HAVING IT OUT.
Lucy had taken rooms for her mother in an unpretentious square in
Bloomsbury, and Mr Reynolds had gladly agreed to spend his short
summer holiday with his wife and daughter in London. Dr Alice
Bateson had called the day after their arrival, and had gone into the
case very thoroughly.
"There is no doubt that your mother must have an operation," she had
said to Lucy, in her brusque fashion, "but it is nothing that need
make you unhappy. So far as one can see, the chances are all in her
favour, and she will be a different being when it is over. I would
like her to rest, and take a tonic for a week or so, in order to get
up her strength as much as possible; but I should not advise her to
postpone it any longer than that."
Lucy was in great spirits. "What say you to that, Daddy," she cried,
"as the first-fruits of your investment in me? We shall see Mother
on the top of Snowdon before the summer is over."
"I think we shall be glad to rest content with something short of
that," he said, smiling, and stroking his wife's soft hair.
The operation was successfully accomplished in due course, and as
soon as Mrs Reynolds was well on the way to recovery, Lucy insisted
on taking her father about "to see something of life," as she
expressed it.
"I thought I knew the full extent of your aunt's fascination," she
said to Mona, when the latter came in one day with a basket of
hothouse fruit for the invalid, "but I do wish you had seen her with
Father when we called. She was a perfect woman, and a perfect child.
He was awfully impressed--thinks in his heart that she is thrown away
on Sir Douglas, which, in the immortal words of Euclid, is absurd.
Lady Munro told me afterwards that Father made her wish she could go
back and live her life all over again. 'It is so strange,' she said,
with exquisite frankness, 'that he should be your father!'
'"Degeneration, a Chapter on Darwinism,'"--in fact?' I suggested; but
she only smiled sweetly and said, 'What _do_ you mean, child?'"
"Was Sir Douglas at home?"
"He came in for a few minutes at the end. He and my father got on
all right. Of course they only met as----" she paused.
"Of course--as two men of the world."
"Do you call my father a man of the world?" Lucy asked, surprised and
pleased.
"Assuredly."
"Of this world, or the other?"
Mona raised her eyes slowly. "Looked at from your father's point of
view, it is a little difficult to say where this world ends and the
other begins. He would tell you that this is the other world, and
the other world w this."
"No, indeed, he would not. Father never gets on to the eternals with
me."
This was rather a sore point with Lucy, so she hastened on, "Do you
know, your aunt's 'At Home' is going to be no end of an affair?"
"Is it?"
"Yes; I am in a state of wild excitement. Father is giving me a new
gown."
"I am frivolling shamefully this week," Mona said. "I have promised
to go to the Bernards' at Surbiton from Saturday to Monday. I don't
think I ought to go to my aunt's as well."
"Tell Sir Douglas that! By the way, while you are here, you might
cast your eagle eye through that microscope, and tell me what the
slide is. I forgot to label it at the time, and now I can't spot it."
Mona bent over Lucy's writing-table in the window. "I suppose you
are not used to picrocarmine," she said. "It is only a 'venous
congestion,' but it is cut far too thick. I can give you a much
better one."
"Just scribble 'venous congestion' on the label, will you t before I
forget again. Now I think of it, Miss Clark told me it must be
'venous congestion,' because that was the only red one we had mounted
on a large slide! You will be shocked to hear, Mona, that I made
Father take me to hear Dr Dudley lecture last night. That man's
voice is worth a fortune!"
"Far too thick," repeated Mona, with unnecessary emphasis. "You can
make out nothing with the high power at all. Where was he lecturing?"
"To his Literary Society. Angela Davidson sent a note to tell me.
It really was magnificent--on The Rose in Tennyson.[1] I thought I
knew my Tennyson, but Dr Dudley's insight seemed to me perfectly
wonderful. He was showing how, all through Tennyson's poems, the red
rose means love, and he showed it in a thousand things I had never
thought of before. He began with _The Gardener's Daughter_, and with
simple idyllic quotations, like--
'Her feet have touched the meadows,
And left the daisies rosy.'
[1] The following sketch was suggested by a very beautiful but as yet
unpublished paper, by a friend of the author.
And he showed us how the whole world becomes a rose to the lover.
You know the passage, beginning, 'Go not, happy day.' Then he worked
us gradually on to the tragedy of love,--
'I almost fear they are not roses, but blood.'
It made one's flesh creep to hear him say that. And again
triumphantly,--
'The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.'
Then he took us by surprise, passed beyond human love altogether, and
ended up with God's rose:--
'At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?"
To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glittering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.'
I did not understand it all; but, when he stopped, I found my eyes
were full of tears, and Father was so struck that he went up to speak
to Dr Dudley before we came away."
Mona said nothing. What would she not have given to have heard that
paper!
"But here comes Dad," Lucy went on. "Father, I want you to tell Mona
about that lecture last night."
"Your mother wants you, dear," he said, laying his hand on her
shoulder, and then he seated himself by the open window.
"Yes, I confess I was very much struck," he said. "One rarely meets
with such fine--_appreciation_. It seems to me that young man will
make his mark. I should greatly like his help with a little bit of
work I am doing on Wordsworth just now, so I asked him to come and
see me some evening. He promised very cordially to do so to-morrow,
and now I want him to meet my elder daughter. If you can spare the
time, I am sure you would enjoy hearing him talk. Will you come?"
Mona retained sufficient presence of mind to wonder whether it was
worth while trying to conceal how far she had lost it, and then she
turned her white face to Mr Reynolds.
"I think I had better not come," she said, rather breathlessly.
"I--know Dr Dudley."
Nay, verily! If ever they met again, it should be by no doing of
hers.
"Just as you please, dear, of course."
She was a little surprised that Mr Reynolds asked no questions. She
did not know that she had already given him the remaining links of
her story, and that the chain in his mind was now practically
complete.
All through the lecture on the previous evening, Dudley had wondered
vaguely to whom the grand white head belonged, and when the owner of
it came up at the close, and told him how much he had enjoyed the
evening, Dudley felt the compliment much more keenly than most clever
young men would have done. He was drawing sufficiently near the
farther boundary of youth to dread the advance of age; and his love
and admiration for Mrs Hamilton made a warm corner in his heart for
all old people.
He arrived early on the evening of his appointment, and knocked at
the door with a good deal of pleasant anticipation. The Reynolds
seemed to have brought with them to London the atmosphere of their
country home. The room was sweet with old-fashioned flowers, tea and
fruit and home-made cake were laid out on the spotless cloth, and the
windows were opened wide on a world of green. Moreover, the very
sight of Mr Reynolds's refined and beautiful face seemed to throw the
dust and turmoil of the world outside into the far distance. Petty
aims lost half their attraction, the ideal became more real, when one
entered that plain little room. "Is this really London?" Dudley
said, as he shook hands with the invalid on the sofa.
"I am happy to say it is," she answered, smiling. "London has done
great things for me."
"That is right. We hear so much of its misdeeds now-a-days that it
is refreshing to be brought in contact with the other side of the
question."
In a few minutes Lucy came in, bright and smiling. Dudley had not
noticed her with her father at the lecture, and her relationship to
the saintly old clergyman was as great a surprise to him as it had
been to Lady Munro.
"How I wish I had asked Mona to come in!" she exclaimed, as she
seated herself in front of the tea-tray.
No one answered, but Mr Reynolds glanced at his visitor's face.
"You know who I mean," Lucy went on, turning to Dudley, "my friend
Miss Maclean. You were talking to her for a long time at the
Davidsons' the other day. Is not she awfully clever?"
"Particularly, I should think."
There was no sneer in the words, but the frank, almost boyish
simplicity, which had come so naturally to Dudley a few minutes
before, was gone.
"'Her price is far above rubies,'" quoted Mr Reynolds quietly.
It was Dudley's turn now to raise his eyes, and glance quickly at his
host.
Whenever there was a pause in the conversation, Lucy had some fresh
tale to tell about Mona. This was nothing new with her, and Mr
Reynolds made no effort to prevent it. He thought it a fortunate
chance that, without a hint from him, she should thus unconsciously
play so effectually into his hands. He could scarcely tell whether
Dr Dudley found the conversation trying or not, but there could be no
doubt that the young man was profoundly interested.
"Do you know Sir Douglas Munro?" he said suddenly to Lucy.
"Oh yes, very well indeed. Do you?"
"I met him accidentally, a year or two ago, and the other day I
called to ask him to give me his votes for a case I am trying to get
into the Incurable Hospital. He was very cordial, and asked me to a
musical evening at his house to-morrow."
"Oh, do go! It is going to be splendid, and I expect you will hear
Miss Maclean sing. She has such a sympathetic voice."
Wordsworth received but scant justice when the two men retired to Mr
Reynolds's study. Each felt strongly the spiritual kinship of the
other, and they talked as men rarely do talk at a first or second
meeting.
"I have stayed an unconscionable time," Ralph said at last, "and I
hope you will let me come again. I can scarcely tell you what you
have done for me. You have made me feel that 'the best is yet to
be.'"
Mr Reynolds did not answer immediately. When he did, it was to say
somewhat dreamily--
"'But I need now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men.'
I wish I had your voice, Dr Dudley. With such an organ, and with
such a faith, you ought to be able to move mankind."
"Faith?" repeated Dudley; "I am not overburdened with that."
"By faith I did not mean creed. I was thinking of your paper the
other evening."
Dudley winced. "That paper was not written yesterday," he said. "I
had neither the heart nor the energy to write another, so I
'Gored mine own thought, sold cheap what is most dear."
Greater men than I have preached to-day the faith of yesterday, in
the hope that it might return to-morrow. But I am afraid that sort
of faith never does return."
"Had you built your house upon the sand?"
Ralph coloured. He could not honestly say that.
"Dr Dudley," said the old man quietly, "you and I have been disposed
to trust each other to-night. Before you go, there is one thing I
want to tell you. You know that Miss Maclean is my daughter's
friend. I don't know whether you are aware that she is as dear to me
as my own child; that outside my own small family circle there is no
woman living in whom I am so deeply interested. I invited her to
meet you this evening, and she refused. If you had not made me
respect you, I should not ask you, as I do now, to tell me why she
refused?"
Dudley's face was a battle-field of conflicting emotions.
"What has she told you about me?" he said at last.
"She has never mentioned your name." Mr Reynolds hesitated; and then
made up his mind to risk all, and go on. "One day I was praising her
steadfastness of purpose in remaining in her uncongenial surroundings
at Borrowness, and she told me, with an honesty of which I am not
sure that you and I would have been capable, that--the people she met
were not all uncongenial. She spoke as a girl speaks who has never
thought of love or marriage; but her words conveyed more to my mind
than they meant to her."
Vague as Mr Reynolds's words were, he could have chosen no surer key
to unlock Ralph's heart. A vivid picture of the old idyllic days at
Castle Maclean flashed across his mind, and with it came an almost
unbearable sense of regret. Oh, the pity of it! the pity of it!
"I will tell you!" he burst out suddenly. "God knows it will be a
relief to speak to any man, and I believe you will understand.
Besides, I _owe_ an explanation to somebody who cares for her.
Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have thought nothing of it,
but to me it was _just everything_. If she failed me there, she
failed me everywhere. One could reason about a crime, but you can't
reason about a subtle thing like that. It is in the grain of a man's
mind. If it strikes you, it strikes you; and if it doesn't strike
you, it doesn't strike you; and that's final. It is everything or
nothing. And the worst of it is, that as things stand, I have
wronged her horribly, and I can't put it right. If she were an
ordinary woman it would be a matter of honour to ignore it all, and
ask her to be one's wife; but she is Miss Maclean. If one has any
_arrière pensée_, one must at least have the decency to let things
alone, and not insult her farther."
In the course of Mr Reynolds's experience as a clergyman he had heard
many incoherent confessions, but he had rarely listened to one which
left him so completely in the dark as this. His face betrayed no
perplexity, however, as he said, "Tell me how you met her, and where."
Then by degrees the truth began to dawn upon him. With bitter
self-mockery, Dudley told the story of his doubt as to whether he
could marry a "shop-girl"; told how his passion grew till it swept
away all obstacles; and then he just hinted at what took place that
stormy night when he brought her home from the wood.
"And you told her you loved her?" The words were spoken very quietly
and as a matter of course.
Dudley's face flushed more deeply.
"I think we had both risen pretty well above the need of words that
night," he said, with a nervous laugh. "When an electric spark
passes between two spheres---- You see, I was weighed down by the
feeling that I had wasted my life; this London course was a sort of
atonement; and I would not ask a woman to be my wife till I had at
least left all schoolboy work behind me. But that night I forgot
myself."
"And when you met her next----?"
"I left Borrowness the next day." Dudley's lip curled. "Our next
meeting was a fine dramatic tableau at Burlington House, a modern
version of the sudden transformation of Cinderella."
"But you had written to her?"
Dudley shook his head. "I had told her--before that night--that I
should not be a free man till my examination was over in July. She
was so quick; she always seemed to understand. But when I went down
to Borrowness, half mad with longing for her--her cousin had gone to
America, and Miss Maclean, I was told, was starting for Switzerland
with a party of friends!"
"Did you write to her then?"
"I did not know her address. And it was no use _writing_ about a
thing like that. Then came my aunt's long illness. She was the best
friend I had in the world, and she died."
He paused, and resumed with a sudden change of tone, "Miss Maclean
told me her name was Margaret."
"Margaret is her second name."
"Of course I know," Dudley broke out again vehemently, "that
thousands of men would treat the whole affair as a joke; would be
glad to find that the woman they loved had money and position, after
all; but I cared for Miss Maclean on a plane above that. It drives
me mad to think how she sat looking at me with those honest eyes,
listening to my confessions, and playing her pretty little comedy all
the time."
Mr Reynolds waited in vain for Dudley to go on before he spoke.
"I cannot imagine," he said at last, "why you did not ask her to
explain herself."
Dudley bit his lip. "If Miss Maclean had forged a cheque," he said,
"I should have asked her to explain herself. It seems to me that the
one thing in life of which no explanation is possible, in a
difference of opinion as to what is due to friendship--or love."
"Did it never occur to you that Miss Maclean's cousin might have
bound her over not to tell any one that she was a medical student?"
There was a pause.
"Why should she?" Dudley asked harshly.
"_Why_ she did it I presume was best known to herself--though,
considering the kind of person she seems to have been, it does not
strike me as particularly surprising; but one thing I am in a
position to say unhesitatingly, and that is, that she did do it."
Another long pause.
"Even if she did," Dudley said, "what was a trumpery promise like
that between her and me, if she loved me?"
"Perhaps you did not give her much opportunity to speak of herself;
but when I saw her in October, she certainly did not love any man.
Whether you taught her to love you afterwards, you are of course the
best judge. I do not think she was bound to tell you before she knew
that you loved her; and, judging from your own account of what took
place, you do not seem to have made it very easy for a
self-respecting woman to tell you afterwards."
Little by little the truth of this came home to Ralph, as he sat with
his eyes fixed on the glowing embers of the fire.
Mr Reynolds gave his words time to take full effect and then went on.
"When I think how you have made that sensitive girl suffer, Dr
Dudley, I am tempted to forget that I owe my knowledge of the
circumstances entirely to your courtesy."
Ralph looked up with a rather wintry smile.
"Don't spare me," he said. "Hit hard!" And then there was another
long silence.
"The one thing I cannot explain," said Mr Reynolds, "is her telling
you that her name was Margaret."
"Oh, that's simple enough. It was in early days. I was talking of
the name in the abstract, and she said it was hers; I daresay she
never thought of the incident again; and then I saw it in her
prayer-book--her mother's, no doubt. Mr Reynolds, I have been a
blind fool; but I do think still that she ought to have told me."
"Since the old man has your permission to hit hard, you will allow me
to say, that I think you do not realise how far injured pride has a
share in your righteous indignation; but I have no wish to convince
you. I would fain see my 'elder daughter' the wife of a nobler man."
Ralph smiled in spite of himself.
"That certainly is delivered straight out from the shoulder!" he
said; "but do you think it is quite just? Every man is exacting on
certain points. That was mine. But I am not a savage. No woman on
earth should be so free and so honoured as my wife."
Mr Reynolds rose and held out his hand.
"It is midnight," he said, "and I have no more to say. Go home and
think about it."
But when Ralph left the house, it was not to go home, but to pace up
and down the squares, in such a tumult of excitement and thanksgiving
as he had never known before.