A LETTER FOR SABINA
A human machine, under stress of personal tribulation and lowered
vitality, had erred in a signal box five miles from York, with the
result that several of his fellow creatures were killed and many
injured. Daniel Ironsyde had only lived long enough to direct the
telegram to his home.
Three days later Raymond returned with the body, and once more Bridetown
crowded to its windows and open spaces, to see the funeral of another
master of the Mill.
To an onlooker the scene might have appeared a repetition in almost
every particular of Henry Ironsyde's obsequies.
The spinners crowded on the grassy triangle under the sycamore tree and
debated their future. They wondered whether Raymond would come to the
funeral; and a new note entered into all voices when they spoke his
name, for he was master now. Mr. Churchouse attended the burial, and
Arthur Waldron walked down from North Hill House with his daughter. In
the churchyard, where Daniel's grave waited for him beside his father,
old Mr. Baggs stood and looked down, as he had done when Henry Ironsyde
came to his grave.
"Life, how short--eternity, how long," he said to John Best.
Ernest Churchouse opened the door of the mourning coach as he had done
on the previous occasion, and Miss Ironsyde alighted, followed by
Raymond. He had come. But he had changed even to the visible eye. The
least observing were able to mark differences of voice and manner.
Raymond's nature had responded to the stroke of circumstance with
lightning swiftness. The pressure of his position, thus suddenly
relieved, caused a rebound, a liberation of the grinding tension. It
remained to be seen what course he might now pursue; yet those who knew
him best anticipated no particular reaction. But when he returned it was
quickly apparent that tremendous changes had already taken place in the
young man's outlook on life and that, whatever his future line of
conduct might be, he realised very keenly his altered position. He was
now free of all temporal cares; but against that fact he found himself
faced with great new responsibilities.
Remorse hit him hard, but he was through the worst of that, and life had
become so tremendous, that he could not for very long keep his thoughts
on death.
At his brother's funeral he allowed his eye to rest on no familiar face
and cast no recognising glance at man or woman. He was haggard and pale,
but more than that: a new expression had come into his countenance.
Already consciousness of possession marked him. He had grasped the fact
of the change far quicker than Daniel had grasped it after their
father's death.
He was returning immediately with his aunt to Bridport; but Mr.
Churchouse broke through the barrier and spoke to him as he entered the
carriage.
"Won't you see Sabina before you go, Raymond? You must realise that,
even under these terrible conditions, we cannot delay. I understand she
wrote to you when you came back; but that you have not answered her
letter. As things are it seems to me you might like to be quietly and
privately married away from Bridetown?"
Raymond hardly seemed to hear.
"I can't talk about that now. A great deal falls upon me at present. I
am enormously busy and have to take up the threads of all poor Daniel
was doing in the North. There is nobody but myself, in my opinion, who
can go through with it. I return to London to-night."
"But Sabina?"
Raymond answered calmly.
"Sabina Dinnett will hear from me during the next twenty-four hours," he
said.
Ernest gazed aghast.
"But, my dear boy, you cannot realise the situation if you talk like
that. Surely you--"
"I realise the situation perfectly well. Good-bye, Uncle Ernest."
The coach drove away. Miss Ironsyde said nothing. She had broken down
beside the grave and was still weeping.
Then came Mr. Best, where Mr. Churchouse stood at the lich-gate. He was
anxious for information.
"Did he say anything about his plans?" he asked.
"Only that he is proceeding with his late brother's business in the
North. I perceive a most definite change in the young man, John."
"For the better, we'll hope. What's hid in people! You never would have
thought Mister Raymond would have carried himself like that. It wasn't
grief at his loss, but a sort of an understanding of the change. He even
looked at us differently--even me."
"He's overwrought and not himself, probably. I don't think he quite
grasps the immediate situation. He seems to be looking far ahead
already, whereas the most pressing matter should be a thing of
to-morrow."
"Is the wedding day fixed?"
"It is not. He writes to Sabina."
"Writes! Isn't he going to see her to-day!"
"He returns to London to-night."
Arthur Waldron also asked for news, for Raymond had apparently been
unconscious of his existence at the funeral. He, too, noted the change
in Ironsyde's demeanour.
"What was it?" he asked, as Mr. Churchouse walked beside him homeward.
"Something is altered. It's more his manner than his appearance. Of
course, he looks played out after his shock, but it's not that. Estelle
thinks it's his black clothes."
"Stress of mind and anxiety, no doubt. I spoke to him; but he was rather
distant. Not unfriendly--he called me 'Uncle Ernest' as usual--but
distant. His mind is entirely preoccupied with business."
"What about Sabina?"
"I asked him. He's writing to her. She wasn't at the funeral. She and
her mother kept away at my advice. But I certainly thought he would come
and see them afterwards. However, the idea hadn't apparently occurred to
him. His mind is full of other things. There was a suggestion of
strength--of power--something new."
"He must be very strong now," said Estelle. "He will have to be strong,
because the Mill is all his and everything depends upon him. Doesn't
Sabina feel she must be strong, too, Mr. Churchouse?"
"Sabina is naturally excited. But she is also puzzled, because it seems
strange that anything should come between her and Raymond at a time like
this--even the terrible death of dear Daniel. She has been counting on
hearing from him, and to-day she felt quite sure he would see her."
"Is the wedding put off then?"
"I trust not. She is to hear from him to-morrow."
* * * * *
Raymond kept his word and before the end of the following day Sabina
received a letter. She had alternated, since Daniel's sudden death,
between fits of depression and elation. She was cast down, because no
communication of any kind had reached her since Raymond hurried off on
the day of the accident; and she was elated, because the future must
certainly be much more splendid for Raymond now.
She explained his silence easily enough, for much work devolved upon
him; but when he did not come to see her on the day of the funeral, she
was seriously perturbed and grew excited, unstrung and full of
forebodings. Her mother heard from those who had seen him that Raymond
appeared to be abstracted and 'kept himself to himself' entirely; which
led to anxiety on her part also. The letter defined the position.
"MY DEAREST SABINA,--A thing like the death of my brother, with all that
it means to me, cannot happen without having very far-reaching results.
You may have noticed for some time before this occurred that I felt
uneasy about the future--not only for your sake, but my own--and I had
long felt that we were doing a very doubtful thing to marry. However, as
circumstances were such then, that I should have been in the gutter if I
did not marry, I was going to do so. There seemed to be no choice,
though I felt all the time that I was not doing the fair thing to you,
or myself.
"Now the case is altered and I can do the fair thing to you and myself,
because circumstances make it possible. I have got tons of money now,
and it is not too much to say that I want you to share it. But not on
the old understanding. I hate and loathe matrimony and everything to do
with it, and now that it is possible to avoid the institution, I intend
to do so.
"What you have got to do is to put a lot of stupid, conventional ideas
out of your mind, and not worry about other people, and the drivel they
talk, or the idiotic things they say. We weren't conventional last year,
so why the dickens should we be this? I'm awfully keen about you,
Sabina, and awfully keen about the child too; but let us be sane and be
lovers and not a wretched married couple.
"If you will come and be my housekeeper, I shall welcome you with
rejoicings, and we can go house-hunting again and find something
worthier of us and take bigger views.
"Don't let this bowl you over and make you savage. It is simply a
question of what will keep us the best friends, and wear best. I am
perfectly certain that in the long run we shall be happier so, than
chained together by a lot of cursed laws, that will put our future
relations on a footing that denies freedom of action to us both. Let's
be pioneers and set a good example to people and help to knock on the
head the imbecile marriage laws.
"I am, of course, going to put you all right from a worldly point of
view and settle a good income upon you, which you will enjoy
independently of me; and I also recognise the responsibility of our
child. He or she will be my heir, and nothing will be spared for the
youngster.
"I do hope, my dearest girl, you will see what a sensible idea this is.
It means liberty, and you can't have real love without liberty. If we
married, I am certain that in a year or two we should hate each other
like the devil, and I believe you know that as well as I do. Marriage is
out-grown--it's a barbaric survival and has a most damnable effect on
character. If we are to be close chums and preserve our self-respect, we
must steer clear of it.
"I am very sure I am right. I've thought a lot about it and heard some
very shrewd men in London speak about it. We are up against a sort of
battle nowadays. The idea of marriage is the welfare of the community,
and the idea of freedom is the welfare of the individual; and I, for
one, don't see in the least why the individual should go down for the
community. What has the community done for us, that we should become
slaves for it?
"Wealth--at any rate, ample means--does several things for a man. It
opens his eyes to the meaning of power. Power is a fine thing if it's
coupled with sense. Already I see what a poor creature I was--owing to
the accident of poverty. Now you'll find what a huge difference power
makes. It changes everything and turns a child into a man. At any rate,
I've been a child till now. You've got to be childlike if you're poor.
"So I hope you'll take this in the spirit I write, Sabina, and trust
me, for I'm straight as a line, and my first thought is to make you a
happy woman. That I certainly can do, if you'll let me.
"I shall be coming home presently; but, for the moment, I must stop
here. There is a gigantic deal of work waiting for me; but working for
myself and somebody else are two very different things. I don't grudge
the work now, since the result of the work means more power.
"I hope this is all clear. If it isn't, we must thresh it out when we
meet. All I want you to grasp for the moment is that I love you as well
as ever--better than anything in the world--and, because I want us to be
the dearest friends always, I'm not going to marry you.
"Your mother and Uncle Ernest will of course take the conventional line,
and my Aunt Jennie will do the same; but I hope you won't bother about
them. Your welfare lies with me. Don't let them talk you into making a
martyr of yourself, or any nonsense of that sort.
"Always, my dearest Sabina,
"Your faithful pal,
"RAY."
Half an hour later Mrs. Dinnett took the letter in to Mr. Churchouse.
"Death," she said. "Death is in the air. Sabina has gone to bed and I'm
going for the doctor. He's broke off the engagement and wants her to be
his housekeeper. And this is a Christian country, or supposed to be.
Says it's going to be quite all right and offers her money and a
lifetime of sin!"
"Be calm, Mary, be calm. You must have misread the letter. Go and get
the doctor by all means if Sabina has succumbed. And leave the letter
with me. I will read it carefully. That is if it is not private."
"No, it ain't private. He slaps at us all. We're all conventional
people, which means, I suppose, that we fear God and keep the laws. But
if my gentleman thinks--"
"Go and get the doctor, Mary. Two heads are better than one in a case
of this sort. I feel sure you and Sabina are making a mistake."
"The world shall ring," said Mrs. Dinnett, "and we'll see if he can show
his face among honest men again. We that have abided by the law all our
days--now we'll see what the law can do for us against this godless
wretch."
She went off to the village and Ernest cried after her to say nothing at
present. He knew, however, as he spoke that it was vain.
Then he put away his own work and read the letter very carefully twice
through.
Profound sorrow came upon him and his innate optimism was over-clouded.
This seemed no longer the Raymond Ironsyde he had known from childhood.
It was not even the Raymond of a month ago. He perceived how potential
qualities of mind had awakened in the new conditions. He was
philosophically interested. So deeply indeed did the psychological
features of the change occupy his reflections, that for a time he
overlooked their immediate and crushing significance in the affairs of
another person.
Traces of the old Raymond remained in the promises of unbounded
generosity and assurances of devotion; but Mr. Churchouse set no store
upon them. The word that rang truest was Raymond's acute consciousness
of power and appreciation thereof. It had, as he said, opened his eyes.
Under any other conditions than those embracing Sabina and right and
wrong, as Ernest accepted the meaning of right and wrong, he had won
great hope from the letter. It was clear that Raymond had become a man
at a bound and might be expected to develop into a useful man; but that
his first step from adolescence was to involve the destruction of a
woman and child, soon submerged all lesser considerations in the
thinker's mind. Righteousness was implicated, and to start his new
career with a cold-blooded crime made Mr. Churchouse tremble for the
entire future of the criminal.
Yet he saw very little hope of changing Ironsyde's decision. Raymond
had evidently considered the matter, and though his argument was
abominable in Ernest's view, and nothing more than a cowardly evasion of
his promises, he suspected that the writer found it satisfy his
conscience, since its further education in the consciousness of power.
He did not suppose that any whose opinion he respected would alter
Raymond. It might even be that he was honest in his theories, and
believed himself when he said that marriage would end by destroying his
love for Sabina. But Mr. Churchouse did not pursue that line of
argument. Had not Mary Dinnett just reminded him that this was a
Christian country?
It was, of course, an immoral and selfish letter. Ernest knew exactly
how it would strike Miss Ironsyde; but he also knew that many people
without principle would view it as reasonable.
He had to determine what he was going to do, and soon came back to the
attitude he had always taken. An unborn, immortal soul must be
considered, and it was idle for Raymond to talk about making the coming
child his heir. Such undertakings were vain. The young man was volatile
and his life lay before him. That he could make this offer argued an
indifference to Sabina's honour which no promises of temporal comfort
condoned. For that matter he must surely have known while he wrote that
it would be rejected.
The outlook appeared exceedingly hopeless. Mr. Churchouse rose from his
desk and looked out of the window. It was a grey and silent morning.
Only a big magnolia leaf tapped at the casement and dripped rain from
its point. And overhead, in her chamber, Sabina was lying stricken and
speechless. With infinite commiseration Mr. Churchouse considered what
this must mean to her. It was as though Mrs. Dinnett's hysterical words
had come true. Indeed, the tender-hearted man felt that death was in
his house--death of fair hopes, death of a young and trusting spirit.
"The rising generation puts a strain on Christianity that I'm sure it
was never called to bear in my youth," reflected Mr. Churchouse.