The Intrusions of Peggy

'And you bought Mr. Fricker off? You ransomed me?'

'You were angry with Tommy, you were angry with Peggy' – he turned his chair round suddenly and rested his hands on the back of it – 'are you angry with me?'

She made a gesture of petulant protest. 'It leaves me a helpless fool again,' she murmured.

'It was the price of my liberty more than of yours. I had a right – a right – to pay it. Won't you come to the soul shop too? I've been there now; I can show you the way. There was my life – and yours. What was I to do?'

'You meant to deceive me?'

'Yes.' He paused an instant. 'Unless there ever came a time when you would like to be undeceived – when it might seem better to have been helped than not to have needed help. Well, Beaufort Chance upset that scheme. Here we are, face to face with the truth. We've not been that before. How we made pretence with one another!' He shook his head in half-humorous reprobation. She saw with wonder how little unhappy he was about it all, how it all seemed to him a bygone thing, a strange dream which might retain its meaning and its interest, but ceased to have living importance the moment dawning day put it to flight.

'You told me you weren't cured,' he went on. 'That you still wanted the old life, the old ambition – that my advice still appealed to you. That fatal advice of mine! It did half the mischief. Don't you see my right to pay the money in that again? Still, I tell you, I didn't pay it for you; I paid it for myself.'

'I can give you no return for it.'

'I ask none. The return I have got I've told you. I am free.' He loved the thought; again it brought a smile to his lips. 'There's no question of a return from you to me.'

'Yes, but I shall owe you everything,' she cried. 'The very means of living decently!' Her pride was in arms again as the truth came back to her.

'Then sell all you have and repay me the money,' he suggested. 'Say I'm Fricker. There'll be nobody to buy me off, as Peggy and I bought Fricker off.'

'What?' she exclaimed, startled into betraying her surprise.

'Pay it back,' he cried gaily. 'Pay it all back. I'll take it. I'm not afraid of money now. It might come rolling into Danes Inn – in barrels! Like beer-casks! And a couple of draymen hard on the rope! I shouldn't so much as turn round. I shouldn't count the barrels – I should go on counting the sparrows on the roof. I've not the least objection to be repaid.'

She fell into silence. Airey began strolling about the room again; he smoked a cigarette while she sat without speaking, with her brows knit and her hands now clenching the arms of her chair. Suddenly she broke out in a new protest.

'Oh, that's not it, that's not it! Paying the money back wouldn't cure it. As far as that goes, I could have paid Fricker myself. It's the failure. It's the failure and the shame. Nothing can cure that.'

'Think of my failure, think of my shame! Worse than yours! You only set about living a little bit in the wrong way. I never set about living at all! I shut out at least a half of life. I refused it. Isn't that the great refusal?'

'You had your work. You worked well?'

'Yes, I did do that. Well, shall we give that half? I had half a life then.'

'And what had I?'

'At least that. More, I think, in spite of everything.'

'And you can forget the failure and the shame?'

'I can almost laugh at them.'

She held out her hands to him, crying again for help:

'How? How?'

A low sound of singing came through the door. Peggy beguiled the vigil with a song. Airey held up his hand for silence. Trix listened; the tears gathered in her eyes.

'Does that say nothing to you?' he asked as the song died away. 'Does that give you no hint of our mistake? No clue to where the rest of life lies? Life isn't taking in only, it's giving out too. And it's not giving out only work, or deeds, or things we've made. It's giving ourselves out too – freely, freely!'

'Giving ourselves out?'

'Yes, to other people. Giving ourselves in comradeship, in understanding, in joy, in love. Oh, good Lord, fancy not having found that out before! What a roundabout road to find it! Hedges and briars and bleeding shins!' He laughed gently. 'But she knows it,' he said, pointing to the door. 'She goes on the royal road to it – straight on the King's highway. She goes blindfold too, which is a funny thing. She couldn't even tell you where she was going.'

Another snatch of song came. It was sentimental in character, but it ended abruptly in uncontrolled gurgles of a mirth free from all such weakness.

'Yes, she gets there, dainty, trim, serene!'

He shook his head, smiling with an infinite affection. Trix Trevalla leant her head on her hand and regarded him with searching eyes.

'Yes, that's true of her,' she said, 'that's true. You've found out the meaning of it.'

'Everything's so plain to find out to-day.'

'Then surely you must be in love with her?' Her eyes were grave and curious still. 'How can you help it? She mayn't love you, but that makes no difference. How can you help loving her?'

'Does it make no difference? I don't know.' He came across to Trix. 'We've travelled the bad road together, you and I,' he said softly. 'I may have seen her far off – against the sky – and steered a course by hers. The course isn't everything. But for your arm I should have fallen by the way. And – should you never have fallen if you'd been quite alone? Or did you fall and need to be picked up again?'

He took both her hands and she let them lie in his; but she still looked at him in fear and doubt, unable to rise to his serenity, unable to put the past behind her as he did. The spectres rose and seemed to bar the path, crying to her that she had no right to tread it.

'I've grown so hard, I've been so hard. Can I forget what I've been and what I've done? Sha'n't I always hear them accusing me? Can I trust myself not to want to go back again? It seems to me that I've lost the power of doing what you say.'

'Never,' said Airey confidently. 'Never!' His smile broke out again. 'Well, certainly not your side of thirty,' he amended, trying to make her laugh.

'Oh, ask Mrs. Bonfill, or Lord Mervyn, or Beaufort Chance of me!'

'They'd all tell me the truth of what they know, I don't doubt it.'

'And you know it too!' she cried, in a sort of shrinking wonder.

'To be sure I know it,' he agreed cheerfully. 'Wasn't I walking beside you all the way?'

'Tell me,' she said. 'If you'd really been a very poor man, as we all believed you were, would you ever have thought it wise or possible to marry a woman like me?'

She had an eye for a searching question. Airey perceived that.

'Most pertinent, if I were poor! But now you see I'm not. I'm well off – and I'm a prodigal.'

'Ah, you know the truth, you never would!'

'I can't know the truth. I shall find it out only if you marry me now.'

'Suppose I said yes? I said yes to Mortimer Mervyn!'

'And you ran away because – '

'Because I told him – '

'Let me put it in my way, please,' interrupted Airey, suavely but decisively. 'Because you weren't a perfect individual, and he was a difficult person to explain that to. Isn't that about it?'

Trix made a woeful gesture; that was rather less than it, she thought.

'And what did he do? Did he come after you? Did he say, "The woman I love is in trouble; she's ruined; she's so ashamed that she couldn't tell the truth even to me. Even from me she has fled, because she has become unbearable to herself and is terrified of me"? Did he say that? And did he put his traps in a bag, and take a special train, and come after you?'

Trix's lips curved in an irrepressible smile at this picture of a line of conduct imputed, even hypothetically, to the Under-Secretary for War. 'He didn't do exactly that,' she murmured.

'Not he! He said, "She's come a cropper – that's her look-out. But people who come croppers won't do for me. No croppers in the Barmouth family! We don't like them; we aren't accustomed to them in the Barmouth family. I've my career," he said. "That's more to me than she is."' Airey paused a moment and held up an emphatic finger. 'In point of fact, that miserable man, Mervyn, behaved exactly as I should have done a fortnight ago. Substitute his prejudices and his career for my safe and my money, and he and I would be exactly the same – I mean, a fortnight ago. If ever a man lost a woman by his own act, Mervyn is the man!'

'So if I say yes to you, and run away – ?'

'The earth isn't big enough to hide you, nor the railway fares big enough to stop me.'

'And Beaufort Chance?' she murmured, trying him again.

'Men who buy love get the sort of love that's for sale,' he answered in brief contempt.

She smiled as, leaning forward, she put her last question.

'And Mr. Fricker?' said she.

Airey gave a tug at his beard and a puzzled whimsical glance at her.

'Do you press me as to that?'

'Yes, of course I do. What about Mr. Fricker?'

'Well, from all I can learn, it does appear to me that you behaved in a damned shabby way to Fricker. I've not a word to say for you there, not one.'

The answer was so unexpected, so true, so honest, that Trix's laughter rang out in genuine merriment for the first time for many days.

'And when old Fricker saw his chance, I don't wonder that he gave you a nasty dig. It was pure business with Fricker – and you went back on him all along the line!'

She looked at him with eyes still newly mirthful. He had dismissed Beaufort Chance and Mervyn contemptuously enough; one had sought to barter where no barter should be; the other had lost his prize because he did not know how to value it. But when Airey spoke of Fricker's wrongs, there was real and convinced indignation in his voice; in Fricker's interest he did not spare the woman he loved.

'How funny!' she said. 'I've never felt very guilty about Mr. Fricker.'

'You ought to. That was worst of all, in my opinion,' he insisted.

'Well, I was afraid you'd quite acquitted me! Should you be always throwing Mr. Fricker in my face?'

'On occasions probably. I can't resist a good argumentative point. You've got the safe and the red book, you know.'

'I'd sooner die than remind you of them.'

'Nonsense! I sha'n't care in the least,' said Airey.

'Then what will be the good of them to me?' He laughed. But she grew serious, saying, 'I shall care about Mr. Fricker, though.'

'Then don't ask me what I think again.'

He laughed, took a turn the length of the room, and came quickly and suddenly back to her.

'Well, is the unforgivable forgiven?' he asked, standing opposite to her.

'The unforgivable? What do you mean?' she said, with a little start of surprise. He had struck sharply across her current of thought.

'What you couldn't have forgiven Tommy, or Peggy, or anybody? What you couldn't possibly forgive me? You know.' His smile mocked her. 'My having sent the money to Fricker.'

'Oh, I'd forgotten all about it!'

'Things forgotten are things forgiven – and the other way round too. Forgiving, but not forgetting – don't you recognise the twang of hard-hearted righteousness?' He came up to her. 'It was very unforgivable – and you forgot it! Haven't you stumbled on the right principle, Trix?'

She did not rise to any philosophic or general principle. She followed her feeling and gave it expression – or a hint of expression, her eyes being left to fill in the context.

'Somehow it's not so bad, coming from you,' she said.

In an instant he was sitting by her. 'Now I'll tell you what we did this afternoon.'

'You and Peggy Ryle? I'm jealous of Peggy Ryle!'

'A sound instinct, in this case misapplied,' commented Airey. 'Now just you listen.'

The sound of song had ceased. Were all sounds equally able to penetrate doors and cross passages, quite another would have struck on Trix's ears. Peggy was yawning vigorously – while Tommy was trying to find patience in a cigar.

'Where had you been going to dine?' asked Peggy, referring to the meal as a bright but bygone possibility.

'I had been going to have a chop at the club,' murmured Tommy sadly.

'That doesn't help me much,' observed Peggy. 'And I suppose you're going to begin about that wretched promise again? I'm tired to death, but I'll sing again if you do.'

'I've expressed my sentiments. I don't want to rub it in.'

'If Airey hadn't come, you'd have done just the same yourself.'

'No, I shouldn't, Peggy.'

'What would you have done, then?'

'I should have bolted – and dined. And I rather wish I had. I tell you what; if I were you, I'd have one comfortable chair in this room.' He was perched on a straight-backed affair with spindly legs – a base imitation of what (from the sitter's point of view) was always an unfortunate ideal.

'I'd bolt with you – for the sake of dinner,' moaned Peggy. 'What are they doing all this time, Tommy?'

Tommy shrugged his shoulders in undisguised contempt. 'Couldn't we go and dine?' he suggested, with a gleam of hope.

'I want to dine very, very much,' avowed Peggy; 'but I'm too excited.' She looked straight at him, pointed towards the door, and declared, 'I'm going in.'

'You'd better knock something over first.'

'No, I'm going straight in. If it's all right, it won't matter, and we can all go out to dinner together. If they're being silly, I shall stop them. I'm going in, Tommy!'

Tommy rose from the spindle-shanked counterfeit with a determined air.

'You'll do nothing of the kind. It isn't fair play,' he said.

'It's not you that's going in, is it?' asked Peggy, as though that disposed of his claim to interfere. 'And you needn't tell me I'm dishonourable any more. It's dull. I'm going.'

In fact she had got to the handle of the door. She had grasped it when Tommy came and took hold of her arm.

'No, you don't!' he said.

For an instant Peggy thought that she would take offense. Tommy's rigidity of moral principle, within the limits of his vision, proved, however, too much for her. She still held the handle, but she leant against the door, laughing as she looked up in his face.

'Let go, Tommy! In short, unhand me!'

'Will you go, if I do?'

'That's what I want you to do it for,' Peggy explained, with a rapid and pronounced gravity.

Her eyes sparkled at him, her lips were mischievous, the waves of her hair seemed dowered with new grace. Perhaps there was something, too, in the general atmosphere of the flat that night. Anyhow the thought of vindicating moral principles and the code of honour lost the first place in Tommy's thoughts. Yet he did not let go of his prisoner.

With the change in his thoughts – did it betray itself on his face? – came a change in Peggy also. She was still gaily defiant, but she looked rather on the defensive too. A touch of timidity mingled with the challenge which her eyes still directed at him.

'It's not the least good lecturing you,' he declared.

'I don't know how you ever came to think you knew how to do it.'

'Peggy, am I never to get any forwarder?'

'Not much, I hope,' answered Peggy, with a stifled laugh.

He looked at her steadily for a minute.

'You like me,' he said. 'If you hadn't liked me, I should have been kicked out by now.'

'I call that taking a very unfair advantage,' murmured Peggy.

'Because you're not the sort of girl to let a man – '

'Then why don't you let go of my arm?'

This was glaringly illogical. It seized Tommy's premise and twisted it to an absolutely opposite conclusion. But Tommy was bewildered by the mental gymnastics – or by something else that dazzled him. He released her arm and stepped back almost ceremoniously. Peggy lifted her arm and seemed to study it for a second.

'That's nice of you,' she said. 'But' – her laugh rang out – 'I'm going all the same!'

In an instant she had darted through the door. Tommy made as though he would follow, but paused on the threshold and pulled the door close again. Perhaps she could carry it off; he could not. He walked slowly back to the spindle-shanked chair and sat down again. Tommy's head was rather in a whirl, but his heart beat gaily. 'By Jove – yes!' he thought to himself. 'Give her time, and it's yes!'

Peggy, unrepentant, strode across the passage and stopped outside the sitting-room. Human nature would not stand it. She must listen or go in. She did not hesitate: in she went.

Airey was standing by the window; she saw but hardly noticed him. In the middle of the room was Trix Trevalla. But what a Trix! Peggy stood motionless a minute at the sight of her. Her quick eye took in the ring on Trix's finger, the sparkle of the diamonds on her wrist, the softer lustre of the pearls about her neck. The plain gown she wore showed them off bravely, and she seemed as though she were hung with jewels. Peggy recognised the jewels; the small boxes she knew also, and marked where they lay on the table. All that was the work of an instant. Her eyes returned to Trix and rose above the pearls to Trix's face. The hardness and the haggardness, the weariness and shame, all suspicion and all reserve, were gone from it. The face was younger, softer; it seemed rounder and more girlish. The eyes glowed with a veiled brightness.

Peggy stood there on the threshold, looking.

At last Airey spoke to her; for Trix, though she met her eyes, said nothing and did not move from her place.

'Peggy,' he said, 'she's been with me. She's been where we went this afternoon. You know the way; you showed it to me.'

Now Trix Trevalla came towards her, a little blindly and unsteadily as it seemed. She held out both hands, and Peggy went forward a step to meet them.

'Yes, I've been. I think I've been to – to the soul shop, Peggy.' She threw herself in the girl's arms.

'Is it – is it all right?' gasped Peggy.

'It's going to be,' said Airey Newton.

She put Trix at arm's length and gazed at her. 'They look beautiful, and you look beautiful. I wonder if you've ever looked like that before!'

'It's all gone,' said Trix, passing her hand across her eyes. 'All gone, I think, Peggy.'

'Oh, I can't stay here!' cried Peggy in dismay. For her eyes too grew dim; and now she could no more have sung than yawned. She caught Trix to her, kissed her, and ran from the room.

'I beg your pardon; you were quite right, sir,' she said to Tommy. 'I never ought to have gone in.'

'But, I say, what's happened, Peggy?' Of another's sin it seems no such great crime to take advantage.

'Everything,' said Peggy, with a comprehensive wave of her arms. 'Everything, Tommy!'

'They've fixed it up?' he asked eagerly.

'If you don't feel disgraced by putting it like that – they have,' said Peggy, breaking into glad laughter again.

He rose and came near to her.

'And what are we going to do?' he inquired.

Peggy regarded him with eyes professedly judicial, though mischief and mockery lurked in them.

'As I don't think it's the least use waiting for them, I suggest that we go and have some dinner,' she said.

'That's not a bad idea,' agreed Tommy.

He turned quietly, took up his hat and stick, and went out into the passage; Peggy stayed a minute to put on a hat and jacket. She came out to join him then, treading softly and with her linger on her lips. Tommy nodded understanding, took hold of the handle of the baize door, and made way for her to pass. His air was decorous and friendly. Peggy looked at him, immeasurable amusement nestling in her eyes. As she passed, she flung one arm lightly about his neck and kissed him.

'Just to celebrate the event!' she whispered.

Tommy followed her downstairs with heart aglow.