"FREE!"
"And what if I refuse to tell her this?" said Wyvis Brand.
"Then I shall tell her myself."
"And break your word to me?"
"And break my word."
He stood looking at her for a minute in silence, and then an ironical
smile curled his lip as he turned aside.
"Women are all alike," he said. "They cannot possibly hold their
tongues. I thought _you_ were superior to most of your sex. I remember
that your father once spoke of you to me as 'his faithful Janet.' Is
this your faithfulness?"
"Yes, it is, it is," she cried; and then, sitting down, she suddenly
burst into tears. She was unnerved and agitated, and so she wept, as
girls will weep--for nothing at all sometimes, and sometimes in the very
crisis of their fate.
Wyvis looked on, uncomprehending, a little touched, though rather
against his will, by Janetta's tears. He knew that she did not often
cry. He waited for the paroxysm to pass--waited grimly, but with
"compunctuous visitings." And presently he was rewarded for his
patience. She dried her eyes, lifted up her head, and spoke.
"I don't know why I should make such a fool of myself," she said. "I
suppose it was because you mentioned my father. Yes, he used to call me
his faithful Janet very often. I have always tried--to--to _deserve_
that name."
"Forgive me, Janetta," said her cousin, more moved than he liked to
appear. "I did not want to hurt you; but, indeed, my dear girl, you must
let me manage my affairs for myself. You are not responsible for
Margaret Adair as you were for Nora; and you can't, you know, bring me
to book as you did my brother, Cuthbert."
"You mean that I interfere too much in other people's business?" said
poor Janetta, with quivering lips.
"I did not say so. I only say, '_Don't_ interfere.'"
"It is very hard to do right," said Janetta, looking at him with wistful
eyes. "One's duty seems so divided. Margaret is not my sister--that is
true, but she is my friend; and I always believed that one had
responsibilities and duties towards friends as well as towards
relations."
"Possibly"--in a very dry tone. "But you need not meddle with what is no
concern of yours."
"It is my concern, if you--my cousin--are not acting rightly to my
friend."
"I say it is no concern of yours at all."
They had come to a deadlock. He faced her, with the dark, haughty,
imperious look which she knew so well upon his fine features; she stood
silent, angry too, and almost as imperious. But, womanlike, she yielded
first.
"You asked me once to be your friend, Cousin Wyvis. I want to be yours
and Margaret's too. Won't you let me see what you mean?"
Wyvis Brand's brow relaxed a little.
"I don't understand your views of friendship: it seems to mean a right
to intermeddle with all the affairs of your acquaintances," he said,
cuttingly; "but since you are so good as to ask my intentions----"
"If you talk like that, I'll never speak to you again!" cried Janetta,
who was not remarkable for her meekness.
Wyvis actually smiled.
"Come," he said, "be friends, Janetta. I assure you I don't mean any
harm. You must not be straight-laced. Your pretty friend is no doubt
well able to take care of herself."
But he looked down as he said this and knitted his brows.
"She has never had occasion to do it," said Janetta, epigrammatically.
"Then don't you think it is time she learns?"
"You have no right to be her teacher."
"Right! right!" cried Wyvis, impatiently "I am tired of this cuckoo-cry
about my rights! I have the right to do what I choose, to get what
pleasure out of life I can, to do my best for myself. It is everybody's
right, and he is only a hypocrite who denies it."
"There is one limitation," said Janetta. "Get what you can for yourself,
if you like--it seems to me a somewhat selfish view--as long as you
don't injure anybody else."
"Whom do I injure?" he asked, looking at her defiantly in the face.
"Margaret."
He dropped his eyes, and the defiance went suddenly out of his look and
voice.
"Injure her?" he said, in a very low tone. "Surely, you know, I wouldn't
do _that_--to save my life."
Janetta looked at him mutely. The words were a revelation. There was a
pause, during which she heard, as in a dream, the sound of children's
voices and children's feet along the passages of the house. Julian and
Tiny were running riot; but she felt, for the time being, as if she had
nothing to do with them: their interests did not touch her: she dwelt in
a world apart. Hitherto Wyvis had stood, hat in hand, as if he were
ready to go at a moment's notice; but now he changed his attitude. He
seated himself determinedly, put down his hat, and looked back at her.
"Well," he said, "I see that I must explain myself if I mean to make my
peace with you, Janetta. I am, perhaps, not so bad as you think me. I
have not mentioned to Miss Adair that Julian's mother is alive, because
I consider myself a free man. Julian's mother, once my wife, has
divorced me, and is, I believe, on the point of marrying again. Surely
in that case I am free to marry too."
"Divorced you?" Janetta repeated, with dilating eyes.
"Yes, divorced me. She has gone out to America and managed it there. It
is easy enough in some of the States to get divorced from an absent wife
or husband, as no doubt you know. Incompatibility of temper was the
alleged reason. I believe she is going to marry a Chicago man--something
in pork."
"And you are legally free?"
"She says so. I fancy there is a legal hitch somewhere but I have not
yet consulted my lawyers. We were married by the Catholic rite in
France, and the Catholic Church will probably consider us married still.
But Margaret is not a Catholic--nor am I."
"And you think," said Janetta, very slowly, "of marrying Margaret?"
He looked up at her and laughed, a little uneasily.
"You think she won't have me?"
"I don't know. I think you don't know her yet, Wyvis."
"I dare say not," said her cousin. Then he broke out in quite a
different tone: "No wonder I don't; she's a perpetual revelation to me.
I never saw anything like her--so pure, so spotless, so exquisite. It's
like looking at a work of art--a bit of delicate china, or a picture by
Francia or Guido. Something holy and serene about her--something that
sets her apart from the ordinary world. I can't define it: but it's
there. I feel myself made of a coarse, common clay in her presence: I
want to go down on my knees and serve her like a queen. That's how I
feel about Margaret."
"Ah!" said Janetta, "my princess of dreams. That is what I used to call
her. That is what I--used to feel."
"Don't you feel it now?" said Wyvis, sitting up and staring at her.
Janetta hesitated. "Margaret is my dear friend, and I love her. But I am
older--perhaps I can't feel exactly in that way about her now."
"You talk as if you were a sexagenarian," said Wyvis, exploding into
genial laughter. He looked suddenly brighter and younger, as if his
outburst of emotion had wonderfully relieved him. "I am much older than
you, and yet I see her in the same light. What else is there to say
about her? She is perfect--there is not much to discuss in perfection."
"She is most lovely--most sweet," said Janetta, warmly. "And yet--the
very things you admire may stand in your way, Wyvis. She is very
innocent of the world. And if you have won her--her--affection before
you have told her your history----"
"You think this wretched first marriage of mine will stand in the way?"
"I do. With Margaret and with her parents."
Wyvis frowned again. "I had better make sure of her--marry her at once,
and tell her afterwards," he said. But perhaps he said it only to see
what Janetta would reply.
"You would not do that, Wyvis?"
"I don't know."
"But you want to be worthy of her?"
"I shall never be that so it's no good trying."
"She would never forgive you if you married her without telling her the
truth."
Wyvis laughed scornfully. "You know nothing about it. A woman will
forgive anything to the man she loves."
"Not a meanness!" said the girl, sharply.
"Yes, meanness, deceit, lies, anything--so long as it was done for her
sake."
"I don't believe that would be the case with Margaret. Once disgust her,
and you lose her love."
"Then she can't have much to give," retorted Wyvis.
Janetta was silent. In her secret heart she did not think that Margaret
_could_ love very deeply--that, indeed, she had not much to give.
"Well, what's the upshot?" said her cousin, at last, in a dogged tone.
"Are you satisfied at last?"
"I shall be better satisfied when you make things plain to the Adairs.
You have no right to win Margaret's heart in this secret way. You blamed
Cuthbert for making love to Nora. It is far worse for you to do it to
Margaret Adair."
"I am so much beneath her, am I not?" said Wyvis, with a sneer. And then
he once more spoke eagerly. "I _am_ beneath her: I am as the dust under
her feet. Don't you think I know that? I'll tell you what, Janetta, when
I first saw her and spoke to her--here, in this room, if you remember--I
thought that she was like a being from another world. I had never seen
anyone like her. She is the fairest, sweetest of women, and I would not
harm her for the world."
"I don't know whether I ought even to listen to you," said Janetta, in a
troubled voice and with averted head. "You know, many people would say
that you were in the wrong altogether--that you were not free----"
"Then they would say a lie! I am legally free, I believe, and morally
free, I am certain. I thank God for it. I have suffered enough."
He looked so stern, so uncompromising, that Janetta hastened to take
refuge in concrete facts.
"But you will tell Margaret everything?"
"In my own good time."
"Do promise me that you will not marry her without letting her know--if
ever it comes, to a talk of your marriage."
"_If ever?_ It will come very soon, I hope. But I'll promise nothing.
And you must not make mischief."
"I am like you--I will promise nothing."
"I shall never forgive you, if you step between Margaret and me," said
Wyvis.
"I shall never step between you, I hope," said Janetta, in a dispirited
tone. "But it is better for me to promise nothing more."
Wyvis shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought it useless to argue with
her. She was sorry for the apparently unfriendly terms on which they
seemed likely to part; and it was a relief to her when, as they were
saying good-bye, he looked into her face rather wistfully and said,
"Wish me success, Janetta, after all."
"I wish you every happiness," she said. But whether that meant success
or not it would have been hard to say.
She saw him take his departure, with little Julian clinging to his hand,
and then she set about her household duties in her usual self-contained
and steadfast way. But her heart ached sadly--she did not quite know
why--and when she went to bed that night she lay awake for many weary
hours, weeping silently, but passionately, over the sorrow that, she
foresaw for her dearest friends, and, perhaps, also for herself.