Double Harness

CHAPTER XXVI

THE GREAT WRONG

The Raymores were lodging over the post-office at Milldean, in the rooms once occupied by the curate. The new curate did not need them; he was staying at the rectory, and meant, after his marriage with Dora Hutting, to build himself a little house, go on being curate, and ultimately be rector. He had a well-to-do father who had bought the advowson for him as a wedding present. His path in life was clear, visible to the very end, and entirely peaceful – unless Dora decided otherwise. So the rooms came in handy for the Raymores; and it suited Jeremy's inclination and leisure to stay the while with his sister on the hill. He had a bit of work to finish down at Milldean, while the Raymores were there. However assiduous you may be, love-making in London is liable to interruption; it must be to a certain degree spasmodic there: business, society, and such-like trifles keep breaking in. A clear week in the country will do wonders. Thus thought Jeremy, and it was his brilliant suggestion that brought the Raymores to Milldean for a month. What more obvious, since Charley was to land at Fairhaven and to stay a month in England? Spend that month in London, where things interrupted, and people stared, and old-time talk was remembered? No! Kate Raymore jumped at the idea that this wonderful month should be spent in the country, in quiet and seclusion, among old friends whose lips would be guarded, whose looks friendly, whose hearts in sympathy.

When Jeremy made this arrangement – so excellent a one that he may be pardoned for almost forgetting the selfish side of it – he had not failed to remember Dora Hutting. There had always been alternative endings to that story. Jeremy's present scheme was a variation from both of them. None the less, he had come decidedly to prefer it to either. But he had not allowed for the presence of the curate; and this circumstance, casually brought to his knowledge by Grantley Imason on the evening of his arrival, had rather disturbed him. There was another feature in the case for which he was quite unprepared. The name of the curate was a famous one – actually famous through the length and breadth of the land! This was rather a staggerer for Jeremy, who might deride, but could not deny, the curate's greatness. Certain forms of glory may appeal more to one man than to another, but all are glorious. The curate was Mallam of Somerset.

"The Mallam?" asked Jeremy.

"Yes, the Mallam," said Grantley gravely.

"By Jove!" Jeremy murmured.

"I think you ought to forgive her," Grantley suggested. "He's played twice for England, you know, and made a century the first time."

"I remember," Jeremy acknowledged, looking very thoughtful.

This was quite a different matter from the ordinary curate. Ritualistic proclivities, however obnoxious to Jeremy in their essence, became a pardonable eccentricity in a man whose solid reputation had been won in other fields.

It was not surprising that Dora carried her head very high, or that the cold politeness of her bow relegated Jeremy to a fathomless oblivion. Knowing the ways of girls, and reluctantly conscious of Mr. Mallam's greatness – conscious too, perhaps, that his own riches and fame were not as yet much in evidence – he was prepared for that. But, alas, Charlie was a cricketer too, and had infected Eva with his enthusiasm for the game. She was quite excited about Mallam. Jeremy did not appreciate this feeling as generously as he might have; yet Eva made no attempt to conceal it. She rather emphasised it; for she had come to the stage when she sought defences. After the first eager spring to meet the offered and congenial love, there comes often this recoil. The girl would have things stay as they are, since they are very pleasant, and the next step is into the unknown. She loves delay then, and, since the man will not have it for its own sake (not knowing its sweetness nor the fear that aids its charm), she enforces it on him by trickery, and makes him afraid of losing the draught altogether by insisting on his sipping it at first. She will use any weapon in this campaign, and an ardent admiration for Mr. Mallam was a very useful weapon to Eva Raymore. She said more than once that she considered Dora Hutting a very lucky girl. She thought Dora must be charming, since Mallam was in love with her. She held Mallam to be very handsome, and refused to believe – well, that his talent was so highly specialised as Jeremy tried to persuade her in words somewhat less gentle than these.

Jeremy's knowledge of girls gave out before this unexpected call upon it. He recollected how Dora had served him, and how Anna Selford had trifled with Alec Turner. He grew apprehensive and troubled – also more and more in love. He forecast complicated tragedies, and saw Mallam darkening his life wherever he turned. But the women understood – Kate Raymore, Christine, even Sibylla. They glanced at one another, and laughed among themselves. They were rather proud of Eva, who played their sex's game so well.

"Thank goodness, she's learnt to flirt!" said Christine. "A woman's nowhere without that, my dear, and I don't care whether she's married or not."

"She just adores Jeremy," Kate assured Sibylla. "Only men can't see, you know."

Sibylla laughed. She understood now better than in the days when she herself was wooed. But she blushed a little too, which was strange, unless, perchance, she found some parallel to Eva's conduct which she was not inclined to discuss with her friends. Jeremy was not the only man who went courting just now in Milldean. Nor was Kate Raymore the only woman whose heart expected a wanderer home, and trembled at the joy of a long-desired meeting. The period of Mrs. Mumple's expectation was almost done. In two or three weeks she was to go on a journey; she would come back to Old Mill House not alone. The house was swept and garnished, and Mrs. Mumple had a new silk gown. The latter she showed to Kate, and a new bonnet too, which was a trifle gayer than her ordinary wear; it had a touch of youth about it. Mrs. Mumple knew very well who was the best person to show these treasures to, who the best listener to her speculations as to the manner of that meeting. And she, in turn, was eager to listen to Kate when the news came that Charley's ship was to be in quite soon. Kate could not say much about that to anybody except to Mrs. Mumple; but she was sure that Mrs. Mumple would understand.

When on the top of all this came the announcement that Dora Hutting's wedding was fixed for that day three weeks, Christine Fanshaw was moved to protest.

"Really, Grantley," she exclaimed, "this village is a centre of love-making, of one sort or another!"

"All villages are," said Grantley, suavely tolerant, "or they couldn't go on being villages. It's life or death to them, Christine."

"That's a contemptible evasion. The atmosphere is horribly sentimental. I don't think I'm in sympathy with it at all."

"Don't talk to me then," said Grantley. "I like it, you know. Oh, you needn't fret, my dear friend! There's been lots of trouble – and there'll be lots more."

"Yes, trouble – and hatred too?"

"Oh, well, suppose we suppose there won't be that?" he suggested. "But the trouble, anyhow."

"Then everybody oughtn't to pretend that there won't! The way people talk about marriages is simply hypocrisy."

"When the bather is on the bank, it's no moment for remarking that the water is cold. And the truth is in our hearts all the time. Am I likely to forget it, for instance? Or are you likely to forget poor old Tom and that unhappy woman?"

"Or am I likely to forget myself?" Christine murmured, looking out of the window. As she looked, Dora passed by, and broad-shouldered young Mallam with her. "Oh, well, bless the children!" she said, laughing.

"It doesn't do, though, to be too knowing – too much up to all nature's little tricks," Grantley went on, as he came and stood beside her. "We oughtn't to give the old lady away. She seems a bit primitive in her methods sometimes, but, if we don't interfere, she usually gets there in the end. But we mustn't find out all her secrets."

Christine looked up with a smile and the suspicion of a blush.

"Oh, well, one can always forget them again," she said.

"With the proper assistance," he agreed, smiling. "And after all she's very accommodating. If you do what she wants, she doesn't care a hang about your private reasons."

"I call that unscrupulous," Christine objected.

"Oh, yes, the most immoral old hussy that ever was!" he laughed. "I love her for that. In her matrimonial advertisement the woman is always rich, beautiful, and amiable!"

"And the man handsome, steady, and constant!"

"So we pay the fees – and sometimes get the article."

"Sometimes," said Christine. "Of course we always suit the description ourselves?"

"A faith in one's self – secure, impregnable, eternal – is the one really necessary equipment."

"So you've found?"

"Don't be personal – or penetrating, Christine. The forms of faith vary – the faith remains."

Christine looked up at him again. Something in her eyes made him pat her lightly on the shoulder.

"Oh, it's all very well," she murmured in rueful peevishness, "but I shan't be able to stand too much happiness here."

"Think of the others," he advised, "and you'll regain the balance of your judgment."

To think of the others was decidedly a good thing. Reason dictated the survey of a wider field, the discovery and recognition of an average emerging from the inequalities. The result of such a process should be either a temperate self-satisfaction or a clear-sighted resignation; you would probably find yourself not much above nor much below the level thus scientifically demonstrated. But the ways of science are not always those of the heart, and that we are less miserable than some people is not a consolation for being more unhappy than others – least of all when the happy are before our eyes and the wretched farther off. Neither the preacher of Grantley's doctrine nor its hearer was converted. Grantley still wanted the best, and Christine, asking nothing so very great, was the more aggrieved that she was denied even what she demanded.

Kate Raymore's day came. Only Jeremy accompanied the family to meet the boat. Kate said they would want somebody to bustle about after the luggage. In truth, Jeremy seemed to her already as one of her own house. But he did not seem so to himself. Eva had been very wayward, full of admiration for Mr. Mallam, and on the strict defensive against Jeremy's approaches. He was so distressed and puzzled that he might have comforted even Christine Fanshaw, and that he was in fact exceedingly bad company for anybody. But the party did not ask for conversation. A stillness fell on them all as they waited for the boat, Kate clasping her husband's arm tight while her eyes were fixed on the approaching ship.

The boy came down the gangway and saw them waiting. He was a good-looking young fellow, tall and slim, with curly hair. Joy and apprehension, shame and pride, struggled for mastery on his face. Kate saw, and her heart was very full. His fault, his flight, his banishment, were vivid in his mind, and, to his insight, vivid in theirs too. But there was something else that his eyes begged them to remember – the struggle to retrieve himself, the good record over-seas, the thought that they were to be together again for a while without fear and without a cloud between them. Their letters had breathed no reproach, and had been full of love. But letters cannot give the assurance of living eyes. He still feared reproach; he had to beg for love, and to fear to find it not unimpaired.

"My boy!" whispered Kate Raymore as she clasped him to her arms.

"You're looking well, Charley," said Raymore, "but older, I think."

Yes, he was older; that was part of the price which had fallen to be paid, and the happiness of reunion could not avail against it. His own hand had overthrown the first glory of his youth; it had died not gradually, but by a violent death – the traces were on his face. There was a touch of awe in Eva's eyes as she kissed her brother – the awe evoked by one who had fallen, endured, and fought. He had to pay the uttermost farthing of his debt.

Yet the joy rose supreme, deeper and tenderer for the grief behind it, for the struggle by which it was won, because it came as a victory after a heavy fight. To Kate it seemed as though he had suffered for their sakes as well as for his own sin, since in sorrow over him and his banishment their hearts had come closer together, and love reigned stronger in their home. A strange remorse struck her and mingled with her compassion and her gladness as she held her son at arm's length and looked again in his eyes. It was hard to keep track of these things, to see how the good and the evil worked, to understand how no man was unto himself alone, and not to accuse of injustice the way by which one paid for all, while all sorrowed for one.

As they turned away to the carriage, Eva touched Jeremy on the arm. He turned to find her smiling, but her lips trembled.

"If I drive back with them, I shall cry, and then I shall look a fright," she whispered. "Besides they'd rather have him to themselves just now. Will you walk back with me?"

"All right," said Jeremy curtly.

His feelings, too, had been touched, so that his manner was cool and matter-of-fact almost to aggressiveness. He preferred to make nothing at all of walking back with Eva, though the way was long, and the winter sun shone over the sea and the downs, the wind was fresh and crisp, and youthful blood went tingling through the veins.

"It's cold driving, anyhow," he added, as an after-thought.

It was not cold walking, though, or Jeremy did not so find it. It was in his mind that now he had his chance, if he could find courage to use it and to force an issue. For him too Charley and Charley's sorrow had done something. They had induced in Eva a softer mood; the armour of her coquetry was pierced by a shaft of deep feeling. As they walked she was silent, forgetting to torment him, silently glad of his friendship and his company. She said nothing of Dora Hutting's good-fortune or of Mallam's good looks now. She was thinking of her mother's face as she welcomed Charley, and was musing on love. It was Jeremy's moment, if he could make use of it. But in this mood she rather frightened him, raising about herself defences different from the gleaming barrier of her coquetry, yet not less effective. He feared to disturb her thoughts, and it seemed to him that his wooing would be rude and rough.

Suddenly she turned to him.

"You'll be friends with Charley, won't you? Real friends, I mean? You won't let what – what's happened stand in the way? You see, he'll be awfully sensitive about it, and if he fancies you're hanging back, or anything of that kind – "

Her eyes were very urgent in their appeal.

"Of course I shall be friends with him; I shouldn't dream of – "

"I'm sure you'll like him for his own sake, when you know him. And till then, for mother's sake, for our sake, you'll be nice to him, won't you?"

"Do you care particularly about my being nice to him?"

"Of course I do! We're friends, you see."

Jeremy's fear wore off; excitement began to rise in him; the spirit of the game came upon him. He turned to his work.

"Are we friends?" he asked. "You've not been very friendly lately."

"Never mind me. Be friendly with Charley."

"For your sake?"

"For our sake, yes."

"I said, for your sake."

A smile dimpled through Eva's gravity.

"'Your' is a plural, isn't it?" she asked.

"Then – for thy sake?" said Jeremy. "That's singular, anyhow."

"Oh, for my sake, then, if you think it worth while."

"I don't think anything worth while except pleasing you, Eva. I used to manage it, I think; but somehow it's grown more difficult lately."

He stopped in his walk and faced her. She walked on a pace or two, but he would not follow. Irresolutely she halted.

"More difficult? Pleasing me grown more difficult?"

"Well, pleasing you as much as I want to, I mean." Jeremy in his turn smiled for a moment; but he was in deadly earnest again as he stepped up to her and caught hold of her hands. "Now's the time," he said. "You've got to say yes or no."

"You haven't asked me anything yet," she murmured, laughing, her eyes away from him and her hands in his.

"Yes, I have, dozens of times – dozens and dozens. And I'm not going to ask it again – not in words, anyhow. You know the question."

"It's horribly unfair to – to do this to-day – to-day, when I'm – "

"Not a bit. To-day's the very day for it, and that's why you must answer to-day." A deeper note came into his words, deeper than he had commanded when he made love to Dora Hutting on these same downs not so very long ago. "I make love to you to-day because love's in your heart to-day. You're wanting to love; it's round about us, Eva."

For an instant she saw in him a likeness she had never noticed before – a likeness to Sibylla: Sibylla's ardent all-demanding temper seemed to speak in his words.

"Yes, this is the day – our day. And this day shall be the beginning or the end. You know the question. What's the answer, Eva?"

He let go of her hands, and drew back two or three paces. He left her free; if she came to him, it must be of her own motion.

"How very peremptory you are!" she protested.

Her cheeks were red now, and the look of sorrow had gone out of her eyes. Her breath came quick, and when she looked at the sea the waves seemed to dance to the liveliest music. At sea and land she looked, at the sky and at the wintry sun; her glance touched everywhere save where Jeremy stood.

"The answer!" demanded Jeremy.

For a moment more she waited. Then she came towards him hesitatingly, her eyes not yet seeking his face. She came up to him and stood with her hands hanging by her side. Then slowly she raised to his face the large trustful eyes which he had known and loved so well.

"The answer is Yes, Jeremy," she said. "For all my life and with all my heart, dear!"

"I knew this was the right day!" cried Jeremy.

"Oh, any day was right!" she whispered as she sought his arms.

A couple of hours later he burst into Grantley Imason's room, declaring that he was the happiest man on earth. This condition of his, besides being by no means rare in young men, was not unexpected, and congratulations met the obvious needs of the occasion. Sibylla, who was there, was not even very emotional over the matter; the remembrance of Dora Hutting inclined her mind towards the humorous aspect – so hard is it to appreciate the changeful processes of other hearts. But Jeremy himself was excited enough for everybody, and his excitement carried him into forgetfulness of a solemn pledge which he had once given. He wrung Grantley's hand with a vigour at once embarrassing and painful, crying:

"I owe it all to you! I should never have dared it except for the partnership that's coming, and that was all your doing. Without your money – "

"Damn you, Jeremy," said Grantley in a quiet whisper, rescuing his hand and compassionately caressing it with its uninjured brother.

The imprecation seemed to be equally distributed between Jeremy's two causes of offence, but Jeremy allocated it to one only.

"Oh, good lord!" he said, with a guilty glance at Sibylla.

"What money?" asked Sibylla.

She had been sitting by the fire, but rose now, and leant her shoulder against the mantelpiece.

Jeremy looked from her to Grantley.

"I'm most awfully sorry. I forgot. I'm a bit beside myself, you know." Grantley shrugged his shoulders rather crossly. "I won't say another word about it."

"Oh, yes, you will, Jeremy," observed Sibylla with a dangerous look. "You'll tell me all about it this moment, please."

"Shall I?" Jeremy turned to Grantley again.

"I expect the mischief's done now; but you needn't have lost your memory or your wits just because you're going to marry Eva Raymore."

"Marrying does make people lose their wits sometimes," said Sibylla coldly. Grantley's brows lifted a little as he plumped down in a chair with a resigned air. "Tell me what you mean, Jeremy."

"Well, I had to put money into the business if I was ever to be more than a clerk – if I was ever to get a partnership, you know."

"And Grantley gave you the money?"

"I'm going to pay it back when – when – "

"Yes, of course, Jeremy dear. How much was it?"

Grantley lit a cigarette, and came as near looking uncomfortable as the ingrained composure of his manner allowed.

"Five thousand," said Jeremy. "Wasn't it splendid of him? So, you see, I could afford – "

"Five thousand to Jeremy!" said Sibylla. She turned on Grantley. "And how much to John Fanshaw?"

"You women are all traitors. Christine had no business to say a word. It was pure business; he pays me back regularly. And Jeremy's going to pay me back too. Come, I haven't done any harm to either of them."

"No, not to them," she said. And she added to Jeremy: "Go and tell Christine. She'll be delighted to hear about you and Eva."

"By Jove, I will! I say, I'm really sorry, Grantley."

"You ought to be. No, you may do anything except shake my hand again."

"I can't help being so dashed jolly, you know."

With that apology he darted out of the room, forgetting his broken pledge, intent only on finding other ears to hear his wonderful news.

"It's very satisfactory, isn't it?" asked Grantley. "I think they'll get on very well, you know. He's young, of course, and – "

"Please don't make talk, Grantley. When did you give him that money?"

"I don't remember."

"There are bank-books and so on, aren't there?"

"How businesslike you're getting!"

"Tell me when, please."

Grantley rose and stood opposite to her, even as they had stood in the inn – at the Sailors' Rest at Fairhaven.

"I don't remember the date." He paused, seemed to think, and then went on: "Yes, I'll tell you, because then you'll understand. He came to me the morning of the day you – you went over to Fairhaven. While he was there, Christine's letter came. And I gave him the money because I wanted to put you in the wrong as much as I could. Oh, I liked Jeremy, and was willing to help him – just as I was ready to help old John. But that wasn't my great reason. My great reason was to get a bigger grievance against you – for the way you had treated me, and were going to treat me, you know."

"If it had been that, you'd have told me – you'd have told me that night in the inn. You must have known what it would have been to me to hear it then; but you never told me."

"I wouldn't part with the pleasure of having it against you – of nursing it against you secretly. I want you to understand the truth. Are you very angry?"

Sibylla appeared to be angry; there was a dash of red on her cheeks.

"Yes, I'm angry," she said; "and I've a right to be angry. You're good to John Fanshaw; you're good to Jeremy. Have you been good to me?"