be getting busy about the wedding. In three weeks
now, isn't it?"
"Just a few days over three weeks. Individually I shall be glad when
it's over."
"Have they done well with their speeches?" she asked. "After all my good
intentions, I only went once."
"They think they've made the seat absolutely safe for Harry. Parliament
and marriage--the boy's taking on responsibilities!"
"It seems funny, when one's just played about with them! It's a funny
thing to be just one of people's amusements--off the stage as well as on
it."
"Oh, come!" He smiled. "Is that all you claim to be--to any of those
boys?"
"That's the way they look at me--in their sober moments. Except Andy;
he's quite different. He's never been about town, you see. For him girls
and women are all in the same class."
"I was once about town myself," Belfield remarked thoughtfully.
"Yes, and you take your son's view--and Billy Foot's." He smiled again,
and she smiled too, meeting his glance directly. "Oh yes, Billy
too--though he may have his temptations! Squarely now, Mr. Belfield,
if--for the sake of argument--your son treated Miss Wellgood badly, or
even Miss Vintry, it would seem a different thing from treating Sally or
me badly, wouldn't it?"
"You do put it pretty squarely," said Belfield, twisting his lips.
"A glass of beer gives you the right to flirt with poor Miss Miles. It's
supposed to be champagne with us. When you were about town--don't you
remember?"
"I suppose it was. It's not a tradition to be proud of."
"There are compensations--which some of us like. If Sally or I behave
badly, who cares? But if Miss Wellgood or Miss Vintry--! Oh, dear me,
the heavens would fall in Meriton!"
"By the way, I'm afraid I drive your friend away? Miss Dutton always
disappears when I call."
"She generally disappears when people come. Sally's shy of strangers.
Well, you know, as I was saying, Andy Hayes hasn't got that tradition. I
think if I ever fell in love--I never do, Mr. Belfield--I should fall in
love with a man who hadn't that tradition. But they're very hard to
find."
"Let's suppose it's one of those thousand things that are going to
change," he suggested, with his sceptical smile.
"Do things between men and women change much, in spite of all the talk?
You've read history, I haven't."
"Yes, I have to a certain extent. I don't know that I'm inclined to give
you the result of my researches. Not very cheerful! And, meanwhile,
there's Andy Hayes!"
"I never do it," the Nun repeated firmly. "Besides, in this case I've
not been asked. I'm not the sort of girl he would fall in love with."
"Will you forgive an old man's compliment, Miss Flower, if I say I don't
know the sort of man who wouldn't--I'll put it mildly, I'll say
mightn't--fall in love with the sort of girl you are?"
"I forgive it, but it's not as clever as you generally are. Andy always
wants to help. Well, I don't want anybody to help me, you see."
"The delight of the eyes?" he suggested. "What? That doesn't count? Only
such as you can afford to say so!"
"I don't think it counts much with Andy. He appreciates, oh yes! He
almost stared me out of countenance the first time we met; and that's
supposed to be difficult--in London! But I don't think it really counts
for a great deal. Andy's not a love-making man; he's emphatically a
marrying man."
"You draw that distinction? But the love-making men marry?"
"In the end perhaps--generally rather by accident. They haven't the
instinct."
"You've thought about these things a good deal, Miss Flower."
"I live almost entirely among men, you see," she answered simply. "And
they show me more than they show girls of--of that other class. Shall I
call again on your reminiscences?" She smiled suddenly and brightly.
"Miss Wellgood's being awfully nice to me. She's been here twice, and
I'm going to tea at Nutley to-morrow."
"She's one of the dearest girls in the world," said Belfield. "Harry's a
lucky fellow." He glanced at the Nun. "I hope he appreciates it
properly. I believe he does."
She offered no comment, and a rather blank silence followed. If Belfield
had sought a reassurance, he had not received it. On the other hand she
gave away no secrets. She, like the silence, was blank, looking away
from him, down High Street.
The Bird passed the window; Jack Rock trotted by on a young horse; one
of his business equipages clattered along not far behind him; the quiet
old street basked and dozed in the sun.
"What a dear rest it is--this little town!" said the Nun softly. "Surely
nothing but what's happy and peaceful and pleasant can ever happen
here?"
Sally Dutton came by, returning from a stroll to which she had betaken
herself on Belfield's arrival.
"Well, Sally, been amusing yourself?" the Nun called.
"The streets present their usual gay and animated aspect," observed Miss
Dutton, as she entered the Lion.
"There are the two sides of the question," laughed Belfield. "The line
between peace and dullness--each man draws it for himself--in
pencil--with india-rubber handy! I'm really afraid we're not amusing
Miss Dutton?"
"Oh yes, she's all right. That's only her way." She smiled reflectively;
Sally always amused her.
Belfield rose to take leave. "We can't let Nutley beat us," he said. "We
must have you at Halton too!" He was led into assuming that his little
domestic struggle would end in victory.
She looked at him, still smiling. "Wait and see how I behave at Nutley
first. If Harry gives a good report of me--I suppose he'll be
there?--ask me to Halton!"
He laughed, and so let the question go. After all, it would not do to be
too sudden with his wife.
"You needn't be afraid of Harry. But Wellgood's rather a formidable
character."
"And Miss Vintry? Is she alarming?"
He pursed up his lips. "I think she might be called a little--alarming."
"I'll have a good look at her--and perhaps I'll let you know what I
think of her," said the Nun, with no more than the slightest twinkle in
her eyes. It was enough for Belfield's quickness; it was much more
informing than the blank silence--though even that had set him thinking.
But the Nun's account of her first visit to Nutley chanced--or perhaps
it was not chance--to be rendered not to Belfield, but to Andy Hayes.
After the last meeting of the campaign, he had gone round to smoke a
pipe with Jack Rock. Leaving him hard on midnight--there had been much
to be wormed out of Andy concerning his speeches, their reception, the
applause--he saw a light still burning in the window at the Lion. As he
drew near, he perceived that the window was open, and he heard a voice
crooning softly. He made bold to look in. The Nun was alone; she sat in
the window, doing nothing, singing to herself. "Boo!" said Andy, putting
his big head in at the window.
"Andy!" she cried, her face lighting up. "Jump in! You've come to scare
the devils! There are a hundred of them, and they won't go away for all
my singing. And Sally's gone to bed, prophesying a breaking of at least
six out of the Ten Commandments! And only yesterday I told Mr. Belfield
that nothing unpleasant could happen in Meriton! Where is one to go for
quiet if things happen in Meriton?"
An outburst like this was most unusual with the Nun. It produced on
Andy's face such a look of mild wonder as may be seen on a St. Bernard's
when a toy-terrier barks furiously.
"What's happened?"
"I've been at Nutley."
"Oh yes! Harry came on from there in the car--got to the meeting rather
late."
"Something's happened--or is happening--in that house." She looked at
him sharply. "You've been here longer than I have--do you know anything?
Go on with your pipe."
Andy considered long, smoking his pipe.
"You do know something!" she exclaimed.
"I've ground for some uneasiness," he admitted.
She nodded. "It was all sort of underground," she said. "Really most
uncomfortable! They'd try to get away from it, and yet come back to
it--those three--Mr. Wellgood, Harry, and that Miss Vintry. Poor Vivien
seemed quite outside of it all, but somehow conscious of it--and
unhappy. She saw there was--what shall I say?--antagonism, you know. And
she didn't know why. Have you seen anything that would make Mr. Wellgood
savage if he saw it?"
"He didn't see what I saw."
"Not that time anyhow!" she amended quickly.
Andy frowned. "That time, I mean, of course. If he's seen anything of
that sort, or suspected it, naturally, as Vivien Wellgood's father--"
"Vivien's father!" Her tone was full of impatience for his stupidity. "I
suppose no woman has ever been to Nutley lately? Oh, Vivien's not one;
she's a saint--and that's neither male nor female. Vivien's father!"
"I've been there off and on," said Andy.
"You! Have you ever seen--not that I suppose you'd notice it--a woman
keeping two men from one another's throats, trying to make them think
there's nothing to quarrel about, trying to say things that one could
take in one way, and the other in the other--and third persons not take
in any way at all? Oh, it's a pretty game, and I'm bound to say she
plays it finely. But she's on thin ice, that woman, and she knows it.
Vivien's father!"
"Why do you go on repeating 'Vivien's father'?"
"I won't." She leant forward and laid her small hand on his arm. "Isobel
Vintry's lover, then! The man's in love with her, Andy, as sure as we
sit here. In love--and furious!"
"I'd never thought of that. Do you feel sure of it?"
"You have thought of the other thing--and you're sure of that?"
"You know Harry. I hoped it would all--all come to nothing. How much do
you think Wellgood knows, or suspects?"
"Hard to say. I think he's groping in the dark. He's had a check, I
expect, or a set-back. Men always think that's due to another man--I
suppose it generally is. Well, it's not you, and it's not Billy. Who
else sees her--who else goes to Nutley?"
"But he'd never suspect his own daughter's--"
"You do!"
"I had the evidence of my eyes."
"Jealousy's quicker than the eyes, Andy." She leant forward again. "What
did you see?"
"It seems disloyal to tell--disloyal to Harry."
"My loyalty's for Vivien!" she said. "What about yours?"
"Take it that what I saw justifies your fears about Harry," said Andy
slowly. "I think--I'm not sure--I think he suspects I saw. I don't know
whether she does." He was not aware that Isobel had made herself quite
certain of his knowledge. "But it's nearly a month ago. You know Harry.
I hoped it was all over. Only he seemed a little--queer."
"'Come and spend a quiet afternoon in the garden'--that was her
invitation. Poor girl!"
"That's what you called her the first time I told you of their
engagement."
"A nice quiet afternoon--sitting on the top of a volcano! With an
eruption overdue!"
"It isn't possible to feel quite comfortable about it, is it?" said
Andy.
The Nun laughed a little scornfully. "Not quite. Going to do anything
about it?"
Andy raised his eyes to hers. "I owe almost everything I value most in
the world to Harry, directly or indirectly; even what I owe to you and
Jack came in a way through him."
"And he's never taken ten minutes' real trouble about you in his life."
"I'm not sure that makes any difference--even if it's true. He stands
for all those things to me. As for Miss Vintry--" He shrugged his
ponderous shoulders.
"Oh, by all means to blazes with Miss Vintry!" the Nun agreed
pleasantly.
Miss Dutton put her head in at the door--her hair about her shoulders.
"Ever coming to bed?"
"Not yet. I'm talking to Andy. Don't you see him, Sally?"
"It's not respectable."
"The window's open, there's a street lamp opposite, and a policeman
standing under it. Good-night."
"Well, don't come into my room and wake me up jawing." Miss Dutton
withdrew.
The Nun looked at Andy. "I wonder if it's quite fair to say 'To blazes
with Miss Vintry!'"
"You said it with a good deal of conviction a moment ago. What makes
you--?" His eyes met hers.
"Who told you about Sally? I never did," the Nun exclaimed.
"Harry, after our first supper."
"Here was rather the same case--only, of course, she never knew the
other girl. I think that makes a difference. And she never really had a
chance. That makes no difference, I suppose. The policeman's gone. I
expect you'd better go too, Andy."
Andy swung his legs over the window-sill. "Are you going to try and put
your oar in?" he asked.
"Would you think me wrong if I did?"
Andy sat quite a long while on the window-sill, dangling his legs over
the pavement of High Street.
"I've thought about it a good deal," he answered. "Especially lately."
She knelt on the broad low bench just behind him. "Yes, and the
result--when you're ready?"
"I think a row would be the best thing that could happen." He turned his
face round to her as he spoke.
The Nun gasped. "That's thorough," she remarked. "So much for your
opinion about Harry!"
"Yes, so much for that," Andy admitted.
"If there is a row, I hope you'll be there."
"Oh, I don't!" exclaimed Andy with a natural and human sincerity.
"To prevent bloodshed!" She laid her hand on his arm. "I'm not
altogether joking. I didn't like Mr. Wellgood's eyes this afternoon."
She patted his arm gently before she withdrew her hand. "Good-night,
dear old Andy. You're terribly right as a rule. But about this--" She
broke off, impatiently jerking her head.
With a clasp of her hand and a doleful smile, Andy let his legs drop on
the pavement and departed.
So that was his verdict, given with all his deliberation, with all the
weight of his leisurely broad-viewing judgment. The real thing to avoid
was not the "row;" that was his conclusion. There was a thing, then,
worse than the "row"--the thing for which Halton and Nutley--nay, all
Meriton, would soon be making joyful preparation. His calm face had not
moved even at her word "bloodshed." Oh yes, Andy was thorough! Not even
that word swayed his mind. Perhaps he did not believe in her fears. But
his look had not been scornful; it had been thoughtfully interrogative.
He had possessed that knowledge of his for a long while; he had never
used it. At first from loyalty to Harry--even now that would, she
thought, be enough to make him very loth to use it. But another reason
was predominant, born of his long silent brooding. He had come to a
conclusion about his hero; the court had taken time for consideration;
the judgment was advised. There was no helping some people. They must be
left to their own ways, their own devices, their own doom. To help them
was to harm others; to fight for them was to serve under the banner of
wrong and of injustice. Friendship and loyalty could not justify that.
The conclusion seemed a hard one. She stood long at the big window--a
dainty little figure thrown up by the light behind her--painfully
reaching forward to the understanding of how what seems hardness may be
a broader, a truer, a better-directed sympathy, how it may be a duty to
leave a wastrel to waste, how not every drowning man is worth the labour
that it takes to get him out of the water--for that once. At all events,
not worth the risk of another, a more valuable life.
And that was his conclusion about his hero, the man to whom he owed, as
he had said, almost everything he prized? Had he, then, any right to the
conclusion, right in the abstract though it might be? It was a hard
world that drove men to such hard conclusions.
The case was hard--and the conclusion. But not, of necessity, the man
who painfully arrived at it. Yet the man might be biassed; sympathy for
the deceived might paint the deceiver's conduct in colours even blacker
than the truth demanded. Doris did not think of this, in part because
the judgment had seemed too calm and too reluctant to be the offspring
of bias, more because, if there were any partiality in it, she herself
had become a no less strong, and a more impetuous, adherent of the same
cause. Vivien had won all her fealty. The one pleasant feature of the
afternoon had been when Vivien walked home with her and, wrought upon by
the troubled atmosphere of Nutley even though ignorant of its cause, had
opened her heart to Harry's old friend, to a girl who, as she felt, must
know more of the world than she did, and perhaps, out of her experience,
could comfort and even guide. With sweet and simple gravity, with a
delicacy that made her confidence seem still reserved although it was
well-nigh complete, she showed to her companion her love and her
apprehension--a love so pure in quality, an apprehension based on so
rare an understanding of the man she loved. She did not know the things
he had done, nor the thing he was now doing; but the man himself she
knew, and envisaged dimly the perils by which he was beset. Her loving
sympathy tried to leap across the wide chasm that separated her life and
her nature from his, and came wonderfully little short of its mark.
"I really knew hardly anything about him when I accepted him; he was
just a girl's hero to me. But I have watched and watched, and now I know
a good deal."
An excellent mood for a wife, no doubt--or for a husband--excellent,
and, it may be, inevitable. But for a lover yet unmated, a bride still
to be, a girl in her first love? Should she not leave reverend seniors
to prate to her--quite vainly--of difficulties and dangers, while her
fancy is roaming far afield in dreamy lands of golden joy? To endeavour,
by an affectionate study of and consideration for your partner, to avoid
unhappiness and to give comfort--such is wont to be the text of the
officiating minister's little homily at a wedding. Is it to be supposed
that bride and bridegroom are putting the matter quite that way in their
hearts? If they were, a progressive diminution in the marriage-rate
might be expected.
So ran the Nun's criticism, full of sympathy with the girl, not perhaps
quite so full of sympathy for what seemed to her an over-saintly
abnegation of her sex's right. The bitterest anti-feminist will agree
that a girl should be worshipped while she is betrothed; he will allow
her that respite of dominion in a life which, according to his
opponents, his theories reduce, for all its remaining years, to
servitude. Vivien was already serving--serving and watching
anxiously--amid all her love. At this Doris rebelled--she who never fell
in love. But she was quicker to grow fond of people than to criticize
their points of view. Vivien's over-saintliness did sinful Harry's cause
no service. If this were Vivien's mood in the light of her study of what
her lover was, how would she stand towards the knowledge of what he did?
Yet Andy Hayes thought that the best thing now possible was that she
should come to the knowledge of it--that was what he meant by there
being a "row." That opinion of his was a mightily strong endorsement of
Vivien's anxiety.
"Don't you now and then feel like backing out of it?" the Nun had asked
with her usual directness.
Vivien's answer came with a laugh, suddenly scornful, suddenly merry,
"Why, it's all my life!"
The Nun shook her sage little head; these things were not all people's
lives--oh dear, no! She knew better than that, did Doris! But then the
foolish obstinate folk would go on believing that they were, and
thereby, for the time, made the trouble just as great as though their
delusion were gospel truth.
Then Vivien had turned penitent about her fears, and remorseful for the
expression of them. By an easy process penitence led to triumph, and she
fell to singing Harry's praises, to painting again that brightly
coloured future--the marvellous things to be seen and done by Harry's
side. She smiled gently, rather mysteriously; the sound of the wonderful
words was echoing in her ears. Doris saw her face, and pressed her hand
in a holy silence.
The result of her various conversations, of her own reflections, and of
her personal inspection of the situation at Nutley was to throw Miss
Doris Flower into perhaps the gravest perplexity under which she had
ever suffered. When you are accustomed to rule your life--and other
people's, on occasion--by the simple rule of doing the obvious thing, it
is disconcerting to be confronted with a case in which there appears to
be no obvious thing to do, where there is only a choice of evils, and
the choice seems balanced with a perverse and malicious equality. From
Vivien's side of the matter--Doris troubled herself no more with her old
friend Harry's--the marriage was risky far beyond the average of
matrimonial risks; but the "row" was terribly risky too, with the girl
in that mood about "all her life." If she had that mood badly upon her,
she might do--well, girls did do all sorts of things sometimes, holding
that life had nothing left in it.
Though there was nothing obvious, there must be something sensible; at
least one thing must be more sensible than the other. Was it more
sensible to do nothing--which was to favour the "row"--or to attempt
something--which was to work for the marriage? Her temperament asserted
itself, and led her to a conclusion in conflict with Andy's. She was by
nature inclined always to do something. In the end the "row" was a
certain evil; the marriage only a risk. Men do settle down--sometimes!
(She wrinkled her nose as she propounded, and qualified, this
proposition.) The risk was preferable to the certainty. After all, her
practical sense whispered, in these days even marriage is not wholly
irrevocable. Yes, she would be for the marriage and against the
"row"--and she would tell Andy that.
Something was to be done then. But what? That seemed to the Nun a much
easier question--a welcome reappearance of the obvious thing.
"I must find out what the woman really wants. Until we know that, it's
simply working in the dark."
So she concluded, and at last turned on her side and went to sleep.