"Henry dear--" was her greeting.
He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the
paper from him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick.
Then, putting her face where it had been, she looked up in his
eyes.
"Henry dear, look at me. No, I won't have you shirking. Look at
me. There. That's all."
"You're referring to last evening," he said huskily. "I have
released you from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I
won't. No, I won't. A thousand times no. I'm a bad lot, and must
be left at that."
Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new
one. He could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended
himself instead in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.
"Leave it where you will, boy. It's not going to trouble us; I
know what I'm talking about, and it will make no difference."
"No difference?" he inquired. "No difference, when you find that
I am not the fellow you thought?" He was annoyed with Miss
Schlegel here. He would have preferred her to be prostrated by
the blow, or even to rage. Against the tide of his sin flowed the
feeling that she was not altogether womanly. Her eyes gazed too
straight; they had read books that are suitable for men only. And
though he had dreaded a scene, and though she had determined
against one, there was a scene, all the same. It was somehow
imperative.
"I am unworthy of you," he began. "Had I been worthy, I should
not have released you from your engagement. I know what I am
talking about. I can't bear to talk of such things. We had better
leave it."
She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his
feet, went on: "You, with your sheltered life, and refined
pursuits, and friends, and books, you and your sister, and women
like you--I say, how can you guess the temptations that lie round
a man?"
"It is difficult for us," said Margaret; "but if we are worth
marrying, we do guess."
"Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose
happens to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one
near. I know by bitter experience, and yet you say it makes 'no
difference.'"
"Not to me."
He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped
herself to one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she
turned out the spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender,
but grave. She knew that Henry was not so much confessing his
soul as pointing out the gulf between the male soul and the
female, and she did not desire to hear him on this point.
"Did Helen come?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"But that won't do at all, at all! We don't want her gossiping
with Mrs. Bast."
"Good God! no!" he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught
himself up. "Let them gossip, my game's up, though I thank you
for your unselfishness--little as my thanks are worth."
"Didn't she send me a message or anything?"
"I heard of none."
"Would you ring the bell, please?"
"What to do?"
"Why, to inquire."
He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret
poured herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that
Miss Schlegel had slept at the George, so far as he had heard.
Should he go round to the George?
"I'll go, thank you," said Margaret, and dismissed him.
"It is no good," said Henry. "Those things leak out; you cannot
stop a story once it has started. I have known cases of other
men--I despised them once, I thought that I'm different, I shall
never be tempted. Oh, Margaret--" He came and sat down near her,
improvising emotion. She could not bear to listen to him. "We
fellows all come to grief once in our time. Will you believe
that? There are moments when the strongest man-- 'Let him who
standeth, take heed lest he fall.' That's true, isn't it? If you
knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good influences--
far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and longed for a
woman's voice. That's enough. I have told you too much already
for you to forgive me now."
"Yes, that's enough, dear."
"I have"--he lowered his voice--"I have been through hell."
Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered
tortures of remorse, or had it been, "There! that's over. Now for
respectable life again"? The latter, if she read him rightly. A
man who has been through hell does not boast of his virility. He
is humble and hides it, if, indeed, it still exists. Only in
legend does the sinner come forth penitent, but terrible, to
conquer pure woman by his resistless power. Henry was anxious to
be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a good average
Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point--his
faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox--never seemed to strike him. She
longed to mention Mrs. Wilcox.
And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple
story. Ten years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the
place. Now and then he asked her whether she could possibly
forgive him, and she answered, "I have already forgiven you,
Henry." She chose her words carefully, and so saved him from
panic. She played the girl, until he could rebuild his fortress
and hide his soul from the world. When the butler came to clear
away, Henry was in a very different mood--asked the fellow what
he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in
the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He,
as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a
woman--an attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet
the skies would have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry.
On her return from the George the building operations were
complete, and the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and
kind. He had made a clean breast, had been forgiven, and the
great thing now was to forget his failure, and to send it the way
of other unsuccessful investments. Jacky rejoined Howards End and
Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car, and the Argentine Hard
Dollars, and all the things and people for whom he had never had
much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him. He could
scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news
from the George. Helen and her clients had gone.
"Well, let them go--the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we
see of your sister the better."
"But they have gone separately--Helen very early, the Basts just
before I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered
neither of my notes. I don't like to think what it all means."
"What did you say in the notes?"
"I told you last night."
"Oh--ah--yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?"
Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the
wheels of Evie's wedding were still at work, tossing the guests
outwards as deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not
be with him long. It had been arranged that they should motor to
Shrewsbury, whence he would go north, and she back to London with
the Warringtons. For a fraction of time she was happy. Then her
brain recommenced.
"I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George.
Helen would not have left unless she had heard something. I
mismanaged that. It is wretched. I ought to have parted her from
that woman at once."
"Margaret!" he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.
"Yes--yes, Henry?"
"I am far from a saint--in fact, the reverse--but you have taken
me, for better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have
promised to forgive me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never
mention that woman again."
"Except for some practical reason--never."
"Practical! You practical!"
"Yes, I'm practical," she murmured, stooping over the
mowing-machine and playing with the grass which trickled through
her fingers like sand.
He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the
first time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and
supposed to be moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might
find it profitable to hint as much.
"At all events, you mustn't worry," he said. "This is a man's
business." He thought intently. "On no account mention it to
anybody."
Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really
paving the way for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had
ever known Mrs. Bast, and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he
never had known her. Here was Margaret, who behaved as if he had
not. There the house. Round them were half a dozen gardeners,
clearing up after his daughter's wedding. All was so solid and
spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a spring-blind,
leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.
Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the
next five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders
issued, Margaret was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up
the long trickle of grass that she had left across the hall. As
is Man to the Universe, so was the mind of Mr. Wilcox to the
minds of some men--a concentrated light upon a tiny spot, a
little Ten Minutes moving self-contained through its appointed
years. No Pagan he, who lives for the Now, and may be wiser than
all philosophers. He lived for the five minutes that have past,
and the five to come; he had the business mind.
How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and
breasted the great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain
rumour, but was all right. She had forgiven him, God bless her,
and he felt the manlier for it. Charles and Evie had not heard
it, and never must hear. No more must Paul. Over his children he
felt great tenderness, which he did not try to track to a cause;
Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did not connect her
with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor little
Evie! he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.
And Margaret? How did she stand?
She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard
something. She dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious
about Leonard, for whom they certainly were responsible. Nor
ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But the main situation had not
altered. She still loved Henry. His actions, not his disposition,
had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And she loved her
future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had leapt
from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon
Oniton. Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now
pick out the church and the black-and-white gables of the George.
There was the bridge, and the river nibbling its green peninsula.
She could even see the bathing-shed, but while she was looking
for Charles's new spring-board, the forehead of the hill rose and
hid the whole scene.
She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into
England, day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains,
and the tower chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes
have no part in the place, nor in any place. It is not their
names that recur in the parish register. It is not their ghosts
that sigh among the alders at evening. They have swept into the
valley and swept out of it, leaving a little dust and a little
money behind.
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