BEATRIX COMES HOME
Beatrix and her maid were already at the station when Grafton arrived.
He had only allowed himself ten minutes, and was busy getting tickets,
finding a carriage and buying papers, until it was nearly time for the
train to start. Then he found somebody to talk to, and only joined
Beatrix at the last moment.
She had given him rather a pathetic look of enquiry when he had first
come up to them waiting for him in the booking-office. Now she sat in
her corner of the carriage, very quiet. They were alone together.
He sat down opposite to her, and took her hand in his. "My darling," he
said, "he isn't the right man for you. You must forget him."
She left her hand lying in his, inertly. Her eyes were wide and her face
pale as she asked: "Have you told him he can't marry me at all?"
He changed his seat to one beside her. "B darling," he said, "you know I
wouldn't hurt you if I could help it. I hated the idea of it so much
last night that I couldn't tell you, as perhaps I ought to have done,
that I didn't think you'd see him again. I wasn't quite sure. He might
have been different from what I thought him. But he isn't the husband
for a girl like you, darling. He made that quite plain."
Her hands lay in her lap, and she was looking out of the window. "Did
you send him away?" she asked, turning her head towards him. "Isn't he
going to see me again--or write to me?"
"He won't see you again. I didn't tell him he wasn't to write to you,
but I don't think he will; I hope he won't. It's no good, darling. The
break has come; it must make you very unhappy for a time, I know that,
my dear little girl. But I hope it won't be for long. We all love you
dearly at home, you know. We shall make it up to you in time."
He felt, as he said this, how entirely devoid of comfort such words must
be to her. The love of those nearest to her, which had been
all-sufficing, would count as nothing in the balance against the new
love that she wanted. She had told him the night before that the new
love heightened and increased the old; and so it would, as long as he,
who had hitherto come first with her, stepped willingly down from that
eminence, and added his tribute to hers. Opposition instead of tribute
would wipe out, for the time at least, all that she had felt for him
during all the years of her life. The current of all her love was
pouring into the new channel that had been opened up. There would be
none to water the old channels, unless they led into the new one.
She turned to him again. There was a look in her face that he had never
seen there before, and it struck through to his heart. It was the
dawning of hostility, which put her apart from him as nothing else could
have done; for it meant that there were tracts in her as yet
unexplored, and perhaps unsuspected, and there was no knowing what arid
spaces he would have to traverse in them. "I can't understand it at
all," she said quietly. "Why did you send him away, and why did he go? I
_know_ he loves me; and he knows I love him, and forgive him anything
that was wrong. What _is_ wrong? You ought to tell me that."
He stirred uneasily in his seat. How could he tell her what was wrong?
She was so innocent of evil. If he felt, as he did, that Lassigny's
desire for her touched her with it, he had diverted that from her. He
couldn't plunge her into it again by explanations that would only
justify himself.
"Darling child," he said. "It's all wrong. You must trust me to know.
I've made no mistake. If he had been what the man who marries you must
be he wouldn't have gone away from me as he did, in offence. He'd have
justified himself, or tried to. And I'd have listened to him too. As it
was, I don't think we were together for ten minutes. He gave you up, B.
He was offended, and he gave you up--before I had asked him to. Yes,
certainly before I had said anything final."
She looked out of the window again. "I wish I knew what had happened,"
she said as quietly as before. "I can't understand his giving me up--of
his own free will. I wish I knew what you had said to him."
This hardened him a little. He did not want to make too much of
Lassigny's having so easily given up his claims. He was not yet sure
that he had entirely given them up. But, at any rate, the offence to his
pride had been enough to have caused him to do so unconditionally for
the time being. Beatrix had been given up for it without a struggle to
retain her, and it was not Beatrix's father who had made any conditions
as to his seeing her or writing to her again, or had needed to do so.
Yet she would not accept it, that the renunciation could have been on
the part of the man whom she hardly knew. It must have been some
injustice or harshness on his part, from whom she had had nothing but
love all her life.
"It doesn't matter what I said to him, or what he said to me," he
answered her. "If he had been the right sort of man for you nothing that
I said to him would have caused him offence. He took offence, and
withdrew. You must accept that, B darling. I didn't, actually, send him
away. I shouldn't have sent him away, if he had justified himself to me
in any degree. You know how much I love you, don't you? Surely you can
trust me a little?"
He put his hand out to take hers, in a way that she had never yet failed
to respond to. But she did not take it. It wasn't, apparently, of the
least interest to her to be told how much he loved her. There was no
comfort at all in that, to her who had so often shown herself hungry for
the caresses that showed his love.
She sat still, looking out of the window, and saying nothing for a long
time. He said nothing either, but took up one of the papers he had
bought. He made himself read it with attention, and succeeded in taking
in what he read after a few attempts. His heart was heavy enough; there
would be a great deal more to go through yet before there could be any
return to the old conditions of affection and contentment between him
and this dear hurt child of his. But all had been said that could
profitably be said. It would be much better to put it aside now, and act
as if it were not there, as far as it was possible, and encourage her to
do so.
She was strangely quiet, sitting there half-turned away from him with
her eyes always fixed upon the summer landscape now flowing steadily
past them; and yet she was, by temperament, more emotional than any of
his children. None of them had ever cried much--they had had very little
in their lives to cry about--but Beatrix had been more easily moved to
tears than the others. She might have been expected to cry over what she
was feeling now. Perhaps she wouldn't begin to get over the blow that
had been dealt her until she did cry.
He felt an immense pity and tenderness for her, sitting there as still
as a mouse. He would have liked to put his arm around her and draw her
to him, and soothe her trouble, which she should have sobbed out on his
shoulder as she had done with the little troubles of her childhood. But
that unknown quantity in her restrained him. He knew instinctively that
she would reject him as the consoler of this trouble. He was the cause
of it in her poor wounded groping little mind.
Presently she roused herself and took up an illustrated paper, which she
glanced through, saying as she did so, in a colourless voice: "Shall we
be able to get some tea at Ganton? I've got rather a headache."
"Have you, my darling?" he said tenderly. "Yes, we shall have five
minutes there. Haven't you any phenacetin in your bag?"
"Yes; but it isn't as bad as that," she said. "I'll take some when I get
home, if it's worse."
"Give me a kiss, my little B," he said. "You do love your old Daddy,
don't you?"
She kissed him obediently. "Yes, of course," she said, and returned to
her paper.
They spoke little after that until they reached the station for
Abington. If he said anything she replied to it, and sometimes she made
a remark herself. But there was never anything like conversation between
them. He was in deep trouble about her all the time, and could never
afterwards look out on certain landmarks of that journey without
inwardly flinching. He would not try to comfort her again. He knew that
was beyond his power. She must get used to it first; and nobody could
help her. And he would not bother her by talking; just a few words now
and then were as necessary to her as to him.
Only Caroline had come to meet them. Beatrix clung to her a little as
she kissed her, but that was all the sign she made, and she exerted
herself a little more than she had done to talk naturally, until they
reached home.
Barbara and Bunting were in front of the house as they came up. After a
sharp glance at her and their father, they greeted her with the usual
affection that this family habitually showed to one another, and both
said that they were glad to see her home again, as if they meant it.
Miss Waterhouse was behind them, and said: "You look pale, B darling.
Hadn't you better go straight to your room and lie down?"
She went upstairs with her. Barbara and Bunting, with a glance at one
another, took themselves off. Caroline followed her father into the
library.
"It's all over," he said shortly. "I saw him this morning. He's what I
thought he was. She's well rid of him, poor child. But, of course, she's
taking it very hard. You must look after her, darling. I can't do
anything for her yet. She's closed up against me."
"Poor old Daddy," said Caroline, feeling in her sensitive fibre the hurt
in him. "Was it very difficult for you?"
"It wasn't difficult to get rid of him," he said. "I didn't have to. He
retired of his own accord. Whether he'll think better of his offence and
try to come back again I don't know. But my mind's quite made up about
him. However she feels about it I'm not going to give her to a man like
that. She'll thank me for it by and by. Or if she doesn't I can't help
it. I'm not going through this for my own sake."
She asked him a few questions as to how Beatrix had carried herself, and
then she went up to her.
Beatrix was undressing, and crying softly. She had sent Miss Waterhouse
away, saying that she was coming down to dinner, and it was time to
dress. But when she had left her she had broken down, and decided to go
to bed.
She threw herself into Caroline's arms, and cried as if her heart would
break. Caroline said nothing until the storm had subsided a little,
which it did very soon. "I can't help crying--just once," she said. "But
I'm not going to let myself be like that. Why does he make me so
unhappy? I thought he loved me."
Caroline thought she meant Lassigny. All that she had been told was that
he had given her up. Fortunately she did not answer before Beatrix said:
"He won't tell me what's wrong, and what he said to him, to make him go
away. Oh, it's very cruel. I do love him, and I shall never love anybody
else. And we were so happy together. And now he comes in and spoils it
all. I shall never see him again; he said so."
Caroline had no difficulty now in disengaging the personalities of the
various 'he's' and 'him's.'
"Daddy's awfully sad about it, B," she said. "You know he couldn't be
cruel to any of us."
"He's been cruel to me," said Beatrix. "I came down when he told me to,
although I didn't want to, and I made up my mind that if he wanted us to
put it off, even for as long as a year, I would ask Rene to, because I
did love him and wanted to please him. And he was all right about it
last night--and yet all the time he meant to do this. I call that cruel.
And what has my poor Rene done? He won't tell me. Has he told you?"
"I don't think it's anything that he's done," said Caroline slowly. "He
says he isn't----"
"Oh, I know," said Beatrix, breaking in on her. "He isn't a fit husband
for me. He told me that. How does he know? He says he only talked to him
for ten minutes, and then he said something that made him go away. Oh,
why did he go away like that? He does love me, I know. Isn't he ever
going to try to see me again, or even to write to me, to say good-bye?"
Caroline's heart was torn, but she couldn't merely soothe and sympathise
with her. "It's frightfully hard for you, darling, I know," she said.
"But he wouldn't just have gone away and given you up--M. de Lassigny, I
mean--if Daddy hadn't been right about him."
"Oh, of course, you take his side!" said Beatrix. "I trusted him too,
and he's been cruel to me."
Caroline helped her to bed. Her heart was heavy, both for Beatrix and
for her father. She tried no more to defend him. It was of no use at
present. Beatrix must work that out for herself. At present she was more
in need of consolation than he was, and she tried her best to give it to
her. But that was of little use either. Her grievance against her father
was now rising to resentment. As she poured out her trouble, which after
all did give her some relief, although she was unaware of it, Caroline
could only say, "Oh, no, B darling, you mustn't say that"; or, "You know
how much he loves you; he must be right about it." But in the end she
was a little shaken in her own faith. She thought that Beatrix ought to
have known more. She would have wanted to know more herself, if she had
been in her place.
Later on in the evening she and Miss Waterhouse sat with him in the
library, to which he had taken himself instinctively after dinner, as
the room of the master of the house. Caroline had told him, what there
was no use in keeping back, that Beatrix thought he had been unjust to
her, and he was very unhappy.
He talked up and down about it for some time, and then said, with a
reversion to the direct speech that was more characteristic of him:
"She's bound to think I've been unjust to her, I suppose. Do you think
so too?"
Miss Waterhouse did not reply. Caroline said, after a short pause: "I
think if I were B I should want to know why you thought he wasn't fit
for me. If it's anything that he's done----"
"It's the way he and men like him look upon marriage," he said. "I can't
go into details--I really can't, either to you or her."
"But if he loves her very much--mightn't it be all right with them?"
"Yes, it might," he answered without any hesitation. "If he loved her in
the right way."
"Are you quite sure he doesn't, darling? If he had a chance of proving
it!"
"He hasn't asked for the chance."
"It really comes back to that," said Miss Waterhouse, speaking almost
for the first time. "You would not have refused him his chance, if he
had asked for it?"
"I don't know. I don't think I should. If he had said that his loving
Beatrix made things different to him--if he'd shown in any way that they
were different to him--I don't know what I should have done. It
certainly wouldn't have ended as it did."
"Well, Cara dear," said Miss Waterhouse, "I think the thing to say is
that M. de Lassigny was not prepared to satisfy your father that he even
wanted to be what he thought B's husband ought to be. If he had gone
ever such a little way he would have had his chance."
"It is he who has given her up. I know that," said Caroline. "You didn't
really send him away at all, did you? Oh, I'm sure you must have been
right about him. I liked him, you know; but-- He can't love B very much,
I should think, if he was willing to give her up like that, at once."
That was the question upon which the unhappy clash of interests turned
during the days that followed. Beatrix knew that he loved her. How could
she make a mistake about that? She turned a little from Caroline, who
was very loving to her but would not put herself unreservedly on her
side, and poured out all her griefs to Barbara, and also to Mollie
Walter. Barbara, not feeling herself capable of pronouncing upon
anything on her own initiative, took frequent counsel of Miss
Waterhouse, who advised her to be as sweet to B as possible, but not to
admit that their father could have been wrong in the way he had acted.
"There is no need to say that M. de Lassigny was," she said. "Poor B
will see that for herself in time."
Poor B was quite incapable of seeing anything of the sort at present.
She was also deeply offended at any expression of the supposition that
she would 'get over it'--as if it were an attack of measles. She told
Mollie, who gave her actually more of the sympathy that she wanted than
any of her own family, that she couldn't understand her father taking
this light view of love. She would have thought he understood such
things better. She would never love anybody but Rene, even if they did
succeed in keeping them apart all their lives. And she knew he would
love her in the same way.
There was, however, no getting over the fact that Rene, when he had
walked out of the Bank parlour, in offence, had walked out of his
matrimonial intentions at the same time. The fashionable intelligence
department announced his intention of spending the autumn at his Chateau
in Picardy, and there was some reason to suppose that the announcement,
not usual in the way it was given, might be taken as indicating to those
who had thought of him as taking an English bride that his intentions in
that respect had been relinquished.
Grafton was rather surprised at having got rid of him so easily, and
inclined to question himself as to the way in which he had done it. He
told Worthing of all that had passed, and Worthing's uncomplicated
opinion was that the fellow must have been an out and out wrong 'un.
"I don't say that," Grafton said. "He was in love with B in the way that
a fellow of that sort falls in love. Probably she'd have been very happy
with him for a time. But she wouldn't have known how to hold
him--wouldn't have known that she had to, poor child. I'm precious glad
she's preserved from it. You know, Worthing, I couldn't have stopped it
if he'd said--like an English fellow might have done--a fellow who had
gone the pace--that all that was over for good; he wanted to make
himself fit for a girl like B--something of that sort. Many a fellow has
been made by loving a good innocent girl, and marrying. B could have
done that for him, if he'd been the right sort--and wanted it."
"I bet she could," said Worthing loyally. "It's hard luck she should
have set her heart on a wrong 'un. They can't tell the difference, I
suppose--girls, I mean. I don't know much about 'em, but I've learnt a
good deal since I've got to know yours. It makes you feel different
about all that sort of game. It's made me wish sometimes that I'd
married myself, before I got too old for it. What I can't quite
understand is its not affecting this fellow in the same sort of way. I
don't understand his not making a struggle for her."
"Well, I suppose it's as he said to me--what annoyed me so--that
marriage is a thing apart with him and his like. He's got plenty to
offer in marriage, and it would probably annoy him much more than it
would an Englishman in the same sort of position as his, to be turned
down. He may have been sorry that he'd cut it off himself so decisively,
but his pride wouldn't let him do anything to recover his ground. That's
what I think has happened."
"Well, but what about his being in love with her? That'd count a good
deal with a girl like her, I should say--Frenchman or no Frenchman."
"He's been in love plenty of times before. He knows how easy it is to
get over, if she doesn't--the sort of love _he's_ likely to have felt
for her. It might have turned into something more, if he'd known her
longer. Perhaps he didn't know that; they don't know everything about
love--the sensualists--though they think they do. She hadn't had time to
make much impression on him--just a very pretty bright child; I think
he'd have got tired of her in no time, sweet as she is. Oh, I'm thankful
we've got rid of him. I've never done a better thing in my life than
when I stopped it. But I'm not having a happy time about it at present,
Worthing. No more is my little B."