More credit is given to heroism which arises from physical courage than
is accorded usually to moral bravery. Yet the standard of physical
courage, however loudly acclaimed, ranks no higher. To win a victory
over one's self demands greater strength of purpose than is required for
the defeat of an ordinary foe. To obey a sense of right from motives
other than discretion necessitates courage of a superior order. And it
is through this courage, this quiet self-denial, that the world is kept
a little better, a little sweeter, than would be possible if each
individual set-out with the poor determination to gratify his every
desire.
Prudence had won a victory; but she did not feel triumphant; there was
no conscious elation in her heart. If the night air struck fresher and
purer by reason of this restraint, it also struck very chill. Its cold
breath enveloped her. She was weary and sad at heart.
Steele, too, was silent and dispirited. He parted from her in the road
outside the gate, parted in almost apathetic calmness, and turned and
walked quickly away down the hill. He did not once look back to where
Prudence waited at the gate and watched him with sad eyes, tearless now,
until the night enfolded him and hid him from her view. Then she let
herself into the house and went wearily up to bed.
That was the beginning and the end of her romance. All the fine
thinking in the world could not reduce the feeling of irreparable loss
which she experienced in the knowledge that he had passed out of her
life for ever. She had sent him away; and all her happiness went with
him, all her love. If for a moment she regretted the triumph of virtue,
it was but a transitory regret; but she did regret, passionately, that
life had come between her and the realisation of love. She believed
that she could never feel happy any more. She also believed that she
could not return to her husband. The thought of living again beneath
his roof was hateful to her.
Then merciful sleep overtook her, and the darkness closed down upon the
misery of her thoughts.
The morning brought no relief. Heavy-eyed and languid, Prudence went
downstairs, to find that she was late for prayers. She was aware of
William's gaze, as she slipped quietly into the room and took her seat,
fixed upon her with a curious, it seemed to her, even a suspicious
scrutiny. He paused in the reading and waited with a sort of aggressive
patience until she was seated. Then he continued in his sonorous voice
reading the lesson for the day.
Upon the finish of prayers breakfast followed, after which Mr Graynor
repaired to the library with Prudence who since her return read the
papers to him because of his failing sight. William prepared to start
out on the day's business. From the library Prudence could hear him
calling loudly for his boots, and demanding of the servant who brought
them why they were not in their accustomed place. It transpired that he
had omitted to put them outside his bedroom door on the previous night
and thereby caused delay in the cleaning of them. He muttered something
in response, and hastily proceeded to draw them on.
The servant meanwhile went to the front door in answer to an imperative
ring. Commotion followed upon the opening of the door. Mr Graynor
looked round at these unexpected interruptions and signed to Prudence to
cease reading. She sat with the newspaper open in her hands and
listened to the sound of angry voices without.
Some one had entered and was talking loudly and defiantly to William in
the hall. William was doing his utmost to eject the intruder and to
talk her down at the same time--two impossible feats. The noise of
their voices raised in fierce altercation drew nearer; and, attracted by
the disturbance, Agatha made her appearance from the morning-room and
stood, pink and trembling with indignation, looking upon the scene in
incredulous amazement.
"What is that--creature doing here?" she asked of her brother.
He seemed to find some difficulty in answering her, and, evading her
eyes, glared furiously at the defiant young woman, who, holding a child
by the hand, maintained her stand with an air of assurance which refused
to be cowed by his lowering scowl.
"You tell 'er what I want," she said. "I don't mind."
"Go away," he shouted. "Do you hear? Go away!"
"It isn't difficult to 'ear you," she retorted sharply. "I want a word
with you, William Graynor; and I'm not going away until I've 'ad it."
"Turn her out," Miss Agatha exclaimed, shocked and affronted. "How dare
she speak to you like that?"
"Why don't you tell 'er," the insolent voice insisted, "what I've come
for, and why I speak as I do? Seems as if you was afraid of 'er."
She looked round suddenly, and caught sight of Mr Graynor, standing
with the library door open, surveying the scene. She shrank back,
quailing before the cold anger of his look. But he had recognised her,
and spoke now in a voice of sharp command.
"Come in here, girl," he said; and to his son he added fiercely:
"William, bring that woman inside, and shut the door."
From force of habit, perhaps too because he recognised that there was no
possible chance of evading explanations, William obeyed the order. He
allowed Bessie Clapp to precede him, and following her into the room,
shut the door sharply behind him, and stood with his back against it in
an attitude of gloomy anger. Once he looked at Prudence, seated
opposite their father with the newspaper in her lap, regarding the woman
and child with pitiful understanding eyes. He would have liked to
suggest the advisability of her retiring; but his natural effrontery had
deserted him, and he remained silent.
Bessie Clapp also looked at Prudence. The sight of the quiet figure,
the light of friendly interest in the blue eyes, proved heartening: the
hardness melted from her own face. Standing a few steps inside the door
against which William leaned, superb in her magnificent beauty, with the
child clinging nervously to her hand, she confronted Mr Graynor, who,
reseating himself, remained staring at her fixedly across the
writing-table upon which he rested his shaking hand.
The stillness of their various poses, for with the closing of the door
each had maintained a rigid immovability, was fraught with significance.
There was no need for a verbal explanation of the presence of the woman
with her child in that house. Mr Graynor knew, Prudence knew, as
surely as William and the girl, what brought her there. Nevertheless
Mr Graynor, leaning heavily upon the table, with his cold eyes upon the
girl's frightened face, demanded the reason of her noisy intrusion.
"I told her not to come," William interposed sullenly. "I dared her to
come here annoying you."
Mr Graynor silenced him with a gesture, never once removing his gaze
from the nervous, but still defiant, face. His question had been
addressed to the girl, and he waited for her to answer him. She drew
the child closer to her, and looked into the cold unsympathetic face of
her questioner, and answered with a sort of sulky shame:
"I've brought William Graynor's son 'ome."
William made a move, taking a quick step towards her as though he would
have silenced her with force; but no one looked in his direction; and he
shrank back to his former position by the door.
"You make a serious charge," Mr Graynor said, speaking harshly. "It
will go hard with you if you cannot prove your words."
"I can prove them all right," she answered sulkily.
"I do not believe you," Mr Graynor said. "This sort of thing has been
tried often enough. It is an audacious lie. I say it is a lie. Give
me your proof."
Bessie Clapp smiled faintly. Her manner was growing more assured; the
nervousness which the unexpected sight of him had caused her, was less
apparent now.
"You can't 'ave looked at the boy," she said, and bent down and removed
the cap from the child's head and turned his face towards the man who
questioned the truth of her statement.
Mr Graynor had given only a cursory glance at the child; he looked now
more closely, and, staring with dim eyes fierce with passionate anger
into the small face, beheld as in the days of his own youth the features
of his elder son faithfully reproduced. There could be no dispute as to
the likeness. A sickening sense of the truth of the woman's claim,
which before he had not so much doubted as refused to admit, held him
dumb. He put his hand before his eyes to shut out the sight of the
child's face; and the little fellow, thoroughly frightened now, began to
whimper. His mother held him and hushed his cries.
"You see," she said, watching Mr Graynor curiously, fascinated and
somewhat awed by his evident emotion; "that's my proof. One 'as only to
look at 'im to see who's 'is father."
A groan escaped Mr Graynor's lips. He took his hand from before his
eyes, and pushed aside some papers on the table, and rested his arms on
it as before.
"How dare you bring him here?" he asked in low shaking tones. "Why do
you bring him--now--after all this time? You want money, I suppose?"
Bessie Clapp turned a resentful gaze from him to William, who, furtively
watching her, remained with his shoulders hunched dejectedly, scowling
malevolently at her, and at the child whose claim upon him she sought to
establish.
"'E knows why I came," she said, indicating William with a brief nod.
"I gave 'im 'is chance; but 'e wouldn't 'elp me. I asked 'im to take
the child off my 'ands, and 'e refused. 'E thought the work'ouse good
enough for 'is son. But the work'ouse don't 'elp these cases; and
anyway I wouldn't care for 'im to go there. And I can't keep 'im no
longer I'm going to be married. My man's joined up, and I'll draw the
separation allowance. But 'e don't want _'is_ child."
Again she gave a nod indicating William, and then brought her gaze back
to Mr Graynor's face. The sight of the pained humiliation of his look
caused a softening in her voice and manner. She had not wanted to
distress him; she was not vindictive. She only required that the father
of her child should make provision for it. He was wealthy enough to do
so.
"I am sorry to 'ave 'ad to come," she said. "I didn't mean no 'arm. If
'e 'adn't treated me mean, I wouldn't 'a come. But I've got a chance
now to start fair. I want to place the child somewheres. Plenty would
take 'im if I could get the money guaranteed. But _'e_," with another
nod at William, "won't do nothing. That's why I came. I warned 'im all
right."
The red of William's face deepened to purple. He looked at the woman as
if he would have killed her had he dared; but he did not move, did not
utter a word even in his own defence. His animus against this girl, who
had been his mistress, arose from the fact that she had broken with him.
Had the initiative been his he might have acted differently. He hated
her while he listened to her scornful denunciation of himself, and the
sordid story of his meanness which she mercilessly unfolded. Not a word
of what she uttered but had the ring of truth in it, and not a word in
the miserable recital reflected any credit upon himself. He shifted his
feet uneasily, and turned his furtive eyes from the spectacle of her
standing there in her dark and tragic beauty, with the boy clinging
timidly to her skirt, hiding his tear-stained face in her dress in fear
of the old man who sat and glared at him and spoke to his mother in
harsh angry tones. They frightened him, these strange people. He
wanted to go away from the big house, and this fierce old man, and the
red-faced man, whom he knew slightly but did not like. The red-faced
man so often made his mother cry. But the mother took no heed of the
small hands tugging at her dress; her thoughts were intent on other
matters than the child's distress.
Mr Graynor, his face transformed with anger, turned to his son, and, in
a voice broken with emotion, with shame for that son's dishonourable
conduct and most despicable meanness, bade him speak.
"You stand there and say nothing to these charges," he cried. "Why
don't you speak? Have you nothing to say in answer to what this woman
alleges?"
"What is there to say?" William returned. "No doubt the child is mine.
But I don't flatter myself that I have been more favoured than others.
She is a loose woman; and she is lucky enough to have forced a claim on
me."
"You lie, William Graynor," she said fiercely. "And you know that you
lie. From the time you pursued me, when I worked in the factory, a girl
of sixteen, to the moment when I met the man I am going to marry, I
never looked at another man. You are a mean liar, that's what you are."
Mr Graynor, ignoring the speaker and still looking towards his son,
struck the table violently with his hand in an access of indignant
anger.
"You admit the paternity of this child, and, instead of sharing the
responsibility, meanly try to shift it, and impugn the morality of a
woman whose immorality you brought about! How dare you utter these
things in my hearing?"
"I've paid her," William excused himself, and fingered his collar
nervously as though it were too tight. "I kept her so long as--" He
broke off abruptly; and added in a savage voice: "She's had money enough
from me."
"I'm not complaining of what's past," the girl interposed. "If you
'adn't stopped the payments I shouldn't be 'ere now. I can't afford to
keep the child. 'E's as much yours as mine."
"There," Prudence broke in to the general astonishment, for she had
remained so quiet until now that they had almost forgotten her presence,
"you are mistaken. The law protects the man in these cases."
"Then the law's rotten bad," said Bessie Clapp bitterly.
Whether the sudden recollection of his daughter's presence decided Mr
Graynor to bring the interview to a close, or if he felt unequal to
further discussion is uncertain, but at this point he waved the girl to
silence, and unlocking a drawer in the table, took out his cheque book
and wrote a cheque and tore it out and passed it across the table to
her.
"I will see that my son makes suitable provision for the child," he said
quaveringly.
Bessie Clapp took the cheque and stood with it in her hand, looking at
him out of her dark, sombre eyes.
"I'm sorry I come," she said falteringly. "I'm going right away from
'ere. You won't see me no more."
Then suddenly Prudence rose. She left her place by the fire, and
crossing to where the other girl stood beside the table, she bent over
the child and took the little fellow by the hand and drew him to her.
"I am a childless woman," she said, in a sweet voice full of sympathy,
"and I love children. Give him to me."