THE GREAT AWAKENING
The marriage of Colorado Jim with the Honorable Angela created no great
stir, for the simple reason that it took place in a registry office and
received but two lines' notice in the "social" column of the press.
Jim was surprised that the family should wish to keep it so quiet, but as
he himself much preferred that method of getting "hitched up" he made no
complaint. He drove away with his beautiful bride, feeling that the
greatest step in his life had been taken--which was certainly the case.
Where that step was to lead him he was fortunately unable to foresee.
The attitude of Claude puzzled him. Since that day in Devonshire, when
Claude had endeavored to intervene, the latter had spoken scarcely a dozen
words to him. He shook hands with Jim at the station and with Angela, but
his congratulations sounded weak and insincere.
Jim speedily forgot him in the thrill of the moment. Nice was their
destination--Nice in all her October glory. He was actually on honeymoon
with the object of his dreams and ambitions!
This chapter in Jim's life need scarcely be dwelled upon in any detail. It
was so amazing, so unexpectedly baffling, that it sent him clean off his
pivot of balance. All that marvelous happiness in his heart was shattered
little by little. The first night at the hotel at Nice left him pondering.
It wasn't due to the fact that Angela occupied a separate room, but that
he heard her _turn the key in the lock_! He sat up half the night
"browsing" on that singular occurrence. The second night, and every night
after, the same thing happened. Nothing else was needed to send him into
fits of inward rage. Not for all the wealth of the Indies would he have
touched the handle of that door! Verily he was learning. Each day drove
home the lesson, until he writhed under the lash of it. He had married an
iceberg.
He found himself very much alone. In Nice Angela met scores of familiar
faces. She spent most of her time with these friends, leaving Jim to the
terrible naked truth--to wrestle with it as best he might. He had kissed
her at Little Badholme, had apparently thawed for ever the chilly heart of
her. But here it was again--the frigid exterior that no kisses could melt.
What had happened to her? Was it that she had never cared at all--that her
acceptance of his marriage offer was dictated by ulterior motives?
Before it was time for them to return to England the last scrap of
illusion was knocked out of him. More miserable than ever he had been in
his life, he sought for some solution. It was so obvious she didn't care
for him. He saw that, in the company of her "high-browed" friends, she
despised him. He found himself sitting down under this contempt--meekly
accepting the role of enslaved husband, hand-servant to a beautiful and
presumably soulless woman.
On the night before they left she came back to the hotel very late, to
find him sitting in a brown study. He watched her, furtively, discarding
the expensive cloak, and taking off the heavy pearl necklace he had been
fool enough to buy. He stood up and stared for a moment, in silence, out
over the moonlit sea. When he turned she was going to her room.
"Angela!"
She stopped, not liking the imperative note in his voice.
"What's wrong?"
"Wrong?"
"Yep--with us?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I wasn't aware that anything was wrong."
He leaned across the table.
"Angela. Why did you marry me?"
"Because you asked me."
"No other reason, eh?"
"Isn't that reason enough?"
His mouth set in a grim smile.
"I thought that when wimmen married men there was usually another reason.
To take a man and not to tell him the truth ain't 'xactly on the level."
"Don't begin recriminations," she retorted.
"I'm not beginning anything," he growled. "I'm jest telling you we can't
go on like this, living in the same place and acting like strangers. I'm
beginning to get wise to this queer shuffle of your family's----"
She shivered a little as his intense gaze searched her face.
"It wasn't a straight proposition, because all the perticlers wasn't put
in. I didn't know I was buying a woman----"
She flared up in an instant.
"How dare you----!"
"Wal, put it how you wish, it comes to the same thing in the end. I fell
to it all right, and I ain't squealing. If I was the sort o' man you, no
doubt, take me for, I might want value for money, and I'm big enough to
get it.... No need to get scared. Though you love me like you might a
rattlesnake, I happen to love you. You might as well know it."
His calmness amazed her. She had half expected a furious onslaught. On one
point she wanted to put him right.
"You think I despise you, but that's not true," she said. "I couldn't have
married you had I despised you. But I can't love you--I can't. Can't you
see that our ways lie far apart? All your life, your very mode of thought
and speech, are the direct antithesis of mine. Isn't it plain--wasn't it
plain at first that it was a mere bargain? You and I can be nothing to
each other but--friends."
"No, it wasn't," he growled. "If you'd have told me that, I'd have seen
you to hell before I married you, or even kissed you. Blood is blood, and
nature's nature, and passion's passion, and gew-gaws don't count--no, nor
polite chin-music either. You were my woman, and I wanted you before all
the other wimmen on God's earth. It's the little things that don't matter
that fills your mind. If men were all tea-slopping, thin-spined,
haw-hawing creatures like some I seen here, with never a darned notion of
how to dig for their daily bread, though they talked like angels and acted
like cardboard saints, this world 'ud be a darned poor show.... Anyway,
you've got to learn that.... We're going back to-morrow, and I guess we'd
better finish this play-acting. Devonshire's good enough for me if you'll
take the London house."
She nodded. That had been her own innermost desire. She was glad he made
the suggestion himself. Before coming away he had leased a house in Maida
Vale, and had given instructions to Liberty's to furnish it. It would be
pleasanter there, in the midst of friends, than planted away in the wilds
of Devonshire with a "cowpuncher."
The months that followed were purgatory to Jim. Once or twice he ran up to
the club, where he heard things that were not conducive to a happy state
of mind. Angela was entertaining on a lavish scale. Cholmondeley told him
of the extraordinary "success" of his wife's parties. According to
Cholmondeley every other hostess was completely outshone by the beautiful
Angela, whose photograph was now an almost permanent feature in the daily
press.
It was on one of these visits that he met Claude. The latter shook hands
with him heartily, but seemed ill at ease.
"What's wrong, young feller?" queried Jim.
Claude passed off the question with a laugh. Later, however he came to
Jim.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Jim looked at him from under his eyebrows.
"Look here, Jim," said Claude impetuously, "can't you make it up with
Angela? It seems silly to prolong a quarrel."
"Eh!"
The ejaculation made Claude start.
"Well, whatever you quarreled about, it can't be much. Come along and see
her now."
His frank smile dissipated any suspicions in Jim's mind. Claude actually
didn't know what was wrong with the Conlans! He believed it to be a mere
marital squabble, that would blow over sooner or later.
"Kid," gasped Jim, "you are the pink limit! I guess there ain't nothing
that would stop Angela from regarding me as unsifted muck, just as she has
since the first time I saw her."
"What!"
"And you didn't know. Wal, it's all in the family, and you may as well git
wise to it."
"But she's--she's your wife----!"
"Yep.... Don't hurry, youngster. Get it right back and masticate it well.
They've fine heads for business in your family, not to mention
play-acting."
Claude flushed. He stood up and gripped a chair by the back.
"Steady," said Jim. "I'm telling you the truth.... But I thought you
knew."
Claude was realizing it fast enough.
"Then there was no quarrel?" he gasped. "She--she simply left you?"
"I told her she might--and she did. But you needn't worry none, I've
staked bad claims afore."
Claude came over to him, much affected by the deep emotion that had crept
into his voice.
"Jim, I didn't know. I swear I didn't know. I warned you because I didn't
believe she could love and respect you as you deserve. But when I heard
you were engaged I believed you had melted her in a strange way.... I see
now where the money came from.... God! and she was mean enough to do
that--to my--my friend."
Jim took him by the shoulder and steadied him.
"She saved your people from a big financial crash, anyway--remember
that."
"Is that any mitigation? I'd rather die in the gutter than live on money
that was obtained by a vulgar fraud. She acted a lie--a damned despicable
lie. That sort of thing is done every day, but the man usually knows what
he is doing, and hasn't any scruples, and the girl sometimes learns to
love him.... So we're living on the benevolence and innocence of a man who
isn't good enough to be the _real_ husband of a Featherstone. I wish to
God my name were Smith or Jones--or anything that is honest...."
He broke away from Jim, humiliated by the knowledge that had come to him.
On the morrow he dropped in at the club, his face set in a way strange to
him.
"I dropped in to say good-bye, Jim."
"Eh!"
"We had it all out last night--a real family gathering. I think I got a
little militant. Anyhow, it's better this way. What sort of chance is
there for a chap like me in Canada, Jim?"
Jim put down his newspaper and stared.
"You don't mean that, kid."
"I do. I leave Liverpool this evening."
Jim stood up and took his hand.
"I reckon you'll do," he said. "But how's the bank? You wouldn't like a
kind o' sleeping partner on a fifty-fifty basis, eh?"
Claude shook his head.
"I know what you mean, Jim. But I've money enough to get started at
something. If ever I get a partner out there, I shall consider myself
lucky if he's half the man you are."
Jim sighed.
"I wish I was coming too.... You're sure about the dough? Come, I'd like
to invest a little in a real promising proposition. Say five
thousand--jest a small interest----"
Claude gripped his hand.
"You're a real brick, Jim, but it can't be done. No, I can't stay to
lunch. I've got one or two calls to make. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
He was about to leave when he turned again.
"You mustn't mind me saying this, Jim. Meredith is seeing a great deal too
much of Angela. There is doubtless nothing in it, but--well, Angela is my
sister, and I don't like Meredith."
When he had gone Jim sat and pondered over the words. A similar hint had
been dropped by Cholmondeley. So Angela was already considered fair spoil
by men like Meredith! Meredith was out to win the love that he had lost.
It rankled--it hurt. But behind his fury there lurked the sinister shadow
of defeat and humiliation. There were giddy heights to which he could not
climb, and to which Meredith was soaring--Meredith, a man he could have
taken in his own hands and broken; a cheat, armed with every weapon that
culture could forge, and little else.
In the evening he summoned up his failing courage and went to Angela's
house. It was one blaze of light and one tumult of sound. A dapper footman
opened the door and took his card. He waited in the hall, running his eyes
over the rich decorations. From higher up the hall came sounds of revelry,
and now and again he caught sight of figures flitting to and fro. The
sound of a string band drifted down to him, and then laughter--cultured,
high-toned laughter that grated on his nerves.
When eventually he was shown into the drawing-room, he wished he hadn't
come. Angela was one blaze of glory. Her guests bowed to him in a fashion
that was intended, and succeeded, to make their superiority felt. Angela
was cool and remarkably self-possessed.
"I was passing and jest dropped in," he explained.
"That was very nice of you. Will you take anything to drink?"
He shook his head negatively. He only wanted to get away from these
people. They were too polite to whisper to each other, but their silence
was eloquent enough. They were laughing in their sleeves at this
unfortunate husband. A figure dawdled up, and bowing, took Angela's arm
with a smirking smile. It was Meredith.
It was a pleasure to breathe the fresher air outside. Jim caught the next
train to Devonshire, feeling like a dog that has been kicked by its
mistress. He arrived home to find a pile of bills--debts incurred by
Angela--awaiting him. He glared at them, half inclined to return them and
repudiate responsibility. But he didn't. He wrote numerous checks for
considerable sums and sent them away.
"What a pace! But it's got to stop. God, why can't I get a holt on myself.
Jim, you ain't a man. They're putting you through your paces like a
circus dog, and you're taking it all lying down."
He jammed on his hat and went striding out into the country.