Down in the garden at Roehampton, Gertrude and Frances Heron were more
tenderly and intimately discussing the same theme.
Frances was the only one of the Brodricks with whom tenderness and
intimacy were possible for one in Gertrude's case. She was approachable
through her sufferings, her profound affections, and the dependence of
her position that subdued in her her racial pride.
Gertrude had confessed to a doubt as to whether she ought or ought not
to have gone back.
"I don't know," said Frances, "that it was very wise."
"Perhaps not, from the world's point of view. If I had thought of
_that_----" she stopped herself, aware that scandal had not been one of
any possibilities contemplated by the Brodricks.
"_I_ was not thinking of it, I assure you," said Frances. "I only
wondered whether it were right." She elucidated her point. "For you, for
your happiness, considering----"
"I'm not thinking of my own happiness, or I couldn't do it. No, I
couldn't do it. I was thinking"--her voice sank and vibrated, and rose,
exulting, to the stress--"of _his_."
Frances looked at her with gentle, questioning eyes. Hugh's happiness,
no doubt, was the thing; but she wondered how Gertrude's presence was to
secure it.
Slowly, bit by bit, with many meditative pauses, many sinkings of her
thought into the depths, as if she sounded at each point her own
sincerity, Gertrude made it out.
"Mrs. Brodrick is very sweet and very charming, and I know they are
devoted. Still"--Gertrude's pause was poignant--"still--she _is_
unusual."
"Well, yes," said Frances.
"And one sees that the situation is a little difficult."
Frances made no attempt to deny it.
"It always is," said Gertrude, "when the wife has an immense, absorbing
interest apart. I can't help feeling that they've come, both of them, to
a point--a turning point, where everything depends on saving her, as
much as possible, all fret and worry. It's saving him. There are so many
things she tries to do and can't do; and she puts them all on him."
"She certainly does," said Frances.
"If I'm there to do them, it will at least prevent this continual
friction and strain."
"But you, my dear--you?"
"It doesn't matter about me." She was pensive over it. "If I solve his
problem----"
"It will be very hard for you."
"I can bear anything if he's happy."
Frances smiled sadly. She had had worse things than that to bear.
"Of course," she said, "if you know--if you're sure that you care--in
that way----"
"I didn't know until the other day, when I came back. It's only when you
give up everything that you really know."
Frances was silent. If any woman knew, she knew. She had given up her
husband to another woman. For his happiness she had given the woman her
own name and her own place, when she might have shamed her by refusing
the divorce he asked for.
"It wouldn't have been right for me to come back," said Gertrude, "if I
hadn't been certain in my own heart that I can lift this feeling, and
make it pure." Her voice thickened slightly. "It _is_ pure. I think it
always was. Why should I be ashamed of it? If there's anything spiritual
in me, it's _that_."
Frances was not the woman to warn her of possible delusion; to hint at
the risk run by the passion that disdains and disowns its kindred to the
flesh.
She raised her eyes of tragedy, tender with unfallen tears.
"My dear," she said, "you're a very noble woman."
Across the narrow heath-path, with a lifted head, with flame in her
heart and in her eyes, Gertrude made her way to Brodrick's house.
And once again, with immutable punctuality, the silver-chiming clock
told out the hours; fair hours made perfect by the spirit of order
moving in its round. It moved in the garden, and the lawn was clean and
smooth; the roses rioted no longer; the borders and the paths were
straight again. Indoors, all things on which Gertrude laid her hand slid
sweetly and inaudibly into their place. The little squat god appeared
again within his shrine; and a great peace came upon Brodrick and on
Brodrick's house.
It came upon Jane. She sank into it and it closed over her, a
marvellous, incredible peace. At the turning point when everything
depended upon time, when time was all she wanted and was the one thing
she could not get, suddenly time was made new and golden for her, it was
given to her without measure, without break or stint.
Only once, and for a moment, Gertrude Collett intruded on her peace,
looking in at Jane's study window as she passed on soft feet through the
garden.
"Are you happy _now_?" she said.