"Thine were the weak, slight hands
That might have taken this strong soul, and bent
Its stubborn substance to thy soft intent."
--WILLIAM WATSON.
It was hard on Stephen that when he walked into a certain drawing-room
the following evening he should find Anne there. It was doubly hard that
he should have to take her in to dinner. Yet so it was. There ought to
have been a decent interval before their next meeting. Some one had
arranged tactlessly, without any sense of proportion. Though he had not
slept since she left him in the garden, still it seemed only a moment
ago, and that she was back beside him in an instant, without giving him
time to draw breath.
She met him as she always met him, with the faint enigmatical smile,
with the touch of gentle respect never absent from her manner to him,
except for one moment last night. He needed it. He had fallen in his
own estimation during that sleepless night. He saw the sudden impulse
that had goaded him into an offer of marriage--the kind of offer that
how many men make in good faith--in its native brutality--as he knew she
had seen it. When he first perceived her in the dimly-lighted room, and
he was aware of her presence before he saw her, he felt he could not go
towards her, as a man may feel that he cannot go home. Home for Stephen
was wherever Anne was, even if the door were barred against him.
But after a few minutes he screwed his "courage to the sticking-place,"
and went up to her.
"I am to take you in to dinner," he said. "It is your misfortune, but
not my fault."
"I am glad," she said. "I came to you last night because I had something
urgent to say to you. I shall have an opportunity of saying it now."
The constraint and awkwardness he had of late felt in her presence fell
from him. It seemed as if they had gone back by some welcome short cut
to the simple intercourse of the halcyon days when they had first met.
He cursed himself for his mole-like obtuseness in having thought last
night that she was playing into her mother's hands. When had she ever
done so? Why had he suspected her?
In the meanwhile the world was
"At rest with will
And leisure to be fair."
The Duchess was not there, suddenly and mercifully laid low by that
occasional friend of society--influenza. The Duke, gay and _débonnaire_
in her absence, was beaming on his hostess whom he was to take into
dinner, and to whom he was sentimentally linked by a mild flirtation in
a past decade, a flirtation so mild that it had no real existence,
except in the imaginative remembrance of both.
Presently Anne and Stephen were walking in to dinner together. It was a
large party, and they sat together at the end of the table.
Anne did not wait this time. She began to talk at once.
"I am anxious about a friend of mine," she said, "who is, I am afraid,
becoming entangled in a far greater difficulty than she is aware. But it
is a long story. Do you mind long stories?"
"No."
Stephen turned towards her, becoming a solid block of attention.
"My friend is a Miss Black, a very beautiful woman, whom Mr De Rivaz is
dying to paint. You may recollect having seen her where he saw her
first, the day after the fire in Lowndes Mansions, in the burnt-out flat
of that unfortunate Mrs Brand."
"I saw her. I remember her perfectly. I spoke to her about the dangerous
state of the passages. I thought her the most beautiful creature, bar
none, I had ever seen."
Stephen pulled himself up. He knew it was most impolitic to praise one
woman to another. They did not like it. It was against the code. He
must be more careful, or he should offend her again.
Anne looked at him very pleasantly. Her eyes were good to meet. She was
evidently not offended. Dear me! Mysterious creatures, women! It struck
him, not for the first time, that Anne was an exception to the whole of
her sex.
"Isn't she beautiful!" said the exception warmly. "But I am afraid she
is not quite as wise as she is beautiful. She is in a great difficulty."
"What about?"
"It seems she burned something when she was alone in the flat. At least
she is accused by Mr Brand of burning something. A very valuable
paper--an I O U for a large sum which her brother owed Mr Brand, and
which became due a month ago--is missing."
"She did burn something," said Stephen. "I was on the floor above at the
time, and smelt smoke, and came down, and De Rivaz told me it was
nothing; only the divinity burning some papers. He was alarmed, and
left his sketch to find where the smoke came from. He saw her burn
them."
"He said that to you," said Anne, "but to no one else. I talked over the
matter with him last night, and directly he heard Miss Black was in
trouble, he assured me that he had thoughtlessly burnt a sheet of
drawing-paper himself. That was what caused the smoke. And he said he
would tell Mr Brand so."
"H'm! Brand is not made up of credulity."
"No. He seems convinced Miss Black destroyed that paper."
"And does she deny it?"
"Of course."
"She can't deny that she burned something."
"Yes, she does. She sticks to it that she burned nothing."
"Then she must be a fool, because three of us know she did. De Rivaz
knows it, I know it, and I see you know it."
"And it turns out the lift man knows it; at least he was reprimanded for
being on the upper floors without leave, and he said he only went there
because there was a smoke, and he was anxious; and the smoke came from
the Brands' sitting-room, which Miss Black left as he came up. He told
Mr Brand this, who put what he thought was two and two together. Fred
Black, it seems, would have been ruined if Mr Brand had enforced
payment, and he believes Miss Black got hold of the paper at her
brother's instigation and destroyed it."
"Well! I suppose she did," said Stephen.
"If you knew her you would know that that is impossible."
Stephen looked incredulous.
"I've known a good many unlikely things happen about money," he said
slowly. "I daresay she did it to save her brother."
"She did not do it," said Anne.
"If she didn't, why doesn't she say what she did burn, and why? What's
the use of sticking to it that she burned nothing when Brand knows
that's a lie? A lie is a deadly stupid thing unless it's uncommonly well
done."
"She has had very little practice in lying. I fancy this is her first."
"The only possible course left for her to take is to admit that she
burned something, and to say what it was. Why doesn't she see that?"
"Because she is a stupid woman, and she does not see the consequences of
her insane denial, and the conclusions that must inevitably be drawn
from it. When the room was examined, ashes were found in the grate that
had been paper."
"How does she explain that?"
"She does not explain it. She explains nothing. She just sets her teeth
and repeats her wretched formula that she burned nothing."
"What took her up to the flat at all then, just when her friend was
dying?"
"She says Mrs Brand sent her up to see if her portrait was safe. But Mr
Brand does not believe that either, as he says he had already told his
wife that it was uninjured."
"This Miss Black is a strong liar," said Stephen. "I should not have
guessed it from her face. She looked as straight and innocent as a
child; but one never can tell."
"I imagine I do not look like a liar. But would you say if I also were
accused of lying that you never can tell?"
Stephen was taken aback. He bit his little finger and frowned at the
wonderful roses in front of him.
"I know you speak the truth," he said, "because you have spoken it to
me. I should believe what you said--always--under any circumstances."
"You believe in my truthfulness from experience. Do you never believe by
intuition?"
"Not often."
"When first I saw Miss Black I perceived that she was a perfectly
honest, upright woman. I did not wait till she had given me any proof of
it. I saw it."
"I certainly thought the same. To say the truth, I am surprised at her
duplicity."
"In my case you judged by experience. In her case I want you to go by
intuition, by your first impression, which I know is the true one. I
would stake my life upon it."
"I don't see how my intuitions would help her."
"Oh! yes, they will. Mr Brand is aware from the lift man, who saw you,
that you were on the spot directly before he smelt smoke. Mr Brand will
probably write to you."
"He has written already. He has asked me to see him on business
to-morrow morning. He does not say what business."
"He is certain to try and find out from you what Miss Black was doing
when you saw her in his flat. It seems you and Mr De Rivaz both left
your cards on the table--why I can't think--but it shows you were both
there. He came up himself next day and found them."
"We both sent messages to Brand by Miss Black."
"It seems she never gave them. She says now she forgot all about them."
Stephen shook his head.
"If Brand comes I shall be obliged to tell him the truth," he said.
"That was why I was so bent on seeing you. I am anxious you _should_
tell him the truth."
Stephen looked steadily at her.
"What truth?" he said.
"Whatever you consider will disabuse his mind of the suspicion that she
burned her brother's I O U. Mr De Rivaz' view of the truth is that the
smoke came from a burnt sheet of his own drawing-paper."
"I am not accountable for De Rivaz. He can invent what he likes. That is
hardly my line."
He coloured darkly. It was incredible to him that Anne could be goading
him to support her friend's fabric of lies by another lie. He would not
do it, come what might. But he felt that Fate was hard on him. He would
have done almost anything at that moment to please her. But a lie--no.
"I fear your line would naturally be to tell the blackest lie that has
ever been told yet, by repeating the damaging facts exactly as they are.
If you do--to a man like him--not only will you help to ruin Miss Black,
but you will give weight to this frightful falsehood which is being
circulated against her. And if you, by your near-sighted truthfulness,
give weight to a lie, it is just the same as telling one. No, I think
it's worse."
Stephen smiled grimly. This was straight talk. Plain speaking always
appealed to him even when, as now, it was at his expense.
"Are you certain that your friend did not burn her brother's I O U?" he
said after a pause.
"I am absolutely certain. Remember her face. Now, Mr Vanbrunt, think.
Don't confuse your mind with ideas of what women generally are. Think of
her. Are not you certain too?"
"Yes," he said slowly, "I am. She is concealing something. She has done
some folly, and is bolstering it up by a stupid lie. But the other,
that's swindling--no, she did not do that."
"Then help the side of truth," said Anne. "My own conviction is that she
burned something compromising Mrs Brand, at Mrs Brand's dying request,
under an oath of secrecy. And that is why her mouth is shut. But this is
only a supposition. I ask you not to repeat it. I only mention it
because you are so----" she shot a glance at him unlike any, in its
gentle raillery, that had fallen to his lot for many a long day--"so
stubborn."
He was unreasonably pleased.
"I should still be in a dry goods warehouse in Hull if I had not been
what you call stubborn," he said, smiling at her.
"May I ask you a small favour for myself?" she said. "So far I have only
asked for my friend."
"It seems hardly necessary to ask it. Only mention it."
"If my mother talks to you, and she talks to you a great deal, do not
mention to her our--our conversation of last night. It would be kinder
to me."
Stephen bowed gravely. He was surprised. It had not struck him that Anne
had not told her mother. A brand-new idea occurred to him, namely that
Anne and her mother were not in each other's confidence. H'm! That
luminous idea required further thought.
"And now," said Anne, "having got out of you all I want, I will
immediately desert you for my other neighbour." And she spoke no more to
Stephen that night.
* * * * *
"My dear," said the Duke of Quorn to Anne as they drove home, "it
appeared to me that you and Vanbrunt were on uncommonly good terms
to-night. Is there any understanding between you?"
"I think he is beginning to have a kind of glimmering of one."
"Really! Understandings don't as a rule lead to marriage.
Misunderstandings generally bring about those painful dislocations of
life. But the idea struck me this evening--I hope needlessly--that I
might after all have to take that richly gilt personage to my bosom as
my son-in-law."
"Mr Vanbrunt asked me to marry him yesterday, and I refused him."
The Duke experienced a slight shock, tinged with relief.
"Does your mother know?" he said at last in an awed voice.
"Need you ask?"
"Well, if she ever finds out, for goodness' sake let her inform me of
the fact. Don't give me away, Anne, by letting out that I knew at the
time. If she thought I was an accomplice of the crime--your
refusal--really if she once got that idea into her head---- But next
time she tackles Vanbrunt, perhaps he will tell her himself. Oh,
heavens!"
"I asked him not to mention it to her."
The Duke sighed.
"And so he really did propose at last. I thought your mother had choked
him off. Most men would have been. Well, Anne, I'm glad you did not
accept him. I don't hold with mixed marriages. In these days people talk
as if class were nothing, and the fact of being well-born of no account.
And, of course, it's a subject one can't discuss, because certain
things, if put into words, sound snobbish at once. But they are true all
the same. The middle classes have got it screwed into their cultivated
heads that education levels class differences. It doesn't, but one can't
say so. Not that Vanbrunt is educated, as I once told him."
"Oh! come, father. I am sure you did not."
"You are right, my dear. I did not. He said himself one day, in a moment
of expansion, that he regretted that he had never had the chance of
going to a public school, or the University, and I said the sort of life
he had led was an education of a high order. So it is. That man has
lived. Really when I come to think of it, I almost--no, I don't--Ahem!
Associate freely with all classes, but marry in your own. That is what
I say when no one is listening. By no one I mean of course yourself, my
dear."
Anne was silent. There had been days when she had felt that difference
keenly though silently. Those days were past.
"Vanbrunt is a Yorkshire dalesman, with Dutch trading blood in him. It
is extraordinary how Dutch the people look near Goole and Hull. I shall
like him better now. I always have liked him till--the last few months.
You would never say Vanbrunt was a gentleman, but you would never say he
wasn't. He seems apart from all class. There is no hall-mark upon him.
He is himself. So you would not have him, my little Anne? That's over.
It's the very devil to be refused, I can tell you. I was refused once.
It was some time ago, as you may imagine, but--I have not forgotten it.
I learned what London looks like in the dawn, after walking the streets
all night. So it's his turn to wear out the pavement now, is it! Poor
man! He'll take it hard in a bottled-up way. When next I see him I
shall say: 'Aha! money can't buy everything, Vanbrunt.'"
"Oh! no, father. You won't be so brutal."
"No, my dear, I daresay I shall not. I shall pretend not to know. Really
I have a sort of regard for him. Poor Vanbrunt!"