The carriage had waited long before this, but when Daisy left her
Jeannie went out for a breath of evening air. London, to her eyes, was
looking very hot and tired, a purplish heat-haze hung in the sky, and
the grass of the Park was yellow with the scorching of the last week,
and grey with dust.
Yet somehow it all brought a sense of extraordinary peace and
refreshment to Jeannie. She, too, felt mentally hot and tired, but she
knew that whatever scene it might be necessary to go through with Tom
Lindfield, the worst was over. For, all unwittingly indeed, his had been
the fault, and though Jeannie liked him and hated the idea both of his
suffering and his possible bitterness and anger against her, all that
was in the nature of justice; acts have always their consequences, and
those who have committed them must bear what follows. But poor Daisy had
done nothing; it was for the fault of others that her soul had been in
the grip of resentment, jealousy, and anger, which had embittered and
poisoned her days and nights.
But that, all at any rate that was bitter in it, had now passed. She saw
the meaning of her suffering; it was no longer a blind and wicked force.
And though one love had to be left to wither and die in her heart,
Jeannie knew well that the love between Daisy and her, which all this
week had been blighted, was full of fresh-springing shoots again, which
would help to cover over the bare place.
Then, for herself, more precious than all was that sense of that great
love which, she believed, had never suffered the dimness of a moment's
doubt. Victor had seen her acting in a way that was impossible for him
to understand, but he had quite refused, so Jeannie believed, to let his
mind even ask a why or wherefore, still less conjecture any answer. His
own love for her and the absolute certainty of her love for him were
things so huge that nothing else could be compared with them. They stood
like great mountains, based on the earth but reaching into the heavens,
firm and imperishable, and if anything could come between his vision and
them, it could be no more than a mist-wreath which would presently pass,
and could no more shake or invalidate their stability than the grasses
and flowers that waved in the pleasant meadow beneath them.
And had Jeannie but known it she would have found more comfort yet in
the thought of Daisy, for at this moment Daisy, alone in her room,
though weeping a little now and then, was thinking not of herself at
all, not even of Lindfield, but of Jeannie. Daisy was generous and
warm-hearted to the core, and passionate had been her self-reproach at
her complete misunderstanding of her aunt, at her utter failure even to
ask herself whether there was not something about it all that she did
not understand.
How nobly different Victor Braithwaite had been, who, so it seemed, had
assumed there must be some undercurrent of which he knew nothing, and
was quite content to leave it at that. Jeannie had said she loved him;
he wanted nothing more. But Daisy knew also that Jeannie loved her; what
she did not know then, but was beginning to know now, was what love
meant; how it can bear even to be completely misunderstood by those it
loves, if only, in spite of their ignorance and misjudgment, it can help
them. To Daisy, hitherto, love had been something assertive; to-day she
was learning that it is based on a self-surrender made with the same
passionateness as are its conquests.
The rest of the party were coming up next day, and it did not surprise
Jeannie to find a telegram waiting for her when she came in from Tom
Lindfield. He asked if he might call and see her next morning, saying
that he would come at twelve unless she put him off.
It needed but a moment's reflection to make her decide that in bare
justice she could not refuse. She shrank from it; she dreaded the
thought of seeing him again, of listening to his just and passionate
reproaches; she dreaded also the possibility that she might once again
have to give up Diana's secret. But, since he wished it, she must see
him.
Next morning she told Daisy she expected him, so that there should be no
possibility of their meeting by chance on the stairs or in Jeannie's
room, and sat waiting for him alone. She could not prepare herself in
any way for the interview, since she could not tell in the least what
form it would take. She tried not to be afraid, but--but she had treated
him abominably. So, at least, he must think, and with perfect justice.
He was announced, and came in. As with Daisy yesterday, they did not
greet one another. She was sitting at her writing-table, but did not
rise, and for a moment he stood opposite her, just looking at her with
those blue, boyish eyes which she knew could be so merry, but did not
know could be so dumbly, hopelessly sad.
Then he spoke, quite quietly.
"You ran away unexpectedly, Mrs. Halton," he said.
"Yes; I thought it was best."
"Miss Daisy also left yesterday. I suppose you have seen her?" he said.
"Yes, she spent the night here."
"Are you friends?"
"Yes."
Tom Lindfield sat down on the arm of the low chair opposite the
writing-table.
"That's the cleverest thing I've ever heard," he said. "I think you
owe me something, and I think you ought to tell me how you managed
it. If she has forgiven you, perhaps I might."
"No. I can't tell you how I managed it," said Jeannie.
"You quite refuse?"
"Quite."
He paused a moment.
"I suppose she asked you a certain question," he said, "which I also
want to ask you. Is it true you are engaged to that nice
fellow--Braithwaite, I mean?"
"Quite true."
Still quite quietly he got up, took out a cigarette, and looked about
for matches. He found some on the chimney-piece, lit his cigarette, and
came back to her.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't ask if I might smoke here?
Thanks. Mrs. Halton, I don't know if you have ever fallen in love. I
have, once."
His voice rose a little over this, as if with suppressed anger. Jeannie
longed almost that he should get angry. This quietness was intolerable.
And she tried to sting him into anger.
"I should have thought you had fallen in love more than once," she said.
This was no good.
"You would have been wrong, then," he said. "I should have thought so
too till just lately. But I have just found out that I never loved
before. I--I did everything else, but I did not love."
"You loved Daisy, do you mean?" she asked.
He flamed up for a moment.
"Ah, there is no good in saying that," he said, sharply. "What can be
the use of it? I met the woman--there is only one--and she led me to
believe that she cared for me. And when I told her that I loved her she
said she had thought I was a gentleman and a friend."
Jeannie felt her heart melt within her.
"Yes, yes, I am sorry," she said.
"That is no good, I am afraid," said he. "You have got to tell me
why you did it. We are man and woman, you and I. I cannot believe
you did it out of sheer wantonness, from the desire to make me
miserable, and, I am afraid, to some extent, to make Miss Daisy
miserable. I don't see what you were to gain by it. Also you risked
something since you were engaged all the time to Braithwaite. And
the only thing I can think of is that for some reason you wished to
get between Miss Daisy and myself. I suppose you thought I had been
a bad lot--I daresay I had--and did not want me to marry her. But
wasn't that an infernally cruel way of doing it?"
Jeannie said nothing, but after a long silence she looked at him.
"Have you finished?" she asked. "I have nothing to say to you, no
explanation to give."
Once again, and more violently, his anger, his resentment at the cruelty
of it, boiled over.
"No, I have not finished," he said. "I am here to tell you that you have
done an infernally cruel thing, for I take it that it was to separate
Miss Daisy and me that you did it. You have been completely successful,
but--but for me it has been rather expensive. I gave you my heart, I
tell you. And you stamped on it. I can't mend it."
Then that died out and his voice trembled.
"It's broken," he said--"just broken."
Jeannie put out her hands towards him in supplication.
"I am sorry," she said.
"I tell you that is no good," he said, and on the words his voice broke
again. "Oh, Jeannie, is it final? Is it really true? For Heaven's sake
tell me that you have been playing this jest, trick--what you like--on
me, to test me, to see if I really loved you. You made me love you--you
taught me what love meant. I have seen and judged the manner of my past
life, and--and I laid it all down, and I laid myself down at your feet,
so that you and love should re-make me."
Jeannie leant forward over the table, hiding her face in her hands.
"Oh, stop--for pity's sake stop," she said. "I have had a good deal to
bear. I never guessed you would love me like that; I only meant you, at
first, to be attracted by me, as you have been by other women. It is
true that I was determined that you should not marry Daisy, and I knew
that if you really got to love her nothing would stand in your way. I
had to make it impossible for you to fall in love with her. It was to
save you and her."
Jeannie felt she was losing her head; the sight of this man in his anger
and his misery confused and bewildered her. She got up suddenly.
"I don't know what I am saying," she said.
"You said it was to save her and me," he said, quietly. "To save us
from what?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know," she said. "I was talking nonsense."
"I am very sure you were not. And it is only just that I should know. By
my love for you--for I can think of nothing more sacred to me than
that--I bid you tell me. It is my right. Considering what you have done
to me, it is no more than my right."
It had happened as Jeannie feared it might. She felt her throat go
suddenly dry, and once she tried to speak without being able. Then she
commanded her voice again.
"You were in Paris two years ago," she said. "There was a woman there
who lived in the Rue Chalgrin. She called herself Madame Rougierre."
"Well?" said he.
"Daisy's sister," said Jeannie, with a sob.
* * * * *
She turned away from him as she spoke, and leant against the bookcase
behind her table. It was a long time before he moved, and then, still
with back turned, she heard him approach her, and he took her hand and
kissed it.
"I love and I honour you," he said.
Jeannie gave one immense sigh.
"Oh, Tom," she said, "you are a man!"
"It is of your making, then," said he.