NO ESCAPE
Lady Dashwood sat on in the drawing-room. Now that she was alone it was
not necessary to keep up the show of reading a book. She put it down on
a table close at hand and gave herself up to thought.
But what was the good of plans--until Jim came back? The first thing was
to find out whether the engagement was a fact and not an invention of
Belinda's. Then if it was a fact, whether Jim really wanted to marry
Gwendolen? If he did want to, plans might be very difficult to make, and
there was little time, with Belinda clamouring to come and play the
mother-in-law. The vulture was already hovering with the scent of battle
in its nostrils.
Then, on the other hand, supposing Jim didn't want to marry Gwen, but
had only been run into it--somehow--before he had had time to see May
Dashwood, then plans might be easier. But in any case there were almost
overwhelming difficulties in the way of "doing anything." It was easy to
say that she would never allow the marriage to take place, but how was
she to prevent it?
"I must prevent it," she murmured to herself. "Must!"
What still amazed and confounded Lady Dashwood and made her helpless
was: why her brother showed such obvious interest--more than mere
interest--in May Dashwood, if he was in love with Gwendolen Scott and
secretly pledged to her? Jim playing the ordinary flirt was unthinkable.
It did look as if he had proposed in some impulsive moment, before May
arrived, and then---- Why, that was why he had not announced his
engagement! Was he playing a double game? No, it was unthinkable that he
should not be absolutely straight. Gwendolen had somehow entangled him.
The very thought of it made Lady Dashwood get up from her chair and move
about restlessly. Then an idea struck her. Jim coveted Gwendolen for her
youth and freshness and only admired May! Yes, only admired her, and
regarding her as still mourning for her young husband, still
inconsolable, he had treated her with frankness and had shown his
admiration without the restraint that he would have used otherwise.
When would Jim return? How long would she have to wait?
She had told Robinson to take a tray of refreshments for the Warden into
the library. Now that she was alone in the drawing-room she would have
the tray brought in here. When Jim did come in, she would have to
approach her subject gradually. She must be as wily as a serpent--wily,
when her pulses were beating and her head was aching? It would be more
easy and natural for her to begin talking here than to go into the
library and force him into conversation after the day's work was done.
Yet the matter must be thrashed out at once. She could not go about with
Belinda's letter announcing the engagement and yet pretend that she knew
nothing about it. Gwendolen probably knew that her mother had written;
or if she didn't already know, would very likely know by the morning's
post.
She rang the bell, and when Robinson appeared, she told him to bring the
tray in, instead of taking it to the library.
"When the Warden comes in, tell him the tray is here," she said. Oh, how
the last few minutes dragged! It was some distraction to have Robinson
coming in and putting the tray down on the wrong table, and to be able
to tell him the right table and the most suitable chair to accompany it.
Then, when he had gone and all was ready, she chose a chair for herself.
Not too near and not too far. She had Belinda's letter safe? Yes, it was
here! She was ready, she was prepared. She was going to do something
more difficult than anything she had experienced in her life, because so
much depended on it, so much; and a great emotion is not easy to hide,
it takes one's breath sometimes, it makes one's voice harsh, or
indistinct, or worse still, it suddenly benumbs the brain, and thoughts
go astray and tangle themselves, and all one's power of argument, all
one's grip of the situation, goes.
And the minutes passed slowly and still more slowly. When at last she
heard sounds on the stairs, the blood rushed to her cheeks and her hands
became as cold as ice. That was a bad beginning! She went to the door
and opened it. He had come in and had gone into the library. She called
out to him to come into the drawing-room. She heard his voice answer
"Coming!" She left the door open and went back to her chair, the chair
she had chosen, and she stood by it, waiting, looking at the open door.
He came in. He looked all round the room, and closed the door behind
him.
"All alone?" he said, and there was a question in his voice. Who was he
thinking of? Who was absent? Whose absence was he thinking of?
She sat down. "You're not cold?" she asked.
"Not at all," he said, and he walked to the table arranged for him and
sat down.
"Did you have a satisfactory day?" she asked.
"On the whole," he said slowly, "yes."
"You're not tired?" she asked.
"Not a bit," he answered. "Why should I be?" and he looked at her and
smiled.
"I don't know why you should be, Jim. I'm glad you're not. My guests
seemed to be tired, for they both went off long ago."
She was now making the first step in the direction which she must boldly
travel.
"I expect you are tired too," he said, "only--as usual--you wait up for
me."
The Warden poured himself out a cup of coffee, and took up a sandwich,
adding: "I managed to get a scrappy dinner before seven; if I had waited
longer I should have missed my train."
"We were very dull at dinner without you," she said, bringing him back
again to the point from which she was starting.
The Warden looked pleased, and then pained. Lady Dashwood was watching
him with keen tired eyes.
"We lunched at Chartcote, and then we did all that you particularly
wanted me to do," she said. "And then something rather amazing
happened--I found a letter waiting me from Belinda Scott!"
She paused. The Warden glanced at her: his face became coldly
abstracted.
"I don't mean that it was strange that she should write, but that what
she said was strange."
He glanced at her again, and she saw that he was arrested. She went on.
It seemed now easier to speak. A strange cold despair had seized her,
and with that despair a fearlessness.
"I can't help thinking that there is some mistake, because you would
have told me if--well, anything had happened to you--of consequence! You
would not have left me to be told by an--an outsider."
The Warden raised the cup of coffee to his lips, and then put it down
carefully.
"Anything that has happened," he said, "has not been communicated by me
to anybody. It did not seem to me that--there was anything that ought to
be."
Lady Dashwood waited and finding her lips would stiffen and her voice
sounded hollow, measured her words.
"Will you read Belinda's letter, and then you will see what I mean?" she
said, and she rose and held the paper out to him.
His features had grown tense and severe. He half rose, and reached out
over the table for the letter, and took it without a word. Then he put
on his eye-glasses and read it through very slowly.
Lady Dashwood sat, staring at her own hands that lay in her lap. She was
not thinking, she was waiting for him to speak.
He read the letter through, and sat with it in his hand, silent for a
minute. For years he had been accustomed to looking over the
compositions of men who had begun to think, and of men who never would
begin to think. He was unable to read anything without reading it
critically. But his criticism was criticism of ideas and the expression
of ideas. He had no insight either by instinct or training for the
detection of petty personal subterfuges, nor did he suspect crooked
motives. But the discrepancy between this effusion of maternal emotion
and Gwendolen's assertion that she had no home and that nobody cared was
glaring.
The writer of the letter was a bouncing, selfish woman of poor
intelligence. That fact, indeed, had become established in the Warden's
mind. The letter was in hopelessly bad taste. It became pretty plain,
therefore, that Gwendolen had spoken the truth, and the lie belonged to
the mother.
Already, yes, already he was being drawn into an atmosphere of paltry
humbug, of silly dishonesty, an atmosphere in which he could not
breathe.
Couldn't breathe! The Warden roused himself. What did he mean by "being
drawn"? He had carried out his life with decisive and serious
intentions, and whoever shared that life with him would have to live in
the atmosphere he had created around him. Surely he was strong enough
not only to hold his own against the mother, but to mould a pliable girl
into a form that he could respect!
"Somehow, I can't imagine how," said Lady Dashwood, breaking the
silence, "I found a letter from Belinda to Gwendolen on my toilet table
among other letters, and opened it and I began reading it--without
knowing that it was not for me. Belinda's writing--all loops--did not
make the distinction between Gwen and Lena so very striking. I read two
sentences or so, and one phrase I can't forget; it was 'What are you
doing about the Warden?' I turned the sheet and saw, 'Your affectionate
mother, Belinda Scott.' I did not read any more. I gave the letter to
Gwen, and I saw by her face that she had read the letter herself. 'What
are you doing about the Warden?' Knowing Belinda, I draw conclusions
from this sentence that do not match with the surprise she expresses in
this letter you have just read. You understand what I mean?"
The Warden moved on his seat uneasily.
"Belinda speaks of your _engagement_ to Gwendolen," said Lady Dashwood,
and her voice this time demanded an answer.
"I am not engaged," he said, turning his eyes to his sister's face
slowly, "but, I am pledged to marry her--if it is her wish."
Lady Dashwood's eyes quavered.
"Is it your wish?" she asked.
The Warden rose from his chair as if to go.
"I can't discuss the matter further, Lena. I cannot tell you more. I had
no right, I had no reason, for telling you anything before, because
nothing had been concluded--it may not be concluded. It depends on her,
and she has not spoken to me decisively."
He moved away from the table.
"You haven't finished your coffee, your sandwiches," said Lady Dashwood,
to give herself time, and to help her to self-control. Oh, why had he
put himself and his useful life in the hands of a mere child--a child
who would never become a real woman? Why did he deliberately plan his
own martyrdom?
"I don't want any more," he said, "and I have letters to write."
"Jim," she called to him gently, "tell me at least--if you are
happy--whether----"
"I can't talk just now--not just now, Lena," he said.
"But Belinda takes the matter as settled--otherwise the letter is not
merely absurd--but outrageous!"
The Warden hesitated in his slow stride towards the door.
"I am not going to have Belinda here on Saturday. There is no room for
her. She can't come till May has gone." Lady Dashwood spoke this in a
firm, rapid voice.
"That is for you to decide," he said. "You are mistress here."
He was moving again when she said in a voice full of pain: "You say you
can't talk just now, you can't speak to me of what is happening to you,
of what may happen to you, when you, next to John, are more to me than
anything else in the world. What happens to you means happiness or
misery to me, and yet you _can't talk_!"
The Warden was arrested, stood still, and turned towards her.
"You owe me some consideration, Jim. I have no children, you have been a
son as well as a brother to me. I can have no peace of mind, no joy in
life if things go wrong with you. Yes, I repeat it--if things go wrong
with you. I was your mother, Jim, for many years, and yet you say you
can't discuss something that is of supreme importance! You are willing
to go out of this room and leave me to spend a night sleepless with
anxiety."
What his engagement to Gwendolen would mean to her was expressed more in
her voice even than in her words. The Warden stood motionless.
"Be patient with me, Lena. I can't talk about it--I would if I could. I
know all I owe to you--all I can never repay; but there is nothing more
to tell you than that I have offered her a home. I have made a
proposal--I was not aware that she had definitely accepted, and that is
why I said nothing to you about it."
Lady Dashwood got up. She did not approach her brother. Her instinct
told her not to touch him, or entreat him by such means. She made a step
towards the hearth, and said in a muffled voice--
"Will you answer one question? You can answer it."
He made no sound of assent.
"Are you in love with her? or"--and here Lady Dashwood's voice
shook--"do you feel that she will help you? Do you think she will be
helpful to--the College?"
There was a pause, and then the Warden's voice came to her; he was
forcing himself to speak very calmly.
"I have no right to speak of what may not happen. Lena, can't you see
that I haven't?"
The pause came again.
"You have answered it," said Lady Dashwood, in a broken voice.
There was no time to think now, for at that moment there came a sound
that startled both of them and made them stand for a second with lifted
heads listening.
"Some one screamed!" exclaimed Lady Dashwood.
The Warden was already at the door and had pulled it open. "The
library!" he called out to her sharply, and he was gone. She hurried out
after him, her heart beating with the sudden alarm. What had happened,
what was it?