PENITENCE AND PROBLEMS.
The Nun stopped, walked on a few paces, came to a stand again. She was
visiting Nutley in pursuance of her plan of doing, if not that
undiscoverable obvious, yet the more sensible thing--of preventing the
"row" and, incidentally thereto, of finding out "what the woman really
wanted."
Here was the woman. Whatever she might really want, apparently she was
very far from having got it yet. She also looked very different from the
adversary with whom Miss Flower had pictured herself as conducting a
contest of wits--quite unlike the cool, wary, dexterous woman who had
played her difficult game between the two men so finely, and who might
be trusted to treat her opponent to a very pretty display of fencing.
The position seemed so changed that the Nun had thoughts of going back.
To discover a new, and what one has considered rather a hostile,
acquaintance in tears is embarrassing; and the acquaintance may well
share the embarrassment.
Fortunately Isobel stopped crying. She dried her eyes and tucked away
her handkerchief. The Nun advanced again. Isobel sat looking drearily
over the lake.
"Dropped your sixpence in the pond, Miss Vintry?" the Nun asked.
Isobel turned round sharply.
"Because--I mean--you're not looking very cheerful."
Isobel's eyes hardened a little.
"Have you been there long?"
"I saw you were crying, if that's what you mean. I'm sorry. I couldn't
help it. People should cry in their own rooms if they want to keep it
quiet."
"Oh, never mind; it doesn't matter whether you saw or not. Every woman
is entitled to cry sometimes."
"I don't cry myself," observed the Nun, "but of course a great many
girls do."
"I daresay I shouldn't cry if I were the great Miss Doris Flower."
The Nun gurgled. That ebullition could usually be brought about by any
reference to the greatness of her position, not precisely because the
position was not great--rather because it was funny that it should be.
She sat down beside Isobel.
"Please don't tell Vivien what you saw. I don't want her to know I've
been crying. She's remorseful enough as it is about her marriage costing
me my 'place.'"
"Was that what you were crying about?"
"It seems silly, doesn't it? But I've been happy here, and--and they've
got fond of me. And finding a new one--well, it seems like plunging into
this lake on a cold day. So quite suddenly I got terribly dreary."
"Well, you've had it out, haven't you?" suggested the Nun consolingly.
"Yes; and much good it's done to the situation!" laughed Isobel
ruefully. "Oh, well, I suppose my feelings are the situation--at any
rate there's no other."
"Then if you feel better, things are better too."
The Nun did not feel that she was getting on much with the secret object
of her visit; she even felt the impulse to get on with it weakened. She
was more inclined just to have a friendly, a consoling chat. However
business was business. To get on she must take a little risk. She dug
the earth on the edge of the pond with the point of her sunshade and
observed carelessly, "If you very particularly wanted to stay at Nutley,
I should have thought you might have the chance."
"Oh, are people gossiping about that? Poor Mr. Wellgood!"
"It was the observation of my own eyes," said the Nun sedately. "Oh, of
course you can deny it if you like, though I don't see why you
should--and I shan't believe you."
"If you've such confidence in your own eyes as that, Miss Flower, it
would be wasting my breath to try to convince you. Have it your own way.
But even that would be--a new place. And I've told you that I'm afraid
of new places."
"All plunges aren't into cold water," the Nun observed reflectively.
"That one would be colder, I think, than a quite strange plunge--away
from Nutley."
"It's a great pity we're not built so as to fall in love conveniently.
It would have been so nice for you to stay--in the new place."
"I'm only letting you have it your own way, Miss Flower. I've admitted
nothing."
"All that appears at present is that you needn't go if you don't
like--and yet you cry about going!"
Isobel smiled.
"I might cry at leaving all my friends, especially at leaving Vivien,
without wanting to stop--with Mr. Wellgood, as you insist on having it.
Is that comprehensible?"
"Well, I expect I've asked enough questions," said the cunning Nun,
wondering hard how she could contrive to ask another--and get an answer
to it. "But in Meriton there's nothing to do but gossip to and about
one's friends. That's what makes it so jolly. Why, this wedding is
simply occupation for all of us! What shall we do when it's over? Oh,
well, I shall be gone, I suppose."
"And so shall I--so we needn't trouble about that."
The Nun was baffled. A strange impassivity seemed to fall on her
companion the moment that the talk was of Harry's wedding. She tried
once again.
"I do hope it'll turn out well."
Isobel offered no comment whatever. In truth she was not sure of
herself; her agitation was too recent and had been too violent--it might
return.
"I've known Harry for so long--and I like Miss Wellgood so much." She
gave as interrogative a note as she could to her remarks--without asking
direct questions. "I think he really is in love at last!" Surely, that
ought to draw some question or remark--that "at last"? It drew nothing.
"But--well, we used to say one never knew with poor Harry!" ("Further
than that," thought the Nun, "without telling tales, I cannot go.")
Isobel sat silent.
The result was meagre. Isobel would talk about Wellgood, evasively but
without embarrassment; references to Harry Belfield reduced her to
silence. It was a little new light on the past; its bearing on the
future, if any, was negative. She would not, it seemed, stay at Nutley
with Wellgood. She would not talk of Harry. She had been crying. The
crying was the satisfactory feature in the case.
The Nun rose.
"I must go in and see Miss Wellgood."
"She's gone out with her father, I'm afraid. That's how I happen to be
off duty."
"And able to cry?"
"Oh, I hope you'll forget that nonsense. I'm quite resigned to
everything, really." She too rose, smiling at her companion. "Only I
rather wish it was all over--and the plunge made!"
The Nun reported the fact of her interview--and the results, such as
they were--to Miss Dutton when she returned home.
"Her crying shows that she doesn't think she's got much chance," said
the Nun hopefully.
"It shows she'd take a chance, if she got one," Miss Dutton opined
acutely.
"You mean it all depends on Harry, then?"
"In my opinion it always has."
That indeed seemed the net result. It all depended on Harry--not at
first sight a very satisfactory conclusion for those who knew Harry.
However, Andy, who came into the Lion later in the afternoon, was
hopeful--nay, confident. He had mysterious reasons for this frame of
mind--information which he declared himself unable to disclose; he could
not even indicate the source from which it proceeded, but he might say
that there were two sources. He really could not say more--which annoyed
the Nun extremely.
"But I think we may consider all the trouble over," he ended.
For had not Harry, when he got his note, dealt quite frankly with
Andy--well, with very considerable frankness as to the past, with
complete as to the future? He admitted that he had "more or less made a
fool of himself," but declared that it had been mere nonsense, and was
altogether over. Absolutely done with! He gave Andy his hand on that,
begged his pardon for having been sulky with him, and told him that
henceforward all his thoughts would be where his heart had been all
through--with Vivien. If Isobel had convinced Andy, Harry convinced him
ten times more. Andy had such a habit of believing people. He was not,
indeed, easily or stupidly deceived by a wilful liar; but he fell a
victim to people who believed in themselves, who thought they were
telling the truth. It was so hard for him to understand that people
would not go on feeling and meaning what they were sincerely feeling and
meaning at the moment. They could convince him, if only they were
convinced themselves.
"Let's think no more about it, and then we can all be happy," he said to
the Nun. It really made a great difference to his happiness how Harry
was behaving.
After all, it was rather hard--and rather hard-hearted--not to believe
in Harry, when Harry believed so thoroughly in himself. The strongest
proof of his regained self-confidence was the visit he paid to the
Nun--a visit long overdue in friendship and even in courtesy. Harry
asked for no forgiveness; he seemed to assume that she would understand
how, having been troubled in his mind of late, he had not been in the
mood for visits. He was quite his old self when he came, so much his old
self that he scarcely cared to disguise the fact that he had given some
cause for anxiety--any more than he expected to be met with doubt when
he implied that all cause for anxiety was past. He had quite got over
that attack, and his constitution was really the stronger for it.
Illnesses are nature's curative processes, so the doctors tell us. Harry
was always more virtuous after a moral seizure. The seizure being the
effective cause of his improvement, he could not be expected to regard
it with unmixed regret. If, incidentally, it witnessed to his conquering
charms, he could not help that. Of course he would not talk about the
thing; he did not so much mind other people implying, assuming, or
hinting at it.
If the Nun obliged him at all in this way, she chose the difficult
method of irony--in which not her greatest admirer could claim that she
was very subtle.
"My dear Harry, I quite understand your not calling. How could you think
of me when you were quite wrapped up in Vivien Wellgood? I was really
glad!"
Now that Harry had come, he found himself delighted with his visit.
"Country air's agreeing with you, Doris. You look splendid." His eyes
spoke undisguised admiration.
"Thank you, Harry. I know you thought me good-looking once." The Nun was
meek and grateful.
Harry laughed, by no means resenting the allusion. That had been an
illness, a curative process, also--though her curative measures had been
rather too summary for his taste.
"Whose peace of mind are you destroying down here?"
"I've a right to destroy peace of mind if I want to. It's not as if I
were engaged to be married--as you are. I think Jack Rock's in most
danger--or perhaps your father."
"The pater inherits some of my weaknesses," said Harry. "Or shares my
tastes, anyhow."
"Yes, I know he's devoted to Vivien."
"You never look prettier than when you're trying to say nasty things."
"I'll stop, or in another moment you'll be offering to kiss me."
"Should you object?"
"Hardly worth while. It would mean nothing at all to either of us.
Still--I'm not a poacher."
"You don't seem to me to be able to take a joke either." Harry's voice
sounded annoyed. "But we won't quarrel. I've been through one of my fits
of the blues, Doris. Don't be hard on a fellow."
"It would be so much better for you if people could be hard on you,
Harry. Still you'll have to pay for it somehow. We all have to pay for
being what we are--somehow. Perhaps you won't know you're paying--you'll
call it by some other name; perhaps you won't care. But you'll have to
pay somehow."
The Nun made a queer figure of a moralist; she was really far too
pretty. But her words got home to Harry--the new, the recovered, Harry.
"I have paid," he said. "Oh yes, you don't believe it, but I have! The
bill's paid, and receipted. I'm starting fair now. But you never did do
me justice."
"I've always done justice to what you care most about--Harry the
Irresistible!"
"Oh, stop that rot!" he implored. "I'm serious, you know, Doris."
"I know all the symptoms of your seriousness. The first is wanting to
flirt with somebody fresh."
Harry's laugh was vexed--but not of bitter vexation. "Give a fellow a
chance!"
"The whole world's in league to do it--again and again!"
"This time the world is going to find me appreciative. You don't know
what a splendid girl Vivien is! If you did, you'd understand
how--how--well, how things look different."
The Nun relented. "I really think it may last you over the wedding--and
perhaps the honeymoon," she said.
The extraordinary thing to her--indeed to all his friends who did not
share his most mercurial temperament--was that this change of mood was
entirely sincere in Harry, and his satisfaction with it not less
genuine. For two painful hours--from his receipt of Isobel's note to his
dispatching of that sentence about being bored with politics--he had
struggled, keeping Andy in an adjoining room solaced by newspapers and
tobacco, in case counsel should be needed. Then the right had won--and
all was over! When all was over, it was with Harry exactly as if nothing
had ever begun; his belief in the virtue of penitence beggared theology
itself. What he had been doing presented itself as not merely finished,
not merely repented of, but as hardly real; at the most as an
aberration, at the least as a delusion. Certainly he felt hardly
responsible for it. An excellent comfortable doctrine--for Harry. It
rather left out of account the other party to the transaction.
What a right he had to be proud of his return to loyalty! Because Isobel
Vintry was really a most attractive girl; it would be unjust and
ungrateful to deny that, since she had--well, it was better not to go
back to that! With which reflection he went back to it, recovering some
of the emotions of that culminating evening in the drive; recovering
them not to any dangerous extent--Isobel was not there, the thrill of
her voice not in his ears, nor the light of her eyes visible through the
darkness--but enough to make him pat his virtue on the back again, and
again excuse the aberration. Oh, they had all made too much of it! A
mere flirtation! Oh, very wrong! Yes, yes; or where lay the marvel of
this repentance? But not so bad as all that! They had been prejudiced to
think it so serious--prejudiced by Vivien's charms, her trust, her
simplicity, her appeal. Yes, he certainly had been a villain even to
flirt when engaged to a girl like that. However he thoroughly
appreciated that aspect of the case now; it had needed this
little--adventure--to make him appreciate it. Perhaps it had all been
for the best. Well, that was going too far, because Isobel felt it
deeply, as her words in the drive had shown. Yet perhaps--Harry achieved
his climax in the thought that even for her it might have been for the
best if it stopped her from marrying Wellgood. By how different a path,
in how different a mood, had poor Isobel attained to laying the same
unction to her smarting soul!
Wellgood did not know at all how quickly matters had moved. He was still
asking about the sin--the aberration; he was not up to date with
Isobel's renunciation or Harry's comfortable penitence. Nor was he of
the school that accepts such things without sound proof. "Lead us not
into temptation" was all very well in church; in secular life, if you
suspected a servant of dishonesty, you marked a florin and left it on
the mantelpiece. Had Isobel been already his wife, he would have locked
her up in the nearest approach to a tower of brass that modern
conditions permit; if Vivien had been already Harry's wife, he would no
doubt have been in favour of Harry's being kept out of the way of
dangerous seductions. But now, whether as father or as lover--and the
father continued to afford the lover most valuable aid, most specious
cover--he had first to know, to test, and to try. He had to leave his
marked florin on the mantelpiece.
It must not, however, be supposed that Meriton lacked problems because
Harry Belfield seemed, for the moment at all events, to cease to present
one. For days past Billy Foot had been grappling with a most momentous
one, and Mrs. Belfield's mind was occupied, and almost disturbed, by
another of equal gravity. Curiously enough, the two related to the same
person, and were to some degree of a kindred nature. Both involved the
serious question of the social status--or perhaps the social
desirability would be a better term--of Miss Doris Flower.
In the leisure hours and the autumn sunshine of Meriton--an atmosphere
remote from courts, whether of law or of royalty, and inimical to
ambition--Billy was in danger of forgetting the paramount claims of his
career and of remembering only the remarkable prettiness of Miss Flower.
He was once more "on the brink"; the metaphor of a plunge found a place
in his thoughts as well as in Isobel Vintry's; some metaphors are very
maids-of-all-work. He was deplorably perturbed. Now that the great
campaign was over he abandoned himself to the great question. He even
went up to London to talk it over with Gilly, entertaining his brother
to lunch--by no means a casual or haphazard hospitality, for Gilly's
meals were serious business--in order to obtain his most inspired
counsel. But Gilly had been abominably, nay, cruelly disappointing.
"I shouldn't waste any more time thinking about that, old chap," said
Gilly, delicately dissecting a young partridge.
"You're not going out of your way to be flattering. It appears to me at
least to be a matter of some importance whom I marry. I thought perhaps
my brother might take that view too."
"Oh, I do, old chap. I know it's devilish important to you. All I mean
is that in this particular case you needn't go about weighing the
question. Ask the Nun right off."
"You really advise it?" Billy demanded, wrinkling his brow in judicial
gravity, but inwardly rather delighted.
"I do," Gilly rejoined. "Ask her right off--get it off your mind! It
doesn't matter a hang, because she's sure to refuse you." He smiled at
his brother across the table--a table spread by that brother's
bounty--in a fat and comfortable fashion.
Billy preserved his temper with some difficulty. "Purely for the sake of
argument, assume that I am a person whom she might possibly accept."
"Can't. There are limits to hypothesis, beyond which discussion is
unprofitable. I merely ask you to note how much time and worry you'll be
saved if you adopt my suggestion."
"You'll look a particular fool if I do--and she says yes."
"Are you quite sure they brought the claret you ordered, Billy?--What's
that you said?"
"I'm sure it's the claret, and I'm sure you're an idiot!" Billy crossly
retorted.
His journey to London, to say nothing of a decidedly expensive lunch,
brought poor Billy no comfort and no enlightenment, since he refused his
brother's plan without hesitation. His problem became no less harassing
when brought into contact with Mrs. Belfield's problem at Halton. She
also discussed it at lunch, Harry being an absentee, and Andy Hayes the
only other guest. She had forgotten by now that a similar question had
once arisen about Andy himself; his present position would have made the
memory seem ridiculous; it had become indisputably equal to dinner at
Halton, even in Mrs. Belfield's most conservative eyes.
"I have written the note you wished me to, my dear," she remarked to her
husband. "To Miss Flower, you know, for Wednesday night. And I
apologized for my informality in not having called, and said that I
hoped Miss--Miss--well, the friend, you know, would come too."
"Thank you, my dear, thank you." Belfield sounded really grateful; the
struggle had, in fact, been rather more severe than he had anticipated.
"It's not that I'm a snob," the lady went on, now addressing herself to
Billy Foot, "or prejudiced, or in any way illiberal. Nobody could say
that of me. But it's just that I doubt how far it's wise to attempt to
mix different sections of society. I mean whether there's not a certain
danger in it. You see what I mean, Mr. Foot?"
Belfield winked covertly at Andy; both had some suspicion of Billy's
feelings, and were maliciously enjoying the situation.
"Oh yes, Mrs. Belfield, I--er--see what you mean, of course. In ordinary
cases there might be--yes--a sort of--well, a sort of danger
to--to--well, to something we all value, Mrs. Belfield. But in this case
I don't think--"
"So Mr. Belfield says. But then he's always so adventurous."
Belfield could not repress a snigger; Andy made an unusually prolonged
use of his napkin; Billy was rather red in the face. Mrs. Belfield gazed
at Billy, not at all understanding his feelings, but thinking that he
was looking very warm.
"Well, Harry's engaged!" she added with a sigh of thanksgiving. Billy
grew redder still; the other two welcomed an opportunity for open
laughter.
"They may laugh, Mr. Foot, but I'm sure your mother would feel as I do."
A bereavement several years old saved Billy from the suggested
complication, but he glared fiercely across the table at Andy, who
assumed, with difficulty, an apologetic gravity.
"All my wife's fears will vanish as soon as she knows the lady," said
Belfield, also anxious to make his peace with Billy.
"I always yield to Mr. Belfield, but you can't deny that it's an
experiment, Mr. Foot." She rose from the table, having defined the
position with her usual serene and gentle self-satisfaction.
Billy rose too, announcing that he would finish his cigar in the garden.
His face was still red, and he was not well pleased with his host and
Andy. Why will people make our own most reasonable thoughts ridiculous
by their silly way of putting them? And why will other stupid people
laugh at them when so presented? These reflections accompanied poor
Billy as he walked and smoked.
Belfield smiled. "More sentimental complications! I hope Billy Foot
keeps his face better than that when he's in court. Do you think he'll
rush on his fate? And what will it be?"
"Oh, I don't know, sir," Andy answered. "I really haven't thought about
it. I don't think she cares for him in that sort of way, though they're
awfully good friends."
"You seem to manage to keep heart-whole, Andy?"
"Oh, I've no time to do anything else," he laughed.
"Take care; Cupid resents defiance. I've a notion you stand very well
with the lady in question yourself."
"I? Oh, the idea's never entered my head."
"I don't say it's entered hers. The pretty rogue told me she never fell
in love, and made me wish I was thirty years younger, and free to test
her. But she's very fond of you, Andy."
"I think what she told you about herself is true. She said something
like it to me too. But I'm glad you think she likes me. I like her
immensely. Outside this house, she's my best friend, I think, not
counting old Jack Rock, of course."
"I believe Vivien would dispute the title with her. She thinks the world
of you."
"I say, Mr. Belfield, you'll turn my head. Seriously, I should be
awfully happy to think that true. There's nobody--well, nobody in the
world I'd rather be liked by."
"Yes, I think I know that," said Belfield. "And I'm glad to think she's
got such a friend, if she ever needs one."
A silence followed. Belfield was thinking of Vivien, thinking that she
would have been in safer hands with Andy than with his son Harry; glad,
as he had said, to know that she would have such a friend left to her
after his own precarious lease of life was done. Andy was thinking too,
but not of Vivien, not of sentimental complications--not even of
Harry's. Yet the thought which he was pursuing in his mind was not
altogether out of relation to Harry, though the relation was one that he
did not consciously trace.
"Back to work next week, sir!" he said. "Gilly's clamouring for me. I've
had a splendid holiday."
"You've put in some very good work in your holiday. Your speeches are
thought good."
"I somehow feel that I'm on my own legs now," said Andy slowly. "I hope
I've not grown bumptious, but I'm not afraid now to think for myself and
to say what I think. I often find people agree with me more or less."
"Perhaps you persuade them," Belfield suggested; he was listening with
interest, for he had watched from outside the growth of Andy's mind, and
liked to hear Andy's own account of it.
"Well, I never set out to do that. I just give them the facts, and what
the facts seem to me to point to. If they've got facts pointing the
other way, I like to listen. Of course lots of questions are very
difficult, but by going at it like that, and taking time, and not being
afraid to chuck up your first opinion, you can get forward--or so it
seems to me at least."
"Chucking up first opinions is hard work, both about things and about
people."
"Yes, but it's the way a man's mind grows, isn't it?" He spoke slowly
and thoughtfully. "Unless you can do that, you're not really your own
mental master, any more than you're your own physical master if you
can't break off a bad habit."
"You've got to be a bit ruthless with yourself in both cases, and with
the opinions, and--with the people."
"You've got to see," said Andy. "You must see--that's it. You mustn't
shut your eyes, or turn your head away, or let anybody else look for
you."
"You've come into your kingdom," said Belfield with a nod.
"Perhaps I may claim to have got my eyes open, to be grown up."
He was grown up; he stood on his own legs; he sat no more at Harry's
feet and leant no more on Harry's arm. Harry came into his life there,
as he had in so many ways. Harry's weakness had thrown him back on his
own strength, and forced him to rely on it. Relying on it in life, he
had found it trustworthy, and now did not fear to rely on it in thought
also. His chosen master and leader had forfeited his allegiance, though
never his love. He would choose no other; he would think for himself.
Looking at his capacious head, at his calm broad brow, and hearing him
slowly hammer out his mental creed, Belfield fancied that his thinking
might carry him far. The kingdom he had come into might prove a spacious
realm.