"Our life is like a narrow raft,
Afloat upon the hungry sea.
Thereon is but a little space,
And all men, eager for a place,
Do thrust each other in the sea--
And each man, raving for a place,
Doth cast his brother in the sea."
Half an hour later, when Annette had left them, Mr. Stirling and his
nephew turned with Janey towards the tall Italian gates, which Harry was
dutifully holding open for them. As Geoff shambled beside him, glancing
backwards in the direction of the path across the park which Annette had
taken, Mr. Stirling half wished that his favourite sister's only child
stared less at pretty women, that he had less tie and hair, and rather
more backbone and deportment.
"Uncle Reggie," blurted out Geoff, "that Miss Georges!"
"Well?"
"Has she divorced him? Is that why she's called Miss Georges?"
"I suppose she's called Miss Georges for the same reason that you are
called Geoffrey Lestrange," said his uncle. "Because it happens to be
her name."
"But she is Mrs. Le Geyt," continued Geoff, looking with wide-open,
innocent eyes from his uncle to Janey. "Mrs. Dick Le Geyt. I know it. I
knew her again directly. I saw her when they were staying at
Fontainebleau on their honeymoon. I've never forgotten her. I wanted to
draw her. I thought of asking him if I might, but he was rather odd in
his manner, and I didn't, and the next day he was ill, and I went away.
But they were down in the visitors' book as Mr. and Mrs. Le Geyt, and I
heard him call her Annette, and----"
Mr. Stirling suddenly caught sight of Janey's face. It was crimson,
startled, but something in it baffled him. It had become rigid, and he
saw with amazement that it was not with horror or indignation, but as if
one in torture, terrified at the vision, saw a horrible way of escape
over a dead body.
"You are making a mistake, Geoff," he said sternly. "You never get hold
of the right end of any stick. You don't in the least realize what you
are saying, or that Mr. Le Geyt is Miss Manvers' brother."
"I only wish," said Janey, with dignity and with truth, "that my poor
brother were married to Miss Georges. There is no one I should have
liked better as a sister-in-law. But you are mistaken, Mr. Lestrange, in
thinking such a thing. To the best of my belief he is not married."
"They were at Fontainebleau together as husband and wife," said Geoff.
"They really were. And she had a wedding ring on. She has not got it on
now. I looked, and--and----"
But Mr. Stirling swept him down.
"That's enough. You must forgive him, Miss Manvers. He has mistaken his
vocation. He ought not to be a painter, but a novelist. Fiction is
evidently his forte. Good evening. Good-bye, Harry. Thank you for
opening the gate for us. We will take the short cut across the fields to
Noyes. Good-bye. Good-bye."
And Mr. Stirling, holding Geoff by the elbow, walked him off rapidly
down the lane.
"Uncle Reggie," said the boy, "I think I won't go to Japan to-morrow
after all. I think I'll stop on here. I can get a room in the village,
and make a picture of the fountain and the lichen and the willow weed,
with Mrs. Le Geyt picking flowers. She's just what I want. I suppose
there isn't any real chance of her being so kind as to stand for me, is
there?--she looks so very kind,--in the nude, I mean. It's quite warm.
But if she wouldn't consent to that, that gown she had on, that mixed
colour, cobalt with crimson lake in it----"
"Called lilac for short," interpolated Mr. Stirling.
"It would be glorious against the yews, and knocking up against the grey
stone and that yellow lichen in the reflection. The whole thing would
be--stupendous. I see it."
Geoff wrenched his elbow away from his uncle's grip, and stopped short
in the path, looking at Mr. Stirling, through him.
"I see it," he said, and his pink, silly face became pale, dignified,
transfigured.
Mr. Stirling's heart smote him.
"Geoff," he said gently, taking his arm again, and making him walk
quietly on beside him, "listen to me. There are other things in the
world to be attended to besides pictures."
"No, there aren't."
"Yes, there are. I put it to you. You have made a statement about Miss
Georges which will certainly do her a great deal of harm if it is
repeated. You blurt out things about her which are tantamount to making
a very serious accusation against her character, and then in the same
breath you actually suggest that you should make use of her in your
picture--when you have done your level best to injure her reputation.
Now, as one man of the world to another, is that honourable, is it even
'cricket'?"
Geoff's face became weak and undecided again. The vision had been
shattered.
Mr. Stirling saw his advantage, and pressed it with all the more
determination because he perceived that Geoff at any rate was firmly
convinced of the truth of what he had said, incredible as it seemed.
"You will take no rooms in this village," he said with decision, "and
you will start for Japan to-morrow as arranged. I shall see you off,
and before you go you will promise me on your oath never to say another
word to anyone, be they who they may, about having seen Miss Georges at
Fontainebleau, or any other 'bleau,' in that disreputable Dick Le Geyt's
company."
Janey's heart beat violently as she walked slowly home.
During the last few weeks she had sternly faced the fact that Roger was
attracted by Annette, and not without many pangs had schooled herself to
remain friends with her. There had been bitter moments when a choking
jealousy had welled up in her heart against Annette. She might have let
Roger alone. Beautiful women always hypocritically pretended that they
could not help alluring men. But they could. Annette need not have
gratified her vanity by trying to enslave him.
But after the bitter moment Janey's sturdy rectitude and sense of
justice always came to her rescue.
"Annette has not tried," she would say stolidly to herself. "And why
shouldn't she try, if she likes him? I am not going to lose her if she
does try. She doesn't know I want him. She is my friend, and I mean to
keep her, whatever happens."
_Whatever happens._ But Janey had never dreamed of anything like this
happening. As she walked slowly home with her bunch of snap-dragons, she
realized that if Roger knew what she and Mr. Stirling knew about
Annette, he would leave her. It was not too late yet. His mind was not
actually made up--that slow mind, as tenacious as her own. He was
gravitating towards Annette. But if she let it reach his ears that
Annette had been Dick's mistress he would turn from her, and never think
of her as a possible wife again. After an interval he would gradually
revert to her, Janey, without having ever realized that he had left her.
Oh! if only Roger had been present when that foolish young man had made
those horrible allegations!--if only he had heard them for himself!
Janey reddened at her own cruelty, her own disloyalty.
But was it, could it be true that Annette with her clear, unfathomable
eyes had an ugly past behind her? It was unthinkable. And yet--Janey had
long since realized that Annette had a far wider experience of men and
women than she had. How had she gained it, that experience, that air of
mystery which, though Janey did not know it, was a more potent charm
than her beauty?
Was it possible that she might be Dick's wife after all, as that young
man had evidently taken for granted? _No._ No wife, much less Annette,
would have left her husband at death's door, and have fled at the advent
of his relations. His mistress might have acted like that, had actually
acted like that; for Janey knew that when her aunt arrived at
Fontainebleau a woman who till then had passed as Dick's wife and had
nursed him devotedly _had_ decamped, and never been heard of again.
Was it possible that Annette had been that woman? Mr. Lestrange had been
absolutely certain of what he had seen. His veracity was obvious. And
Annette's was not a face that one could easily forget, easily mistake
for anyone else. In her heart Janey was convinced that he had indeed
seen Annette with her brother, passing as his wife. And she saw that Mr.
Stirling was convinced also.
She had reached the garden of the Dower House, and she sank down on the
wooden seat round the cedar. The sun had set behind the long line of the
Hulver woods, and there was a flight of homing rooks across the amber
sky.
Then Annette must be guilty, in spite of her beautiful face and her
charming ways! Janey clasped her hands tightly together. Her outlook on
life was too narrow, too rigid, to differentiate or condone. Annette had
been immoral.
And was she, Janey, to stand by, and see Roger, her Roger, the
straightest man that ever walked, and the most unsuspicious, marry her
brother's mistress? Could she connive at such a wicked thing? Would
Roger forgive her, would she ever forgive herself, if she coldly held
aloof and let him ruin his life, drench it in dishonour, because she was
too proud to say a word? It was her duty to speak, her bounden duty.
Janey became dizzy under the onslaught of a sudden wild tumult within
her. Was it grief? Was it joy? She only knew that it was anguish.
Perhaps it was the anguish of one dying of thirst to whom the cup of
life is at last held, and who sees even as he stretches his parched lips
towards it that the rim is stained with blood.