IN THE TEETH OF THE STORM
An instinct of furtiveness, newly awakened by the suggestion of
Christine Fanshaw's letter, had led Grantley Imason to send no word of
his coming. He hired a fly at the station, and drove over the downs to
Milldean. It was a wild evening. A gale had been blowing from the
south-west all day, and seemed to be increasing in violence. A thick
rain was driven in sharp spats against the closed windows. The old horse
toiled slowly along, while the impatient man chafed helplessly inside.
At last he stopped at Old Mill House and dismissed the carriage. Mrs.
Mumple's servant-girl came to the door, and said her mistress was up at
his house, and was, she thought, to stay there all night. Grantley
nodded, and began to trudge up the hill. He had no thought but to seek
and find Sibylla. It was now between seven and eight, and dusk had
fallen.
He saw a light in the dining-room windows. He walked into the hall and
took off his hat. A servant saw him and ran to help him. Saying briefly
that he would want some dinner, he went into the dining-room. Mrs.
Mumple sat there alone over a chop.
"You come home, Mr. Imason!" she exclaimed. "Sibylla didn't expect you,
did she?"
"No, I didn't expect to come. I didn't think I could get away, and it
wasn't worth wiring. Where is Sibylla?"
"How unlucky! She's gone away--to Fairhaven. She didn't expect you.
She's to sleep the night there."
He came to the table and poured himself out a glass of sherry. He was
calm and quiet in his manner.
"To sleep at Fairhaven? Why, who's she going to stay with?"
"Mrs. Valentine. You know her? She lives by the church--a red house with
creepers."
Mrs. Valentine was, as he knew, an old, but not an intimate,
acquaintance. He shot a keen glance at Mrs. Mumple's simple broad face.
"I'm here to look after baby. But of course since you've come----"
"No, no, you stay here; and go on with your dinner. They'll bring
something for me directly."
He pulled up a chair and sat down.
"To sleep at Mrs. Valentine's? Has she often done that before when I've
been away?"
"She used to as a girl sometimes, Mr. Imason; but no, never lately, I
think--not since she married."
There were no signs of disturbance or distress about Mrs. Mumple.
Grantley sat silent while the servant laid a place for him and promised
some dinner in ten minutes.
"Has Sibylla been all right?"
"Oh, yes! A little fretful the last day or two, I think. But Mr. Blake
came over from Fairhaven yesterday, and she had a nice walk with him;
and she was with baby all the morning."
"All the morning? When did she go to Fairhaven?"
"I think it was about three o'clock. It's a terrible evening, Mr.
Imason."
"Very rough indeed."
"The wind rose quite suddenly this morning, and it's getting worse every
minute."
Grantley made no answer. After a pause the old woman went on--
"I've got some news."
"News have you? What news?"
He was suddenly on the alert.
She glanced at the door to make sure the servant was not within hearing.
"Very great news for me, Mr. Imason. My dear husband's to come home
three months sooner than I thought. I got a letter to say so just after
Sibylla started."
"Oh, really! Capital, Mrs. Mumple!"
"It's only a matter of six months now. You can't think what I feel about
it--now it's as near as that. I haven't seen him for hard on ten years.
What will it be like? I'm full of joy, Mr. Imason; but somehow I'm
afraid too--terribly afraid. The thought of it seems to upset me, and
yet I can't think of anything else."
Grantley rubbed his hand across his brow. Old Mrs. Mumple's talk reached
him dimly. He was thinking hard. This sleeping at Mrs. Valentine's
sounded an unlikely story.
Mrs. Mumple, in her turn, forgot her chop. She leant back in her chair,
clasping her fat hands in front of her.
"We shall have to pick up the old life," she went on, "after seventeen
years! I was thirty-five when he left me, and nearly as slight as
Sibylla herself. I'm past fifty now, Mr. Imason, and it's ten years
since I saw him; and he's above sixty, and--and they grow old soon in
there. It'll be very different, very different. And--and I'm half afraid
of it, Mr. Imason. It's terribly hard to pick up a life that's once been
broken."
The servant brought in Grantley's dinner, and Mrs. Mumple pretended to
go on with her chop.
"Nurse said I was to tell you Master Frank is sleeping nicely," the
servant said to Mrs. Mumple, as he placed a chair for Grantley.
That was a strange story about Mrs. Valentine.
"We must have patience, and love on," said Mrs. Mumple. "He's had a
grievous trial, and so have I. But I don't lose hope. All's ready for
him--his socks and his shirts and all. I'm ahead of the time. I've
nothing to do but wait. These last months'll seem very long, Mr.
Imason."
Grantley came to the table.
"You're a good woman, Mrs. Mumple," he said.
She shook her head mournfully. He looked at the food, pushed it away,
and drank another glass of sherry.
"Don't think I've no sympathy with you, but--but I'm worried."
"Nothing gone wrong in town, I hope, Mr. Imason?"
"No."
He stood there frowning. He did not believe the story about Mrs.
Valentine. He walked quickly to the bell and rang it loudly.
"Tell them to saddle Rollo, and bring him round directly."
"You're never going out on such a night?" she cried.
"I must"; and he added to the surprised servant, "Do as I tell you
directly."
"Where are you going?" she asked wonderingly.
"I'm going to Mrs. Valentine's."
"But you've no cause to be anxious about Sibylla, Mr. Imason; and she'll
be back to-morrow."
Grantley was convinced that she, at least, was innocent of any plot.
Simple sincerity spoke on her face, and all her thoughts were for
herself and her dearly cherished fearful hopes.
"I must see Sibylla on a matter of urgent business to-night," he said.
"It'll be hardly safe up on the downs," she expostulated.
"It'll be safe enough for me," he answered grimly. "Don't sit up for me;
and look after the baby." He smiled at her kindly, then came and patted
her hand for a moment. "Yes, it would be hard to pick up a life that's
once broken, I expect," he said.
She looked up at him with a sudden apprehension in her eyes. His manner
was strangely quiet; he seemed to her gentler.
"There, I mean nothing but what I say," he told her soothingly. "I must
go and get ready for my ride."
"But, Mr. Imason, you'll take something to eat first?"
"I can't eat." He laughed a little. "I should like to drink, but I
won't. Good night, Mrs. Mumple."
Ten minutes later he was walking his horse down the hill to Milldean, on
his way to Fairhaven. But he had little thought of Mrs. Valentine; he
had no belief in that story at all. It served a purpose, but not the
purpose for which it had been meant. What it did was to remove the last
of his doubts. Now he knew that Christine's suggestion was true. He was
going to Fairhaven not to find Sibylla at Mrs. Valentine's, but to seek
Sibylla and Blake he knew not where.
He thought not much of Sibylla. He had taught himself to consider his
wife incalculable--a prey to disordered whims, swept on by erratic
impulses. This whim was more extraordinary, more disorderly, more
erratic than any of the others; but it was of the same nature with them,
the same kind of thing that she had done when she determined to hold
herself aloof from him. This blow had fallen entirely and utterly
unforeseen, but he acknowledged grimly that it had not been
unforeseeable. He thought even less of young Blake, and thought of him
without much conscious anger. The case there was a very plain one. He
had known young Blake in the days when aspirations did not exist, and
when the desire to be good was no part of his life. He took him as he
had known him then, and the case was very simple. Whatever an attractive
woman will give, men like Blake will take, recking of nothing,
forecasting nothing, careless of themselves, merciless to her whom they
are by way of loving. In regard to Blake the thing had nothing strange
in it.
Here too it was unexpected, but again by no means unforeseeable.
No, nothing had been unforeseeable; and in what light did that fact
leave him? What flavour should that give to his meditations? For though
he rode as quickly as he could against the gale and the rain which now
blinded and scorched his eyes, his mind moved more quickly still. Why,
it set him down as a fool intolerable--as the very thing he had always
laughed at and despised, as a dullard, a simpleton, a dupe. He could
hear the mocking laughter and unashamed chuckling, he could see the
winking eyes. He knew well enough what men had thought of him. They had
attributed to him successes with women; they had joked when he married,
saying many husbands would feel safer; they had liked him and admired
him, but they had been of opinion that he wanted taking down a peg. How
they would laugh to think that he of all men had made such a mess of it,
that he had let young Blake take away his wife--young Blake, whom he had
often chaffed for their amusement or instructed for their entertainment!
Imason had got a pretty wife, but he couldn't keep her, poor old boy!
That would be the comment--an ounce of pity to a hundredweight of
contempt, and--yes, a pound of satisfaction. And it would be all true.
Somehow--even allowing for Sibylla's vagaries and unaccountable whims,
he could not tell how--somehow he had been a gross dupe, a blockhead
blindly self-satisfied, a dullard easily deluded, a fool readily
abandoned and left, so intolerable that not all his money, nor his
houses, nor his carriages could make it worth while even to go on with
the easy task of deceiving him. He was not worth deceiving any more; it
was simpler to be rid of him. In the eyes of the world that fact would
be very significant of what he was. And that same thing he was in his
own eyes now. The stroke of this sharp sword had cloven in two the
armour of his pride; it fell off him and left him naked.
Could he endure this fate for all his life? It would last all his life;
people have long memories, and the tradition does not die. It would not
die even with his life. No, by heaven, it would not! A new thought
seized him. There was the boy to whom he had given life. What had he
given to the boy now? What a father would the boy have to own! And what
of the boy's mother? The story would last the boy's life too. It would
always be between him and the boy. And the boy would never dare speak of
his mother. The boy would be kept in ignorance till ignorance yielded,
perforce, to shame. His son's life would be bitterness to him, if it
meant that--and bitterness surely to the boy too. As he brooded on this
his face set into stiffness. He declared that it was not to be endured.
He came to where Milldean road joined the main road by the red villas,
and turned to the right towards Fairhaven. Here he met the full force of
the gale. The wind was like a moving rushing wall; the rain seemed to
hit him viciously with whips; there was a great confused roar from the
sea below the cliffs. He could hardly make headway or induce his horse
to breast the angry tempest. But his face was firm, his hand steady, and
his air resolute as he rode down to Fairhaven, sore in the eyes,
dripping wet, cold to the very bone. His purpose was formed. Fool he
might be, but he was no coward. He had been deluded, he was not beaten.
His old persistence came to his rescue. All through, though he might
have lost everything else, he had never lost courage. And now, when his
pride fell from him, and his spirit tasted a bitterness as though of
death, his courage rose high in him--a desperate courage which feared
nothing save ridicule and shame. These he would not have, neither for
himself nor for his boy. His purpose was taken, and he rode on. His
pride was broken, but no man was to behold its fall. In this hour he
asked one thing from himself--courage unfearing, unflinching. It was
his, and he rode forward to the proof of it. And there came in him a
better pride. In place of self-complacency there was fortitude; yet it
was the fortitude of defiance, not of self-knowledge.
He rode through the gale into Fairhaven, thinking nothing of Mrs.
Valentine's house, waiting on fate to show him the way. Just where the
town begins, the road comes down to the sea, and runs along by the
harbour where a sea-wall skirts deep water. A man enveloped in oilskins
stood here, glistening through the darkness in the light of a gas-lamp.
He was looking out to sea, out on the tumble of angry waves, stamping
his feet and blowing on his wet fingers now and then. It was no night
for an idle man to be abroad; he who was out to-night had business.
"Rough weather!" called Grantley, bringing his horse to a stand.
The man answered, not in the accents of the neighbourhood, but with a
Cockney twang and a turn of speech learnt from board schools and
newspapers. He was probably a seaman then, and from London.
"Terribly severe," he said. "No night to keep a man on the look-out."
He looked at Grantley, evidently not knowing him.
"A bad night for a ride too, sir," he added; "but it's better to be
moving than standing here, looking for a boat that's as likely to come
as the Channel Squadron!" He spat scornfully as he ended.
"Looking for a boat?"
For the moment Grantley was glad to talk; it was a relief. Besides he
did not know what he was going to do, and caught at a brief respite from
decision.
"Aye," the man grumbled, "a boat to come from Portsmouth. Best luck for
her if she's never started, and next best if she's put in for shelter on
the way. She'd never make Fairhaven to-night."
"Then what's the good of looking for her?"
"Because I get five shillings for it. The owner's waiting for
her--waiting at the Sailors' Rest there." He pointed to the inn a
hundred yards away. "She was to have been here by midday, and he's in a
hurry. Best for him if she doesn't come, if he means to sail to-night,
as he says he does." He paused and spat again. "Pretty weather for a
lady to go to sea, ain't it?" he ended sarcastically.
The fates were with Grantley Imason. They sent guidance.
"What boat is it?" he asked quietly.
"The _Ariadne_" ("Hairy Adny," he pronounced the name).
"Ah, yes! Mr. Blake's yacht?"
"You know him, sir? Well, you'll find him and his lady at the 'Rest'
there; and if you're a friend of theirs, you tell 'em not to expect her
to-night, and not to go on board her if she comes."
"Here's another shilling for you, and good-night."
Grantley rode on to the inn, thanking fate, realising now how narrow the
chance had been. But for the storm, but for the wind that had buffeted
and almost beaten him, no pride, no resolution, would have been of any
avail. With fair weather the yacht would have come and gone. He saw why
Christine Fanshaw was not to deliver his letter till the morrow. Without
the storm, no pride, no resolution, no courage would have availed him.
The _Ariadne_ would have put to sea, and Sibylla would have been gone
for ever. Now, thanks to fate, she was not gone. Grantley drew a long
breath--the breath of a man whom a great peril has narrowly passed by.
The plan had been well laid, but the storm had thwarted it. There was
time yet.
Was there? That question could not but rise in his mind. He faced it
fairly and squarely, and jogged on to the Sailors' Rest.
"Praise to this fine storm!" he cried within himself--to the storm which
beat and raged, which had feigned to hinder his coming, but was his ally
and friend. Good luck to it! It had served his turn as nothing else
could. And how it was attuned to his mood--to the fierce stern conflict
which he had to wage! This was no night for gentleness. There were
nights when nature's gentleness mocked the strife to which her own
decrees condemned the race of men. But to-night she herself was in the
fight. She incited, she cheered, she played him on; and she had given
him his field of battle. The sense of helplessness passed from him. He
was arrayed for the fight. He drank in the violent salt air as though it
were a potion magic in power. His being tingled for the struggle.
There was a light in an upper window of the Sailors' Rest. The blinds
were not drawn. No, the pair in that room were looking out to sea,
looking for the boat which did not come, looking in vain over the
tumbling riot of waves. But stay! Perhaps they looked no more now;
perhaps they had abandoned that hope for the night. Christine was not to
deliver his letter till the morrow; they would think that they had
to-night. The thought brought back his pain and his fierceness. They
would think that they had to-night! They were wrong there; but it was
ten o'clock. "Ten o'clock!" he muttered, as he drew rein at the door of
the Sailors' Rest and cast his eyes up to the light in the window over
his head.
Within, young Blake was turning away from the window.
"She won't come to-night," he said. "I suppose they started, or I should
have had a wire. They must have put back or put in for shelter
somewhere. And if she did come, I couldn't take you to sea to-night." He
came across to where Sibylla sat over the fire. "It's no use expecting
her to-night. We must get away to-morrow morning. There's plenty of
time." He meant time before Grantley Imason would receive Sibylla's
letter and come to Fairhaven, seeking his wife.
"It's too perverse," Sibylla murmured forlornly.
Her vision of their flight was gone. The rush through the waves, the
whistling wind, the headlong course, the recklessness, the remoteness
from all the world, the stir, the movement, the excitement--all were
gone. On the yacht, out in mid-sea, no land in sight, making for a new
world, they two alone, with all that belonged to the old life out of
view and out of thought--the picture had caught and filled her fancy. In
her dream the sea had been as Lethe, the stretch of waters a flood
submerging all the past and burying the homes of memory. She had stood
arm in arm with him, revelling in the riot of the open seas. No further
had the vision gone. The room in the inn was very different. It was
small, stuffy, and not too clean. The smell of stale tobacco and of
dregs of liquor hung about it. The fire smoked, sending out every now
and then a thick dirty cloud that settled on her hands and hair. Her
dainty cleanliness rose in revolt. It was a sordid little room. It was
odious then; it would never be pleasant in retrospect. Somehow it
carried a taint with it; it brought into prominence all that her
thoughts had forgotten; its four dingy walls shut out the glowing
picture which her fancy had painted.
Blake came and stood behind her chair, laying his hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him with a sad smile.
"Nothing's quite what you expect," she said. "I wanted my voyage! I
suppose I didn't want--reality! But I'm not a child, Walter. I have
courage. This makes no difference really."
"Of course it doesn't--so long as we're together."
"I didn't come to you to make the good times better, but to make the bad
times good--to do away with the bad times. That's what you wanted me
for; that's what I wanted to do." She rose and faced him. "So I'll
always welcome trouble--because then I'm wanted, then I can do what I've
come to do."
"Don't talk about trouble, Sibylla. We're going to be very happy."
"Yes, I think so," she said, looking at him with thoughtful eyes. "I
think we shall be."
"By God, I love you so!" he burst out suddenly, and then walked off to
the window again.
She spread out her hands in an instinctive gesture of deprecation, but
her smile was happy.
"That's how I can do what I want to do for you," she said. "That's how I
can change your life, and--and find something to do with mine."
He came slowly back towards her, speaking in a low restrained voice:
"It's really no use waiting for the boat. She won't come."
Sibylla stood very still; her eyes were fixed on his face. He met her
gaze for a moment, then turned away, sat down by the table, and lit a
cigarette--doing it just by habit, and because he was so restless, not
because he wanted to smoke.
She stood there in silence for two or three minutes. Once she shuddered
just perceptibly. She was striving to yield, to do what he asked, to
live up to her gospel of giving everything so that she might make happy
him whom she had chosen to receive her gifts--might make him happy, and
so fill, enrich, and ennoble his life and hers. She had not thought
there would be a struggle; that had got left out in the visions--the
visions which were full of the swish of the wind, the dance of the
waves, and the sailing to worlds new and beautiful. What struggled? Old
teachings, old habits, instincts ingrained. She was acting in obedience
to ideas, not to feeling. And feeling alone has power to blot such
things out of being.
But for good and evil she was a fanatic--she owned her ideas as masters,
and forced herself to bend to them as a slave. What they asked must be
given--whatever the sacrifice, the struggle, the repulsion. That they
might realise what her nature craved, they must be propitiated by what
her nature did not love. On that condition alone would they deal with
her. And now these ideas, with all their exacting relentless claims, had
found embodiment in Walter Blake.
Blake turned his head and looked at her. She came quickly to him and
fell on her knees by him. His hand rested on the table, and she laid
hers lightly on it.
"Walter, it's hard!"
"If you love me----" he murmured.
She knew by now that love can be unmerciful. With a little sigh she
raised his hand and kissed it. She was half reconciled to her surrender,
because she hated it. Had anyone been there to interpose and forbid, her
reluctant acceptance would have been turned into an ardent desire to
complete her sacrifice.
Young Blake flung away his cigarette and sprang to his feet. He was not
thinking of his aspirations now. Wanting to be good was not present to
his mind, nor the leading of a new life. He was full of triumph. He
forgot the yacht that had not come, and anything there might be
uncongenial in the surroundings. He caught Sibylla's hands. She looked
at him with a smile half of wonder, half of pity. She had put away her
shrinking, though it might come back; but it was a little strange that
good could be done only on conditions.
They were standing thus when they heard a voice, the loud gruff voice
belonging to the retired merchant-skipper who kept the inn. He was
rather a rough customer, as indeed the quality of his patrons rendered
necessary; he did not hesitate to throw a man out or (as Fairhaven's
report averred) to lay a stick across the back of the saucy buxom
daughter who served the bar for him if her sauciness became too
pronounced. On the whole he was the sort of character popular in the
nautical quarter of Fairhaven.
The loud voice came from a distance--from the bottom of the stairs
apparently. The landlord was talking to himself, for all that
appeared--no other voice made itself heard. He was saying that he had
made a promise, and that he was a man of his word. He said this several
times. Blake and Sibylla stood hand in hand, their eyes turned in the
direction of the door. Then the landlord observed that "times were hard,
and that he was a poor man." Blake and Sibylla heard that too. Then the
landlord's heavy step came half-way up the stairs. "A poor man," they
heard him say with strong emphasis. Still they could hear no other voice
and no other step. But they had dropped one another's hands by now, and
stood quite still a couple of paces apart.
"Oh, he's bargaining with somebody for the price of a bed!" said young
Blake, with an attempt at lightness.
The landlord's steps were heard descending the stairs again. And now
another step drew near.
Suddenly young Blake darted towards the door and locked it. He turned a
scared face round on Sibylla. The steps sounded along the passage. His
eyes met hers. He did not know the step, but he knew the one thing that
he feared, and his uneasy mind flew to the apprehension of it.
"Can it be--anybody?" he whispered.
"It's Grantley," she answered quietly. "Unlock the door. I'm not afraid
to meet him. In the end I believe I'm glad."
"No, no! You're mad! You mustn't see him. I'll see him. You go into the
other room." There was a communicating door which led to a bedroom.
"I'll not let him come near you. I'll stand between you and him."
"I must see him. I'm not afraid, Walter. Unlock the door."
"Oh, but I shan't let him come in. I shall----"
"If it's Grantley, he'll come in. Unlock the door. At any rate we can't
have the door broken in."
She smiled a little as she said this, and then sat down in the chair by
the table where Blake had been sitting when she kissed his hand and gave
him her surrender.
A knock came on the door. Young Blake unlocked it, and stood opposite to
it. His face was pale now.
"He shan't come near you," he whispered to Sibylla over his shoulder.
She made no sign. She sat resting her clasped hands on the table and
gazing intently towards the door. There was no sign of confusion or of
guilt about her. Her face was composed and calm. Young Blake's fists
were clenched. He seemed to keep himself still with an effort.
The door opened, and Grantley appeared on the threshold. He was very
wet; the rain dripped from his hat as he took it off his head; salt
spray hung on the hair over his ears. He shook himself as he shut the
door behind him. Then he looked from Sibylla to Blake, and back to
Sibylla, at last fixing his eyes on her.
"You can't come in here," said Blake. "I'll come outside with you, if
you like, but you can't come in here."
Grantley took no notice. His eyes were on Sibylla.
"Am I too late, Sibylla?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered tranquilly, "too late."
A sudden flush swept over Grantley's face, but in an instant his usual
pallor had returned.
"In the sense in which I spoke, is that true, Sibylla?"
She shrugged her shoulders a little. She seemed composed and almost
careless as she answered, with a touch of contempt:
"No; but it is true, for all that."