THE OLD LIFE
That Christmas morning was like a dream to Maud.
To find herself in church with Jake by her side was a circumstance that
she had been very far from expecting, and the experience was so unique
that it seemed scarcely real.
It was by his suggestion that they were there, and he had overruled her
hesitation as to leaving Bunny with a masterly skill that had enlisted
Bunny himself on his side.
So they had gone, like a sober married couple, as Maud said to herself,
though the thought of Jake as her husband was somehow one that she
invariably failed utterly to grasp. She herself found it impossible to
give her undivided attention to the service with the perpetual
consciousness of his presence at her side. She could not tear her mind
from him. He came between her and her devotions.
And yet he himself seemed to be wholly absorbed. Not once did those
watchful eyes stray in her direction. He followed the entire service
with reverence and a steady concentration that she envied but could not
emulate.
When it was over and they were walking back, he drew a deep breath and
remarked: "That's the first time I've been in church, except for our
wedding, for twenty years."
Maud looked at him in amazement. "So long as that?"
He nodded. "I used to go regularly till my mother died. After that, I
went to sea and got out of the way of it."
There fell a silence upon his words. The colour that was always so
quick to rise in Maud's cheeks spread upwards to her forehead.
It was with an evident effort that she said finally: "You haven't told
me anything about your mother yet, Jake."
He turned his head slowly towards her. "It didn't strike me that you
would care to hear," he said, with simplicity.
She conquered her embarrassment with difficulty, but her voice was
curiously devoid of enthusiasm as she said: "I am interested--of
course."
"Really?" said Jake. "I don't know why you should be. She was a very
fine woman, and she killed herself with hard work when my father failed
as a farmer. That's about all her story."
"Oh, Jake, how dreadfully sad!" There was quick sympathy in Maud's
tone. She put out a shy hand to him as they walked.
He took it, held it fast for a moment, and let it go. "A woman will
always attempt the impossible," he said, "for the sake of anyone she
cares for. You would do the same for Bunny. I saw that the first day I
met you. I've seen it a hundred times in different parts of the world,
and I guess it's one of the greatest things in life."
Maud uttered a sharp sigh. "I don't see anything great in doing what
one must," she said rather sadly. "It is very nice of you to admire
women, but I expect it is chiefly because you don't understand them."
Jake's frank smile appeared at her words. "I'm not disputing that most
women need a burden of some sort," he said gently. "I guess that's just
a woman's way. She wouldn't be happy if she hadn't one."
"And yet you want to take mine away!" The words were out almost before
she knew it. She repented them even as they fell.
Jake's smile passed, and an odd, dogged look took its place. "I reckon
that's different," he said. "You've carried too heavy a burden all your
life. Do you know, Maud"--his voice softened though his face remained
unchanged--"that first time I saw you, I recognized that look of
desperate endurance in your eyes that my mother used to have? It cut
right through me. And you were so young, which made it worse."
"I don't feel young," she interposed.
"I know," he made answer. "You've missed it all. But when you're
stronger--happier--you'll find you're not so old. There are quite a lot
of good things in the world even for middle-aged folk like you and me."
She uttered a little dubious laugh.
"Yes, that's so," he asserted, in that calm, confident drawl of his.
"And that brings me round to what I've been wanting to say to you. I
don't want to deprive you of anything worth having, but I am
wanting--real badly--to make a sound man of Bunny as soon as may be.
Reckon you're wanting that too?"
Her heart gave a thick, hard throb. "Of course," she said rather
breathlessly.
"Yes, of course," agreed Jake imperturbably. "Well, I had a letter last
night from Capper, one of the biggest surgeons in the world. I had the
good luck to do him a small service, once, and he can't somehow forget
it. Now he's coming to England in a few weeks, and he'll look me up.
I've told him about Bunny, and he's sort of interested. Say, Maud, it
would be a mighty big thing to let him examine the little chap and see
what he thinks."
Maud's face was very pale. She walked in silence.
Jake glanced at her. "You'd be afraid?" he suggested.
"I don't know," she said, in that same breathless tone. "It--it seems
rather soon. And suppose--suppose he failed!"
"My dear," Jake said gently. "Capper won't fail. He'll either tackle
the job and carry it through, or he won't attempt it. That's the sort
of man he is."
Maud dropped back into silence. The road at this point was somewhat
steep, and she was gasping for breath.
Suddenly Jake reached out, took her hand, and pulled it through his arm.
"All right, my girl, all right!" he said kindly. "We won't hustle any.
I shan't say another word to Bunny on the subject till you have made up
your mind what you'd like done. Now you lean on me! I'll pull you up."
She did not want to lean on him, but for some reason she could not at
once withdraw her hand. They mounted the hill side by side.
Jake said no more upon the subject. He evidently regarded it as closed.
As they turned in at length at the white gates, he said: "I was
wondering if your mother could be persuaded to come up to tea if I went
and fetched her with the dog-cart. We couldn't squeeze Sheppard into
that if we tried."
She knew that he made the suggestion solely for her pleasure, and a
sudden warmth kindled within her.
"You are good to me, Jake!" she said gratefully.
"Oh, rats!" said Jake. "Being good to you is all one with being good to
myself. I'll go then as soon as dinner is over. Now who in thunder--"
He stopped abruptly gazing straight ahead.
A momentary frown drew his level brows and passed. "Hullo!" he said, in
a soft drawl.
Maud was looking ahead too. She saw a man's figure moving towards them
over the stones of the yard; she heard the ring of spurs. And suddenly
she stood still, white to the lips, panting, unnerved.
It could have been only for a second, that pause of hers; for at once
she was aware of Jake's hand pushed lightly through her arm, leading her
forward.
"I guess I don't need to introduce Lord Saltash," he said. "You've met
before."
Yes, they had met before, met and parted, and the memory of it stabbed
her to the heart. She moved forward, as it were mechanically, under
Jake's guidance. She had known that this ordeal would have to be faced,
but it had taken her unawares. She was unprepared.
But the moment she heard his voice, his laugh, her agitation was gone.
There was a subtle _camaraderie_ in Lord Saltash's greeting that
smoothed the way. She remembered with a pang that it had ever been his
custom to take the easiest course.
With his hand holding hers, and his ugly face laughing its debonair
welcome into her own, she could not feel tragic or even disconcerted any
longer, even though with his other hand he clapped Jake on the shoulder.
"So you've gone and got married, have you?" he said, his eyebrows
working with monkeyish rapidity. "How original of you! I won't be
banal enough to congratulate. It's such a bore to have to reply to that
sort of thing. Let me wish you a happy Christmas instead! _Ma belle
reine des roses, je te salue_! You are more faultily faultless than
ever!"
He made her a sweeping, cavalier's bow, and lightly kissed her hand.
She laughed without effort. "How odd to meet you like this, Charlie! I
thought you were still abroad."
She was not even aware of uttering his Christian name, so naturally did
it rise to her lips. It seemed to her suddenly that the old cruel
barrier had been removed. Since they could never again be lovers, they
were free now to be friends.
Surely the same thought had struck him also, for his odd eyes smiled
intimately, confidentially, into hers, ere he turned in his lightning
fashion to Jake, standing solidly by her side.
"You knew we were old friends?" he questioned.
Jake's eyes, red-brown, intent, watched the swarthy, mobile face without
the smallest shade of expression. "Yes," he said, in his slow soft
voice, "I knew."
Maud glanced at him quickly. How much did he know? Had Bunny ever
confided in him upon the subject?
But his face, absolutely composed and normal, told her nothing. He
accepted the hand that Lord Saltash extended, looking him full and
straight in the face. And through her mind unbidden there ran the
memory of that strange story of treachery that Jake had once told to her
and Bunny. Looking at the dark, keen countenance of this man who had
once been so much more to her than friend, she tried to visualize his
double, and failed utterly. Surely there could be but one Charlie
Burchester in all the world!
"What are you trying to see?" laughed Lord Saltash. "I carry neither my
virtues nor my vices in my face, being long past the ingenuous age.
Have we time to go round the Stables? Or is your Christmas turkey
clamouring to be eaten?"
Maud shot a swift look at Jake who after a momentary pause said, "I can
go round with you now if you wish, my lord."
Saltash made a quick grimace. "That's very obliging of you, Bolton.
But don't let me interfere with your domestic arrangements! I can come
over again later."
It was then that Maud very quietly intervened. "If you care to join us
at dinner I am sure we shall be very pleased, and you can go and see the
stud afterwards."
"What! Really?" said Lord Saltash. "Of course I shall be delighted.
There are to-morrow's events at Graydown, Bolton, I want you to post me
up with the latest. Sure I shan't be in the way?"
He put the question directly to Jake, who replied without haste or
hesitation: "I reckon no guest of ours could be that."
There was nothing in his manner to indicate if he were pleased or
otherwise by the arrangement. He seemed to be in a mood of extreme
reticence, and Maud wondered as they walked to the house if she had
vexed him by taking upon herself to extend hospitality to his patron.
But then it had been the only course open to her. Surely he must see
that! She and Charlie were such old friends; they could not begin to be
strangers now.
Yet the doubt worried her. Jake was plainly not upon very intimate
terms with Lord Saltash. Or was it her presence that caused constraint?
She wished she knew, but she had no means of ascertaining. She could
only do her best, ably seconded by Saltash, to smooth over any slight
difficulties that might arise from a situation that was certainly none
too easy.
Despite her efforts she could not fail to note that Jake was more
self-contained, more unresponsive, than she had ever before seen him,
and for a time she felt her own manner to be strained and unnatural in
consequence.
Lord Saltash plainly noticed nothing. Throughout that Christmas dinner
he was just as gay, as debonair, as audacious, as he had been in the old
days, complimented her with his usual effrontery, provoked her to
laughter with all his old quick wit. She found it impossible not to
respond, impossible not to expand in the warmth of his good comradeship.
She seemed to be drawn into a magic circle of gaiety that could not
last, that was all the more precious because it could not last. Bunny
also was well within that charmed region. He was full of animation,
eager, excited, even merry. She had an uneasy fear that he would pay
for his high spirits later, but for the time she had not the heart to
check him. She understood his feelings so thoroughly. It was so good
to have Charlie with them again and to bury all the troubles of the
past, so good to see the flower of friendship spring from the dead root
of passion. so good to be on easy terms again with this man whom in
spite of everything, she could not but regard as a kindred spirit.
They had always been sympathetic. They looked upon much in life with
the same eyes. They had the same tastes, the same intuitions, often the
same impulses. Yes, he had shown himself unworthy. There was a fatal
flaw in his character. He was wild, lawless, immoral; but he was her
friend. Somehow she could not feel that anything could ever alter that.
They had been too near, too intimate. He had become like one of the
family. She could not regard him in any other light. He had wounded
her to the heart, but yet, with a woman's odd faithfulness, she forgave
him, pitied him, understood him. Only upon that one point she had stood
firm. Her innate purity had arisen as an angel with a flaming sword,
dividing them. She had not been able to overlook his sins and marry
him. She had known him too well--too well. Possibly even she had loved
him too well also.
But all that was over now. The pain was stifled, the sacrifice was
past. She could suffer herself to accept his easy friendship with no
dread for the future. She could let herself be at ease with him once
more, knowing herself to be beyond his reach. Once very sorely she had
been tempted to yield to him, but that temptation could never occur
again. Her marriage was a safe anchor from which she could never break
free and drift out to sea. She could afford now to be kind, since
henceforth no more than kindness could ever be expected from her. And
it was so good to be with him again. With all his waywardness and
instability Charlie Burchester was the most satisfying friend she had.
He never wearied her. He always caught and charmed her mood. He was so
rarely sensitive, so delicately alive, to every change of feeling.
There was even something almost uncanny sometimes in the way he read her
woman's heart, a feat for which he himself accounted by declaring that
they had been born under the same star.
It all came back to her as they sat at the same board on that Christmas
Day. It was just as if there had never been any lift in their
friendship. The memory of the man's passionate pleading and her own
anguished refusal had faded into an evil dream. They were back once
more in the old happy days of comradeship before he had ever spoken to
her of love.
Only Jake's presence held her to the present, and when at the end of
dinner he rose to carry out his suggestion with regard to fetching her
mother in the dog-cart she felt, as soon as the door closed upon him,
that the old life she knew and loved had wholly returned. She and Bunny
and Saltash were just children together, and they settled down to enjoy
themselves as such.