THE OLIVE BRANCH
Suzette Bligh was staying at the Courtlands'--that Suzette who had been
at Mrs. Raymore's party, and was, according to Christine Fanshaw, a baby
compared with Anna Selford, although ten years her senior. She had
neither father nor mother, and depended on her brother for a home. He
had gone abroad for a time, and Lady Harriet had taken her in, partly
from kindness (for Lady Harriet had kind impulses), partly to have
somebody to grumble to when she was feeling too conscientious to grumble
to the children. This did happen sometimes. None the less the children
heard a good deal of grumbling, and in Suzette's opinion knew far too
much about the state of the household. They were all girls, Lucy, Sophy,
and Vera, and ranged in age from thirteen to nine. They took to Suzette,
and taught her several things about the house before she had been long
in it; and she relieved Lady Harriet of them to a certain extent,
thereby earning gratitude no less than by her readiness to listen to
grumblings. Tom was little seen just now; he came home very late and
went out very early; he never met his wife; he used just to look in on
the children at schoolroom breakfast, which Suzette had elected to share
with them, Lady Harriet taking the meal in her own room. It was not a
pleasant house to stay in, but it was tolerably comfortable, and
Suzette, not asking too much of life, was content enough to be there,
could tell herself that she was of use, and was happy in performing an
act of friendship.
Of course the question was how long Lady Harriet would stand it. The
little girls knew that this was the question; they were just waiting for
mamma to break out. They had not disliked their mother in the past;
occasional fits of temper are not what children hate most. They endure
them, hoping for better times, or contrive to be out of the way when the
tempest arises. Cracks with any implement that came handy were the order
of the day when the tempest had risen; but on calm days Lady Harriet had
been carelessly indulgent, and, in her way, affectionate to the girls.
But now the calm days grew rarer, the tempests more frequent and
violent. Fear grew, love waned, hatred was on its way to their hearts.
They had never disliked their father; though they had no great respect
for him, they loved him. They regarded him with compassionate sympathy,
as the person on whom most of the cracks fell; and they quite understood
why he wanted to keep out of the way. This was a bond of union. They had
even vague suspicions as to where he went in order to get out of the
way. They had listened to their mother's grumbling; they had listened to
the talk of the servants too. Suzette was no check on their
speculations; they liked her very much, but they were not in the least
in awe of her.
"Will you take us for a walk this afternoon, Miss Bligh?" asked Sophy,
at schoolroom breakfast on Sunday. "Because Garrett says mamma's not
well to-day, and we'd better not go near her--she's going to stay in her
own room till tea-time."
"Of course I will, dears," said Suzette Bligh.
"Oh, there's nothing the matter with mamma, really," declared
Lucy--"only she's in an awful fury. I met Garrett coming out of her
room, and she looked frightened to death."
"Ah, but you don't know why!" piped up Vera's youthful voice in accents
of triumph. "I do! I was in the hall, just behind the curtain of the
archway, and I heard Peters tell the new footman. Papa was expected last
night, and mamma had left orders that she should be told when he came
in. But he didn't----"
"We know all that, Vera," Sophy interrupted contemptuously. "He sent
word that he'd been called out of town and wouldn't be back till
Monday."
"And the message didn't get here till twelve o'clock. Fancy, Miss
Bligh!"
"Well, I'm glad you're going to take us to church, and not mamma, Miss
Bligh."
"I hope she won't send for any of us about anything!"
"I hope she won't send for me, anyhow," said Vera, "because I haven't
done my French, and----"
"Then I shouldn't like to be you if you have to go to her," said Lucy,
in a manner far from comforting.
Lady Harriet was by way of teaching the children French, and had not
endeared the language to them.
"I wonder what called papa away!" mused Sophy.
"Now, Sophy, that's no business of yours," said poor Suzette,
endeavouring to do good. "You've no business to----"
"Well, I don't see any harm in it, Miss Bligh. Papa's always being
called away now."
"Especially when mamma's----"
"I can't listen to any more, dears. Does the vicar or the curate preach
in the morning, Lucy dear?"
"Don't know, Miss Bligh. I say, Vera, suppose you go and ask mamma to
let us have some of that strawberry jam at tea."
"Yes, let's make her go," Sophy chimed in gleefully.
"You may do anything you like," declared Vera, "but you can't make me
go--not if you kill me, you can't!"
The two elder girls giggled merrily at her panic.
Poor Suzette was rather in despair about these children--not because
they were unhappy. On the whole they had not been very unhappy. Their
mother's humours, if alarming, were also the cause of much excitement.
Their father's plight, if sorrowful, was by no means wanting in the
comic aspect. The suspense in which they waited to see how long Lady
Harriet would stand it had a distinct spice of pleasure in it. But the
pity of it all! Suzette's training, no less than her fidelity to Lady
Harriet, inclined her to lay far the heavier blame on Tom Courtland. But
she did have a notion that Lady Harriet must be very trying--and the
more she listened to the children the more that idea grew. And, between
them, the mother and the father were responsible for such a childhood as
this. The children were not bad girls, she thought, but they were in
danger of being coarsened and demoralised; they were learning to laugh
where they had better have cried. It was Suzette's way to be rather
easily shocked, and she was very much shocked at this.
They were just starting for their afternoon walk, when John Fanshaw
arrived and found them all in the hall. He was an old friend--Vera's
godfather--and was warmly welcomed. John was very cheery to-day; he
joked with the children, and paid Suzette Bligh a compliment. Then Vera
wanted to know why he had called:
"Because papa's not at home, you know."
"Never mind that, puss. I've come to see your mamma."
"You've come to see mamma!" exclaimed Lucy.
Glances were exchanged between the three--humorous excited glances;
admiring amused eyes turned to John Fanshaw. Here was the man who was
going to enter the lion's den.
"Shall we start, dears?" suggested Suzette Bligh apprehensively.
No notice was taken. Sophy gave John a direct and friendly warning.
"You'd better look out, you know," she said; "mamma's just furious
because papa's not come back."
"But it's not my fault, pussie," said John. "She can't put me in the
corner for it."
"Well, if you happen to be there----" began Lucy, with an air of
experience.
"We must really start, Lucy dear," urged Suzette.
"What have you come to see mamma about?" asked Vera shrilly.
"To find out how to keep little girls in order," answered John,
facetiously rebuking curiosity.
"I expect you've come about papa," observed Vera, with disconcerting
calmness and an obvious contempt for his joke.
"I'm going to start, anyhow," declared poor Suzette. "Come along, dears,
do!"
"Well, if there's a great row, Garrett'll hear some of it and tell us,"
said Sophy, consoling herself and her sisters as they reluctantly walked
away from the centre of interest.
John Fanshaw's happiness was with him still--the happiness which
Caylesham's cheque had brought. It was not banked yet, but it would be
to-morrow; and in the last two days John had taken steps to reassure
everybody, to tell everybody that they would be paid without question or
difficulty, to scatter the cloud of gossip and suspicion which had
gathered round his credit in the City. It was now quite understood that
John's firm had weathered any trouble which had threatened it, and could
be trusted and fully relied on again. Hence John's happy mind, and, a
result of the happy mind, a sanguine and eager wish to effect some good,
to bring about some sort of reconciliation and a _modus vivendi_ in the
Courtland family. His hopes were not visionary or unreasonable: he did
not expect to establish romantic bliss there; a _modus vivendi_
commended itself to him as the best way of expressing what he was going
to suggest to Lady Harriet. In this flush of happy and benevolent
feeling he was really glad that he had consented to undertake the
embassy.
Lady Harriet liked John Fanshaw. She called him John and, though he did
not quite venture to reciprocate the familiarity, he felt that it gave
him a position in dealing with her. Also he thought her a very handsome
woman; and since she was aware of this, there was another desirable
element in their acquaintance. And he thought that he knew how to manage
women--he was sure he would not have made such a bad job of it as poor
Tom had. So he went in without any fear, and found justification in the
cordiality of his welcome. Indeed the welcome was too cordial, inasmuch
as it was based on an erroneous notion.
"You're the very man of all men I wanted to see! I was thinking of
sending for you. Come and sit down, John, and I'll tell you all about
it."
"But I know all about it," he protested, "and I want to have a talk to
you."
"Nobody can know but me; and I believe you're the best friend I have. I
want to tell you everything and take your advice how I'm to act."
Evidently she didn't suppose that he was in any sense an ambassador from
her husband. He was to be her friend. John found it difficult to correct
this mistake of hers.
"I'm at the end of my patience," she said solemnly. "I'm sure anybody
would be. You know what's happening as well as I do, and I intend to put
an end to it."
"Oh, don't say that! I--well, I'm here just to prevent you from saying
that."
"To prevent me? You know what's happening? Do you know he's staying away
from home again? What do the servants think? What must the children
begin to think? Am I to be exposed to that?"
She looked very handsome and spirited, with just the right amount of
colour in her cheeks and an animated sparkle in her eyes.
"Why, I could name the woman!" she exclaimed. "And so could you, I
daresay?"
"Don't make too much of it," he urged. "We're not children. He doesn't
really care about the woman. It's only because he's unhappy."
"And whose fault is it he's unhappy?"
"And because of that he's being foolish--wasting all his money too, I'm
afraid."
"Oh, I've got my settlement. I shall be all right in case of
proceedings."
"Now pray don't think of proceedings, Lady Harriet."
"Not think of them! I've made up my mind to them. I wanted to ask you
how to set about it."
"But it would ruin his career; it would destroy his public position."
"I can't help that. He should have thought of that for himself."
"And then think of the girls!"
"Anything would be better than going on like this--yes, better for them
too."
John saw that he must face an explanation of his embassy. He got up and
stood on the hearthrug.
"I'm here as the friend of you both," he began.
The colour and the sparkle both grew brighter.
"Oh, are you?" said Lady Harriet.
"It comes to this. Tom's friends--I and one or two more--have been
speaking seriously to him. We've got him to say that he's ready to
drop--to drop what you very properly object to--and to make another
effort to find a--a _modus vivendi_."
"I'm glad he's got so much decent feeling! Only it comes rather late. He
wants me to forgive him, does he?"
"I don't think we can put it quite so simply as that." John risked a
timid smile. "There must be a give-and-take, Lady Harriet--a
give-and-take, you know."
"Well?" She was relapsing into that dangerous stillness of hers. She was
very quiet, but her eyes shone very bright. Tom Courtland would have
known the signs, so would the girls.
"We've got him to say what I've told you; but there must be something
from your side."
"What am I to do, John?" she asked, with deceptive meekness.
"Well, I think you might--well--er--express some regret that--that
things haven't gone more harmoniously at home. You might hold out an
olive branch, you know."
"Express regret?"
"Don't stand on a point of pride now. Haven't you sometimes been--well,
a little exacting--a little quick-tempered?"
"Oh, you're in that old story, are you? Quick-tempered? Suppose I am!
Haven't I enough to make me quick-tempered?"
"Yes, now you have. But what about the beginning?"
"Do you mean it was my fault in the beginning?"
"Don't you think so yourself? Partly, at all events?"
Lady Harriet took up a tortoiseshell paper-knife and played with it. Her
eyes were set hard on John, who did not like the expression in them. He
became less glad that he had undertaken the embassy.
"May a man desert and deceive his wife because she's a little
quick-tempered?"
"No, no, of course not; that's absurd."
"It's what you're saying, isn't it?"
"We must look at it as men and women of the world."
"I look at it as a wife and a mother. Do you mean to say it was my fault
in the beginning?"
John was losing patience; he saw that some plain speaking would be
necessary, but his want of patience made it hard for him to do the plain
speaking wisely.
"Well, yes, I do," he said. "In the beginning, you know. Tom's a
good-natured fellow, and he was very fond of you. But you--well, you
didn't make his home pleasant to him; and if a man's home isn't
pleasant, you know what's likely to happen."
"And you're the friend I meant to send for!"
"I am your friend--that's why I venture to speak to you freely. There's
no hope unless you both realise where you've been wrong. Tom
acknowledges his fault and is ready to change his ways. But you must
acknowledge yours and change too."
"What is my fault?"
John took a turn up and down the room.
"I must let her have it," he decided, as he came back to the hearthrug.
"You make everybody afraid of you with your lamentable fits of temper,"
he told her. "Tom's afraid of you, and afraid of what you might drive
him into. Your children are afraid of you. Everybody's afraid of you.
You make the house impossible to live in. You're even violent sometimes,
I'm afraid, Lady Harriet."
If breaking a paper-knife in two be violence, she was violent then. She
threw the pieces down on the table angrily.
"How dare you come to me and talk like this? I've done nothing; I've
nothing to blame myself with. What I've had to put up with would have
spoilt anybody's temper! Express regret? I shall do nothing of the kind.
If that's what you came to ask, you can take your answer and go."
She was working herself up to the full tide of her rage. John's
undertaking was quite hopeless now, but he would not recognise it yet;
he determined to "let her have it" a little more still.
"Look at that!" he said, pointing to the broken paper-knife. "Just try
to think what that--that sort of thing--means! What man can be expected
to stand that? The state of things which has arisen is your fault.
You've made no effort to govern your temper. You're reaping the fruit of
what you've sown. If poor Tom had shown more firmness it might have been
better."
"You'd have shown more firmness, I suppose?"
"Yes, I should; and I believe it would have done some good. You may
suppose it gives me great pain to speak like this, but really it's the
only way. Unless you realise how greatly you've been to blame, unless
you determine to conquer this deplorable failing, there's no hope of
doing any good."
She sat quiet for a moment or two longer with shining eyes, while John,
now confident again and very masculine, developed the subject of the
real truth about her. Then she broke out.
"You fool!" she said. "You silly fool! You come to me with this
nonsense! You tell me you'd have shown more firmness! You tell me it's
my fault Tom's gone off after this creature! Much you know about it all!
Wonderfully wise you are! Leave other men's wives alone, and go back and
look after your own, John."
"There's nothing that I'm aware of wrong in my house, Lady Harriet. We
needn't bring that into the question."
"Oh, we needn't, needn't we? And there never was anything wrong, I
suppose? I'm such a bad wife, am I? Other men have bad wives too."
"Do you attach any particular meaning to that?" he asked coldly, but
rather uneasily.
"Do I attach----? Oh, what an idiot you are! You to come and lecture me
as if I was a child! I may be anything you like, but I've never been
what your wife was, John Fanshaw."
He turned on her quickly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"That's my affair."
"No, it isn't. You've dared to hint----"
"Oh, I hint nothing I don't know!"
"You shall give me an explanation of those words. I insist upon that."
"You'd better not," she laughed maliciously.
John was moved beyond self-control. He caught her by the wrist. She rose
and stood facing him, her breath coming quick. She was in a fury that
robbed her of all judgment and all mercy; but she had no fear of him.
"You shall withdraw those words or explain them!"
"Ask Christine to explain them!" she sneered. "What a fool you are!
Here's a man to give lectures on the management of wives, when his own
wife----" She broke off, laughing again.
"You shall tell me what you mean!"
"Dear me, you can't guess? You've turned very dull, John. Never mind!
Don't make too much of it! Perhaps you were quick-tempered? Perhaps you
didn't make her home pleasant? And if a woman's home isn't
pleasant--well, you know what's likely to happen, don't you?"
Perspiration was on John Fanshaw's brow. He pressed her wrist hard.
"You she-devil!" he said. "Tell me what you mean, I say!"
"Oh, ask Christine! And if she won't tell you, I advise you to apply to
Frank Caylesham, John."
"Is that true?"
"Yes, it is. Don't break my wrist."
"Caylesham!"
He held her wrist a moment longer, then dropped it, and looked aimlessly
round the room.
She rubbed her wrist and glared at him with sullen eyes, her fury dying
down into a malicious rancour.
"There, that's what you get from your meddling and your preaching!" she
said. "I never meant to give Christine away, I never wanted to. It's
your doing; you made me angry, and I hit out at you where I could. I
wish to God you had never come here, John! Christine's one of the few
women who are friendly to me, and now I've---- But you've yourself to
thank for it."
He sank slowly into a chair; she heard him mutter "Caylesham!" again.
"If you know I've a quick temper, why do you exasperate me? You
exasperate me, and then I do a thing like that! Oh, I'm not thinking of
you; I'm thinking of poor Christine. I hate myself now, and that's your
doing too!"
She flung herself into her chair and began to sob tempestuously. John
stared past her to the wall.
"It's just what Tom's always done," she moaned through her sobs--"making
me lose my temper, and say something, and then----" Her words became
inarticulate.
Presently her sobs ceased; her face grew hard and set again.
"Well, are you going to sit there all day?" she asked. "Is it so
pleasant that you want to stay? Do you still think you can teach me the
error of my ways?"
From the first moment John Fanshaw had not doubted the truth of what she
said. Things forced out by passion in that way were true. Her stormy
remorse added a proof--a remorse which did not even attempt retractation
or evasion. And his memory got to work. He knew now why Christine had
been so reluctant to go to Caylesham. There were things back in the past
too, which now became intelligible--how that acquaintance had grown and
grown, how constant the companionship had been, one or two little things
which had seemed odd, and then how there had been a sudden end, and they
had come to see very little of Caylesham, how neither of them had seen
him for a long while, till John had sent Christine to borrow fifteen
thousand pounds.
"For God's sake, go!" she cried.
He rose to his feet slowly, and her fascinated eyes watched his face.
His eyes were dull, and his face seemed to have gone grey. He asked her
one question:
"How long ago?"
"Oh, all over years ago," she answered, with an impatient groan,
drumming her fingers on the arms of her chair.
He nodded his head in a thoughtful way.
"Good-bye, Lady Harriet," he said.
"Good-bye, John." Suddenly she sprang up. "Stop! What are you going to
say to Christine?"
He looked bewildered still.
"I don't know. Oh, really I don't know! My God, I never had any idea of
this, and I don't know! I can't--can't realise it all, you know--and
Caylesham too!"
"Are you going to tell her I told you?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do, Lady Harriet--I don't know."
"Ah!"
With a cry of exasperation she turned away and sat down in her chair
again.
"Good-bye," he muttered, and slouched awkwardly out of the room.
She sat on where she was, very still, frowning, her hand holding her
chin, only her restless eyes roving about the room. She was like some
handsome, fierce, caged beast. There she sat for close on an hour,
thinking of what she was and of what she had done--of how he had shown
her the picture of herself, and of how, from malice and in her wrath,
she had betrayed Christine. Once only in all this time her lips moved;
they moved to mutter:
"What a cursed woman I am!"