CREDIT
The mind of Raymond Ironsyde was now driven and tossed by winds of
passion which, blowing against the tides of his own nature, created
unrest and storm. A strain of chivalry belonged to him and at first this
conquered. He felt the magnitude of Sabina's sacrifice and his
obligation to a love so absolute. In this spirit he remained for a time,
during which their relations were of the closest. They spoke of
marriage; they even appointed the day on which the announcement of their
betrothal should be made. And though he had gone thus far at her
entreaty, always recognising when with her the reasonableness of her
wish, after she was gone, the cross seas of his own character, created a
different impression and swept the pattern of Sabina's will away.
For a time the intrigue of meeting her, the planning and the plotting
amused him. He imagined the world was blind and that none knew, or
guessed, the truth. But Bridetown, having eyes as many and sharp as any
other hamlet, had long been familiar with the facts. The transparent
veil of their imagined secrecy was already rent, though the lovers did
not guess it.
Then Raymond's chivalry wore thinner. Ruling passions, obscured for a
season by the tremendous experience of his first love and its success,
began by slow degrees to rise again, solid and challenging, through the
rosy clouds. His love, while he shouted to himself that it increased
rather than diminished, none the less assumed a change of colour and
contour. The bright vapours still shone and Sabina could always kindle
ineffable glow to the fabric; but she away, they shrank a little and
grew less radiant. The truth of himself and his ambitions showed
through. At such times he dinned on the ears of his heart that Sabina
was his life. At other times when the fading fire astonished him by
waking a shiver, he blamed fate, told himself that but for the lack of
means, he would make a perfect home for Sabina; worship and cherish her;
fill her life with happiness; pander to her every whim; devote a large
portion of his own time to her; do all that wit and love could devise
for her pleasure--all but one thing.
He did not want to marry her. With that deed demanding to be done, the
necessity for it began to be questioned sharply. He was not a marrying
man and, in any case, too young to commit himself and his prospects to
such a course. He assured himself that he had never contemplated
immediate marriage; he had never suggested it to Sabina. She herself had
not suggested it; for what advantage could be gained by such a step?
While a thousand disasters might spring therefrom, not the least being a
quarrel with his brother, there was nothing to be said for it. He began
to suspect that he could do little less likely to assure Sabina's
future. He clung to his strand of chivalry at this time, like a drowning
man to a straw; but other ingredients of his nature dragged him away.
Selfishness is the parent of sophistry, and Raymond found himself
dismissing old rules of morality and inherited instincts of religion and
justice for more practical and worldly values. He told himself it was as
much for Sabina's sake as for his own that he must now respect the
dictates of common-sense.
There came a day in October, when the young man sat in his office at the
mills, smoking and absorbed with his own affairs. The river Bride was
broken above the works, and while her way ran south of them, the
mill-race came north. Its labour on the wheel accomplished, the current
turned quickly back to the river bed again. From Raymond's window he
could see the main stream, under a clay bank, where the martins built
their nests in spring, and where rush and sedge and an over-hanging
sallow marked her windings. The sunshine found the stickles, and where
Bride skirted the works lay a pool in which trout moved. Water
buttercups shone silver white in this back-water at spring-time and the
water-voles had their haunts in the bank side.
Beyond stretched meadow-lands and over the hill that rose behind them
climbed the road to the cliffs. Hounds had ascended this road two hours
before and their music came faintly from afar to Raymond's ear, then
ceased. Already his relations with Sabina had lessened his will to
pleasure in other directions. His money had gone in gifts to her,
leaving no spare cash for the old amusements; but the distractions, that
for a time had seemed so tame contrasted with the girl, cried louder and
reminded how necessary and healthy they were.
Life seemed reduced to the naked question of cash. He was sorry for
himself. It looked hard, outrageous, wrong, that tastes so sane and
simple as his own, could not be gratified. A horseman descended the hill
and Raymond recognised him. It was Neddy Motyer. His horse was lame and
he walked beside it. Raymond smiled to himself, for Neddy, though a
zealous follower of hounds, lacked judgment and often met with disaster.
Ten minutes later Neddy himself appeared.
"Come to grief," he said. "Horse put his foot into a rabbit hole and cut
his knee on a flint. I've just taken him to the vet, here to be
bandaged, so I thought I'd look you up. Why weren't you out?"
"I've got more important things to think about for the minute."
Neddy helped himself to a cigarette.
"Growing quite the man of business," he said. "What will power you've
got! A few of us bet five to one you wouldn't stick it a month; but here
you are. Only I can tell you this, Ray: you're wilting under it. You're
not half the man you were. You're getting beastly thin--looking a worm
in fact."
Raymond laughed.
"I'm all right. Plenty of time to make up for lost time."
"It's metal more attractive, I believe," hazarded Motyer. "A little
bird's been telling us things in Bridport. Keep clear of the petticoats,
old chap--the game's never worth the candle. I speak from experience."
"Do you? I shouldn't think any girl would have much use for you."
"Oh yes, they have--plenty of them. But once bit, twice shy. I had an
adventure last year."
"I don't want to hear it."
Neddy showed concern.
"You're all over the shop, Ray. These blessed works are knocking the
stuffing out of you and spoiling your temper. Are you coming to the
'smoker' at 'The Tiger' next month?"
"No."
"Well, do. You want bucking. It'll be a bit out of the common. Jack
Buckler's training at 'The Tiger' for his match with Solly Blades. You
know--eliminating round for middle-weight championship. And he's going
to spar three rounds with our boy from the tannery--Tim Chick."
"I heard about it from one of our girls here--a cousin of Tim's. But I'm
off that sort of thing."
"Since when?"
"You can't understand, Ned; but life's too short for everything. Perhaps
you'll have to turn to work someday. Then you'll know."
"You don't work from eight o'clock at night till eleven anyway. Take my
tip and come to the show and make a night of it. Waldron's going to be
there. He's hunting this morning."
"I know."
The dinner bell had rung and now there came a knock at Raymond's door.
Then Sabina entered and was departing again, but her lover bade her
stay.
"Don't go, Sabina. This is my friend, Mr. Motyer--Miss Dinnett."
Motyer, remembering Raymond's recent snub, was exceedingly charming to
Sabina. He stopped and chatted another five minutes, then mentioned the
smoking concert again and so took his departure. Raymond spoke
slightingly of him when he had gone.
"He's no good, really," he said. "An utter waster and only a hanger-on
of sport--can't do anything himself but talk. Now he'll tell everybody
in Bridport about you coming up here in the dinner-hour. Come and cheer
me up. I'm bothered to death."
He kissed her and put his arms round her, but she would not stop.
"I can't stay here," she said. "I want to walk up the hill with you. If
you're bothered, so am I, my darling."
He put on his hat and they went out together.
"I've had a nasty jar," she told him. "People are beginning to say
things, Raymond--things that you wouldn't like to think are being said."
"I thought we rose superior to the rest of the world, and what it said
and what it thought."
"We do and we always have. We're not moral cowards either of us. But
there are some things. You don't want me to be insulted. You don't want
either of us to lose the respect of people."
"We can't have our cake and eat it too, I suppose," he said rather
carelessly. "Personally I don't care a straw whether people respect me,
or despise me, as long as I respect myself. The people that matter to me
respect me all right."
"Well, the people that matter to me, don't," she answered with a flash
of colour. "We'll leave you out, Raymond, since you're satisfied; but
I'm not satisfied. It isn't right, or fair, that I should begin to get
sour looks from the women here, where I used to have smiles; and looks
from the men--hateful looks--looks that no decent woman ought to suffer.
And my mother has heard a lot of lies and is very miserable. So I think
it's high time we let everybody know we're engaged. And you must think
so, too, after what I've told you, Ray dear."
"Certainly," he answered, "not a shadow of doubt about it. And if I saw
any man insult you, I should delight to thrash him on the spot--or a
dozen of them. How the devil do people find out about one? I thought
we'd been more than clever enough to hoodwink a dead alive place like
this."
"Will you let me tell mother, to-day? And Sally Groves, and one or two
of my best friends at the Mill? Do, Raymond--it's only fair to me now."
Had she left unspoken her last sentence, he might have agreed; but it
struck a wrong note on his ear. It sounded selfish; it suggested that
Sabina was concerned with herself and indifferent to the complications
she had brought into his life. For a moment he was minded to answer
hastily; but he controlled himself.
"It's natural you should feel like that; so do I, of course. We must
settle a date for letting it out. I'll think about it. I'd say this
minute, and you know I'm looking forward quite as much as you are to
letting the world know my luck; but unfortunately you've just raised the
question at an impossible moment, Sabina."
"Why? Surely nothing can make it impossible to clear my good name,
Raymond?"
"I've got a good name, too. At least, I imagine so."
"Our names are one, or should be."
"Not yet, exactly. I wanted to spare you bothers. I do spare you all the
bothers I can; but, of course, I've got my own, too, like everybody
else. You see it's rather vital to your future, which you're naturally
so keen about, Sabina, that I keep in with my brother. You'll admit
that much. Well, for the moment I'm having the deuce of a row with him.
You know what an exacting beggar he is. He will have his pound of flesh,
and he has no sympathy for anything on two legs but himself. I asked him
for a fortnight's holiday."
"A fortnight's holiday, Raymond!"
"Yes--that's not very wonderful, is it? But, of course, you can't
understand what this work is to me, because you look at it from a
different angle. Anyway I want a holiday--to get right away and consider
things; and he won't let me have it. And finding that, I lost my temper.
And if, at the present moment, Daniel hears that we're engaged to be
married, Sabina, it's about fifty to one that he'd chuck me altogether
and stop my dirty little allowance also."
They had reached the gate of 'The Magnolias,' and Sabina did a startling
thing. She turned from him and went down the path to the back entrance
without another word. But this he could not stand. His heart smote him
and he called her with such emotion that she also was sorrowful and came
back to the gate.
"Good God! you frightened me," he said. "This is a quarrel, Sabina--our
first and last, I hope. Never, never let anything come between us.
That's unthinkable and I won't have it. You must give and take, my
precious girl. And so must I. But look at it. What on earth happens to
us if Daniel fires me out of the Mill?"
"He's a just man," she answered. "Dislike him as we may, he's a just man
and you need not fear him, or anybody else, if you do the right thing."
"You oppose your will to mine, then, Sabina?"
"I don't know your will. I thought I did; I thought I understood you so
well by now and was learning better and better how to please you. But
now I tell you I am being wronged, and you say nothing can be done."
"I never said so. I'm not a blackguard, Sabina, and you ought to know
that as well as the rest of the world. I'm poor, unfortunately, and the
poor have got to be politic. Daniel may be just, but it's a
narrow-minded, hypocritical justice, and if I tell him I'm engaged to
you, he'll sack me. That's the plain English of it."
"I don't believe he would."
"Well, I know he would; and you must at least allow me to know more
about him than you do. And so I ask you whether it is common-sense to
tell him what's going to happen, for the sake of a few clod-hoppers, who
matter to nobody, or--"
"But, but, how long is it to go on? Why do you shrink from doing now
what you wanted to do at first?"
"I don't shrink from it at all. I only intend to choose the proper time
and not give the show away at a moment when to do so will be to ruin
me."
"'Give the show away,'" she quoted bitterly. "You can look me in the
face and say a thing like that! It's only 'a show' to you; but it's my
life to me."
"I'm sorry I used the expression. Words aren't anything. It's my life to
me, too. And I've got to think for both of us. In a week, or ten days,
I'll eat humble pie and climb down and grovel to Daniel. Then, when I'm
pardoned, we'll tell everybody. It won't kill you to wait another
fortnight anyway. And in the meantime we'd better see less of each
other, since you're getting so worried about what your friends say about
us."
Now he had said too much. Sabina would have agreed to the suggestion of
a fortnight's waiting, but the proposal that they should see less of
each other both hurt and angered her. The quarrel culminated.
"Caution seems to me rather a cowardly thing, Raymond, from you to me. I
tell you that your wife's good name is at stake. For, since you've
called me your wife so often, I suppose I may do the same. And if you're
so careless for my credit, then I must be jealous for it myself."
"And my credit can go to the devil, I suppose?"
Then she flamed, struck to the root of the matter and left him.
"If the fact that you're engaged to me, by every sacred tie of honour,
ruins your credit--then tell yourself what you are," she said, and her
voice rose to a note he had never heard before.
This time he did not call her back, but went his own way up the hill.