TWO MOTIVES
Making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute shadow watching all.
“Pooh! the girl is happy enough!”
Mr. Glynde jerked his newspaper up and read an advertisement of
steamships about to depart to the West Coast of Africa. His wife--engaged
in cutting out a scarlet flannel garment of diminutive proportions (an
operation which she made a point of performing on the study table)--gave
two gentle snips and ceased her occupation.
She looked at the back of her husband's head, where the hair was getting
a little thin, and said nothing. No one argued with the Reverend Thomas
Glynde.
“The girl is happy enough,” he repeated, seeking contradiction. There are
times when an autocrat would very much like to be argued with.
“She is always lively and gay,” he continued defiantly.
“Too gay,” Mrs. Glynde whispered to the scissors, with a flash of the
only wisdom which Heaven gives away, and it is not given to all mothers.
The winter had closed over Stagholme, the isolating, distance-making
winter of English country life, wherein each house is thrown upon its own
resource, and the peaceful are at rest because their neighbours cannot
get at them.
Dora was out. She was out a good deal now; exceedingly busy in good works
of a different type from those affected by Sister Cecilia. The winter air
seemed to invigorate her, and she tramped miles with a can of soup or an
infant's flannel wrapper. And always when she came in she was gay, as her
father described it. She gave amusing descriptions of her visits among
the cottagers, retailed little quaint conceits such as drop from rustic
lips declared unto them by their fathers from the old time before them,
and in it all she displayed a keen insight into human nature. At times
she was brilliant; which her father noticed with grave approval, ignorant
or heedless of the fact that brilliancy means friction. Happy people are
not brilliant.
She suddenly developed a taste for politics, and read the newspaper with
a keen interest. Several half-forgotten duties were revived, and their
performance became a matter of principle.
Mr. Glynde did not notice these subtle changes. Old men are generally
selfish, more so, if possible, than young ones, and Mr. Glynde was
eminently so. He only saw other people in relationship to himself. He
looked at them through himself.
Mrs. Glynde had taken the opportunity of a “cutting out” to mention that
she thought a change would do Dora good. During the three months that had
elapsed since the announcement of Jem's death, Stagholme had necessarily
been a somewhat dull abode. The winter had not come on well, but in fits
and starts, with trying winds and much rain. She said these things while
she cut into her roll of red flannel--the scissors seemed to give her
courage.
The Rector of Stagholme had awful visions of a furnished house at
Brighton or a crammed hotel on the Riviera.
“Where do you want to go to?” he inquired, with a gruffness which meant
less than it conveyed.
“To town, dear.”
Now Mr. Glynde loved London.
In the meantime Dora was standing at the gate of the gamekeeper's little
cottage-garden which adjoined the orchard at Stagholme. There were
certain women with whom Sister Cecilia did not “get on,” and these were
by tacit understanding relegated to Dora. This same inability to “get on”
was one of the crosses which Sister Cecilia carried in a magnified
condition through life. The gamekeeper's wife was one of the failures--a
hardy mother of several hardy little embryo gamekeepers, who held that
she knew her own business of motherhood best, and intimated as much to
Sister Cecilia.
Dora went there very frequently, and the pathos of her way with little
children is one of the things which cannot be touched upon here. It is
possible that she went there because the cottage was near the Holme, and
the way took her past the great house. She had never laid aside her old
girlish habit of passing through the rooms, unannounced, to exchange a
few words with Mrs. Agar. It was not that she held that lady in great
veneration or respect; but in the country people learn to take their
neighbours as they are, remembering that they are neighbours.
She went through the orchard and in at the side-door, which stood always
open to the turn of the handle. She had fallen into a singular habit
of always using this entrance, and of glancing as she passed at the
stick-rack, where a rough mountain-ash was wont to stand--a stick which
Jem had cut, while she stood by, years before. There was, perhaps,
something characteristically suggestive of Jem in this stick--something
strong and simple. She was not the person to indulge in sentimental
thoughts; she could not afford to do that, Indeed, she often looked into
the stick-rack without thinking, but she never passed it without looking.
In the library she found Mrs. Agar, talking to her maid, who withdrew
with a pinched salutation. Mrs. Agar was one of those unfortunate women
who level all ranks in their sore need of a listener. The expression of
her face was decidedly lachrymose.
“Poor Arthur!” she exclaimed. “Dora, dear, something so dreadful has
happened!”
“Yes,” returned Dora, with the indifference of one who has tasted of the
worst.
“Poor Arthur has received Jem's papers and diaries and things, and I can
see from his letter that it has quite upset him. He is so sympathetic,
you know.”
Dora had turned quite away. She usually carried a stick in her country
rambles, and it seemed suddenly to have suggested itself to her to lay
this on a table near the door. The stick fell off again, and some moments
elapsed while she picked it up from the floor. When she turned, her veil
had slipped from the brim of her hat down over her face.
“But it could not have been a surprise to him,” she said quietly. “He
must have known that there would probably be something of the sort sent
home.”
“Yes, yes. But you know, dear, how keenly he feels everything. These
highly-strung, artistic temperaments--but I need not tell you; you know
Arthur almost as well as I do.”
Dora answered nothing. It was not the first time that Mrs. Agar had
charged some remark with that weight of significance which, in her
vulgar-minded subtlety, she considered delicate and exceptionally clever.
And each time that Dora heard it she was conscious of a vague discomfort,
as at the approach of some danger, of some interference in her life which
would be too strong for her to resist. It was one of those mean feminine
thrusts to parry which is to acknowledge, to ignore is to admit fear.
“Has he sent them on to you?” she asked after a little pause, resisting
only by a great effort the temptation to look towards the writing-table.
“Yes,” was the reply. “It appears that they have been in his possession
for some time. He kept them back for some reason--I cannot think why.”
Providence is sometimes unexpectedly kind. Had Mrs. Agar been a different
woman, had she, perhaps, been a better woman, less aggravating, more
discreet, more honourable, she would not have done at this moment
precisely that which Dora was silently praying that she would do.
“Here,” continued the mistress of Stagholme, going to the writing-table,
“is his diary; perhaps you would care to look through it? Poor Jem! I am
afraid it will not be very interesting.”
Dora took the little dark-coloured book almost indifferently.
“Thanks,” she said. “It was always an effort to him to write the very
shortest letter, was it not? Papa would like to see it, I know, if I may
show it to him.”
Being rather taller than Mrs. Agar, she could see over that lady's
shoulder as she stood turning over with some curiosity a score or so of
bundles evidently containing letters.
“These,” said Mrs. Agar, “seem to be letters; probably our letters to
him. Shall we burn them?”
Dora reflected for a moment. She knew that many of the bundles must
contain letters from herself to Jem--letters which could have been read
from the housetops without conveying anything to the populace. But some
of them--almost between the lines--had been intended to convey, and had
conveyed, something to Jem. She reflected--without anger, as women do on
such matters--that if curiosity moved her, Mrs. Agar would not scruple to
open all these letters and read them. The packets had evidently not been
opened, and a momentary feeling of grateful recognition of Arthur's
gentlemanly honour passed through her mind. There was about the faded
papers that dim, mysterious odour which ever clings to packages that have
been packed in India.
“Yes,” she said, “let us burn them.”
Mrs. Agar seemed to hesitate for a moment, but it was only for effect.
She dreaded the packages, for one of them might contain the will which
haunted her.
And so these two women, so very different, from such very different
motives, carried the letters to the fire, and there they burnt them. In
the curling flames Dora saw her own handwriting. She could not understand
the suppressed excitement of Mrs. Agar's manner; she only knew that the
mistress of Stagholme seemed to be afraid of looking at the burning
papers.
When all was consumed both women heaved a sigh of relief.
“There,” said Mrs. Agar, “I am glad we have been able to save poor Arthur
that. These things are so very painful.”
Dora looked rather as if she could not understand why the painful things
of life should be harder for Arthur to bear than for other people. But
she said nothing.
“He will be glad,” continued Mrs. Agar, “to hear that it was you who
helped me. I know he would rather that it had been you than any one.”
All this with the horrid meaning, the sly significance, of her kind; for
there are women for whom there is absolutely nothing sacred in the whole
gamut of human feelings. There are women who will talk of things upon
which the lips of even the most depraved men are silent.
And with it there was nothing that Dora could take exception to--nothing
that she could answer without running the risk of bringing upon herself
questions to which she had no reply.
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “it is done now, so we can dismiss it from
our minds. Of course you know that mother is getting out of hand
altogether. I cannot hold her in. Her plans are simply kittenish. She
wants to take a flat in town for two months, to take Boulton and one
maid, to hire a cook, and to go generally to the bad.”
Mrs. Agar's eyes glistened. She liked to hear of other people seeking
excitement because she felt more justified in doing so herself.
“Well, I think she is very sensible. I am sure you all want a change. I
feel I do. It is so depressing here all alone with one's thoughts. Sister
Cecilia was just saying the other day that I ought to go away to Brighton
or somewhere--that I owed it to Arthur.”
“I don't see why you should not pay it to yourself, whoever you owe it
to,” said Dora. “This is an age of going away for changes. Life is like
old Martin's trousers--so patched up with changes that the original
pattern has disappeared.”
“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Agar, with a vague laugh. In conversation with
Dora she invariably felt clumsy and unable to protect herself, like a
stout fencer conscious of many vulnerable outlying points. She did not
understand this girl, and never knew which was carte and which tierce.
“So you are going away?”
“I expect so. Mother usually carries through her little schemes, and in
his inward soul papa is rather a fast old gentleman. He loves the
pavement, and--I don't object to the shops myself.”
“Then you will like it?”
“Oh yes!” replied Dora, rising to go. “Like Mr. Martin, I am not sure
that the old pattern is worth preserving.”
“I wish I could go with you,” said Mrs. Agar, holding up her cheek in an
absent way for the farewell kiss; “I have not been to town for ages.”
“Last week,” amended Dora mentally.
“Why not come too?” she said aloud, gathering together stick, basket, and
gloves.
“There is Arthur,” replied the lady. “I am afraid he will not care to
leave home just now, after so great a blow.”
“All the more reason why he should go to town for a little and
forget--himself.”
Mrs. Agar smiled sadly and waited for further persuasion. She had fully
made up her mind to go to Brighton, but was anxious first that the whole
parish should press her to do so against her will.
“It will be very nice,” continued Dora, “to have you to help me to keep
my flighty progenitors in order. Now I _must_ go.”
With a nod and a light laugh she closed the library door behind her,
having apparently forgotten the sadder events of the visit. But in her
basket she had the diary.