TO LIFE AND LIGHT AGAIN
It was the eve of Dora Hutting's wedding--a thing in itself quite enough
to put Milldean into an unwonted stir. Everybody was very excited about
the event and very sympathetic. Kate Raymore had come to the front; not
even preoccupation with Charley could prevent a marriage from
interesting her. She had given much counsel, and had exerted herself to
effect a reconciliation between the bride and Jeremy Chiddingfold. Into
this diplomatic effort Sibylla also had been drawn, and peace had been
signed at a tea-party. With the help of Christine's accomplished manner
and Grantley's tactful composure, it had been found possible to treat
the whole episode as a boy-and-girl affair which could be laughed at and
thus dismissed into oblivion. The two principals could not take quite
this view; but they consented to be friends, to wish each other well,
and to say nothing about the underlying contempt which each could not
but entertain for the other's fickleness. For Jeremy would have been
faithful if Dora had been, and Dora could not perceive how the fact of
her having made a mistake as to her own feelings explained the
extraordinary rapidity with which Jeremy had been able to transfer an
affection professedly so lasting and so deep. Christine warned her that
all men were like that--except Mr. Mallam; and Grantley told Jeremy that
Dora was flighty, as all girls were--except Eva Raymore. So peace,
though not very cordial peace, was obtained, the satirical remarks which
the parties felt entitled to make privately not appearing on the face of
the formal proceedings.
Important though these matters might be, they were not in Sibylla's mind
as she stood at the end of the garden and looked down on Old Mill House.
Twenty-four hours before, Mrs. Mumple had started on her journey.
Sibylla, Eva, and Jeremy had escorted her to Fairhaven. The fat old
woman was very apprehensive and tremulous; anxious about her looks and
the fit of her new silk gown; full of questionings about the meeting to
which she went. It was impossible not to smile covertly at some of these
manifestations, but over them all shone the beauty of the love which had
sustained her through the years. Sibylla prayed that now it might have
its reward, half wondering that it had lived to claim it--had lived so
long in solitude and uncomforted. It had never despaired, however long
the waiting, however much it was starved of all satisfaction, bereft of
all pleasure, condemned to seeming uselessness, even unwelcomed, as one
well might fear. These things had brought pain and fear, but not despair
nor death. Yet Mrs. Mumple was not by nature a patient woman; naturally
she craved a full return for what she gave, and an ardent answer to the
warmth of her affection. None the less she had not despaired; and as
Sibylla thought of this, she accused herself because, unlike the old
woman, she had allowed herself to despair--nay, had been ready, almost
eager, to do it, had twisted everything into a justification for it, had
made no protest against it and no effort to avoid it. That mood had led
to ruin; at last she saw that it would have been ruin. Was there now
hope? It was difficult to go back, to retrace the steps so confidently
taken, to realise that she too had been wrong. Yet what else was the
lesson? It came to her in one form or another from every side--from the
Courtlands, where death alone had been strong enough to thwart the evil
fate; from the Raymores, where trust, bruised but not broken, had
redeemed a boy's life from evil to good; even from Christine, who waited
in secret hope; above all, from the quarter whence she had least looked
for it--from Grantley himself, for whom no effort was too great, who
never lost confidence, who had indeed lacked understanding but had never
lacked courage; who now, with eyes opened and at her bidding, was
endeavouring the hardest thing a man can do--was trying to change
himself, to look at himself with another's eyes, to remodel himself by a
new standard, to count as faults what he had cherished as virtues, to
put in the foremost place not the qualities which had been his pets, his
favourites, his ideals, but those which another asked from him, and
which he must do himself a violence to display. Had she no corresponding
effort to make? She could not deny the accusation. It lay with her too
to try. But it was hard. John Fanshaw found it sorely difficult, grossly
against his prejudices, and even in conflict with principles which he
held sacred, to belittle his grievance or to let it go. Sibylla was very
fond of her grievances too. She was asked to look at them with new eyes,
to think of them no more as outrages, as stones of stumbling and rocks
of offence. She was asked to consider her grievances as opportunities.
That was the plain truth about it, and it involved so much recantation,
such a turning upside down of old notions, such a fall for pride. It was
very hard to swallow. Yet unless it were swallowed, where was hope? And
if it were swallowed, what did it mean? An experiment--only another
difficult experiment. For people are not changed readily, and cannot be
changed altogether. Difficulties would remain--would remain always; the
vain ideal which had once governed all her acts and thoughts would never
be realised. She must not be under any delusion as to that. And now, in
her heart, she was afraid of delusion coming again; and again
disillusion must follow.
She turned to find Grantley beside her, and he gave her a telegram
addressed to her. She opened it with a word of thanks.
"From John Fanshaw!" she exclaimed eagerly. "He's coming down here
to-night!"
"Well, you told him to wire whenever he found he could get down, didn't
you?"
"Yes, of course. But--but what does it mean?"
He smiled at her.
"I'm not surprised. Christine had a letter from him this morning. I saw
the handwriting. I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in Christine, so
I look at the handwriting on her letters. And she's been in a state of
suppressed excitement all the morning. I've noticed that--with a
sympathetic interest, Sibylla."
"I think I ought to go and see her."
"Not just yet, please. Oh yes, I hope it'll be a good day for her! And
it'll be a great day for your poor old Mumples, won't it? I hope Mr.
Mumple will behave nicely."
"Oh, so do I with my whole heart!" cried Sibylla.
"I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in the Mumples also, Sibylla.
Likewise in Dora and her young man, and Jeremy and his young woman. Oh,
and in the Raymores and Charley! Anybody else?"
Sibylla looked at him reprovingly, but a smile would tremble about the
corners of her mouth.
"You see, I've been thinking over what you said the other day," Grantley
went on with placid gravity, "and I've made up my mind to come and tell
you whenever I do a decent thing or have an honest emotion. I shan't
like saying it at all, but you'll like hearing it awfully."
"Some people would be serious about it, considering--well, considering
everything," Sibylla remarked, turning her face away.
"Yes, but then they wouldn't see you smile--and you've an adorable
smile; and they wouldn't see the flash in your eyes--and you've such
wonderful eyes, Sibylla."
He delivered these statements with a happy simplicity.
"You're not imposing on me," she said. "I know you mean it." Her voice
trembled just a little. "And perhaps that's the best way to tell me."
"On the other hand, I shall become a persistent and accomplished
hypocrite. You'll never know how I grind the faces of the poor at the
bank, nor my inmost thoughts when Frank drops half his food on my best
waistcoat."
"You're outrageous. Please stop, Grantley."
"All right. I'll talk about something else."
"I think I'd better find Christine. No, wait a minute. If you're going
to do all these fine things, what have you planned for me?"
"Nothing. You've just to go on being what you can't help being--the most
adorable woman in England."
"I don't know what you mean to do, but what you are doing is----"
"Making love to you," interposed Grantley.
"Yes, and in the most unblushing way."
"I'm doing the love-making, and you're doing the----"
"Stop!" she commanded, with a hasty merry glance of protest.
"You ought to be used to it. I've been doing it for a month now," he
complained.
Sibylla made no answer, and Grantley lit a cigarette. When she spoke
again she was grave and her voice was low.
"Don't make love to me. I'm afraid to love you. You know what I did
before because I loved you. I should do it again, I'm afraid. I haven't
learnt the lesson."
"Are you refusing the only way there is of learning it? How have I
learnt all the fine lessons that I've been telling you?"
"I've not learnt the lesson. I still ask too much."
"If I give all I have, it'll seem enough to you. You'll know it's all
now, and it'll seem enough. All there is is enough--even for you, isn't
it?"
"You didn't give me all there was before."
"I had a theory," said Grantley. "I'm not going to have any more
theories."
She turned to him suddenly.
"Oh, you mustn't ask--you mustn't stand there asking! That's wrong,
that's unworthy of you. I mustn't let you do that."
"That was the theory," Grantley said with a smile. "That was just my
theory. I'm always going to ask for what I want now. It's really the
best way."
"We're friends, Grantley?" she said imploringly.
"Is that all there is? Would it seem to you enough?"
"And we've Frank. You do love him now, you know."
"In and through you."
She made no answer again. He stood with his eyes fixed on her for some
moments. Then he took the telegram gently from her hand and went into
the house with it, to seek Christine Fanshaw.
He left Sibylla in a turmoil of feeling. That she loved him was nothing
new; she had always loved him, and she had never loved any other man in
that fashion. The fairy ride had never been rivalled or repeated; and
she had never lost her love for him, even when she hated him as her
great enemy. It had always been there, whether its presence had been
prized or loathed, welcomed or feared, whether it had seemed the one
thing life held, or the one thing to escape from if life were to be
worthy. Blake had not displaced it; he had been a refuge from it.
Grantley's offence had never been that he did not love her, nor that he
could not hold her love; it was that he loved her unworthily and claimed
to hold her as a slave. Her case was not as Christine Fanshaw's, any
more than her temper was the temper of her friend. And now he came
wooing again, and she was sore beset. So memory helped him, so the
unforgettable communion of bygone love enforced his suit. Her heart was
all for yielding--how should it not be to the one man whose sway it had
ever owned? He was to her mind an incomparable wooer--incomparable in
his buoyant courage, in the humour that masked his passion, in the
passion which used humour with such a conscious art, feigning to conceal
without concealing, pretending to reveal without impairing the secrecy
of those impenetrable sweet recesses of the heart, concerning which
conjecture beats knowledge and the imagination would not be trammelled
by a disclosure too unreserved. But she feared and, fearing, struggled.
They were friends. Friends could make terms, bargains, treaties,
arrangements. Friendship did not bar independence, absolute and
uninfringed. Was that the way with love--with the love of woman for man,
of wife for husband? No, old Nature came in there with her unchanging
decisive word, against which no bargain and no terms, no theory and no
views, no claims or pretensions, no folly and no wisdom either, could
prevail. All said and done, all concessions made, all promises pledged,
all demands guaranteed, they all went for little. The woman was left to
depend on the trust she had, helpless if the trust failed her and the
confidence were misplaced. If she were wrong about herself or about the
man, there was no help for it. The love of the woman was, after all and
in spite of all, surrender. Times might change, and thoughts and
theories; this might be right which had been wrong, and that held wrong
which had been accounted right. The accidents varied, the essence
remained. The love of the woman was surrender, because old Nature would
have it so. If she gave such love--or acknowledged it, for in truth it
was given--she abandoned all the claims, the grievances, the wrongs, all
that had been the basis of what she had done. She took Grantley on faith
again, she put herself into his hands, again she made the great venture
with all its possibilities. She had seemed wrong once. Would she seem
wrong again?
There was a change in him: that she believed. Was there a change too in
her? Unless there were, she did not dare to venture. Had all that she
had suffered, all that she had seen others suffer, brought nothing to
her? Yes, there was something. When you loved you must understand, and,
knowing the truth, love that or leave it. You must not make an image and
love that, then make another image and hate that. You must love or leave
the true thing. And to do that there is needed another surrender--of
your point of view, your own ideas of what you are and of how you ought
to be treated. To get great things you must barter great things in
return. There are seldom cheap bargains to be had in costly goods. Had
not Grantley learnt that? Could not she? It took generosity to learn it.
Was she less generous than Grantley? The question hit her like a blow.
If Grantley had done as she had, would she still have loved, would she
have come again to seek and to woo? Ah, but the case was not truly
parallel. Grantley sought leave to reign again--to reign by her will,
but still to reign. That was not what was asked of her.
Was it not? Eagerly stretching out after truth, seeking the bed-rock of
deep truth, her mind, spurred by its need, soared above these
distinctions, and saw, as in a vision, the union of these transient
opposites. Was not to reign well to serve well, was not faithfully to
obey the order of the universe to be a king of life? If that vision
would abide with her, if that harmony could be sustained, then all would
be well. The doubts and fears would die, and the surrender be a great
conquest. When she had tried before, she had no such idea as this. Much
had been spent, much given, in attaining to the distant sight of it. But
if it were true? If Grantley, ever courageous, ever undaunted, had won
his way to it and now came, in a suppliant's guise, to show her and to
give her the treasures of a queen?
While she still mused, the little boy came toddling over the lawn to her
side, holding up a toy for her interest and admiration. She caught him
up and held him in her arms. Had he nothing to say to it all? Had he
nothing to say? Why, his eyes were like the eyes of Grantley!
The clock of the old church struck five, and on the sound a cab appeared
over the crest of the opposite hill. Sibylla, with Frank in her arms,
watched its descent to Milldean, and then went into the house to put on
her hat. In view of the ancient love between her and Mumples, it was her
privilege to be the first to greet the returned wanderer; she alone
would properly understand and share Mumples' feeling. For all her
sympathy, Kate Raymore was a friend of too recent standing--she had not
witnessed the years of waiting. Jeremy's affection was true enough, but
Mumples feared the directness of his tongue and the exuberance of his
spirits. Highly conscious of the honour done to her, somewhat alarmed at
the threatened appeal to her ever too ready emotion, Sibylla went down
the hill.
A pale frail old student with the hands of a labouring man--that was her
first impression of Mumples' husband. He had the air of remoteness from
the world and of having done with the storms of life which comes to men
who have lived many years in a library; his face was lined, but his eyes
calm and placid. Only those incongruous hands, with their marks of toil,
hinted at the true story. He spoke in a low voice, as though it might be
an offence to speak loud; his tones were refined and his manner
respectful and rather formal. It was evidently unsafe to make any parade
of sympathy with Mumples--she was near breaking-point; but the exchange
of a glance, on which Sibylla ventured, showed that her agitation was of
joy and satisfaction. Evidently the meeting had disappointed the worst
of her fears and confirmed the dearest of her hopes.
"I have to thank you, madame," the old man said, "for the great kindness
you and your family have shown to my wife during my absence."
"We owe her far more than she owes us. I don't know what we should have
done without her."
"The knowledge that she had good friends did much to enable me to endure
my absence," he went on. "She's looking well, is she not, madame? She
appears to me less changed than I had thought possible."
Sibylla could not resist another quick glance at Mumples.
"And I haven't seen her for ten years."
He paused and looked at Sibylla in a questioning way.
"Don't worry any more about that, Luke," said Mrs. Mumples with her hand
on his shoulder. "You knew what suited you best. What was the good of my
coming, if it wasn't to be a comfort to you."
"It was selfish of me, madame; but you've no idea what it is to be
in--in such circumstances as I was. I've been unfortunately a man of
quick temper, and I couldn't trust myself in all cases. I got beside
myself if I was reminded of the outside world--of all I was losing--how
the years went by--of my wife, and the home and the life I might have
had. It was because I loved her that I wouldn't see her----"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure of that," said Sibylla hastily.
"But it was selfish, as love sometimes is, madame. I ought to have put
her first. And I never thought what it would mean to her when I did what
brought me to that place. Well, I've paid for it with my life. They've
taken my life from me."
"You've many years before you, dear," whispered Mrs. Mumple.
"I have so few behind me," he said. "They've blotted out two-thirds of
my life. Looking back on it now, I can't see it as it was. It seems
long, but very empty--a great vacant space in my life, madame."
"Ah, but you've your home and your dear wife now--and we shall all be
your friends."
How dull and cold her words seemed! Yet what else was there to say in
face of the tragedy?
"I'm deeply grateful to her and to Heaven; but I--I have nothing left.
It seems to me that the years have taken everything."
Mrs. Mumple put her hand down to his worn hand and caressed it.
"You'll be better by-and-by, dear," she said.
"I'm deadened," he persisted sadly.
"Don't feel like that," Sibylla implored. "Your life will come back to
you in the sunshine and the country air. We shan't let you feel like
that. Why, it's full of life here. There's a wedding to-morrow, Mr.
Mumple! And another engaged couple--my brother and Miss Raymore! And
you'll like my husband, and I'll bring my baby boy to see you."
"Such a pretty little dear," exclaimed Mumples.
"You must take an interest in us," smiled Sibylla; "and then you'll be
pleased when we are--won't he, Mumples? Because you're to be one of us,
just as your wife is."
Mrs. Mumple suddenly turned away and, murmuring something about getting
tea, escaped from the room. The old man fixed his eyes on Sibylla's face
in a long inquiring gaze.
"You say that to me, madame? I don't deserve to have that said to me.
You're a beautiful young lady, and very kind, I know, and good, I'm
sure. Your husband is lucky, and so is your son. But I've been a convict
for seventeen years, and it's only by a chance I'm not a murderer. I'm
not fit to come near you nor yours--no, not near your little boy."
Sibylla came to him and took his work-worn hand. He saw that she meant
to kiss it and held it back.
"A convict and in heart a murderer, madame," he said, his lips trembling
a little and his calm eyes very sad. "I'm not fit for you to touch."
"I'll tell you something," said Sibylla. "You call me kind and good--you
say my husband and my boy are lucky, and you tell me you're not fit for
me to touch--for me to touch! I tried to run away from my husband, and I
was ready to leave my little boy to his death."
A great wonder came into the old man's eyes; he asked no question, but
he ceased to resist her persuading grasp. She raised his hand to her
lips and kissed it.
"I thought my heart was dead, as you think yours is. But light and life
have come back into mine, and you mustn't shut yours against them. You
must try to be happy, if it's only for dear old Mumples' sake. She's
thought of nothing but making you happy all these years." She laid her
hand on his shoulder. "And love us too. For my husband's and my boy's
sake keep the secret I've told you, but remember it when you feel
despairing. It wasn't easy for me to speak of it, but I thought it would
give you hope; and it will prevent you feeling the sort of thing you
felt about me, and I hope about any of us."
He turned his eyes to hers.
"You're telling me the truth, I know, madame," he said slowly. "It's a
very strange world. I'll try not to despair."
"No, no, don't despair; above all, don't despair," whispered Sibylla.
"I have a remnant of my days, and I have the love of my wife. God has
left me something out of the wreck that I've made."
Sibylla stooped and kissed him on the brow. He caught her hands and
looked again in her eyes for a long time.
"It is true? And your eyes are like the eyes of an angel."
He relaxed his hold on her, and sank back in his chair with a sigh.
"I'm tiring you," said Sibylla. "I'll go now, and leave you alone with
Mumples. I'll call her back here. No, I can't stay to tea--you've made
me think of too much. But I'll come to-morrow and bring my little boy."
"If what you say is true, you must pray for yourself sometimes? Pray for
me too, madame."
"Yes, I'll pray for you the prayer I love best: 'Those things which for
our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask----' I
will pray for those, for you and for me. And because you're an old man
and have suffered, you shall give me your blessing before I go."
She knelt to receive his trembling benediction, then rose with a glad
smile on her face. She saw Mumples standing now on the threshold of the
room, and kissed her hand to her.
"The old is done, and the new is begun," she said to the old man as she
pressed his hand in farewell.
She walked slowly up the hill in the peaceful dusk. Lights burned in the
church: the village choir was laboriously practising an ambitious effort
for the next day. There were lights in the windows over the post-office;
one was open to the mild evening air, and Jeremy's voice in a
love-ballad competed enviously with the choir's more pious strains, till
it was drowned in a merry protest of youthful shouts. When she reached
home, there was a light in the nursery, and the nurse was singing softly
to the little boy. Her agitation was passed, her emotion was gentle now,
and her face peacefully radiant. Her grievances seemed small beside the
old man's suffering, her woes nothing beside his punishment, her return
to life and light so much easier than his. He had but a remnant of life
left--the rest had been demanded of him in ransom for his deed, and the
ransom had been exacted to the uttermost farthing. He was poor, though
not destitute; but she was rich. Her life lay still before her with all
its meaning and its possibilities--its work and its struggles, its
successes and its failures, the winning of more victories, the effort
and the resolve not to lose what had been so hardly won. Soberly she
looked forward to it, assessing and measuring her strength and weakness
and the strength and weakness of those with whom her life was cast. She
had no more of the blind and reckless confidence of her first essay; her
eyes were open. Her knowledge did not forbid her soul reaching out to
the joy that was to come, but it whispered that the joy was not all, and
that the joy must be fairly won. Yet she welcomed the joy with the
innate ardour of her mind, exultant that now she might take it, that now
it could prove no delusion because she had learnt wherein lay the truth
of it. The clue was in her fingers. The path might be rough sometimes,
uphill sometimes, not all in pleasant valleys and soft beguiling scenes;
there would be arid tracts, perhaps, and bleak uplands. Such was the Way
of Life: she recognised it now. The clue was in her hand, and though she
might weary and stumble, she would not be utterly lost or belated.