PICKING UP THE PIECES
Mrs. Bolton was very much upset by what had happened at the Courtlands'.
An unwonted and irksome sense of responsibility oppressed her. She
discussed the matter with Miss Henderson and made Caylesham come to see
her--Miss Pattie Henderson, who knew all about how Sophy's letter had
reached her mother's hands; and Caylesham, whom Mrs. Bolton had made a
party to the joke. It did not seem so good a joke now. She and Pattie
were both frightened when they saw to what their pleasantry had led.
Little Sophy's suffering was not pleasant to think of, and there was an
uncomfortable uncertainty about the manner of Harriet's death. A scheme
may prove too successful sometimes. Caylesham had warned Mrs. Bolton
that she was playing with dangerous tools. He was not now inclined to
let her down too easily, nor to put the kindest interpretation on the
searchings of her conscience.
"You always time your fits of morality so well," he observed cynically.
"I don't suppose poor old Tom's amusing company just now, and he's
certainly deuced hard up."
Mrs. Bolton looked a very plausible picture of injured innocence, but of
course there was something in what Frank Caylesham said; there generally
was, though it might not be what you would be best pleased to find. Tom
was not lively nor inclined for gaiety, and he had just made a
composition with his creditors. On the other hand, Miss Henderson was in
funds (having completed her negotiations with the Parmenter family), and
had suggested a winter on the Riviera, with herself for hostess. There
are, fortunately, moments when the good and the pleasant coincide; the
worst of it is that such happy harmonies are apt to come rather late in
the day.
"It's all different now that woman's gone," observed Mrs. Bolton. "It's
the children now, Frank."
"Supposing it is, why am I to be dragged into it?"
"We must get him to go back to them."
Various feelings combined to make Mrs. Bolton very earnest.
"He wants to stay here, does he?"
"No, he hates being here now. Yes, he does. He only comes because he's
got nobody else to speak to. And he's in awful dumps all the time. It's
not very cheerful for me."
"I daresay not, Flora. But why doesn't he go back then?"
Mrs. Bolton had been moving about the room restlessly. Her back was to
Caylesham as she answered:
"He won't. He says he can't. He says----"
Caylesham threw a glance at her, his brows raised.
"What does he say, Flora?"
"Oh, it's nonsense--and he needn't say it to me, anyhow. It really isn't
particularly pleasant for me. Oh, well, then, he says he's not fit to go
near them." She turned round to him; there was a flush on her face.
"Such nonsense!" she ended impatiently.
Caylesham pulled his moustache, and smiled reflectively.
"I suppose it might take him like that," he observed, with an impartial
air.
"Oh, I know you're only laughing at me! But I tell you, I don't like it,
Frank."
"These little incidents are--well, incidental, Flora. Innocent children,
you know! And I shouldn't be surprised if he even made excuses for
Harriet now?"
"No, he doesn't do that. It's the children. Stop smiling like that, will
you?"
"Certainly, my dear Flora. My smile was a pure oversight."
"It was all I could do to get him to go to the funeral. Do you think she
killed herself, Frank?"
"I've not the least intention of examining the question. What can it
matter?"
Mrs. Bolton shrugged her shoulders impatiently. It did seem to her to
matter, but she would not let Caylesham think that it mattered much. She
returned to her point about the children.
"He's miserable thinking about them, and yet he won't go near them. I
call it idiotic."
"So do I. But then they aren't our children."
"Well, I'm not going to stand his saying it again and again to me."
"I really agree. There can't be any reason for saying such a thing more
than once."
She broke into a vexed laugh.
"When you've had all the fun you can get out of me, perhaps you'll begin
to help me. You see, I want it settled. I want to be off to Monte with
Pattie."
"I see. You want to go with Pattie and----?"
Mrs. Bolton shook her head.
"Just you and Pattie?"
"She's going to stand it to me: I haven't got a farthing. And, I say,
Frank, he ought to go back to those poor little wretches now. You can
make him do it if you like, you know."
"I? Well, I'm an odd sort of party for such a job."
"Not a bit. He'll listen to you just because--well, because----"
"I haven't spared your feelings, Flora, don't mind mine."
"Because he knows you don't talk humbug or cant."
"You're being complimentary after all--or at any rate you're meaning to
be. And you'd never see him again?"
"He'll never want to see me." She was facing Caylesham now. "I've been
fond of poor old Tom. Come, you know I have? Say that for me."
"Yes, I know you have. I've reproved you for it myself."
"But he'll not want to see me--and soon I shan't want to see him
either."
She looked a little distressed for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders
with a laugh.
"That's the way of the world."
"Of part of it," Caylesham murmured as he lit a cigar.
But he was really sorry for Mrs. Bolton. Notwithstanding a notable
mixture of motives, in which the condition of her purse and the
opportunity of going to the Riviera figured largely, she was grieved at
the way in which her friendship with Tom was ending--grieved that it
must end, and hurt that Tom should desire to have it ended. She had
always suffered from this unfortunate tendency to kindly emotions which
the exigencies of her position did not permit her to indulge. Indeed it
was very likely the kindly emotions which had originally produced the
position. That did not make the matter any better; the ultimate
incongruity was none the less undesirable. With his indifference to
accepted codes, Caylesham thought it rather lamentable too. Still she
did want, above all things, to go to the Riviera with Pattie Henderson.
One must compromise with life, and it was not clear that she was getting
the worst of the bargain.
With Flora Bolton set aside (and of course she had no reasonable title
to consideration), the case seemed a simple one to Caylesham, and his
mission an obvious utterance of common sense. He could not enter fully
into Tom Courtland's mind. Tom was not naturally a lawless man;
desperation had made him break loose. The bygone desperation was
forgotten now in pity for his children and for the woman whom, after
all, he had once loved; and he looked with shame on the thing he had
done, attributing to it all the results which Harriet's fury had
engrafted on it. Broken in fortune and in career, broken too in
self-respect, he had been likely to drift on in a life which he had come
to abhor. He felt his presence an outrage on his children. If the death
of his wife had seemed to save him from a due punishment, here was a
penalty different, but hardly less severe. While he was in this mood
Caylesham was the best man to carry the message to him. The only chance
with Tom was to treat what he had done as natural, but to insist that
the sequence of events was utterly unexpected and essentially
unconnected with it. To urge the gravity of his offence would have been
to make reparation and atonement impossible. Caylesham took a very
strong and simple line. He declined to discuss the state of Tom's
conscience, or the blackness of Tom's mind, or even the whiteness of the
minds of the children. Everybody was very much alike, or would be in a
few years anyhow, and Tom was not to be an ass. The line of argument was
not exalted, but it was adapted to the needs of the case.
"My dear chap, if you come to that, what man is fit to look his children
in the face?" he asked impatiently.
But then it occurred to him that he was idealising--a thing he hated.
"Not that children aren't often wicked little beggars themselves," he
added cheerfully. "They steal and lie like anything, and torment one
another devilishly. I know I did things as a boy that I'd kick any grown
man for doing, and so did my brothers and sisters. I tell you what it
is, Tom, the devil's there all the time; he shows himself in different
ways--that's all."
Tom could not swallow this gospel; he would give up neither his own
iniquity nor the halo of purity to which his mind clung amid the sordid
ruin of his life and home.
"If I could pull straight----" he murmured despairingly.
"Why shouldn't you? You're getting on in life, you know, after all."
"They--they guess something about it, I expect, Frank. It's not pleasant
for a man to be ashamed before his own children. And Miss Bligh--I
thought she looked at me very queerly at the funeral."
"You'll find they'll be as nice as possible to you. The children won't
understand anything, and Suzette's sure to be on your side. Women always
are, you know. They're not naturally moral--we've imposed it on them,
and they always like to get an excuse for approving of the other thing."
Tom grew savage.
"I know what I've done, but anyhow I'm glad I don't think as you do."
"Never mind my thoughts, old chap. You go home to your kids," said
Caylesham cheerfully.
He was very good-humoured over the matter; neither all the unnecessary
fuss nor Tom's aspersions on his own character and views disturbed him
in the least; and he did not leave Tom until he had obtained the
assurance that he desired. This given, he went off to his club, thanking
heaven that he was quit of a very tiresome business. If he did his bad
deeds without misgiving, he did his good without arrogance; perhaps they
were not numerous enough to give that feeling a plausible excuse for
emergence.
"It's all right," he wrote to Mrs. Bolton in reporting his success. "I
made him promise not to be an ass. So you can go off with Pattie with a
mind free of care. Good luck to you, and lots of plunder!"
The immoral friendliness of this wish for her success quite touched Mrs.
Bolton.
"Frank's a really good-hearted fellow," she told Miss Henderson as she
settled herself in the train and started on her journey, the fortunes of
which it is not necessary to follow.
For days Lucy and little Vera had crept fearfully through the silent
house, knowing that a dreadful thing had happened, not allowed to put
questions, and hardly daring to speculate about it between themselves.
When Sophy began to be about again, pale and shaken, with the bandage
still round her head, she took the lead as she was wont to do, and her
bolder mind fastened on the change in the situation. There was no need
to be afraid any more; that was the great fact which came home to her,
and which she proclaimed to her sisters. It might be proper to move
quietly and talk low for a little while, but it was a tribute to what
was becoming, not a sign of terror or a precaution against danger. It
was Sophy too who ventured to question Suzette, and to elicit
instructions as to their future conduct. They were to think very kindly
of mamma and love her memory, said Suzette, but they were not to talk
about her to papa when he came back, because that would distress him.
And they were not to ask him why he had gone away, or where he had been.
Of course he had had business; and, anyhow, little girls ought not to be
inquisitive. A question remained in Sophy's mind, and was even canvassed
in private schoolroom consultations. What about that portentous word
which had been whispered through the household--what about the divorce?
None of them found courage to ask that, or perhaps they had pity on poor
Suzette Bligh, who was so terribly uncomfortable under their
questioning. At any rate nothing more was heard about the divorce. Since
it had appeared to mean that papa was to go away, and since he was
coming back now, presumably it had been put on the shelf somehow. All
the same, their sharp instincts told them that their father would not
have come back unless their mother had died, and that he was coming back
now--well, in a sort of disgrace; that was how they put it in their
thoughts.
A committee consisting of Kate Raymore, Janet Selford, and John Fanshaw
(a trustee under the Courtland marriage settlement, and so possessing a
status), had sat to consider Suzette Bligh's position. Suzette loved the
children, and it would be sad if she had to leave them; moreover she was
homeless, and a fixed salary would be welcome to her. Lastly--and on
this point Janet Selford laid stress--she was not exactly a girl; she
was just on thirty. John nodded agreement, adding that nobody outside of
an asylum could connect scandal with the name of Suzette Bligh. So it
was decided that she should stay, for the present at all events, in the
capacity of companion or governess. The children wondered to find
Suzette so gently radiant and affectionate one evening. She had not told
them of the doubt which had arisen, nor how great a thing it was to her
to stay. They had never doubted that she would stay with them now.
It was late one afternoon when Tom Courtland slunk home. He had sent no
word of his coming, because he did not know till the last minute whether
he would have courage to come. Then he had made the plunge, given up his
room at the club, packed his luggage, and left it to be called for. But
the plunge was very difficult to him--so that his weak will would not
have faced it unless that other door at Mrs. Bolton's had been firmly
shut in his face. He was uncomfortable before the man who let him in; he
was wretchedly apprehensive of Suzette Bligh and of the children. He
needed--very badly needed--Caylesham at his elbow again, to tell him
"not to be an ass." But Caylesham had gone back to employments more
congenial than he ever professed to find works of benevolence. Tom had
to endure alone, and he could find no comfort. Against Harriet he could
have made a case--a very good case in the judgment of half the world.
But he seemed to have no excuse to offer to the little girls, nor any
plea to meet the wondering disapprobation of Suzette Bligh.
He was told that the children were in the schoolroom with Suzette, and
thither he bent his steps, going slowly and indecisively. He stopped
outside the door and listened. He could hear Suzette's mild voice;
apparently she was reading to them, for nothing except the continuous
flow of her words was audible, and in conversation she was not so
loquacious as that. Well, he must go in; perhaps it would be all right
when once the ice was broken. He opened the door and stood on the
threshold, blushing like a schoolboy.
"Well, my dears, here I am," he said. "I've come home."
He caught Suzette's eye. She was blushing too, blushing a very vivid
pink--rather a foolish pink somehow. He felt that both he and Suzette
were looking very silly. For quite a long time, as it seemed, he looked
at Suzette before he looked at the little girls. After that there was,
or seemed to be, another long silence while the little girls looked
first at him, then at Suzette, then at one another. Tom stood there
through it all--in the doorway, blushing.
The next moment all the three were upon him, clinging to his hands and
his coat, kissing him, crying out their gladness in little excited
exclamations, the two elder taking care to give Vera a fair chance to
get at him, Vera insisting that the chance was not a fair one, all the
three dragging him to an armchair, and sitting him down in it. Two of
them got on his knees, and Lucy stood by his side with her arm round his
neck.
"My dears!" Tom muttered, and found he could say no more.
His eyes met Suzette Bligh's. She was standing by the table, looking on,
and her eyes were misty.
"See how they love you, Mr. Courtland!" she said.
Yes! And he had forsaken them, and the bandage was about Sophy's head.
"You won't go away again, will you?" implored Lucy.
"No, I shan't go away again."
"And Suzette'll stay too, won't she?" urged Vera.
"I hope she will, indeed!"
"You will, Suzette?"
"Yes, dear."
"We shall be happy," said Sophy softly, with a note of wonder in her
voice.
It really seemed strange to have the prospect of being
happy--permanently, comfortably, without fear; the prospect of
happiness, not snatched at intervals, not broken by terror, but secure
and without apprehension.
Tom Courtland pressed his little children to him. Where were the
reproaches he had imagined, where the shame he had feared? They were
annihilated by love and swallowed up in gladness.
"We do love you so!" whispered Lucy.
Vera actually screamed in happiness.
"Oh, Vera!" said Suzette, rather shocked.
That set them all laughing, the little girls, Tom, presently even
Suzette herself. They were all laughing, though none of them could have
told exactly why. Their joy bubbled over in mirth, and the sound of
gladness was in the house. Tom Courtland held his head up and was his
own man again. Here was something to live for, and something to show
that even his broken life had not been lived in vain. The ghosts of the
past were there; he could not forget them. But the clasp of the warm
little arms which encircled him would keep their chilling touch away
from his heart. Freed from torments that he had not deserved, rescued
from pleasures that he had not enjoyed, he turned eagerly to the
delights of his home which could now be his. His glad children and
kindly Suzette were a picture very precious in his eyes. Here were
golden links by which the fragments of his life could be bound together,
though the fractures must always show--even as the scar would show
always on Sophy's brow, however much her lips might smile or her eyes
sparkle beneath it.
They were roused by a voice from the door.
"It's not hard to tell where you all are! Why, I heard you at the bottom
of the stairs! What a hullabaloo!"
John Fanshaw's bulky figure stood there, solid and bowed with weight and
his growing years. He looked on the scene--on the happy little folk in
their gloomy black frocks--with a kindly smile, and the mock reproof of
his tone hid more tenderness than he cared to show.
"Papa's come back--back to stay!" they cried exultantly. "Isn't that
splendid, Mr. Fanshaw?"
"I hoped I should find you here, Tom; but I came to call on Miss Bligh."
"I hope you'll always find her here too," said Tom.
Suzette was flattered, and fell to blushing again. She was acutely
grateful to anybody who wanted her. She took such a desire as a free and
lavish gift of kindness, never making out any reason which could account
for it.
"I'm only too happy to stay if--if I can be of any use," she murmured.
John sat down and made one of the party. They all chattered cheerfully
till the time grew late. Sophy, still treated as an invalid, had to go
to bed. She kissed John, who held her closely for a moment; then threw
herself in Tom's arms, and could hardly be persuaded to let him go.
"I shall write to Mr. Imason and tell him you've come back," she
whispered as a great secret. "He was so kind to Lucy and Vera
when---- You know, papa?"
Tom passed his hand over her flaxen hair.
"Sleep quietly, darling," he said.
For quiet and peace were possible now.
There had been no expectation that Tom would be home to dinner; and
though Suzette assured him that something could easily be prepared (and
that homely sort of attention was new and pleasant to Tom), he accepted
John Fanshaw's invitation to take pot-luck with him. They walked off
together, rather silent, each full of his own thoughts. They did not
speak until they had almost reached John's door.
"That's the sort of sight that makes a man wish he had children," said
John slowly.
"I've often wished I had none. Poor Harriet!"
"But you're glad of them now?"
"Why, I've nothing else! It just makes the difference to life." He
paused a moment, and then broke out: "And they've nothing but love for
me. Not a word, not a thought of reproach! Just because I've never been
cruel to them, whatever else I've been! Poor little beggars! We can't
keep like that when we grow up. We're too fond of our grievances--eh?"
John looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. They went into the
house in renewed silence. It seemed very large, empty, and dreary.
"Your wife not back yet? I heard she was staying with the Imasons."
"She's there still. I don't know when she's coming back."
"Rather dull for you, isn't it? You know you always depended on her a
lot."
John made no answer, but led the way into his study. He gave Tom an
evening paper, and began to open his letters. But his thoughts were not
on the letters. They were occupied with what he had seen that afternoon
and with the words which had fallen from Tom Courtland's lips. The
children forgave with that fine free forgiveness which will not even
recognise the need for itself or the existence of any fault towards
which it should be exercised. It is there that forgiveness rises to and
is merged in love. But when people grow up, Tom had said, they are too
fond of their grievances. John had been very fond of his grievance. It
was a fine large one--about the largest any man could have, everybody
must admit that; and John had declined to belittle it or to shear off an
inch or two of its imposing stature. All it demanded he had given. But
had he? What about Frank Caylesham's money? Had it not demanded there
something which he had refused? But he had given all it asked so far as
the sinner who had caused it was concerned. Against her he had nursed
and cosseted it; for its sake he had made his home desolate and starved
his heart. Aye, he had always depended on Christine. Tom was right. But
because of his grievance he had put her from him. He was fond of his
grievance indeed! If Tom's children had been old enough to recognise the
true value and preciousness of a big grievance, they would never have
received Tom as they had that afternoon; they would have made him feel
what he had been guilty of. He would have been made to feel it
handsomely before he was forgiven. Children were different, as Tom
Courtland said.
John got up and poked the fire fiercely.
"The house is beastly cold!" he grumbled.
"Ah, it wouldn't be if Mrs. John was at home!" laughed Tom. "She always
looks after the fire, doesn't she?"
John Fanshaw bitterly envied him his peace and happiness. He forgot how
hardly they had been achieved. The vision of the afternoon was before
his eyes, and he declared that fate was too kind to Tom. A heavy dulness
was over his face, and a forlorn puzzled look in his eyes. He must have
done right, he must be doing right! How could a self-respecting man do
otherwise? And yet he was so desolate, so starved of human love, in the
end so full of longing for Christine--for her gracious presence and her
dainty little ways.
With an effort he collected his thoughts from these wanderings, and
began to read his letters. Tom was still occupied with his paper and his
cigar; but he looked up at the sound of an "Ah!" which escaped from
John's lips. John had come on a letter which set his thoughts going
again--a letter from Sibylla. She upbraided him playfully for not having
come down to see them and Christine.
"I'm sure Christine must be hurt with you, though she's much too proud
to say so. We want to keep her over Christmas. Will you come as soon as
you can and stay over Christmas and as long as possible? I've not told
her I'm asking you, so that she mayn't be disappointed if you can't
come."
There was diplomacy in Sibylla's letter, since she knew the state of the
case far better than her references to Christine implied. But John was
not aware of this. His attention was fixed only on the invitation, and
on the circumstances in which it came. He could not go to Milldean and
take his grievance with him; it was too big and obtrusive for other
people's houses--it could flourish properly only in a domestic
_tête-à-tête_. So he must stay at home. He sighed as he laid down the
letter. Then his fingers wandered irresolutely to it again as he looked
across at Tom Courtland, who had now ceased reading and was smoking with
a quiet smile on his face.
"Anything up, old fellow?" asked Tom, noting the gravity of his
expression.
"No. It's only from Mrs. Imason, asking me to go down there at
Christmas."
"You go!" counselled Tom. "Better than bringing your wife back here."
There was a third course--the course favoured by the grievance. John did
not speak of it, but it was present in his thoughts. He shook his head
impatiently, and began to talk of general topics; but all the evening
Sibylla's letter was in his mind, ranging itself side by side with the
scene which he had witnessed at Tom Courtland's.
The gloomy idol he had set up in his heart was not yet cast down. But
the little hands of the children had given its pedestal a shake.