THE OLD DAYS END
Arthur was an affectionate son and enjoyed going home, yet on this
occasion he approached his destination with some uneasiness. Mrs. Lisle
was a religious woman, Anna was even more strictly devout; they both
professed High Church principles, and though frail health had compelled
the mother to give up practical good works the daughter was busily
engaged in them. They had lived out of the large world all their lives.
Their standards and point of view had none of the easiness and laxity of
London drawing-rooms and London clubs. They were not at all modern.
Arthur smiled over the thought that Mr. Claud Beverley would probably
decline to consider them real, but he did not smile at the prospect of
discussing with them the catastrophe of Hilsey. He had broken the
terrible news by letter; that was better than announcing it in person
and encountering the full force of dismay and reprobation which it must
provoke. He had also added; "It is very painful to talk of it and can do
no good. Let us forget it when we meet"; but he was extremely doubtful
whether this hint would have any effect. Horror does not, unfortunately,
preclude curiosity.
At first, however, there was no thought or talk of the sin or the
sinner. They had a great piece of news for him, which they had saved up
to tell him themselves; they would not waste it on a letter. Anna had
become engaged to be married to Ronald Slingsby, the curate of the
parish. Another surprise of this kind for Arthur! But here he was
unreservedly delighted, and the more so because he had hardly expected
that Anna would take, or perhaps would find, a husband; she had always
seemed aloof from that sort of thing, too deeply immersed in her pious
activities. It was rather strange to see austere Anna stand
blushing--actually blushing--by the chair where the frail grey-haired
mother sat, and talking about "Ronald" with shy pride and happiness.
Ronald had been a fellow-Malvernian of his, and Arthur did not privately
think much of him--No need, of course, to say that!
"And he's just devoted to her," said Mrs. Lisle. "Oh, yes, he is, Anna
dear! He told us that at first he had scruples about marrying, as he was
a priest, but he felt that this great feeling must have been given him
for a purpose, and so his conscience became quite reconciled."
"I don't think he would ever have cared for anybody who wasn't
interested in his work and couldn't help him in it," Anna added.
"I'd have betted he'd reconcile his conscience all right," smiled
Arthur.
"My dear boy, you mustn't be flippant," said his mother in gentle
reproof. "I'm very very happy," she went on, "to have Anna settled with
a man she can love and trust, before I'm called away; and I'm not nearly
as strong as I was. Last winter tried me very much."
"Her cough gets so bad sometimes," said Anna. "But I shall be only
across the road, and able to look after her just as well when we're
married. Go and get ready for dinner, Arthur. It's been put back till
eight o'clock on your account, and Ronald is coming."
Ronald came but, owing to its being a Friday, ate no meat; his betrothed
followed his example; bodily weakness excused, on Mrs. Lisle's part, a
slice of the white meat of a chicken, both of whose legs were dedicated
to Arthur's healthy appetite. Ronald was not a bad-looking fellow, tall,
thin, and muscular; he was decidedly ecclesiastical in demeanour and
bearing--as well as, of course, in apparel--and this betrayed him
sometimes into a sort of _ex cathedra_ attitude which his office might
justify but his youth certainly did not. Remembering him as an untidy
urchin full of tricks only a few years ago, Arthur became a little
impatient of it.
At last Mrs. Lisle bethought her of Hilsey. "And how did you leave the
poor people?" she asked gently. "You needn't mind speaking before
Ronald; he's one of the family now."
"Oh, really, they're--er--bearing up pretty well, mother. It's a bad
job, of course, a great shock, and all that, but--well, things'll settle
down, I suppose."
"Has anything been heard of the unfortunate woman?" Mrs. Lisle went on.
Arthur did not like the phrase; he flushed a little. "They're abroad,
mother. She'll naturally stay there, I should think, till matters are
adjusted."
"Adjusted, Arthur?" Anna's request for an interpretation sounded a note
of surprise.
"Till after the divorce, I mean."
"Does your cousin intend to apply for a divorce?" asked the happy
suitor.
"Bernadette wants one, and he's ready to do anything she wishes."
A long pause fell upon the company--evidently a hostile pause.
"And will the other man go through a form of marriage with her?" asked
Ronald.
"Of course he'll marry her. To do Oliver Wyse justice, we needn't be
afraid about that."
"Afraid!" Anna exclaimed very low. Mrs. Lisle shook her grey head sadly.
"Unhappy creature!" she murmured.
Arthur had been bred in this atmosphere, but coming back to it now he
found it strange and unfamiliar. Different from the air of London,
profoundly different from the air of Hilsey itself! There they had never
thought of Bernadette as an unfortunate woman or an unhappy creature.
Their attitude towards her had been quite different. As for his own part
in the transaction--well, it was almost amusing to think what would
happen at home if the truth of it were told. He had a mischievous
impulse to tell Ronald--but, no, he must not risk its getting to his
mother's ears.
"And they're abroad together!" mused Mrs. Lisle.
"They're on his yacht--so the lawyers said--somewhere in the
Mediterranean."
"How can they?" Anna speculated.
"Unfortunately we must remember that people are capable of a great many
things which we cannot understand," said Ronald.
"Her conscience can give the poor thing no peace, I should think." Again
Mrs. Lisle shook her head sadly.
"You mustn't think hardly of Bernadette, mother. It--it wasn't
altogether her fault that she and Godfrey didn't hit it off. He knows
that, I think, himself. I'm sure he'd say so. She had her difficulties
and--er--trials."
"Most married women have, my dear, but that's no reason for deserting
their husbands and children, and committing the sin that she has
committed--and is committing."
"If this unhappy person----" Ronald began.
Arthur might stand it from his mother; he could not from Ronald
Slingsby. "If you've nothing pleasant to call people, Slingsby, you
might just call them by their names. Bernadette has been a dear good
friend to me, and I don't like the phrase you choose to describe her.
And I must say, mother, that if you knew the circumstances as well as I
do, you'd be more charitable."
"I'm as sorry--as bitterly sorry--as I can be, dear, but----"
"It's more a question of justice than of sorrow."
"Well, how have we been unjust, Arthur?" This question of Anna's was
plainly hostile.
"You don't allow for circumstances and--and temptations, and----" He
broke off impatiently. "It's really not much good trying to explain."
"I'm inclined to be sorry I ever persuaded you to make their
acquaintance," sighed Mrs. Lisle.
Anna's hostility and Ronald Slingsby's prim commiseration annoyed Arthur
exceedingly. His mother's attitude towards him touched him more deeply,
and to a half-amused yet sincere remorse. It grew more marked with every
day of his visit. She showed an affectionate but rather reproachful
anxiety about him--about his life, his doings, and his ways of thought.
She seemed to fear--indeed she hinted--that his association with the
Lisles (which meant, of course, with Bernadette, and for which she
persisted in shouldering a responsibility not really belonging to her)
might have sapped his morals and induced a laxity in his principles and
perhaps--if only she knew all--in his conduct. She evinced a gentle yet
persistent curiosity about his work, about his companions and his
pursuits in London. She abounded in references to the hopes and
anxieties entertained about him by his father; she would add that she
knew, understood, and allowed for the temptations of young men; there
was the more need to seek strength where alone strength could be found.
Arthur tried hard to banish the element of amusement from his remorse.
Although his behaviour in London might stand comparison pretty well with
that of many young men of his age and class, yet he was really guilty on
all counts of the indictment, and had so found himself by his own
verdict before now. He had neglected his work, squandered his money, and
declared himself the lover of his cousin's wife. He was as great a
sinner, then, as the unfortunate woman herself! It was a bad record,
thus baldly summarised. But what, in the end, had that bald summary to
do with the true facts of the case, with the way in which things had
been induced and had come about? In what conceivable relation, in how
remote a degree of verisimilitude, did it stand towards the actual
history of those London and Hilsey days? Accept condemnation as he
might, his mind pleaded at least for understanding. And the dear frail
old woman said she understood!
Moreover--and it is an unlucky thing for weak human nature--moral causes
and spiritual appeals are apt, by force of accident or circumstances, to
get identified with and, as it were, embodied in personalities which are
not sympathetic; they pay the penalty. His mother's anxious affection
would have fared better, had Anna not stood so uncompromisingly for
propriety of conduct, and Ronald Slingsby for the sanctity of the
marriage bond. The pair--to Arthur they seemed already one mind, though
not yet one flesh, and he secretly charged Ronald with setting his
sister against him--were to him, in plain language, prigs; they applied
their principles without the modifications demanded by common sense, and
their formulas without allowance for facts; they passed the same
sentence on all offenders of whatever degree of guilt. And yet, after
all, as soon as Ronald wanted to marry, he had "reconciled his
conscience" without much apparent difficulty! Lack of charity in them
bred the like in him. When they cried "Sinners!" he retorted
"Pharisees!" and stiffened his neck even against what was true in their
accusation.
But in the end his mother's love, and perhaps still more her weakness,
won its way with him. He achieved, in some degree at least, the
difficult task of looking through her eyes, of realising all the years
of care and devotion, all the burden of hopes and fears, which had gone
towards setting his feet upon the path of life; all that had been put
into the making of him, and had rendered it possible for him to complete
the work himself. He could not be as she, in her fond heart, would have
him, a child still and always, unspotted from the world, nay, untouched,
unformed by it; but he could be something worth being; he could make a
return, albeit not the return she asked for. He renewed to her the
promises he had made to himself; he would work, he would be prudent, he
would order his ways. He took her small thin hand in his and patted it
reassuringly, as he sat on a stool by the side of her arm-chair. "I'll
be all I haven't been, mother! Still I believe I've learnt a thing or
two."
Hardest thing of all, he opened his heart a little--not all the
way--about the sinner, about Bernadette.
"If you had known her, mother! It was cruel bad luck for her! She just
had to have just what poor old Godfrey hasn't got. Oh, I know all you
say but it is much harder for some people than for others. Now isn't it?
And to me I can't tell you what she was. If she wants me, I've always
got to be a friend to her."
"You were very fond of her, poor boy?"
"Yes, mother. She was so full of kindness, and life, and gaiety, and so
beautiful."
"Poor boy!" she said again very softly. She understood something of his
adoration; it was as much as it was well for her to know. "We must pray
that God, in His good time, will turn her gifts to good uses. Tell me
about the others--poor Godfrey, and the little girl, and Judith Arden."
She listened gladly while he told her of Hilsey and how he loved the
place, how they all liked him to be there, and of his hope that peace,
if not joy, might now be the portion of that house.
"It will be another home to you, and you'll need one soon, I think." He
pressed her hand again. "No, my dear, I'm ready. I used to think Anna
would make her home with you in London when I was gone, but that won't
be now." She sighed. "Better not perhaps! She's at home here, and it
mightn't have worked." Another sigh marked her resigned sorrow at the
strange differences there were between children. "And her home
here--well, it won't be quite the same as home to you, will it?"
Most decidedly not--Ronald Slingsby's house! Arthur could reply only by
another squeeze of her hand and a ruefully deprecating smile.
"And some day you'll have a wife and a home of your own." Her mind
travelled back to his earlier letters. "What's become of that nice girl
you told me about--Miss Sarradet?"
"I've just heard that she's engaged to be married. She didn't wait for
me, mother!"
"Oh, well, they were very nice people, I know, but hardly----"
"Not quite up to the Lisles of Hilsey, you mean?" he asked, laughing.
"Worldly pride!"
"Anyhow, since she's engaged----" Mrs. Lisle was evidently a little
relieved. How near the peril once had been Arthur did not tell her.
"Work now--not wives!" he said gaily. "I want to show you a whacking big
brief, before many months are over. Still, don't expect it too
confidently."
"Keep friends with your sister. Keep friends with Ronald," she enjoined
him. "I don't think he'll rise to distinction in the Church, but he's a
good man, Arthur."
"When I'm Lord Chancellor, mother, I'll give him a fat living!"
"You've grown into a fine man, Arthur. You're handsomer than your father
was." The gentle voice had grown drowsy and low. He saw that she was
falling into a doze--perhaps with a vision of her own youth before her
eyes. He did not disengage his hand from hers until she slept.
Thus he came nearer to his mother, and for the sake and remembrance of
that blessed his visit home. But to Anna and her future husband any
approach was far more difficult. There he seemed met by an obstinate
incompatibility. Ronald's outlook, which now governed and bounded
Anna's, was entirely professional--with one subject excepted. He was an
enthusiast about football. He had been a great player, and Arthur a good
one. They fought old battles over again, or recited to one another the
deeds of heroes. There are men who, when they meet, always talk about
the same subject, because it is the only thing they have in common, and
it acts as a bridge between them. Whenever a topic became dangerous,
Arthur changed it for football. Football saved the situation between
them a hundred times.
"I really never knew how tremendously Ronald was interested in it, till
you came this time, Arthur," Anna remarked innocently. "I suppose he
thought I wasn't worth talking to about it."
"Of course you weren't, my dear," said Arthur. "What woman is?" He
smiled slyly over his successful diplomacy.
But though football may be a useful buffer against collisions of faith
and morals, and may even draw hearts together for a season in common
humanity, it can hardly form the cement of a home. His mother was right.
When once she was gone--and none dared hope long life for her--there
would be no home for him in the place of his youth. As he walked over
the hills, on the day before he was to return to London, he looked on
the prospect with the eye of one who takes farewell. His life henceforth
lay elsewhere. The chapter of boyhood and adolescence drew to its close.
The last tie that bound him to those days grew slack and would soon give
way. He had no more part or lot in this place.
Save for the love of that weak hand which would fain have detained him,
but for his own sake beckoned him to go, he was eager to depart. He
craved again the fulness of life and activity. He wanted to be at
work--to try again and make a better job of it.
"I suppose I shall make an ass of myself again and again, but at any
rate I'll work," he said, and put behind him the mocking memory of Henry
encountering the Law Reports in full career. _Retro Satanas!_ He would
work--even though the farce succeeded!