These vague gropings after an unknown fact were very different from the
discussions which took place in Grove Road when the girls were gone. Mrs
Underwood and her son lingered together for a moment in the hall. She
took hold of Geoffrey’s arm with both her hands, and leaned for a moment
upon his shoulder and shed a few tears of agitation and distress.
“You must not be frightened, mother. We can get on together, whatever
happens,” he said in her ear.
“Oh, Geoff, how can I help being frightened? I would not wrong
anybody--not by the value of a straw.”
“I am sure you would not, mother. I know you would not.”
“But what a difference it will make--oh, what a difference!” cried poor
Mrs Underwood.
She cried for a moment on her son’s shoulder. Was it to be expected that
she could give up the greater part of her living without a sigh?
“And then Anna,” she said, “Anna!” in a tone of mingled fright and pain.
It would seem almost as if her sister had divined, for she could not
hear, this reference to herself; for she called sharply in a keen voice
which penetrated through the closed door. Mrs Underwood started
immediately, dropping her son’s arm.
“Must you always fly the moment she calls, as if you were her maid?”
said Geoff indignantly.
His mother put up her hand to his mouth.
“I have always done it: and could I stop it now when perhaps she is
going to lose everything? Oh, hush! hush! I am coming, I am coming,
Anna,” she cried.
“She will never lose you, mother,” he said, detaining her. “I can see
already what will happen. You will make yourself her slave, and give up
every comfort in your life.”
“What can I do? What can I do? I have you, but she has nobody. I am
coming, Anna, I am coming,” she said.
Miss Anna still sat in her easy chair, with the tea-table before her.
Her forehead was slightly contracted, her lips parted with a quickened
breath; but these faint indications were all that showed any agitation
in her. She addressed her sister when she appeared in a sharper tone
than usual. “You two have been having a little consultation,” she said.
“Oh, quite right; quite right. Two heads are better than one. It might
be considered a little ungenerous, perhaps, to the other who has no one
to consult with--but I am used to it. I know what a single woman has to
expect in life.”
“Oh, Anna!” her sister said, with a faint remonstrance, “when you know
that you are always our first thought.”
“Your first thought! I did not know I was of so much importance,” said
Miss Anna with a laugh. “One would scarcely think it to see how little
attention you pay to me--either you or Geoff. But I must not complain:
for it is your money as well as mine that he is so anxious to make a
present of to the new claimants. And I can see very well what his motive
is--very well. Oh, I know men and their motives, though I have never
married. I can see through them well enough.”
“My motive! what motive can I have but justice?” the young man said.
“Oh, Geoffrey! hush, my dear. When you know it is your aunt’s way. Why
should there be any quarrelling, to make everything worse?”
“Yes, it is his aunt’s way. I am not the sort of fool that accepts
everything,” said Miss Anna. “I can read him like a book. He has had to
have his living doled out to him through you and me, and now he sees a
way of getting the better of us--of turning the tables upon us. Oh, it
is clear enough. Two girls--two silly creatures that will believe every
word he says; but take my advice, Geoffrey, and choose the little one.
She is the one that you can turn round your little finger; the other has
a will of her own. Though it is against my own interest, you see, I can
still give you good advice.”
Geoffrey made no reply to this speech. His mother fluttered between him
and Miss Anna with her hands spread out like the wings of a protecting
bird, ready to burst in and forestall him had he attempted to reply; but
he did not speak for some minutes. Then he said coldly, “We must not
quarrel, as my mother says. We are all threatened with a great danger.
For anything we can tell, the girls you are talking of so lightly can
take the greater part of our living from us. The question not only is,
have they a real claim? but can they establish it? and how far are we
ready to go in the way of resistance? Rather, how far are _you_ ready to
go? Will moral certainty be enough for you, or do you demand legal
proof?”
“Moral fiddlestick!” said Miss Anna. “Morals have nothing to do with it.
We were always as near in blood as Leonard was; we had as good a right
as he had; indeed, we had a better right, being girls, to be provided
for. Uncle Abraham thought of the name when he chose his nephew instead
of his nieces. And that showed his folly--for the nephew seems to have
thrown off the name the moment he left the country: and of all the
claimants there is only one Crosthwaite, and that is me. I do not care a
brass farthing for your moral certainty. All it means is, that you have
made up your mind to stand by your opinion through thick and thin. It
is your opinion that the man who came here the other night was Leonard.
Well! you think so, and he said so--but that is no proof.”
“Oh, Anna!” cried her sister, “speak of him kindly. Poor Leonard! when
you have just heard that he is dead----”
“What is his dying to me?” she cried, with a glance of fury. “That’s the
man that was held up to us all as the image of faithfulness. Not one of
you but has told me if I had not treated him so badly, this and that
would not have happened; and the hound had changed his name, and
married, and been happy all the time!” Then she stopped and looked at
Geoffrey with a contemptuous laugh. “Mind you, I don’t acknowledge that
he was Leonard Crosthwaite. It suits my purpose a great deal better to
believe that he was the pink of fidelity, and died of a broken heart.”
“Very few people, they say,” said Mrs Underwood, in a reluctant voice,
“die of broken hearts.”
Miss Anna’s bright eyes seemed to give out gleams of malice and scorn
and indignant ridicule. “But I believe in them,” she said. “I am
romantic, not prosaic like you. When you know it’s for your sake, then,
naturally, you believe in it.” She stopped to laugh, her bosom panting
with a mixture of contempt and fury. “If Leonard did not die for me as
he promised he would, he was a poor creature. Heirs! what had he to do
with heirs? If he did not die he was a traitor and a liar. Geoff, there
is no poetry in you; you are a commonplace being; that is why you are
capable of believing that Leonard Crosthwaite lived, and throve, and
married, and had heirs. I do not believe a word of it,” she said. And
again she laughed. After all, there was something behind the
self-interest that determined her resistance--something which the more
honourable people who gazed at her with so much wonder and alarm did not
understand. Her laugh was not of merriment but of that last scorn of
humanity which is despair. It made her furious, it transported her
beyond all limits of nature. She had believed in this one man as true
and faithful beyond all question; and he had been the greatest deceiver
of all. This put such fierce scorn into her breast that she could not
contain herself. The more selfish a nature is the more is it lacerated
by desertion. This was a woman who had put herself above others all her
life, and had been punished by the gradual failure of all whose worship
she had once believed in. It was the final blow to her self-esteem, and
she resented it with wild wrath and frantic ridicule of the traitor. But
nobody knew the tragic element in it, or that her belief in the
possibility of honour and truth went with this discovery. She appeared
to the others like an unscrupulous woman, firmly determined to hold by
her inheritance against all claimants--which she was: but also
something more.
“All that is beyond the question,” said Geoffrey; “it is very possible
that legal proof may be hard to get. We might fight it out at law for
years; we might ruin them and ourselves too in the effort to make it
quite clear. The question is for you, mother, as well as Aunt Anna. If
you are sure these are the heirs, though they cannot prove it in law,
what will you do?”
Poor Mrs Underwood was taken entirely without preparation. She turned to
her son with a gasp, clasping her hands together in dismay. She was a
woman who had always been told what to do by somebody--her husband, her
sister, her son, had managed her mind for her. When she knew what was
expected of her she did it faithfully, holding by her _consigne_
whatever happened. She had kept steadily to her orders under the most
trying circumstances already: struggling against the glimmerings of
right judgment in her own breast, even while silenced by Anna’s
casuistry. Since Geoffrey grew up her course had been easier, though
even with his support her sister’s older influence was sometimes too
much for her. But now to be asked instead of being told--to have a
decision demanded from her instead of made for her, took away her
breath.
“Oh, Geoff,” she said, “my dear! how can you expect me to understand
anything about the law? I should like to be kind to the girls, poor
things. Of course I should like to be kind to them. I would not ruin
them, poor fatherless children, for all the world. How could you think
such a thing of me?”
“That is not what I am asking you, mother. If you are sure they ought to
have the money, though they cannot prove it legally, what will you do?”
Mrs Underwood turned a frightened look towards her sister, who laughed;
then her eyes returned to the face of her son, which was very serious,
and gave her no guidance. “Do?” she murmured faintly, “I will
do--whatever is thought right, Geoff.”
“But what do _you_ think right, mother?”
Geoffrey felt that if he had not put a powerful control upon himself, he
might have turned round upon the laughing spectator behind him and taken
her by the throat.
“Poor Geoff!” said Miss Anna; “between his mother, who cannot
understand, and I who understand better than a woman ought, he is in a
hard case. You had better have it out with me. What shall we do in case
there is no legal proof? You know very well there is but one thing to
do. Keep ourselves on our guard and refuse any concession. What else?
Fancy is one thing, but property is another. You can’t go chucking that
about like a ball. It must stay in the hands it is in, until others have
proved a right to it. You who were brought up for the bar, and you need
me to tell you that?”
“This is how the case stands, mother,” said Geoffrey. “The money which
is the greater part of our living was left to your cousin, Leonard
Crosthwaite, and only to you failing him and his heirs. You thought he
was dead, without heirs, and you have enjoyed it all this time with an
easy mind. But a fortnight ago Leonard Crosthwaite appeared. You did not
know him at first, but before he went away you were convinced it was he.
Is not this all true?”
“She fancied it was he, being a silly woman who believes everybody’s
story, and never knew a lie from the truth all her days.”
“And you, Aunt Anna,” said Geoffrey, turning upon her with quick
impatience, “did you always know the truth from a lie?”
“I have had no practice to speak of,” she answered; “lies have been told
me ever since I can remember. The other is a great deal more uncommon.
Don’t puzzle your mother with sophistries. Tell her what you want, that
is the shortest way.”
“Indeed, dear,” said Mrs Underwood, with deprecating looks, “your Aunt
Anna is right; it would be better just to tell me what I am to do. I
would have done anything for poor Leonard. Poor fellow! to die among
strangers, far from his poor wife and everybody that knew him! My heart
bleeds for _her_, Geoff. If they had sent for me I would have gone in a
moment to nurse him and take care of him. You don’t suppose I would
have been so cruel as to let him die by himself if I had known? And now
these poor girls. Oh, what a change for them! to come here for pleasure,
and to have all their amusement, poor things, turned into misery and
sorrow!” Here the kind woman’s voice was choked with tears.
“Mother! mother!” said Geoffrey, “you are the best woman in the world:
but I think you will drive me out of my senses all the same.”
Mrs Underwood dried her eyes after a moment and looked up in his face
with a tremulous little smile. “That is what your poor father used to
say,” she replied with great simplicity. “I am not one to see the rights
of everything at a glance like Anna; but if you will explain to me what
it is best to do, you will see I will always do it, Geoff. You may trust
me for that.”
What was Geoffrey to do? He did his best to shut his ears to Miss Anna’s
laugh and her remark, “You perceive it is always a great deal better to
talk things over with me.” It was quite true, though he never would own
it: and to discuss this matter with her was impossible to him. He stood
for a little while by the fire, staring into the mirror, where his own
troubled countenance appeared in the centre of all the little carved
shelves covered with china, which were reflected on every side. He felt
himself, as he had done so many times before, altogether out of place in
the house, where he was sometimes the master and sometimes of less
account than the dog. So far Geoffrey was always the master. His tastes,
his comforts, and even his convenience were the subjects of endless
study. But between his mother’s incapacity for any mental exertion, and
his aunt’s too keen and casuistical intelligence, it often happened that
Geoffrey was driven to the end of his patience, and felt himself no
better than a puppet between them, vainly struggling against Miss Anna’s
false logic and his mother’s shifty feebleness. At these moments a sort
of sickness of despair came over the young man. He thought with longing
of any wild scene of emigrant life, any diggings, or sheep-walks, into
which he could escape, to encounter the grosser elements of life, and be
free of this feminine atmosphere. To plant him here between these two
ladies seemed a freak of fate which was unaccountable. Their motives,
their ideas, were all different from his. Geoffrey stood for a few
minutes staring at himself, thinking what a gloomy ruffian he looked,
and how much out of keeping with all those dainty surroundings; then he
went hastily out, notwithstanding the appeal of both ladies to him. “You
are not going out in the rain, Geoff?” cried his mother; while Miss Anna
bade him recollect that it was past six o’clock. Geoffrey paid no
attention to either. It would be almost a satisfaction, he felt, to make
her wait for her dinner. Not his mother, who cared as little for her
dinner as any woman could do, but Miss Anna, who was _gourmande_, and
could not bear to wait. He was glad, too, of the sting of the rain,
blown in his face as he stepped out from all the comfort and warmth of
the too warm, luxurious house. The chill air and the darkness refreshed
him--they were such a contradiction to all the conditions of his life.
He went out upon the borders of the heath, and looked down through the
rain upon the distant lights, the smoke of great London lying spread out
before him. Though he had been bred among women, and luxuriously cared
for all his life, he was not without some knowledge of what existence
was outside. And now, when he set himself to think of it, the prospect
gave him a shiver. It was almost as discouraging, as dismal as the wet
world upon which he looked. He had been called to the bar a few years
before, and he had got one or two briefs, which had been a matter of
much pride and amusement to the household. But this was a very different
thing from living by his work. He tried to realise what the consequences
would be of giving up the fortune of which he was aware he had thought
lightly enough. If it was all he could do to put up with that feminine
atmosphere now, in the midst of abundant space and the many pleasant
engagements which relieved him from its monotony, what would it be when
he was shut up with it in a few small rooms--when his only relaxation
would be home, and his home still, in its scantiness and
impoverishment, the domain of Aunt Anna? There flashed before him a
vision of one small sitting-room, with her chair in the chief place, her
work occupying the table, her nerves affected by every sound, her quick
ears catching every word that was said. Geoffrey felt himself able for
other kinds of privation, for hard work if need was, for the resignation
of most things that were pleasant in life--but when he thought of this
his heart failed him. And there was no help for it. Anna had been the
tyrant of her sister’s life as long as she remembered, and to withdraw
from her now when she was poor would be impossible. To suffer is always
possible; there is nothing in life so likely, so universally put up
with--but to abandon those who have shared our lives is not a thing that
can be done. It is a bond which the worst recognise, which it does not
even require heroic virtue to be faithful to. To do it may be heroic,
but not to do it is miserable. In prosperity Aunt Anna might by
possibility--though by so distant a possibility that Geoffrey hitherto
had always felt it hopeless--have been shaken off; but in trouble or
poverty she would be the absolute sovereign of his life, and his mother
would be her slave. As the young man stood with the rain beating in his
face, seeing by times, as the blast permitted, the glimmer of the
distant lights through the wet mist, he perceived and consented to this
with a sort of desperation. He must work for them both, he must hold by
them both. He could never emancipate himself till he or they should die.
If, after this terrible realisation of what was before him, he looked
upon the loss of the money with less composure, could any one be
surprised? When he got home he went into his study, the room which was
sacred to him, where he was free from all intrusion, where, however
oppressive the domestic atmosphere might be, he could always escape from
it, and feed himself alone. No such refuge would be his were he poor. He
would have to sit and do his work at the same table where Aunt Anna
spread out her beads and her wools, and worked her impossible, useless
fancy work. Was it a duty, after all, to throw all his comfort, all that
made life tolerable, at the feet of these two strangers? Geoffrey’s
heart was rent in two. His way was no longer clear before him, but
covered with doubt and darkness and bewildering clouds.
With all this there was a something unsaid which had glanced across his
mind many times in the course of the afternoon--a compromise, a way out
of the worst of the trouble, a new life--but he did not dare to think of
that. He pushed it away forcibly from the surface of his thoughts.