AN UNCOMPROMISING EXPRESSION
On the morrow of her attempted flight and enforced return a leaden
heaviness had clogged Sibylla's brain and limbs. Her body was quick to
recover; her thoughts were for long drowsy and numb. She seemed to have
died to an old life without finding a new one. Blake was to her as a
dead friend; she would see and hear of him no more; she harboured no
idea of meeting him again. The bonds between them were finally rent.
This attitude towards him saved his character from criticism and his
weakness from too close an examination, while it left her free to brood
in the security of despair on all that she had thought to find in him
and on the desolation his loss had made. The instinctive love for her
child, which had asserted itself while her intellect was dormant, could
not prevail against the sullen preoccupation of re-awaking thoughts,
or, if it could penetrate into them, came no more fresh and pure, but
tainted with the sorrow and the anger which circled round that innocent
head. She was tender, but in pity, not in pride; she loved, but without
joy. The shadows hung so dark about the child's cot. They hid from her
eyes still the sin of her own desertion, and hindered the remorse which
might best lead her back to love unalloyed. Still she arraigned not
herself but only Grantley and the inevitable. Grantley was the
inevitable; there stood the truth of it; she bowed her head to the
knowledge, but did not incline her heart to the lesson it had to teach.
Yet the knowledge counted; she looked on Grantley with different eyes.
The revelation of himself, wrung from him by overpowering necessity, did
its work. The resolve he had then announced, presumptuous beyond the
right of mortal man, less than human in its cruelty, almost more than
human in its audacity of successful revolt against destiny, might leave
him hateful still, but showed him not negligible. He could not be put on
one side, discarded, eliminated from her life. He was too big for that.
Against her will he attracted her attention and constrained her
interest. The thought of what lay beneath his suave demeanour sometimes
appalled, sometimes amused, and always fascinated her now. She saw that
her old conception had erred; it had been too negative in character;
what he could not do or be or give had seemed the whole of the matter to
her. In the light of the revelation that was wrong. The positive--a very
considerable positive--must be taken into account. The pride she had
loathed was not a barren self-conceit, nor merely a sterile
self-engrossment. It had issue in an assurance almost supernatural and a
courage above morality. Sibylla's first relief came in the reflection
that though she might have married a monster, at least she had not given
herself to a stick or a stone; she was clear as to her preference when
the choice was reduced to that alternative.
His behaviour appealed to her humour too--that humour which could not
save her from running away with Blake under the spell of her ideas, but
would certainly have made her want to run away from him when the glamour
of the ideas had worn off. The old perfection of manner found a new
ornament in his easy ignoring of the whole affair. He referred to it
once only, then indirectly and because he had a reason. He suggested
apologetically that it would be well for them to exchange remarks more
freely when the servants were waiting on them at meals.
"It will prevent comment on recent events," he added, as though that
were his only reason.
Sibylla was deceived at first, but presently detected another and more
important motive. The suggestion marked the beginning of a new campaign
on which his inexhaustible perseverance engaged. He understood that his
wife accused him of not taking her into his confidence, and of not
making her a partner in his life. He was no more minded than before that
she should have even plausible grounds for complaint. Starting, then,
from general topics and subjects arising out of the journals of the day,
he slid placidly and dexterously into frequent discussions of his own
plans and doings, his business, his work on the County Council, his
Parliamentary ambitions, his schemes for improving the property at
Milldean. Sibylla acknowledged the cleverness of these tactics with a
rueful smile. She had claimed to share his life; yet most of these
topics happened to seem to her rather tedious. But she was debarred from
saying that to Grantley; his retort was so obvious. She was often bored,
but she was amused that boredom should be the first result of the new
method.
"I hope all this interests you?" Grantley would inquire politely.
"Of course, since it concerns you," equal politeness obliged her to
reply--and not politeness only. She had to be interested; it had been
her theory that she would be, her grievance that she had been denied the
opportunity of being. Nor could she make out whether Grantley had any
inkling of her suppressed indifference to the County Council and so
forth. Was he exercising his humour too? She could not tell, but
curiosity and amusement tempered the coldness of her courtesy. They got
on really very well at dinner, and especially while the servants were in
the room; there was sometimes an awkward pause just after they were left
alone. But on the whole the trifling daily intercourse went better than
before Sibylla's flight--went indeed fairly well, as it can generally be
made to if people are well bred and moderately humorous.
The great quarrel remained untouched, no span bridged the great chasm.
Grantley might consent to talk about his County Council; that was merely
a polite concession, involving no admission of guilt, and acknowledging
no such wrong to his wife as could for a moment justify her action. When
it came to deeper matters, he was afflicted with a shame and
helplessness which seemed to paralyse him. To gloss over the absence of
love, or even of friendship, was a task at which he was apt and tactful;
to gain it back was work of the heart--and here he was as yet at a
standstill. His instinct had told him to work through the child. But if
he caressed the child in order to conciliate Sibylla, he would do a mean
thing, and yet not succeed in his deception; he would admit a previous
fault and gain no absolution by a calculated and interested confession.
He could not bring himself to it. His manner to the child was as
carelessly kind as ever; and when Sibylla was there the carelessness was
almost more apparent than the kindness. Grantley's nature was against
him; to do violence to it was a struggle. Ever ready to be kind, he
disliked to show emotion. He felt it was being false to himself; being a
sham and a hypocrite. To be gushing was abhorrent to him; to pretend to
gush surely touched a more profound depth? His efforts achieved no
success; and he did not let Sibylla perceive even the efforts
themselves. For once his will, strong as it was, and his clear
perception were both powerless before his temper and the instincts of
his nature. The result was a deadlock. Matters could not move.
Such was the juncture of affairs when Christine Fanshaw came to
Milldean. Her resolve to escape from the atmosphere of disgrace at home
perhaps alone could have brought her; for she came in some trepidation,
rather surprised that Sibylla had welcomed her, wondering whether the
welcome was of Sibylla's own free will. Had she not betrayed Sibylla?
Was she not responsible for the frustration of the great plan? Yet an
acute curiosity mingled with and almost overpowered her apprehensions,
and she was prepared to defend herself. The rumours about Walter Blake
would be a weapon, if she needed one--a weapon effective, if cruel. As
regards her own treachery, she made haste to throw herself on Sibylla's
mercy.
"Of course you must have known it was through me?" she ended.
"Oh, yes, I knew that, of course."
"Here's your letter--the one you sent me to hand on to Grantley. He
wired me not to send it."
"Oh, I thought he'd read it," said Sibylla thoughtfully.
She took it and put it in her pocket.
Christine looked at her with a smile.
"And yet you ask me to stay!" she remarked.
Sibylla smiled mockingly.
"Since this household owes all its happiness to you, it's only fair that
you should come and look on at it."
"That's not at all a comfortable thing to say, Sibylla."
"No, it isn't, and it departs from our principle, which is to say
nothing."
"That's not always very comfortable either."
Christine was giving a thought to her own affairs here.
"And we won't say anything more about what you did," Sibylla went on.
"We won't discuss whether you were right, or whether I'm grateful, or
anything of that sort."
"You ought to be."
"Or even whether I ought to be--though, of course, you'd want to think
that."
Christine was disappointed. In her heart she had rather hoped to be put
on her defence just enough to entitle her to use her weapon, and to tell
some of the truth about Walter Blake. Sibylla's attitude gave her no
excuse.
Though she would say nothing more about what Christine had done, Sibylla
was easily persuaded to break the principle of silence about the main
affair. Christine's curiosity lost the zest of difficult satisfaction;
she had the whole history for the asking. She heard it, marvelling at
the want of reticence her friend displayed, seeking how to reconcile
this seeming immodesty with the rest of her impression of Sibylla. She
recollected being very shy and ashamed (in the midst of her exultation)
when she had let Harriet Courtland worm out the secret of her love for
Caylesham. Sibylla was not ashamed--she was candid. Sometimes she was
excited, sometimes she played the judge; but she was never abashed.
Christine's wits sought hard for an explanation of this. Suddenly it
came to her as she gazed on Sibylla's pure face and far-away eyes.
"My dear, you were never in love with him!" she cried.
If she hoped to surprise, or even to win a compliment on her
penetration, she was utterly deceived.
"Oh, no!" said Sibylla. "In the way you mean I've never been in love
with anybody except Grantley."
"Then why did you? Oh, tell me about it!" Christine implored.
"He appealed to my better feelings," Sibylla smiled back to her, mocking
again. "I'd give the world that we hadn't been stopped! No, I can't say
that, because----"
"Well?"
"I think Grantley would have done what he said."
Christine was the last woman in the world to rest ignorant of what
Grantley had said. Sibylla was again disappointingly ready to tell the
whole thing without any pressure worth mentioning.
"And you really believe he would have?" Christine half whispered when
she had heard the story.
"If I didn't believe it with my whole heart, I shouldn't be here. I
should be--well, somewhere--with Walter Blake."
"Thank God you're not!"
"Why do you say that? The proprieties, Christine?"
"Oh, only partly; but don't you think lightly of them, all the same. And
the rest of the reasons don't matter." Christine got up and walked
across the room and back again before she came to a stand opposite
Sibylla. "I call that a man worth being in love with," she said.
"Walter?"
"Heavens, no! Grantley Imason! Oh, I know he's your husband! But
still----"
Sibylla broke into a gentle laugh.
"It has the attraction of the horrible," she admitted. "He'd have done
it, you know."
"It's mediæval," said Christine fondly. "And you were going away with
Walter Blake!" She drew her little figure up straight. "Sibylla, you're
no woman if you don't manage a man like that in the end. He's worth it,
you know."
"You mean--if I don't let him manage me?" Sibylla was a little
contemptuous. "I don't care about tyranny, even tempered by epigrams,"
she explained.
"Well, not when you only do the epigrams," smiled Christine.
"That's not true. I only ask a real partnership."
"You must begin by contributing all you have."
"I did. But Grantley----"
"Paid a composition? Oh yes, my dear; men do. That's as old as Byron
anyhow." She came suddenly to Sibylla and kissed her. "And you'd be
adorable, properly deluded."
"You shan't put it like that, Christine."
"Yes, I will--and I know he loves you."
"He can't love anything--not really."
"I shall watch him. Oh, my dear, what a comfort to watch anybody except
John! Oh yes, yes, I suppose you'd better have my story too. You've had
most of it before--without the name. But look away. I've no theories,
you know--and--well, I was in love."
She laughed a little, blushing red. But her composure returned when she
had finished her confession.
"And now what do we think of one another?" she asked, with her usual
satirical little smile. "You don't know? Oh yes! You think me rather
wicked, and I think you very silly; that's about what it comes to."
"I suppose that is about it," Sibylla laughed reluctantly.
"But I've repented, and you're only going to repent."
"Never!"
"Yes, you are. I take no credit for having done it first. It's much
easier to repent of wickedness than of nonsense. The wickedness is much
pleasanter at the time, and so seems much worse afterwards."
"And now you're in love with John?"
"Good heavens, no!" She pulled herself up. "Well, I don't know. If I'm
in love now, it's not what I used to mean by it. One gets to use words
so differently as time goes on."
"I don't think I shall ever learn that."
Destiny assumed Christine's small neat features for a moment in order to
answer sternly:
"But you must!"
It was the worst way of dealing with Sibylla.
"I won't!" she answered in overt rebellion, her cheek flushing now as
her confession had not availed to make it flush.
Christine did not fail to perceive the comic element in the case--strong
enough, at all events, to serve as a relief to conversation, almost
piquant when Grantley conscientiously related all manner of
uninteresting things in order that Sibylla might be at liberty to take
an interest in them. But this aspect did not carry matters very far or
afford much real consolation. Substantially no progress was made. The
failure endured, and seemed to Christine as complete as the devastation
wrought in her own life. Nay, here there was an aggravation. In her
home--she almost smiled to use the word now--there was no child. Here
there was the boy. Her thoughts flew forward to the time when he would
wonderingly surmise, painfully guess, at last grow into knowledge.
And already the mind stirred in little Frank. His intelligence grew, his
affection blossomed as the first buds of a flower. He was no more merely
a passive object of love and care. He began to know more than that he
was nursed and fed, more than that his right was to these ministrations.
The idea of the reason dawned in him. He stretched forth his hand no
longer for bounty only, but for the inspirer of bounty--for love. Strung
to abnormal sensitiveness, Christine deluded herself with the fancy that
already he felt the shadow over the house, that his young soul was
already chilled by the clouds of anger, and vainly cried for the
sunshine of sympathy. If she did not truly see, yet she foresaw truly.
Seeing and foreseeing, then, she asked where was the hope. And on this,
with a bound, her thoughts were back to her own sorrow, and back to poor
lonely old John in London, all by himself, with nobody to talk to,
nobody to congratulate him on the success of his business, nobody to
open his heart to, alone with his grievance against her, alone with the
thought that, notwithstanding his grievance, he had taken Frank
Caylesham's money, and grew prosperous again by the aid of it.
When Christine had been at Milldean a fortnight or so, business carried
Grantley to town. The change his departure made was instantaneous and
striking. A weight was off the house, the clouds dispersed. Sibylla was
full of gaiety, and in that mood she could make all about her share her
mirth. Above all, her devotion to Frank was given full rein. The child
was always with her, and she knew no happiness save in evoking and
responding to his love. She was now open and ostentatious about it,
fearing no frigid glances and no implied criticism of her fond folly.
Christine might well have found new ground for despair, so plainly did
Sibylla display to her the blighting influence of Grantley's presence.
He it was who froze up love--so Sibylla declared with an impetuous
aggressive openness. But Christine would not despair. A wholesome anger
rose in her heart and forbade despair. Her manner took on a coldness
exceeding Grantley's indifference. She would not be a sharer in the
games, a partner in the merriment, a sympathiser in the love. Sibylla
was not slow to see how she stood off and drew herself away. Quickly she
sought for reasons. Was it that Christine would not join in what seemed
to be a league against Grantley; or was there another reason? She had
told Christine how it was through Walter Blake's weakness and not
through her scruples that little Frank had not been left to his fate.
Did her love then seem hypocrisy? That was not true--though it might be
true that remorse now had a share in it. The more the child grew to
life, the more horrible became the thought that he might have died.
After a day or two of smouldering protest, she broke out on Christine.
"You think I've no right to love him," she asked, "after what I was
ready to do? Is that what you think? Oh, speak out plainly! I see you've
got something against me."
Christine was cold and composed. Never had her delicately critical
manner been more pronounced.
"I'm sure I hope you repent," she observed meditatively; "and I hope you
thank heaven that man was what he turned out to be."
"Well, call it repentance, then. I suppose I've a right to repent? You
can't understand how I really feel. But if it is repentance, why need
you discourage it?"
"I don't discourage repentance, and I'm glad you're beginning to see
that you ought to repent. But it's not that I'm thinking of."
"What are you thinking of, then?" cried Sibylla in unrestrained
impatience.
"You're prepared for an open quarrel?"
"Oh, I shan't quarrel with you!" Her smile was rather disdainful.
"No, you won't quarrel with me; I'm not of enough importance to you! I'm
very glad I'm not, you know. Being important to you doesn't seem to be
consistent with being an independent creature."
Sibylla glanced at her in arrested attention.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked in low quick tones. The charge was
so strangely like that which she was for ever formulating against
Grantley. Now Christine levelled it at her.
"You call Grantley selfish," Christine went on. "You're just as bad
yourself--yes, worse! He is trying to be different, I believe. Oh, I
admit the poor man doesn't do it very well: he gets very little
encouragement! But are you trying? No! You're quite content with
yourself. You've done no wrong---- Well, perhaps it was a little
questionable to be ready to leave Frank to die! But even that would be
all right if only I could understand it!"
"You'd better go on now," said Sibylla quietly.
"Yes, I will go on; I am going on. You were ready to leave the child to
die sooner than go on living as you'd been living. Isn't that how you
put it? You were willing to give his life to prevent that? Well, are you
willing to give any of your own life, any of your way of thinking, any
of what you call your nature, or your temperament, or what not? Not a
bit of it! You can love Frank when there's no danger of Grantley's
thinking it may mean that you could forgive him! As soon as there's any
danger of that, you draw back. You use the unhappy child as a shield
between Grantley and yourself, as a weapon against Grantley. Yes you do,
Sibylla. Whenever you're inclined to relent towards Grantley, you go and
sit by that child's cot and use your love for him to fan your hatred
against Grantley. Isn't that true?"
Sibylla sat silent, with attentive frightened eyes. This was a new
picture--was it a true one? One feature of it at least struck home with
a terribly true-seeming likeness of her own mind. She used her love for
her child to fan her hatred against Grantley!
"You complain," Christine went on in calm relentlessness, "of what
Grantley is to the child. That's a sham most of the time. You're
thinking of what he is to you. And even where it's true, don't you do
all you can to make him feel as he does? How is he to love what you make
the stalking-horse of your grievances?" She turned on Sibylla
scornfully, almost fiercely now. "Your husband, your son, the whole
world, aren't made for your emotions to go sprawling over, Sibylla! You
must have caught that idea from young Blake, I think."
She walked off to the window and stood there, looking out. No sound came
from Sibylla. Presently Christine looked round rather nervously. She had
gone a little too far perhaps. That phrase about emotions "sprawling"
was--well, decidedly uncompromising. She met Sibylla's eyes. They wore a
hunted look--as though some peril walled her in and she found no way of
escape. Her voice trembled as she faltered:
"Is that what you really think of me, Christine?"
"A bruised reed thou shalt not break." Christine had the wisdom to
remember that. Remorse must fall short of despair, self-knowledge of
self-hatred, or there remains no possibility of a rebound to hope and
effort. Christine came across to her friend with hands outstretched.
"No, no, dear," she said, "not you--not yourself! But this mood of
yours, the way you're going on. And, true or false, isn't it what you
must make Grantley think?"
Sibylla moved her hands in a restless gesture, protesting against the
picture of herself--even thus softened--denying its truth, fascinated by
it.
"I don't know," she murmured, "I don't know. Christine, it's a horrible
idea!"
Christine fell on her knees beside her.
"If only you hadn't been so absurdly in love with him, my dear!" she
whispered.