Edward Morgan came in immediate response to his wife's letter. It was
highly inconvenient with the press of business at the mills for him to
leave; but he spent the night in travelling in order to save a day, and
arrived at Wortheton, cold and stiff, in the early hours of the morning,
risking chills and all the evils he was wont to avoid in his alacrity to
respond to his wife's unexpected summons.
It had come to him in a flash of unusual perceptivity that if he did not
seize this moment which her softened mood generously offered for
effecting a reconciliation, another opportunity might not present
itself. Despite a certain narrowness of outlook, there was no smallness
in Mr Morgan's nature. Because he read in Prudence's letter a sign of
relenting, an earnest wish to close their differences, it did not occur
to him to take a dignified stand and leave her to make all the advances,
extending his forgiveness only when fully assured of her penitence.
Such unequal methods, he realised quite clearly, never effected anything
beyond a compromise. And he was very anxious for a complete
understanding between himself and his young wife. Complete
understanding and complete trust. Without these no married life could
be congenial.
His own marriage had fallen far short of his expectations. He knew that
he had not won Prudence's love. Since the night of their quarrel, when
she had confessed to loving Steele, the hope which he had fostered
patiently through the disappointing years, that he might yet win it, had
died utterly. But, oddly, that night with its ugly memories, its noisy
wrangling and bitter recrimination, had revealed with a certainty beyond
question that his own love for her, which he had believed was faded to
insignificance, was still very much alive. He wanted her very
earnestly. He missed her, missed her bright presence about the house,
her youthful prettiness, her coming and going in her independent search
for pleasure outside his home. She had brought a glimpse of the
unexpected, the delightful irrelevance of pleasant trivial things, into
the prosaic setting of everyday life which had caught him away
insensibly from the dulness and the worries of his stupendous business
undertakings, and brightened his home, very much, he often thought, as
the swift appearance of the sun would brighten the prospect on a grey
day. He had not realised, until she left him, how much he appreciated
these things. It was some return anyway, if not the most adequate he
could have desired, for the love he felt for her. He had made no
particular concession, had not even attempted to adapt himself to her
view of life. He had demanded a great deal of her and given little in
return.
These thoughts floated through his mind as he drove up the hill to the
house. He was seeing their case altogether differently from the days
when he had taken his young wife home and quarrelled with her seriously
over such unimportant matters as ventilation and the direction of
household affairs. He was, he realised now, directly responsible for
the beginning of the breach which had widened yearly and ended in an
open rupture. It remained for him to make amends for those earlier
mistakes which had broken up the peace of his home. He had led too
self-centred a life. In future he would evince greater interest in his
wife's doings, show more sympathy with her aims. After all, a wife
needs something more from her husband than board and lodging; she has a
right to his confidence and companionship. He had never attempted to
make a companion of her. He had treated her always as a child, a child
to be spoilt and petted, until she refused the petting. Lately he had
treated her with greater indifference, but still as a child, an
unreasonable child towards whom kindness was misdirected. It was not
surprising that the woman in her had rebelled.
It came as an agreeable surprise to Mr Morgan when he reached Court
Heatherleigh in the grey dawn, weary and cold after his long journey, to
be met on the doorstep by Prudence, who was the only member of the
household awake at that hour.
Their meeting was somewhat constrained. He had not expected to see her
and was at a loss for words. They faced one another a little
self-consciously in the big empty hall; and then Edward Morgan bent down
and kissed his wife, with an air of uncertainty as to how his caress
would be received. Prudence flushed warmly, and, to cover her
embarrassment, became actively helpful in disentangling him from his
numerous wrappings.
"I didn't expect to see any one at this hour," he said, and struggled
out of his heavy coat and hung it on a peg. Then he turned to her with
quick unexpectedness. "Thank you for the kindly thought, dear. It is
good to find a welcome awaiting one at the end of a journey."
"You shouldn't have travelled by the night train," she said. "You know
you hate it."
"It saved time," he explained.
Arrangements had been made for an early breakfast for the traveller.
Prudence led him into the breakfast-room, and poured out the hot coffee
which she had made. They did not talk much. Each was conscious of the
strain of this meeting; and the remarks which passed between them were
impersonal and confined to the business of the moment.
On finishing his meal Mr Morgan expressed a desire to go to bed; he
thought he could sleep for a couple of hours. Prudence accompanied him
upstairs, and parted from him outside his bedroom door with a smile that
was friendlier and more ready than any she had given him of late. He
was puzzled. He could not understand her. It was as though they had
gone back to the days of the courtship, when he had been diffident and
awkward and had found her shy and a little difficult, but kind always.
The wife who had left him in anger, who for years, it seemed to him on
looking back upon the past, had felt entirely indifferent towards him,
ceased to be a vivid memory with him; her place in his thoughts was
blotted out by the sunshine of Prudence's smile.
He did not understand what had worked this change in her, but he
realised that in some subtle way she was changed. She had grown
suddenly older, more self-contained and womanly. She was as a person
who, after walking aimlessly for a long while, strikes the right road
unexpectedly, and proceeds more surely, with a definite purpose in view.
Still puzzling over these things, he got into bed and soon forgot his
perplexities and fatigue in sleep.
While Edward Morgan slept heavily, and the rest of the household
slumbered on undisturbed by the early arrival, Prudence remained at her
bedroom window, wakeful and deep in thought, looking out upon the new
day, upon the garden drenched with the heavy dews and saddened looking
in its mantle of unrelieved green. There were weeds upon the paths,
which formerly had been weedless. It occurred to her that the disorder
was significant of the disorder in their own lives. They had been
careless of what they should have tended carefully, and had allowed
things to fall into neglect. There was a good deal of weeding to be
accomplished on her own account. She had let the disorder accumulate
until it threatened to choke all the pleasant places in her mind and
leave her just a discontented woman with no object in life, no mental
outlook.
Many lives as they unfold reveal a less agreeable vista than
anticipation has led one to expect. The philosophic mind makes the best
of these disappointments, and sets to work to discover hidden beauties
in the less alluring prospect ahead; it is the shallower mind which is
dismayed by adverse conditions. The road upon which Prudence had set
her feet was not the road of her inclination; it was none the less the
road she must travel. To follow it finely was the desire of her heart,
as she leaned from the window and thought sadly of the love she had let
pass out of her life, and of the responsibilities she had undertaken,
and so far neglected entirely. She had endeavoured to shape life to her
purpose, and instead life was shaping her to certain definite ends.
Prudence leaned her chin on her hand and looked down upon the white
riband of road beyond the walls. Love had appeared to her along that
road, and love had parted from her there and gone on down the road out
of her life. There were two sad hearts more in the world, that was all.
But the road of life, like the road beyond the walls, remained to be
trodden. One had to go on. It is better to travel with a brave
confidence than to cherish vain regrets.
Prudence and her husband met and had their talk out in the library after
breakfast. It was not so difficult a talk as she had imagined it would
be. Mr Morgan was as eager to make concessions as Prudence. He had
been doing a good deal of private thinking on his own account; and he
saw very clearly that his young wife had never received fair treatment.
He was anxious to make amends.
His insistence on taking the greater share of the blame left her with
curiously little to urge. She scrutinised him, faintly amused. It
occurred to her that this generous closing of differences resembled the
impulsive overtures of two children who had quarrelled needlessly and
were bent on making it up. On one point he was very decided: he refused
to open up the cause of their quarrel. All that was past. He wanted to
start afresh from that moment; he was not going to look back.
"I've been a fool, Prudence," he said. "A man is apt to forget the
value of even his dearest treasure, simply, I suppose, because of the
assurance given by possession; but when he is in danger of losing it he
discovers his need. My dear, I have been very unhappy."
He was seated beside her on the sofa, and he moved as he finished
speaking and put a hand upon hers, which rested on the seat beside her.
She twisted her hand round and clasped his warmly.
"Perhaps it was rather a good thing that I came away," she said, after a
moment's pause. "I was growing nervy. A woman with nerves is difficult
to live with. I have been thinking, and finding out things. It is
astonishing what a lot I've learned about myself just lately. I want to
do better."
"It's been my fault," he insisted. "I never made sufficient allowance
for your youth, dear. We'll try again--make a fresh start. We'll talk
things out together and not bottle up grievances. We have never talked
freely enough to one another."
"No," she said.
"I'm rather glad," he said presently, "that things came to a head. It
has opened up the way to a better understanding. You are the sort of
woman a man learns to rely upon. You're honest. When I recall the
things I said to you that night I am ashamed of myself."
"Never mind that now," she said quickly. "I don't want to think of
that. We agreed not to talk of that."
She got up suddenly and stood in front of him, looking down at him with
softened, smiling eyes.
"I want to ask a favour," she said, "and I feel that that isn't quite
honest just at the moment. It's like taking advantage of our talk.
That's so like a woman, isn't it?"
He sprang up from his seat and took her by the shoulders and kissed her.
"It's the most generous response you could make," he said--"to ask a
favour. It's a proof of your trust anyhow."
"It's something very big," she said, with her earnest eyes lifted to his
face. "If you are altogether against it I'll not insist."
"Tell me what it is," he said, manifestly surprised by the seriousness
of her manner, and entirely unsuspecting the nature of the request.
A faint increase of colour stole into her cheeks, but she kept her gaze
lifted to his.
"I have discovered a little child," she explained softly, "whom nobody
wants; and I want to mother him. I want to take him home with me."
"You've always wanted that," he said, and waited for further
enlightenment.
Briefly she confided to his scandalised ears the story of William's
illegitimate son, observing him closely while she unfolded the sordid
tale in simple direct language, making no appeal to sentiment, merely
relating the bald facts and leaving these to work their own effect. She
was not in the least surprised that he was too shocked on hearing the
story to feel any sympathy for the child in his deserted condition.
That side of the picture left him unmoved.
"You couldn't bring that child home," he said, with more than a touch of
firmness. "A child like that! ... In our home! My dear, how could you
wish such a thing in view of his parentage?"
"It is on account of his parentage I wish it," Prudence answered
quietly. "He is a Graynor, Edward. I want to give him a chance--a
chance to grow up honest and decent living, a chance to become a better
man than his father."
"You talk as though the child were your responsibility," he complained.
"It's nothing to do with us."
"Not directly, no," she said.
"Nor indirectly," he insisted. "There isn't the faintest reason why you
should assume responsibility."
"There is every reason," she urged. "He is a child launched evilly into
a world which shows little sympathy for these children. His life will
be a hard one with no good nor kindly influences surrounding it. There
are numberless cases like this--little children brought into the world
shamefully, and left to drift. It is not surprising that they grow up
to become bad citizens; it would be surprising if they didn't. I want
to give one of these small citizens his chance. The knowledge that he
is closely akin to me makes me more earnest in this wish. We are
childless people, Edward; we could do this without injuring any one.
Are you very set against it?"
She paused, and gazed inquiringly into his grave face, while he looked
back at her for a long minute in silence, looked into the blue eyes,
raised to his with a frank trustfulness he had never beheld in them
before; and he knew that he could not refuse her her wish, however
distasteful the idea of introducing this child into his home might be.
Still gazing steadily into her quiet eyes, he said:
"You wish to give this child his chance? I don't like the idea, but I
have no doubt it is none the less right because it is objectionable to
me. I withdraw my opposition. Give him his chance, Prudence. And in
return let me ask a favour of you."
"What is that?" she said.
He did not take his eyes from hers. He remained standing before her,
observing her with such a yearning wistfulness in his face that her
heart went out to him in pity because she had no love to offer in return
for the love he still bore for her.
"What is the favour, dear?" she asked. "Give me also a chance," he said
hoarsely, and held out his hands to her, and waited.
Prudence put her hands into his, and the tears were in her eyes.