Double Harness

But if he kept it, used it, owed salvation to it – what would that mean? The question bewildered him. He could not make out what that would mean as regarded either himself or Caylesham or Christine – least of all what it would mean as regarded Christine. He was duly conscious that the act would be in some sort a condonation. A condonation going how far? Imposing what attitude and what course of conduct on him? How far would it condition his bearing towards Caylesham, how far affect his estimate of himself? Above all, how far dictate his relations to Christine? He knew very well what would come of destroying the cheque or of sending it back. He could not reason out what he would stand committed to if he kept and used it.

Ah, this horrible question could not have arisen, either, if he had known of the thing at the time. It was fearful to be told of it now.

"It's a terrible situation for a man to be placed in – terrible!" he said aloud.

The thought flashed across his mind that he could pretend not to know. He could give Lady Harriet a caution; he could tell her he attached no importance to her words; she would take the hint and be glad. Caylesham would suspect nothing. He could keep the cheque. And Christine? Could he make that pretence to Christine?

He was sitting shrunk low into his chair, the cheque still in his fingers, when the door opened softly, and Christine came in. She had heard him open and close the front door, and had wondered why he did not come upstairs. His delay, taken with his staying out all the evening, made her ask whether anything had happened. She was in a white dressing-gown, which she had thrown on when she got out of bed, and little slippers of white fur. She looked very small, very dainty, very childish; her hair was like a child's too, brushed smoothly away from the forehead.

"Why, John, what's kept you so late? And what are you doing here?"

She came some steps towards him, before she saw what it was that he held in his hand. Then she smiled, saying:

"You're gloating over that cheque, you foolish man!"

He raised dull slow eyes to her.

"Yes, I've got it here," he muttered.

Christine walked to the rug; his table was on one side of the fireplace, and she was within five or six feet of him.

"What are you doing with it?" she asked, with an impatient ring in her voice. She did not enjoy the sight of the cheque, and had hoped to be able by degrees to forget it.

"It's dated for Monday. I ought to pay it in in the morning."

"Well, why not? Of course you'll pay it in." A sudden hope rose in her. "Nothing's occurred to make it unnecessary?"

He shook his head heavily, and laid the paper down on the table.

"No, nothing," he said, and then his eyes rested on her again.

"John, aren't you well?" she asked.

Her littleness and her childishness made no appeal to his tender feelings. Their contrast with what she had done, with the way she had deceived and betrayed him, roused all his repulsion again, and with it came now a man's primitive fierce anger. It was impossible for him to pretend not to know.

"Go away!" he said in a thick harsh whisper. "Go to bed – I don't want you. I want to be alone."

Her eyes seemed to grow large; a fearful apprehension dawned in them.

"What's the matter? What have I done?" she asked, trying to summon her wits, wondering at what point she was attacked. Already her thoughts were on Caylesham, but she did not yet see whence suspicion could have come.

He gave her no clue. His eyes had fallen to the cheque again; he kept shuffling his legs about and fidgeting with his short stiff beard.

"Ah," she cried suddenly, "you went to Harriet Courtland's to-day! Has she said something about me? John, you wouldn't believe what she said against me?"

He made no answer. In truth she needed none. She knew Harriet Courtland, who had been her friend and in her confidence. It had not been considered safe to send Raymore, because Harriet would have taunted him about his erring son. She knew what Harriet, blind with rage, had found to taunt John Fanshaw with. She was hardly conscious of resentment against the traitor. It was all too hopeless for that, and it all seemed too inevitable. From the moment she had agreed to go to Caylesham for the money, her forebodings had told her that calamity would come. That was opening the grave. Now the dead bones had come to life. She felt as though she could not struggle against it – could not protest nor deny. She did not see how anybody could believe her denial.

"Why haven't you gone? I told you to go. In God's name, go!" he growled threateningly. "Leave me alone, I tell you."

She gathered her dressing-gown closer round her. She felt as though the cold struck through it to her body. She felt utterly prostrated – and, oh, so terribly, so helplessly sorry for poor old John! She hated leaving him alone, and wished there was somebody else there to console him. She made an advance towards him, holding out her hands.

"Don't come here! Don't come near me!" he said in a low voice.

She drew back; her eyes were on him and full of pity. Now the cheque came into her mind.

"And that?" she whispered.

"I think I shall kill you if you don't go," he said, with a sudden unsteadiness in his voice.

"Oh, I'll go!" she murmured disconsolately. "I'll leave you alone." She put her hands up before her face and gave a choking sob. "It's all no use now."

She began to walk across the room, her face covered in her hands, her dressing-gown trailing on the floor behind her. But when she had got half-way, she turned on him in a fit of weak petulance.

"I didn't want to go to him; I tried not to. I did all I could to avoid going to him. It was you who insisted. You made me go. How could I help it? I hated it! And now – " She came a step towards him, and her voice changed to a very humble sad pleading: "It's very long ago, dear John, many years ago. It was all over many years ago."

He did not speak. He motioned her away with his hand; her appeal did not seem to reach him at all. For all he did, he might not have heard it. With a long sigh she turned away, and walked unsteadily to the door. When she reached it, she turned again, and looked at him. He was putting the cheque back in the despatch-box with awkward trembling hands. She went slowly up to her room and sat down before the dying embers of the fire there.

John would send back the cheque! He must send it back now; it would be a fearful thing to keep it, knowing what he did. And if he sent it back, all that happened then would be on her head! He mustn't send it back! She started up once in a panic, ready to rush down and implore him to keep it – implore him to commit the baseness of keeping it. No, she could not do that. If she were never to speak with him again, her last word ought to be to beseech him to send it back. But to send it back was ruin. Between the remorseless alternatives of calamity and degradation her mind oscillated in helpless indecision.

Through long hours of the night John Fanshaw wrestled with himself; and when at last he crawled up to his dressing-room, flung off his coat and waistcoat, put on his slippers, and stretched himself exhausted on his bed, he declared that he could come and had come to no conclusion – that it was too hard for him. He was trying to deceive himself. There was a conclusion which he would not own, which had crept and insinuated itself into his mind, while he struggled against it and denied it to himself.

He could not send back nor destroy the cheque. Still his hands had refused that office. He could not face the City without it, could not endure the calamity and the ruin which the loss of it would mean. But neither would he face that fact and what it meant – that he was to become a party to the transaction, to recognise, to condone, and to pardon. He had no right to keep his anger, his indignation, the repulsion which made him drive Christine from his presence, if he were her accomplice. If he kept and used the cheque, what right had he to moral indignation, to a husband's just anger, to a true man's repulsion at the shame and the deceit? Yet he would not give up these things. He hugged them in his heart, even while he hugged the idea of the cheque, and all the virtue of the cheque, in his mind. He would be saved, but he would not touch the hand that saved him. That conclusion did not bear thinking of. But conclusions which do not bear thinking of are none the less thought out; they take possession of the protesting mind; they establish themselves there. Then they seek sophisms, excuses, pleas for themselves; they point to the good results which spring from them. Time and familiarity rob them of some of their ugliness; they grow habitual; they govern actions, shape lives, and condition character. John Fanshaw would have it both ways – salvation by his wife's sin, and horror at it.

So Harriet Courtland would have love and loyalty, though she bridled not her evil rage. So Mrs. Bolton would think honest and kindly emotions could flourish in a life like hers. So Grantley Imason asked all her inmost life and love of another, though the lock was kept turned on his own. So Sibylla would give the rein to impulse, and persuade herself that she performed a duty. So young Blake would seek to be made good by the enjoyment of his darling sin. Only dainty little Christine looked open-eyed at the pleasure she had won and at the ruin it had made. She saw these things clearly as she sat sleepless through the night. And when she watched her husband start for his work the next morning, though he had told her nothing, though not a word had passed between them, she knew well that Caylesham's cheque was in his pocket and would find its way to the bank that day. John would have his salvation – with or without its price.

CHAPTER XIV

FOR HIS LOVE AND HIS QUARREL

Jeremy Chiddingfold had established himself in London greatly to his satisfaction. He had hired a bedroom in Ebury Street, an attic, and had made friends with one Alec Turner, a journalist, who lodged in the same house. Alec Turner took him often to the Metropolitan Radical Club, and had proposed him for membership. Here he could eat at moderate charges, play chess, smoke, and argue about all things in heaven (assuming heaven) and earth (which, anyhow, was full of matter for argument). And at Ebury Street he was not only within easy reach of the Imasons in Sloane Street, but equally well in touch with the Selfords in Eccleston Square, and the Raymores in Buckingham Gate. A third-class on the Underground Railway from Victoria carried him to Liverpool Street, whence he proceeded to the dyeing-works near Romford, in Essex. For the dyeing-works project was taking shape. Jeremy had been down to Romford several times to look round and see what the processes were like. He had digested the article on dyeing in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and had possessed himself of the Dictionary of Dyeing and the Manual of Dyeing. His talk both at the Metropolitan Radical Club and at the houses he frequented was full of the learning and the terminology of dyeing – things you dyed, and things you dyed the things with, and the things you did it in, and so forth. He fascinated Eva Raymore by referring airily (and at this stage somewhat miscellaneously) to warm vats, and copperas, and lime vats, to insoluble basic compounds, to mordants and their applications, to single and double muriate of tin. You could go so far on the article without bothering about the Dictionary or the Manual at all; but then Eva did not know that, and thought him vastly erudite. In fact Jeremy was in love with dyeing, and rapidly reconsidered his estimate of the Beautiful – the Beautiful as such, even divorced from Utility – in the scheme of nature and of life. On Alec Turner's recommendation he read Ruskin and William Morris, and thought still better of the Beautiful.

He soon made himself at home both at the Selfords' and at the Raymores', dropping in freely and casually, with an engaging confidence that everybody would be glad to see him and pleased to allow him to deposit his long angular body in an armchair, and talk about dyeing or the Social Armageddon. He was, however, interested in other things too – not so much in pictures, but certainly in dogs. He had country lore about dogs and their diseases, and so won Mrs. Selford's respect. He found Anna Selford's keen mind an interesting study, and delighted to tease the pretty innocence of Eva Raymore. In neither house was there a young man – no son at the Selfords', and the Raymores' house was empty of theirs; and Jeremy, in his shabby coat, with his breezy jollity and vigorous young self-assertion, came like a gust of fresh wind, and seemed to blow the dust out of the place. Mrs. Raymore, above all, welcomed him. He went straight to her heart; she was for ever comparing and contrasting him with her own boy so far away – and only just the inevitable little to his disadvantage. Jeremy, in his turn, though unconsciously, loved the atmosphere of the Raymores' house – the abiding sense of trouble, hard to bear, but bravely borne, and the closeness of heart, the intimacy of love which it had brought. Being at the Selfords' amused him; but being at the Raymores' did more than that.

And what of his broken heart? Anna Selford had heard the story and asked him once in her mocking way.

"You seem so very cheerful, Mr. Chiddingfold!" said she.

Jeremy explained with dignity. His heart was not broken; it had merely been wounded. Not only did he consider it his, and any man's, duty to be cheerful, but as a fact he found no difficulty in being cheerful, occupied as he was with the work of life, and sustained by a firm purpose and an unshaken resolve.

"Only I don't care to talk about it," he added, by which he meant, really, that he did not care to talk about it to persons of a satirical turn. Mrs. Raymore could get him to talk about it very freely, while to Eva he would sometimes (usually for short times) be so moody and melancholy as to excite an interest of a distinctly sentimental nature. It is to be feared that, like most lovers, Jeremy was not above a bit of posing now and then. He was having a very full and happy life, and, without noticing the fact, began gradually to be more patient about the riches and the fame.

None the less, affairs were in train. Selford's working partners were disposed to be complaisant about Jeremy and the dyeing-works; they were willing to oblige Selford, and found themselves favourably impressed by the young man himself. But business is business. They could give him a pittance for ever, no doubt. If he wanted that very different thing – an opening – other considerations came to the front. Good openings are not lightly given away.

In fine, Jeremy could come and try his hand at a nominal salary. If he proved his aptitude, they would be willing to have him for a junior partner; but in that case he must put five thousand pounds into the business. The sum was not a large one to ask, they said; and with all their good opinion of Jeremy and all their desire to oblige Selford, they could not, in justice to themselves, their wives, and their families, put the figure any lower.

It was rather a shock to Jeremy, this first practical illustration of the pervading truth that in order to get money you must have some first. He might give all he had in the world, and not realise five thousand pounds. He went to tea at the Raymores' that evening with his spirits dashed. He had consulted Alec Turner, but that young man had only whistled, implying thereby that Jeremy might whistle for the money too. The journalistic temperament was not, Jeremy felt, naturally sympathetic; so he laid the question before Mrs. Raymore.

To her it was the opening of the sluice-gates. She was full of maternal love, dammed up by distance and absence. She was tender and affectionate towards Eva, but her love for her daughter was pale and weak beside her feeling for her only son; and now a portion of the flow meant for far-off Charley was diverted to Jeremy. She loved and could have wept over his brave simplicity, his sincere question as to how he could speedily make five thousand pounds. He was not a fool; he knew he could not break the bank at Monte Carlo, or write a play or a novel, or get the desired sum thereby if he did; but he had the great folly which clings to men older than he was – the belief that blind impartial fortune may show special divine favour. Kate Raymore smiled and sighed.

"Have you no friends who would guarantee it – who would advance it? You could pay interest, and pay off the capital gradually," she suggested.

That was not at all Jeremy's idea.

"No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be indebted to anybody."

"But it's a pity to let the chance slip, from a feeling of that sort," she urged.

"Besides there's nobody in our family who ever had such a lot of money to spare," said Jeremy, descending to the practical. He sighed too, and acknowledged the first check to his ardent hopes, the first disillusionment, in the words: "I must wait."

When a man says that he must wait, he has begun to know something of the world. The lesson that often he must wait in vain remains behind.

"But I shall find out some way," he went on (the second lesson still unlearnt). "I've got a fortnight to give my answer in. They'll keep it open for me till then."

Eva came in, with her large learning eyes, and her early charming girl's wonder at the strength and cleverness of the young men she liked. In a very few minutes Jeremy was confident and gay, telling her how he had the prospect of a partnership in quite a little while. Oh, yes, a junior partnership, of course, and a minor share. But it ought to be worth four or five hundred a year anyhow – yes, to start with. And what it might come to – in vigorous hands, with new blood, new intellect, new energy – well, nobody could tell. Mr. Thrale's casks and vats were not really – as a potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice – comparable to Jeremy's vats and mordants and muriates. Eva was wonderfully impressed, and exclaimed, in childish banter:

"I hope you'll know us still, after you're as rich as that?"

Jeremy liked that. It was just the sort of feeling which his wealth was destined to raise in Dora Hutting. Meanwhile, pending the absence and obduracy of Dora, it was not unpleasant to see it reflected in Eva's wondering eyes. Mrs. Raymore listened and looked on with a fixed determination to lose no time in telling Grantley Imason that for a matter of five thousand pounds the happiness of a life – of a life or two – was to be had. The figure was often cheaper than that, of course; less than that often meant joy or woe – far less. Witness Charley in Buenos Ayres, over youthful folly and a trifle of a hundred and fifty! But Grantley was rich – and she did not know that he had recently lent John Fanshaw fifteen thousand pounds.

In requital for services rendered at the Metropolitan Radical, Jeremy had introduced his friend, Alec Turner, to the Selfords. Alec had come up to town from the staff of a provincial journal, and found very few houses open to him in London, so that he was grateful. He had a native, although untrained, liking for art, and could talk about pictures to Selford, while Jeremy talked about dogs to Mrs. Selford; and both the young men sparred with Anna, whose shrewd hits kept them well on their defence. Alec went about his avocations in a red tie, a turned-down collar, and lively mustard-coloured clothes. A dress suit he assumed reluctantly when he was sent to report the speeches of prosperous Philistine persons at public dinners. He hated prosperous Philistine persons, especially if their prosperity (and consequent Philistinity) came from art or letters, and delighted in composing paragraphs which should give them a little dig. He was, however, not really ill-natured, and would not have hurt the prosperous persons seriously, even if he could have; he was anxious to declare that neither he nor anybody else could, in fact, hurt them seriously, owing to the stupidity of the public – which was incalculable. He was a decided assistance to Jeremy in enlivening the Selford household and in keeping Anna's wits busy and bright.

"I suppose nothing would induce you to be successful?" she said to him with malicious simplicity.

"Success for me means something quite different," Alec explained. "It lies in influencing the trend of public opinion."

"But the public's hopelessly stupid! It seems to me rather foolish to spend your time trying to influence hopelessly stupid people."

Jeremy chuckled. He did not see how Alec was going to get out of that.

"I spoke of the bulk. There is a small intelligent minority on whom one can rely."

"If you can rely on them already, why do they want influencing?" objected Anna.

"On whom one can rely for a hearing and for intelligent appreciation, Miss Selford."

"Then the fewer people who care what you say, the more successful you really are?"

"That's hardly the way I should put it – "

"No, I don't suppose you would," interrupted Anna. "But it comes to that, doesn't it, Jeremy?"

"Of course it does," agreed Jeremy. "The fact is, writing about things is all rot. Go and do something – something practical."

Dyeing was doing something practical.

"Oh, yes, go into business, of course, and get rich by cheating. Trading's only another name for cheating."

"Well, you're right there for once," said Anna.

"Right?" cried Jeremy fiercely. "Well, then, why isn't it cheating when he" (he pointed scornfully at Alec) "charges a ha'penny for his beastly opinion about something?"

"Oh, it's not for me to say! You must ask Mr. Turner that."

In fact the discussions were of a most spirited order, since everybody was always quite wrong, and each in turn could be rapidly and ignominiously refuted, the other two uniting in a warm but transient alliance to that end.

This young and breezy society was good for Selford and for his wife too. It gave them something to think about, and did not leave each so much time to consider the unreasonableness of the other. Tiffs became less frequent, the false sentimentalism of their reconciliations was less in demand; and as they watched Anna's deftness and brightness, they began to ask whether they had been as proud of her as they ought to be.

"She's got brains, that girl of ours," said Selford, nodding his head complacently.

"And a taking manner, don't you think, Dick?"

"Those boys find her attractive, or it looks like it, anyhow!"

"Of course she's not exactly pretty, but I do think she's rather distinguished somehow."

"Your daughter would be sure to be that, my dear Janet," he remarked gallantly.

"No, I really think she's more like you," insisted Janet amiably. "I must make an effort" (Mrs. Selford was fond of that phrase) "and take her out into society more. I don't think we're quite giving her her chance."

"Ah, you've begun to think of match-making!" he cried in playful reproof.

But it pleased him highly to think that he had, after all, an attractive daughter. He took much more notice of her than he had been used to take, and Mrs. Selford eyed her with critical affection. Decidedly the increase of human interest, as opposed to artistic and canine, was a good influence in the Selford household.

Anna soon saw how her position had improved. She was not demonstrative about it, but she appreciated it. She was also sharp enough to use it. The next time an invitation to a party came, she refused to go unless she might have a frock of her own choosing.

"I won't go if I'm to look a guy!" she said.

There was a battle over that; a battle between her and Mrs. Selford, and a tiff between father and mother to boot. For Selford was with Anna now. They won the day, and Anna, with a cheque in her pocket, went off to consult Christine Fanshaw, nursing in her heart that joy which only the prospect of being dressed really just as you'd like to be dressed seems able to excite.

"Merely a malicious desire to cut out the other girls," commented Alec loftily.

"I really don't think you ought to talk about dress," retorted Anna, eyeing the mustard suit.

But when Anna appeared in the frock which Christine had sedulously and lovingly planned, she carried all before her. She was most undoubtedly distinguished.