Jack Collingwood started from London next morning, before the arrival of
his mother’s letter, and travelled with only a Saturday-till-Monday bag
as representing the necessaries of life, but with a bicycle and a great
number of golf clubs for its luxuries. Arthur had been away when he was
at Wroxton only a fortnight before, and he had been delighted to accept
the invitation, for he not only very much wished to see Arthur, but he
had an affair of some importance to talk over with his mother. His last
visit home had been, with the exception of that sultry conversation
about Lady Hamilton and the sunset, unusually harmonious, and he was,
for his own peace of mind, at present unconscious of the squall which
had struck the close on the occasion of the opening of the picture
exhibition. He was a person of simple, boyish pleasures, and he found
entertainment enough in the express to make him abstain from any search
for excitement in the daily papers. He timed the speed of the train with
the quarter-of-a-mile posts by the side of the line; he leaned out of
the window as they swept through flying stations, and he had the
prodigious luck of being stopped by signal just opposite the golf-links,
when he saw an angry man in a red coat play an absurdly bad shot into a
bunker, and his low, furious exclamation flecked the beauty of the
morning. Still unconscious of all that lay before him, he arrived at
Bolton Street, and was told that Arthur was not in yet, but that Miss
Avesham was out in the garden. He followed the butler through the hall
and the little conservatory that lay beyond, and as the door was opened
he stopped a moment, with a dizzy, bewildered feeling that all this had
happened before.
For there in the middle of the lawn was standing a girl opposite him,
with a face full of laughter and anxiety, and with her parasol she kept
at bay a small retriever puppy which had just left the water, and, still
dripping, was evidently coming to his mistress to shake himself and
receive her congratulations.
The whole scene was in brilliant sunlight, and Arthur found himself
saying:
“The dog is just going to shake!”
The words were not out of his mouth when the puppy’s head was shaken,
and down to his shoulders he was black and curly, set in a shower of
spray, but the shake had not yet reached his back and tail, the hair of
which was still strong and close.
Next moment he stepped out on to the lawn, and Jeannie, seeing him, came
a step forward to meet him.
“How do you do, Mr. Collingwood?” she said. “Arthur will be in in a
moment. Toby had just fallen into the fountain in trying to catch a
bird. Oh, dear, how extraordinary!”
And as the coincidence struck her she laughed.
Now laughter is certainly the best beginning of a friendship, and Jack
hailed the omen.
“It seems fated that I should see you keeping off a wet dog,” he said.
“Is not the subject forced on me?”
“Indeed it is,” said Jeannie, who had not meant to allude to it at all,
and hoped that he would not. But her first exclamation had been quite
voluntary, not in her power to check.
“If I had known it was you,” he went on, not even explaining that he
alluded to the picture, “of course I should never have done it. And if
any one had told me before I came here to-day that it was you, I doubt
if I should have come. Anyhow, I should be apologizing now. But twice!
It is beyond my control. I think I won’t even apologize.”
“It would be an impertinence to apologize for so clear a dealing of
Providence,” said Jeannie. “I, too, was rather uneasy about this moment;
I was afraid you might be awkward, and make me so. But certainly you are
not. Am I?”
Jack laughed.
“I had not noticed it,” he said. “And here’s the author of it all come
to dry himself against me.”
“Toby, come here at once,” said Jeannie.
“You said that before, too,” remarked Jack.
Jeannie’s eyes grew round.
“I believe I did,” she said. “Then we had tea. What a pity! The chain of
coincidence is broken. We are only going to have lunch. Of course you
know this place well.”
“I have never been in this house before,” said Jack. “It used to belong
to a queer old lady who kept forty cats, when I lived here as a boy. My
only connection was that I used to catapult the cats when they came over
into our garden.”
“Yes, forty is a considerable number,” said Jeannie. “Oh, here are
Arthur and my aunt, Miss Fortescue. Anyhow, you haven’t met her before.”
“Excuse me, she was sitting by your hat,” said Jack.
“On it,” said Jeannie; “it was crushed flat.”
Arthur came back alone toward tea-time; Jack, he said, had gone to see
his mother.
“It was kinder,” he remarked, “to let him know that a letter had been
written, as he had not received it yet, and I did so. He is remarkably
brave. He is as bold as a dragoon. He will talk it out, he says.”
“Mrs. Collingwood will rub it in,” said Miss Fortescue. “I am sorry for
that young man. Oh, did he behave decently when he met you, Jeannie?”
Jeannie looked up, absently.
“Oh, quite decently,” she said. “It was not at all awkward. He has tact,
I think; or, if he hasn’t, I have. Anyhow there was enough tact about
for two.”
“No one person has tact for two,” said Miss Fortescue, decidedly. “He
must have had some.”
Whatever he looked, Jack Collingwood did not feel nearly as brave as a
dragoon, unless dragoons are timid things, when he entered the house in
the close. But it was not in anticipation of a cool reception due to the
picture which made him distrustful of what the next hour would bring. He
hardly gave that a thought, for he had seen Jeannie, and it mattered but
little what the rest of the world thought, as long as she had an
uninjured mind on the subject. Her frank welcome of him, her utter
_insouciance_ on the subject--above all, though he scarcely knew it yet
himself, the fact that he had met again that vision by the river,
combined to make him almost exultantly happy on that score. His errand
to his mother, however, was far different, and full of difficulty.
She met him with a kind, Christian expression. He had received, so she
supposed, her note, and the desire to see her after that was filial and
laudable, for the note had been strongly expressed. Not that Mrs.
Collingwood regretted that: the occasion demanded strong speaking, and
her duty dictated to her.
“I am staying with the Aveshams,” he said, “and I remain over the
Sunday. Mother, Arthur tells me you have written to me about that
picture. I have not received the letter yet, as I started early this
morning, but no doubt it will be forwarded to me. Shall we, then,
dismiss that for the present, until I have read your note?”
“Certainly, if you wish it,” said Mrs. Collingwood, freezing a little.
“But if you came here to talk about that, it is better you should know
at once what I think.”
“I didn’t come to talk about that,” said Jack. “I came to ask your
advice and your help about a very different matter.”
“I shall be delighted to give it you,” said Mrs. Collingwood, sitting
very upright
“It is a very sad story I have to tell you,” he said, “and I want
experienced advice about it. You can give it me.”
Mrs. Collingwood relaxed a little. One of the chief businesses of her
life was directing and advising, and she enjoyed it.
“Tell me,” she said.
“Do you remember a fellow who stayed here once with me from Oxford,” he
asked, “called Frank Bennett?”
Mrs. Collingwood unbent a little more. She had approved of the young man
in question.
“Yes, I remember him perfectly,” she said. “He had a beautiful voice,
and sang Nazareth after dinner. He sang with great feeling, I remember,
and we talked about the aims and career of an oratorio singer.”
Jack could not help smiling. Frank had a unique talent, he had always
considered, of adaptability. It was exactly like him to sing Nazareth.
He sang other things as well, if not better.
“Yes,” he said, “I see you remember him. He was one of my closest
friends. He is dead.”
“Oh, Jack,” she said, “I am so sorry! I liked him so much for himself.
Does the advice you want concern him in any way?”
“Yes, very closely.”
Jack paused. His mother had been sympathetic, the thing had touched her,
and it was with less apprehension that he went on.
“It concerns him very closely,” he said. “He had a child. No, he was not
married----”
He looked steadily at his mother as he said this, and saw the sympathy
and warmth die out of her face.
“The girl is also dead,” he continued. “The baby is about ten days old.”
“I should recommend an orphanage,” said Mrs. Collingwood. “I can give
you a letter to one.”
“He was an awfully good fellow,” said Jack.
Mrs. Collingwood drew her mouth very tight. There was no reply
necessary. Jack rose.
“The girl died suddenly a few days ago,” he said, “only a week after
the birth of the baby. Frank died in May last. He appointed me executor
of his will, and I see by it that he leaves all he has to his--to this
girl in trust for the child. He meant to marry her, he had told me that;
of course he ought to have.”
“Of course he ought to have!” said Mrs. Collingwood.
If you can imagine such a thing as a malignant echo, you will know how
she spoke.
“You suggest nothing else?” asked Jack, still lingering. “I have already
a promise of a place in an orphanage. Of course the child does not want
that. There is plenty of money.”
“There is nothing else to suggest,” said Mrs. Collingwood, in a
perfectly business-like manner. “I cannot see why you wanted my advice
if you already have a place for the child.”
“No; I was wrong,” said Jack.
There was a moment’s silence. All that was righteous and hard in Mrs.
Collingwood surged to the surface; all that was human in Jack struggled
for utterance. She was the first to speak.
“Jack, how can you come to me with such a story?” she said. “You knew
already all that I could possibly say, and that without examining into
the merits of the case I could not even recommend it. Do you realize
what the case is? There are hundreds such, less fortunate, because for
them there is no money. It is a bad case, this. The father was rich. If,
then, for these hundreds there is no excuse, what excuse is there here?
I do not say that the sin is less, if there has been no marriage,
because there was no means of supporting possible children, but, if we
can weigh anything against that, that is the more excusable. You spoke
of him as a ‘very good fellow.’ Have you thought?”
Jack stood quite still during his mother’s speech. A little heightened
colour appeared on his face, and his big brown eyes opened a little.
“I have thought,” he said. “Frank was honest, kindly, generous, and he
had hot blood. He would always help a friend in trouble: once he helped
me. I should always have gone to him if I was in a difficulty. Thus I
owe him a debt. Please God, I will repay it. He committed a fault, or
sin, what you will. I have made it my business, as far as I humanly can,
to repair that. I do not wish that the sins of the father should be
visited on the child. I beg your pardon, mother, I have put that in a
way that will offend you. Let me put it like this: I want the child to
have as good a chance as possible. I thought perhaps you might help me.”
“How could I help you?” said Mrs. Collingwood.
Jack paused. Then:
“I meant to bring up the child myself,” he said. “I should have told you
that earlier if you had encouraged me at all. I thought even that you
might suggest--no, I scarcely thought it--that the child should live
here. I was wrong. I ought never to have come.”
Again there was a silence. Again all that was best and most human in the
man burst out:
“Mother,” he said, “do not blame me. There was a bad business--I knew
it. I only thought to repair it as far as I could. You do not agree
with me. Very well, let us forget it. Why should this, too, come between
us?”
His eyes had the glimmer of tears in them, and he took an unresisting
hand.
“I said ‘this too,’” he went on. “I know that there is much in me that
you do not approve. You would have had me choose a different way of
life. That, I am afraid, cannot be remedied. Shall we not accept it?
And, such as I am, I have tried to be a good son to you and father.”
The hand that lay unresistingly in his tightened its grasp. He looked
up, but his mother only shook her head.
“Go, Jack,” she said; “kiss me, then go.”
He kissed her, and left the room without another word. Mrs. Collingwood
sat quite still for a moment. Then her wide mouth widened, and she burst
into tears.
Jack had been more moved by his interview with his mother than was
convenient for social purposes, and he did not go straight back to the
Aveshams, but took a stroll through the town first. He had not expected
that his mother would suggest any arrangement other than an orphanage
for the child, but he had thought it possible. What had moved him was
the sudden deepening of their talk; in a moment they had gone from the
instance to the great eternal principles of things, to sin and love and
death. From that the talk had veered as suddenly to personal relations,
the relations between his mother and himself. Deep down in him he knew
what an empty place there was in his heart, a place empty and garnished,
but ready and with the door open for the entering in of that exquisite
presence, not less sacred and entrancing than any, the sympathetic,
comprehending love between mother and son. All his life long he had
missed that. His mother would never have committed a reckless,
unconsidered act for his sake; the mere fact of motherhood, as in so
many women, was not to her enough for that. For the glory of motherhood
lies in this: that the child will instinctively take from her without
question, and without question she gives. The joy of self-surrender must
be made without question. And he, on his side, had missed the son’s
part. His joys and troubles were not self-despatched presents to her;
she would not have known what to do with them, they would have been to
her like strange, savage implements of which she did not know the use.
She might indeed have tried to find a use for them, and thus missed
their significance. To use them at all was their abuse. They were her
son’s; that to the mother is enough.
Jack wandered down the High Street and hung on the parapet of the stone
bridge that crosses the river. This strange unrest was new to him. He
had never been of the nature that toils in the soil of other human
souls, or even of his own, and delves thereout so much that is
worthless, and sometimes an unconjectured jewel. He had not ever been in
the habit of considering life as a serious business. He got through his
day’s work with cheerfulness and honesty, and the day’s work brought its
own raptures. He was not carnal, but emphatically he was not spiritual.
To him the tastes and the rewards of life lay in artistic and
intellectual achievement; about them he had a store-house of
kaleidoscopic theories and much sober practice; but as for problems of
life and being, all such were an algebra to him. Being of a clean mind,
and holding--a low gospel it may be, but an excellent working
hypothesis--that sensuality means the death of the intellect, he had
never troubled his head to make out moral codes. The tragedy of Frank
Bennett’s life and death did not make him shudder and wince. He called
him a fool, but with tenderness, and whether he was a knave or not did
not concern him.
He was roused from his meditations by a short, staccato bark at his
heels, and found the round retriever pup staggering up to him. Toby had
an inability to walk straight; he rolled along like a drunken man with a
jovial boisterousness. He had a large wire muzzle on, and the tip of his
pink tongue hung through it.
“Oh, are you looking at the water?” said Jeannie, sympathetically.
“That’s so nice of you. I have to look at running water every day. It
clears one’s brain out, I think. Toby is shortly to have his bath.”
“It is a shame making him wear a muzzle while he has still his
milk-teeth,” said Jack.
“It isn’t a muzzle,” said Jeannie, “it is his hat. Toby is rather proud
of it. But don’t you agree with me about water?”
“Yes; I was having a wash myself. I have had rather an agitating talk.”
Jeannie knew that he had been to see his mother, and did not see her way
to any reply. She supposed that the picture was at the bottom of it.
“It was about a friend of mine,” continued Jack, “who got into great
trouble. We disagreed hopelessly, my mother and I. It is a bore. Oh, I
want washing!” he cried, and turned to look at the water again.
Jeannie had a sort of fleeting idea that she had only seen this young
man for the first time that morning, and that convention would call
confidences premature. But convention meant little to her; she did not
wilfully neglect it, but she simply forgot its existence.
“Oh, but we must expect to disagree with people,” she said. “Think how
extraordinarily tame the world would be if we didn’t! We should spend
our whole lives in admiring the views of other people which tallied so
exactly with our own.”
“But do you like disagreeing with people who are very near you?” he
asked.
Jeannie considered a moment.
“I don’t suppose I have agreed with Aunt Em about anything for five
years,” she said.
Jack laughed.
“But you have not disagreed--not radically, I mean.”
Jeannie turned half round and looked at him. But before she could reply
there swept by Colonel Raymond, followed by a string of straggling
children, returning from their “good, brisk walk.” He saw her, stared,
stared also at her companion, and passed on.
“Oh, dear me,” thought Jeannie, “Arthur has evidently seen him. That was
one of the most complete cuts I ever received.”
She paused a moment to bring her thoughts back to the point from which
they had strayed.
“No, you are right; not radically,” she said. “And if your disagreement
has been radical, and it is not impertinent of me, do let me offer you
my sympathy. It is rather a common word, but sincerity makes common
things real.”
She looked divinely beautiful. The soft, wistful expression of her face
was altogether womanly, the brightness and vivacity belonged to
girlhood. Spring trembled on the verge of summer, an entrancing moment.
Admirable as his sketch had been, like her as it was, Jack found it but
a pale parody of the deeper beauty which shone on him. Sympathy like an
electric spark had passed from her, and the face he had thought only so
admirable in its amused anxiety became a face which showed a beautiful
soul. The lamp within had been lit, and the light showed through the
fair carving of the lantern.
“Thank you for that,” he said at length, gravely. “Tattered banners of
words are hung in sacred places.”
She turned and looked at the water again.
“Are our brains cleaner?” she said. “If so, let us go and give Toby his
bath. Won’t you come with me, Mr. Collingwood? We can stroll along the
river and go back home round through the close.”
It was at that divine hour when day and evening meet. The sun was low
and level, and its light, instead of coming from one spot and dazzling
the eyes, was diffused through a golden haze. The heat and stress of
summer, one would have said, was over or not yet come, and it might have
been a day from early May or from late September. The fulness of the
stream argued the former, but a certain mellowness of colour showed the
other. Jack, inclined as an artist is to be very indolent except when he
is very industrious, was under the spell of the evening, under the
spell, too, of the sympathy which had floated to him across the airy
bridge by which soul spans the otherwise inaccessible gulf which divides
it from any other soul. He was a man, lovable; she was a lovable woman;
heaven is there, and all is said.
Toby staggered round them, occasionally dashing away after interesting
smells, and barking hoarsely and rudely at passers-by in a state of
self-importance not unmixed with nervousness. He enjoyed his bath when
once he was in the water, but he was a little distrustful of it; the
self-importance was due to the fact that he considered this daily walk
by the river to be taken entirely on his account. He had something, in
fact, of the air of Colonel Raymond about him, and Jeannie wondered what
he would make of this sight of herself and Jack together lounging on the
bridge.