The autumn hardened into winter and the winter softened into spring,
and the relations between Yvonne and the Canon seemed to follow the
seasons’ difference. He had learned her limitations and no longer set
her tasks beyond her powers.
“You must not try to put a butterfly into harness,” said Mrs.
Winstanley, who had gradually been gaining lost influence. He had called
to consult her upon some parochial question and the talk had turned upon
Yvonne. The Canon bit his lip. He had fallen into the habit of making
confidences and regretting them a moment afterwards.
“You do Yvonne injustice.”
“I did once, I grant,” she replied; “but now, as you see, I am pleading
for her.”
“Yvonne needs no advocate with me,” said the Canon, stiffly.
“She may.”
“What do you mean, Emmeline?”
“If you don’t understand her nature, you may misinterpret her conduct.
You see, Everard, she is young and light-natured--and so, like seeks
like. You may always count upon me to keep things straight outside.”
She had laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke in her quiet,
authoritative voice. Her manner was too dignified to be intrusive. She
was eminently the woman of sense. Her reference was well understood by
him, but being a man accustomed to the broad issues of life, he did not
appreciate the delicate pleasure such a conversation afforded her.
On this occasion, he went from her house straight to the Rectory, and in
the drawing-room found young Evan Wilmington bidding good-bye to Yvonne.
Her sunniest smile rested on the young fellow; when the door shut upon
him, the after-glow of amusement was still upon her face. The Canon felt
an absurd pang of jealousy. Such had not been infrequent of late, since
he had abandoned his scheme of reorganisation. In fact, as Yvonne had
fallen from his conjugal ideal--the woman who, as an impeccable consort
and mother of children was to lend added dignity to his days--his
feelings as regards her had been growing more helplessly human. His
conception of the dove-like innocence of her nature had suffered no
change. Her pure voice had ever been to him the speech of a purer soul.
It was no vulgar jealousy that pained him; but jealousy it was, all the
same.
He went to her and put his hands against her cheeks and held up her
face.
“Don’t smile too much on young Evan,” he said. “It is not good for him.
I want all your best smiles for myself, sweetheart.”
“He has been making me laugh,” said Yvonne.
“And I cannot?”
“He is a silly boy and you are the venerable Canon Chisely.”
“That’s it,” he said, rather bitterly, releasing her.
Her expression changed. She caught him, as he was turning away, by the
lapels of his coat.
“Are you serious, Everard? You are! Forgive me if I have hurt you.
I can’t bear to do it. Do you wish me to see less of Mr.
Wilmington--really?”
Looking into her eyes he felt ashamed of his pettiness.
“See your friends as much as you like, my child,” he said, with a
revulsion of feeling.
The matter was settled for the time being, but thenceforward the even
tenor of their life was disturbed occasionally by such outbursts. Once
he grew angry. “You have the same smile for any man who speaks to you,
Yvonne.” She replied with gentle logic, “That ought to prove that I like
all equally.”
“Your husband included.”
She turned away wounded. “You have no right to say that.”
“Then what have I a right to say, Yvonne?”
“Anything,” she cried, facing him with brightening eyes, “anything
except that I do not try with all my heart and soul to be a good wife to
you.”
This time it was he who said “Forgive me.” Unconsciously her
influence grew upon him in his lighter moods, as he excluded her from
participation in his serious concerns. To win from her a flash other
than dutiful he would humour any caprice. Yvonne was too shrewd not to
perceive this. His tenderness touched her, saddened her a little. On her
birthday he gave her a pair of tiny ponies and a diminutive phaeton--a
perfect turn-out. He lived for a week on the delight in her face when
they were brought round (an absolute surprise) to the front door. Yet
that evening she said, with her little air of seriousness, after she had
been meditating for some time in silence, with puckered brow:--
“I wonder if I am quite such a child as you think me, Everard. I should
like something to happen to show you that I am a woman.”
“Don’t say that, dear,” he replied, contentedly, holding up his glass
of port to the light and peering into it--he was a specialist in
ports--“such a chance would probably be some calamity.”
Yvonne was not alone in noting the true inwardness of the Canon’s course
of action. Mrs. Winstanley did so, to her own chagrin. The ponies were
as distasteful to her as the beast of the Apocalypse. She was with Lady
Santyre, in the latter’s barouche, when she first saw them. Yvonne,
aglow with the effort of driving, was sending them down the Fulminster
Road at a rattling pace. She nodded brightly as she passed, pointing to
the ponies with her whip.
“How fond the dear Canon is of that little woman,” said Lady Santyre,
her thin lips closing as if on an acidulated drop.
“Psha!” said Mrs. Winstanley, with one of her rare exhibitions of
temper. “If he were a few years older, it would be senile infatuation!
She is beginning to curl him round her finger.”
But there was one subject near to Yvonne’s heart on which the Canon
was inflexible--Joyce. Often Yvonne had sought to soften him toward the
black sheep, but in his gentlest moods the mention of his cousin’s name
turned him to adamant. He even resented Yvonne’s helpful friendship
before her marriage. On the afternoon that he had passed Joyce on the
stairs, he had spoken as strongly to Yvonne as good taste permitted.
Now that he had authority over her, he forbade her to hold further
communication with the man who had disgraced his name. Finally she
abandoned her attempts at conciliation, but pity prevailing over wifely
obedience, she kept up her correspondence with Joyce, unknown to the
Canon. That is to say, she wrote cheery, gossipy letters now and then to
the address she had received from Cape Town, trusting to luck for their
ultimate delivery, but receiving very few in return, for Joyce had often
not the heart to write.
She was reading, one day, his last letter, many pages closely filled.
It had come that morning, under Miss Vicary’s cover, according to her
request. The envelope lay on the table in the centre of the room;
but she had taken the letter to the broad, cushioned window-seat, her
favourite place in summer, where she could see the old abbey, and enjoy
the scent of the mignonette and syringa from the beds below. It was the
quiet afternoon hour, before tea, when she generally read or idled or
sang to herself. She was at peace with all the world, and her heart was
full of pity for Joyce.
Yet it was the most hopeful of the four letters she had received from
him. The previous ones had told of struggles and privations innumerable;
the aimless tramp from one town to another in the search for more than
starvation wages; the hopeless attempts to live in mining camps, where
unskilled labour was a drug in the market; sickness, and the dwindling
of his little capital. This one took up the tale broken off some months
before. Noakes and himself had left the mines, had wandered, sometimes
alone, sometimes with other adventurers, into Bechuanaland, where he had
purchased with his last remaining pounds a share in a small farm. It
was a haven of rest. But the country was unhealthy. The work was hard.
Noakes lay ill in bed; medical advice was a hundred and fifty miles
away. To cheer the invalid, he had schemed out a novel on the life they
had recently passed through, and was writing it at nights for Noakes
to read during the day. He was writing it on a bundle of yellow
package-paper which had remained over from the stock of a small “store”
once run by the chief owner of the farm.
He spoke of the comfort of her letters. Four of them had just come to
his hands at once. He had read them aloud to Noakes, who was even more
friendless than himself. Yvonne’s heart was touched at the thought
of the poor man who never got a letter, and had to extract vicarious
comfort from his friend’s. She knew him quite well through Joyce’s
description, and loved him for the quaint lovableness that appeared in
the narrative of their joint fortunes.
“He shall have a letter all to himself,” said Yvonne aloud; and she rose
to put her idea into execution.
But just as she was bringing her writing materials to the window-seat,
which was strewn with the sheets of Joyce’s letter, the Canon came into
the room.
“Can you give me some tea quickly, dear?” he said, ringing the bell. “I
am called away to Bickerton.”
He sank into a chair with a sigh of relief. It had been a busy day and
the weather was hot.
“Would you like me to drive you over?” asked Yvonne.
“Dearly,” said the Canon. He leaned back, and stretched out his hand in
a gesture of contented invitation.
“It won’t be taking you from your correspondence? You seem up to your
eyes in it.”
“Oh, it can wait,” said Yvonne, smiling down upon him as he held her
hand.
Soon the servant brought the tea, and Yvonne established herself over
the tea-cups. The Canon, whilst waiting, glanced idly at the books
and odds and ends on the table by his side. Suddenly he uttered an
exclamation of surprise. He had become aware of the foreign envelope,
with the Cape Colony stamp and its address to “Mrs. Chisely, care of
Miss Vicary.” He also recognised Joyce’s handwriting which happened to
be singularly striking in character. His brow grew dark.
“What is the meaning of this, Yvonne?”
“A letter from Stephen,” she replied with a sudden qualm.
“And sent to you clandestinely. You have been corresponding with him
secretly in defiance of my express desire. How dared you do it?”
He spoke in harsh tones, bending upon her all the hardness of a
stern face. She had never seen him angered like this before. She was
frightened, but she steadied herself and looked him in the face.
“I couldn’t help it, Everard,” she said, gently. “The poor fellow
regards me as his only friend. I was forced to disobey you.”
“That poor fellow has been guilty of mean robbery. He has herded with
ruffians in a common gaol. He has dragged an old honoured name through
the mire. For a man like that--once a knave always a knave. I don’t
choose to have my wife keeping up friendly relations with an outcast
member of my family. I am deeply offended with you--I pass over the
underhand nature of the correspondence, which in itself deserves
reprobation.”
“I believe in Stephen,” replied Yvonne, growing very white. “He has been
punished a thousand times over. He will live an honourable man to the
end of his life. And if you read how he speaks of the few silly letters
I have written him--his joy and gratitude--you would not wish to deprive
him of them.”
“Do you mean to say that you are deliberately setting yourself in
opposition to my wishes, Yvonne?” asked the Canon in angry surprise.
Yvonne was in great distress. She could not defy him openly, and yet
she knew that no power on earth would prevent her from doing Joyce her
little deeds of mercy.
She looked at him piteously for a moment, and then sank by his chair and
clasped his knees. “I can’t do what you want, Everard,” she cried. “We
were such friends in days past--And when I met him again, he looked so
broken and lonely--I could n’t in my heart let him go--and having given
him my friendship, I can’t be so cruel as to take it from him now. I
can’t feel what you do about the disgrace. I haven’t the capacity
perhaps. And I promised his dead mother to be kind to him. I did indeed,
Everard--and a promise like that I must keep.”
He put her not unkindly from him and, rising to his feet, took two or
three turns about the room. Stopping, he said:--
“Why did you not tell me of this promise before?”
“I was afraid to vex you,” said Yvonne.
“You have vexed me much more by deceiving me,” he replied.
But there the matter had to end. He could not bid her break her word,
nor would he allow himself to yield to a tempting sophistry that women’s
ante-nuptial promises were annulled by marriage. To regain his good
graces, however, Yvonne pledged herself never to intercede with him on
Joyce’s behalf in the future--in fact to preserve an absolute silence
concerning the black sheep and his doings.
This settled, she drove him over to Bickerton in her pony carriage. And
the even tenor of her life went on.
*****
It was many weeks before the letters arrived at the farm in South
Africa. The monthly ox-waggons that came from the nearest post-town
brought them, together with the usual load of farm and household
requisites, tinned provisions, and liquors. Day after day, Joyce had
stood by the prickly-pear hedge on the rise behind the house, looking
over the dreary plain, in wistful watch for the specks on the horizon
that alone connected him with civilisation. They arrived at night--a
blustering August night, with frost in the air, and a cloudless sky
in which the Southern Cross gleamed. Before waiting to help unload and
outspan the teams, he rushed into the house with the meagre post-bundle.
It contained a few colonial newspapers, some letters for Wilson, the
farmer who was away, and the two letters from Fulminster. The rough
table, on which he sorted them by the light of a flaring chimneyless
lamp, was drawn up to the bedside of Noakes.
“One for you, old man,” said Joyce.
“For me?”
Noakes stretched out his thin arm eagerly, and clutched the undreamed of
prize.
“From Yvonne. It’s to cheer you up, old chap, I expect. It’s just like
her, you know.”.
Joyce ran through his letter rapidly and went out to superintend the
unloading. But Noakes, who was past work, remained in bed and pored over
Yvonne’s simple lines till the tears came into his eyes.
When all was settled, the stores taken in, the teams secured, the
natives who had driven them established in the huts, and finally the
Englishman in charge provided with food and whisky and sent to sleep,
Joyce sat down by his friend’s side and gave himself up to the greatest
pleasure his life then held. The wind howled outside, and the draught
swept in through the cracks on the doors, and the ill-fitting windows,
and up the rude chimney beneath which a fire was smouldering. Noakes
coughed incessantly. The atmosphere was tainted with the smell of the
lamp, the thin smoke from the fuel, the piles of sacking and mealy-bags
that lay in corners of the room, and the strips of bultong or dried beef
hanging in the gloom of the rafters. The room itself, occupying nearly
the whole area of the ground-floor of the rudely built wooden house, was
cheerless in aspect. The table, two or three wooden chairs, some shelves
holding cooking utensils and odds and ends of crockery, a litter of
stores and boxes, a frameless dirty oleograph of the bubble-blowing boy,
a churchman’s almanac, two years old, against the wall, and Noakes’s
sack bed--that was all the room contained. In a corner was a ladder
leading to the loft, where Joyce and the farmer slept, and whence now
came the muffled sounds of the snoring of the English driver. But for a
few moments Joyce forgot the cheerless surroundings.
He sat late with Noakes, reading the letters aloud and talking of
Yvonne. At last, after a short silence, Noakes raised himself on his
elbow and gazed earnestly at his friend. He was very gaunt and wasted--
“That’s the only tender thing a woman has ever done for me,” he said.
“No,” he added in reply to Joyce’s questioning look, “my wife was never
tender. God knows why she married me.”
“We ’ll make our fortunes and go back, and you shall know her,” said
Joyce.
“No. I shall never go back. I shall never get half a mile beyond this
door again.”
“Nonsense,” said Joyce. “You ’ll pull round when the spring comes.”
“I have performed my allotted task. It was a severe portion and it has
finished me off.”
“Look here, old man,” cried Joyce, “for God’s sake don’t talk like that.
I can’t live in this accursed place by myself. You’ve been broken down
by our hard times--but you ’ll get over it all, with this long rest.”
“I am going to a longer one, Joyce. I don’t mind going, you know. And
then you ’ll be free of me. I am but a cumberer of the ground--I am of no
use--I never have been of any use--I have been carrying water in a sieve
all my life.”
He began to cough. Joyce put his arm around him for support, and tended
him gently.
“You have a lot to do, old man,” he said soon after. “The foolscap
has come, and a great jar of ink, and you can start copying out the
manuscript to-morrow.”
“Ah yes, I can do that,” said Noakes.
“Now go to sleep. I ’ll sit by you, if you like,” said Joyce.
He moved the lamp to a ledge behind Noakes’s head, and sat down near by,
with the budget of newspapers. Noakes composed himself to sleep. At last
he spoke, without turning round.
“Joyce.”
“Yes, old man.”
“Make me a promise.”
“Willingly.”
“Bury that dear lady’s letter with me.”
“Will it make you happy to promise?”
“Yes.”
“Then I promise,” said Joyce, humouring him. “Now I’m not going to talk
to you any more.”
A few minutes later, his breathing told Joyce that he slept. The
newspapers fell from Joyce’s hand, and he put his elbows on his knees
and crouched over the smouldering logs. Noakes spoke truly. There was
little chance of recovery. He would be left alone again soon. It would
be very comfortless. The poor wreck who was dragging out his last days
upon that wretched bed had been an unspeakable solace to him. Without
his womanlike devotion he would have died of fever six months back on
the Arato goldfield. Without the influence of his calm fatalism, he
would have given up heart long ago. Without his steadfast purity of
soul, he would have gone recklessly to the devil. The thought of losing
him was a great pang.
He himself, too, was far from strong. The climate, the hard manual
labour for which he was physically unfit were telling upon him heavily.
He yearned for home, for civilised life, for the lost heritage of
honour. Yvonne’s letter, telling of the little commonplaces of the lost
sweet life of decent living, had revived the ever dormant longing. He
began to dream of her, of that last day he had seen her, of her voice
singing Gounod’s serenade.
It was difficult to picture her as married to his cousin Everard, whom,
in the days of his vanity, he had despised as a prig and now dreaded as
a scornful benefactor. It was a strange mating. And yet she seemed happy
and unchanged.
The wind blustered outside. The cold draught whistled through the room.
Joyce rose to his feet with a shiver, went to a corner for a couple of
sacks, which he threw over the sleeping man, and, after having wistfully
read Yvonne’s letter once more, ascended the ladder to the loft, where
the shapeless mattress of dried grass and sacking awaited him.