Archie hesitated.
"He looks stronger," he said slowly. "And he is in his usual spirits:
the life and soul of the place. There can't be anything really wrong.
In fact he joked about his health. He doesn't take anything very
seriously, you know. David Ross told me that he had overworked
himself--more or less."
"You gave him my love?" Betty murmured lightly. She had the faintest
tinge of colour in her cheeks, but her voice was almost cold.
"Yes."
"And I hope he sent a nice message to me in return?"
"No. He asked if you were well. I said--yes. You do look uncommonly
well, Betty."
She wore white, which set off the delicate tints and admirable texture
of her skin, but her hat was black, giving a necessary note of contrast.
At her throat, holding together a _jabot_ of creamy laces, sparkled an
old-fashioned enamel ornament set with tiny brilliants. Standing on the
sloping lawn, her figure defined against a towering yew fence, and
holding in her hand the roses she had just gathered, the girl made a
picture which lured Archie's thoughts even from Windsor.
"I suppose a country life agrees with me."
"You are wonderful."
She moved to a bench, the young man following her with eager feet and
eyes. He could not see that her heart was beating, nor did he notice
that the brilliancy of her eyes was due to an abnormal enlargement of
the pupil. She sat down, smiling derisively. Then she bade him tell
her about the sanatorium. When he had finished, she said quietly, "You
were very, very kind to take that long journey."
"It's easy to be kind to people like you--and Mark."
His delightful voice softened, because when he mentioned his brother's
name the memory of what that brother had done on his behalf filled him
with gratitude.
"I hear you are kind to everybody. All Slowshire sings your praises."
Archibald shook his head, wondering whether Betty would mention the
sermon. He was burning with impatience to try on, so to speak, some of
its phrases, to watch the effect of them on a woman who had listened to
the Gamaliels of the day. Betty possessed sincerity, imagination,
sympathy. These would flow freely at the touch of a friend's hand.
"If it would not bore you," he said, "I should like to talk over the
Windsor sermon. You can help me----"
"I? Help--you?"
"You can, indeed"; his voice grew eager. "Whatever I say will be the
fresher and purer if it passes through your mind before it is given to
the world."
"My mind _is_ a sort of filter." She laughed. None the less she was
pleased and flattered. Archibald began to speak in a soft monotone.
Betty half closed her eyes and the lines of her figure slightly relaxed
beneath the caressing inflections of the speaker's voice. Whenever
Archie sang she was affected in the same way. A languor overcame her.
For the moment she was not attempting to grasp the meaning of his words,
which, even as inarticulate sounds, possessed value and significance.
But, soon, she opened her eyes wide and sat up. By this time Archie was
at the core of his theme, and his treatment of it was so masterly that
Betty found herself thrilling with surprise and delight. A few minutes
before life had seemed empty. Now it was full again, brimming over,
bubbling, with possibilities swelling from shadow into substance.
Archie, be it remembered, was not preaching the sermon. He was rather
submitting the material, the tissues, the threads, the patterns, out of
which a fine piece of work had been already fashioned. Now and again
Betty was invited to choose, to select, out of these wares some one
which pleased her fancy. She realised that Archie had more of Mark in
him than she had deemed possible. Once or twice she seemed to hear
Mark's eager tones.
"You say that like Mark."
"Has Mark talked to you on this theme?"
"Oh, no," Betty replied, "but he pours out his ideas, as you do."
"Mark and I have talked about this. He helped me. He always does."
Archie spoke hesitatingly, on the edge of full confession. He had a
genuine desire to tell Betty the truth. The words formed on his lips.
"Yes, yes," said Betty absently. "Mark has helped me too, many a time;
but he's in Sutherland." Her voice became cold as she recalled his
letter. "I feel as if he were at the North Pole! Well, Archie, I've
enjoyed our talk immensely."
"And when may I come to talk to you again?"
"You are not going--now?"
The "now" brought a sparkle to his eyes.
"I must. I'm one of the busiest men in Westchester."
"I shall run down to Windsor to hear your sermon," she said.
"Our sermon, Betty."
"That's rubbish. You must never pay me compliments, Archie. I couldn't
stand them from you----" she broke off, irrelevantly: "How did you
attain to your pinnacle? I suppose you've been climbing ever since we
were children. It's quite wonderful. Don't come Friday or Saturday.
Jim will be here. Poor, rich Jim! What do you think of Jim?"
Archie remembered, in the nick of time, what Mark had said about not
abusing Jim.
"I think what you think," he said slowly. "Poor, rich Jim!"
After he had gone, Betty picked no more roses, but sat down on the
bench, feeling rather forlorn. Archibald had taken something away with
him. What it was she could not define precisely. For instance--was it
Jim's character? He had said nothing. Nothing--except her own words:
"Poor, rich Jim." Jim had been his friend, although the men had now
little in common. Of course, he would not speak unkindly of an old
schoolfellow. Yet as a preacher of Christ's gospel, he must in his
heart rank Jim amongst Christ's enemies. Jim was not with Christ. He
did not believe in Christ. The conclusion was obvious: he must be
counted as an enemy. An enemy? Poor Jim!
She was still thinking of Jim, when his mother came towards her. She
seemed to ascend the grass slope with difficulty; so Betty ran forward
to offer an arm, which was accepted. As they moved slowly on, Betty
glanced at the quiet face so near her own. Again, curiosity devoured
her. She observed a faded look which she tried to interpret. Did it
spell disappointment? Were the last draughts of life proving bitter?
Perhaps she felt that her work was done, that her little world would wag
on without her. They sat down, and Mrs. Corrance produced her needle,
her silks, and a piece of embroidery from the old-fashioned velvet bag,
which she always carried on her arm. Betty, who never sewed, wondered
if the day would ever dawn when she would find solace in such trivial
occupations. Then Mrs. Corrance asked for news of Mark. After that was
told, silence fell on both: the silence which precedes the breaking of
barriers. Then Betty said softly: "Are you glad that you have lived--or
sorry?"
The frail hands, poised above the delicate embroidery, sank upon it, and
remained still, while faint lines of interrogation puckered the placid
forehead. Betty continued: "I ought not to ask such questions. I rush in
like a fool. But then I am a fool, although I long to be wise. There
is so much a girl like me wants to know, but if you tell me to hold my
tongue I shall not be surprised or offended."
"I'm glad that I have lived, Betty."
"That is because you have loved. Your love for Jim has filled your
life, ever since I have known you. If--if--oh, I am ashamed to put it so
brutally--but if you lost Jim, or if Jim had never been born--what
then?"
"My dear, you press me too hard. I can hardly conceive of life without
Jim," she smiled. "He came when all was dark, and there has been light
for me--ever since."
"When all was dark----" repeated Betty. She knew that Jim's father had
died when Jim was a small boy.
"Yes. My married life was not happy. Perhaps I expected too much, as
is the way with women; perhaps it was not meant that I should be happy."
"Not _meant_?" Betty spoke with impatience. "Surely the design, the
intention, includes happiness, only we mar it."
"All young people think that," said Mrs. Corrance, "but as we grow older
we see so little real happiness that we must believe, if we believe in
the mercy of God, that, save for the few, happiness on earth is not to
be enjoyed but earned rather, so that it may be enjoyed, without alloy,
hereafter. And I believe that to everyone a glimpse of happiness is
vouchsafed. Were it not for that, how many would struggle on?"
Betty asked no more questions. The youth in her rebelled against this
placid acceptance of suffering and strife. She told herself that she
had enormous capacity for enjoyment. Politics, literature, history,
sport: all were fish to her net. But religion, and in particular that
concrete presentation of it by the Church of England, had, so far, left
her cold. She seemed to have touched but its phylacteries, out of which
came no virtue. She had met many clever men who confessed themselves
agnostic. Her kind friend, Lady Randolph, never spoke of religion,
either in its wide or narrow sense. Certainly she did her duty without
aid or formulae. In fact, when Betty came to think of it, some
freethinkers of her acquaintance lived more Christian lives than many
Churchpeople who took the Sacrament every Sunday. This was puzzling. On
the other hand, the life she had led since the Admiral's death, the life
of Mayfair, of big country houses, of race-meetings, of perpetual
pleasure-seekings, had begun to pall. The grandmothers--some of
them--who gambled, and made love, and over-ate themselves, revolted her.
That they were at heart discontented and unhappy she could not doubt.
Finally, she had just come to the trite conclusion that, in or out of
the fashionable world, the people least to be pitied were those who had
some definite object in view. Politics, for instance, had probably
saved Lord Randolph from the hereditary curse of his family; fox-hunting
made Harry Kirtling ride straight and walk straight; Jim Corrance
admitted that money-grubbing kept him out of mischief. These pursuits,
however, led to negative results: being preventive of evil, not
productive of good, except indirectly. Mark Samphire not only avoided
evil, but did good, as dozens were eager to testify, including herself.
When with Mark she had always been conscious of his power to bring out
the good in her. And this afternoon, listening to Archie, she had felt
the same thrill, the same irresistible yearning to ascend, to scale the
heights. None the less, she was whimsically aware, being a creature of
sense as well as sensibility, that Mark cast a glamour. She loved him,
and, loving him, loved what he loved, tried to see Heaven's wares with
his eyes, and succeeded, so long as the magician remained at her side.
When he was at work in Whitechapel and she was shopping in Bond Street,
Heaven, somehow, seemed distant. At such times she looked at a set of
sables or a diamond ornament with a pleasure which proved that the clay
within her was very far from being purged.
Upon the following Saturday, when Jim asked her to become his wife, to
share the fortune which would be no fortune without her, she said No, as
kindly as words and looks could say it. Her distress at the pain she
inflicted touched him profoundly.
"I shall remain your pal, Betty," Jim declared. "The other thing was
always a forlorn hope. Is it any use saying that I have known for years
that I wasn't first, and that I was sanguine enough to believe that if
the first failed, I might be second? Isn't half a loaf better than no
bread, dear?"
She let him take her hand, but she turned aside eyes full of tears.
"We'll go on as before. The mater needn't know--eh? It has been a great
thing for her having you here."
"And a great thing for me," said Betty unsteadily. "I wish I could marry
you, dear old Jim, but I can't--I can't."
She broke down, sobbing bitterly. Jim patted her hand, wondering what
he could say to comfort her, but the words which came into his head
seemed inadequate. If he had taken her face between his strong hands,
kissed away her tears, and sworn passionately that he would love and
cherish her so long as she lived, she might have changed a mind which
was less strong than her body. While she sat weeping beside him, she
was thinking not so much that she had lost Mark, but that she had lost
love. The woman within her groaned, the flesh and blood protested. She
saw herself as in a vision, treading the dreary years alone, with no
strong arm to protect and defend, with no tiny hands to cling to and
caress her. And at the end of the pilgrimage stood old age, grim and
grey, carrying a sprig of rue in palsied shrivelled hands!
*CHAPTER XXI*
*RECUPERATION*
Mark went North with David Ross convinced that his months, if not his
days, were numbered; but as time passed, this conviction passed with it,
and hope once more fluttered into his heart. Stride took extraordinary
interest in his case.
"You must become an animal and remain an animal till I give you leave to
assume again the man," he told Mark after Archibald had left Crask. "I
don't know what you and your brother have been up to, but you've had a
relapse. You must go on all-fours till I tell you to walk upright."