Double Harness

"Well, I suppose you've come to an age when that charming simplicity which used to suit you so well must give way to something more stylish," even Mrs. Selford admitted, capitulating and marching out – but with the honours of war.

Grantley Imason was rich; yet fifteen thousand pounds is a solid sum of money. To put that sum at John Fanshaw's disposal had not caused him serious inconvenience, but it had entailed a little contriving. To lay out another five thousand in Jeremy's service would involve more contriving, and the return of the money rested, of necessity, in a distant and contingent future. Nevertheless, when Kate Raymore suggested that the happiness of a life should be secured, he found the proposition attractive. He was a man lavish of money and appreciative of all the various pleasures of giving it away – both those of a more and those of a less self-regarding order. He enjoyed both the delight of the recipient and the sense of his own generosity and his own power. He would like Jeremy to be indebted to him for the happiness of his life – of course that was an exaggerated way of putting it, but it was a telling exaggeration. He also liked Jeremy very much for his own sake. And it would be altogether a handsome thing to do – under present circumstances a peculiarly handsome thing. For Sibylla had left him and gone down to Milldean, accompanied by the boy, without a word of friendship or a hint of reconciliation; and Jeremy's welfare was very dear to his sister. To help Jeremy, and thereby prepare for her the pleasure of seeing Jeremy prosper, to do this secretly, to have it as a private merit and a hidden claim on her, was an idea which appealed strongly to Grantley. In his imaginings she was to discover what he had done in the future, but not till after their reconciliation. Would it not have an effect then? One effect it was to have was, in plain words, to make Sibylla feel ashamed; but Grantley did not put it so simply or so nakedly as that – that would have been to recognise the action as almost pure revenge. He blinked that side of it, and gave prominence to the other sides. But that side was there among the rest, and he would suffer wrong at her hands with the more endurance the greater were the obligations she was under to him. His love for her and his quarrel with her joined hands to urge him. Commanding Kate Raymore to respect his desire for secrecy, he undertook to consider the matter. But his mind was really made up; and since the thing was to be done, it should be done liberally and splendidly. He had lent his money to Fanshaw, as Caylesham had surmised, with a very satisfactory prospect of repayment; to Jeremy he was ready to lend it on no security, careless about repayment, because he loved Sibylla and because he had so grievous a quarrel against her. It was all a part of his broad and consistent plan of conquering her by his unchanging patience, unchanging love, unchanging persistence in being just what he had always been to her from the beginning, however sore a trial her unreasonableness and her vagaries might put him to. This generosity to Jeremy would be a fine example of his chosen attitude, a fine move in the strategy on which he had staked the ultimate success of his campaign against Sibylla.

"If I decide to do it, I'll tell Sibylla myself, at my own time, and in my own way – remember that," he said to Kate Raymore.

She had an idea that things had not been going quite smoothly, and nodded in a wise fashion. She was picturing a pretty scene of sentiment when Grantley confessed his generosity. Of the real state of his mind she had no idea, but her own conception of the case was enough to ensure her silence.

Grantley went to work quietly, saying nothing to Jeremy, approaching the working partners through Selford, learning what they thought of Jeremy, not letting them suppose that the sum required was lightly to be come by, or was considered a small one, making, like a good man of business, the best bargain that he could for the object of his bounty. These negotiations took some days, and during those days Jeremy's heart lost something of its buoyancy, though nothing of its courage. London was having its effect on his receptive mind – the crowd, the stress, the push, the competition. Courage and brains enough to rise by? Perhaps, but not enough to rise by quickly. A walk about the streets, a look at the newspapers, the talk at the Metropolitan Radical, all taught him that. Wait and work – wait and work! That was what they all said – and they none of them said that it was easy to lay your hands on five thousand pounds.

The light of truth began to glimmer through those folds of young self-confidence. Jeremy grew sober; he was no more so gay and so assured in talking with Eva Raymore. He allowed himself to dwell less on that mythical return to Milldean with fame and riches. Now and then, it must be confessed, he had to brace himself up lest his very courage should falter. He contrived to keep it; but with it there came now a feeling new to Jeremy – a humility, a sense that he was, after all, as other men were, and neither by natural endowment nor by any rare caprice of fortune to be different from them or to find his life other than theirs. He too was not above the need of a helping hand; for want of it he too might have to tread very long and very dreary paths before he made much impression on the hill which he had set out to climb so gaily, and with so little provender for the journey. In such a mood as this he was as incapable of expecting any sudden interposition of outside aid as of refusing it when it came. He would protest, he would declare that he must refuse, but refuse in the end he could not. The fierce jealousy of his independence was cooled by his new experience of the world.

He heard first of what was being done from one of the partners down at Romford. The matter was practically concluded, he was told; in two years' time he was to have the junior partnership, and the share allotted to him at that date would be somewhat larger in consideration of the stipulated capital being paid immediately – it happened to be wanted for an extension of the buildings. Jeremy threw over work for that day, and hurried back to London – to refuse. But all the way he was thinking of the incredible difference this benevolent interposition would make.

He found Grantley in his study after lunch. The deed regulating the arrangements between the partners on the one side and Jeremy and himself on the other was before him. A look at Jeremy's face told him that Jeremy knew.

"I – I can't take it, you know," Jeremy blurted out.

"You can't escape the obligations Sibylla has brought on you by marrying me," smiled Grantley.

"Of course Sibylla's been at you – told you she couldn't be happy unless – "

"Nothing of the kind. Sibylla knows nothing about it; and, what's more, she isn't to know till I choose to tell her – till I choose, not you – that's part of the bargain, Jeremy."

Jeremy sat down. Anxious to avoid a formal talking-over of the matter, Grantley got up and lit a cigarette.

"Then why have you done it?" asked Jeremy.

Grantley shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course it's the one thing in the world for me; but – but I wanted to do it for myself, you know." Grantley still smiled on him, with a touch of mockery now. "Yes, well, I know I couldn't." He looked at Grantley in a puzzled way. "What makes it worse," he went on, "is that I've been doing you an injustice in a kind of way. I knew you were always kind and – and jolly, but somehow I thought you were a fellow who wouldn't put himself out very much for – for anybody else."

"I am not putting myself out. I like it."

"Planking down five thousand, and not knowing when you'll get it back, if you ever do? If you like that for its own sake, it's rather a rare taste."

"Now don't jaw any more," said Grantley with friendly impatience. "I was just going to sign the deed when you came in – I should have done it by now, but I must have a witness, and I didn't want to ring Thompson up from his dinner. We'll ring for him now."

"I'm not an ass," said Jeremy. "I don't think that because a man marries a woman he's bound to provide for her family – or to like them either."

"You grow in worldly wisdom."

"Yes, I fancy I do. I know a bit more about myself too. I might have worked ten years and not got this money."

"Oh, thank my forefathers! I've not worked ten years, or ten minutes either, for you!" His back had been to Jeremy. He turned round now as he said slowly, "You may consider it as a thanksoffering for my happiness with Sibylla."

"And why isn't she to know?"

"I like it better that way for the present. I'm entitled to make that condition."

Jeremy went back to his defence of himself against himself.

"A week ago I – I'd have backed myself to make it somehow. But – well, one soon learns how devilish hard it is to get what one wants. What a conceited young idiot you must have thought me when we used to talk down at Milldean!"

"You were always an excellent companion. Let's ring for Thompson and execute the deed."

Jeremy could not refuse, and could not yet consent. Grantley stood smoking airily and looking at him with a whimsical smile. Then the door opened and the butler came in, unsummoned.

"Ah, the fates decide!" exclaimed Grantley with a laugh. "Where's a pen, Jeremy?"

"For you, sir," said Thompson, holding out a salver with a letter on it.

"Oh!" Grantley laid down his pen, took the letter, and sat down at the writing-table. "Wait a minute; I want you to witness something for me," he said to the butler.

Thompson stood in serene immobility. His thoughts were far away, engrossed in a discussion he had been having with the groom as to the "form" of that same horse of Caylesham's about which Mrs. Bolton had wanted to know. Jeremy sat making up his mind to endure being helped, and poignantly remorseful about the view he had taken of Grantley. The view was earnestly disclaimed now; the help seemed very fine and wonderful. He did so want hope, scope, a chance, a start, and that all his talk of what he would do should not come to naught. In turn Dora, Eva, and Anna passed through his mind, each bringing her own influence to bear, giving him a new picture of the future. And why refuse? If ever a gift had been freely, grandly offered, this was. Would it not be even churlish to refuse? Reasons or no reasons, his heart and his hand went out instinctively; he could not refuse the beginning of all things.

Giving his head a restless little jerk as at last he accepted this decision, he chanced to turn his eyes on Grantley's face. Their attention was caught and arrested by it. There was something strange there. The cheeks were rather pale, the jaw set rigidly. Grantley read his letter with a curious engrossment – not hurriedly nor off-hand, as a man generally reads when other business is at a standstill till he reaches the end. He turned back, it seemed, once or twice, to look at another sentence again. Jeremy could not stop staring at him. Even Thompson awoke to the fact that he was being kept waiting a long while, and that the groom would probably finish the beer and go away, leaving their important discussion unfinished and the proper odds unascertained.

Grantley had recognised Christine Fanshaw's large irregular handwriting, and had expected nothing more serious than an invitation to dinner. But he was not reading an invitation to dinner now.

"I have just heard from Sibylla – from Milldean. She encloses a letter for you, which she says I am to send on to you to-morrow. She insists that I am not to send it before; and if I won't do as she asks, I am to burn it. You are not to have it to-day. I cannot disobey her in this; but she says nothing about my telling you she has sent a letter; the only thing is that I must not deliver it to you till to-morrow. I had no idea you had let her go down to Milldean alone. How could you let her do this? There is one other thing I must say to you. Walter Blake was to have dined here to-night. This morning he wired excuses, saying he was going for a cruise in his yacht. You must consider what that means. I beg you not to wait for the letter, but to go to Milldean this afternoon. Say nothing of having heard from me. Just go as if it was by accident; say you got your work done sooner than you expected, or anything you like; but go. I believe you'll be sorry all your life if you don't go. Let nothing stop you, for your own sake, and still more for hers. – C.F."

That was the letter; the sentence he had turned back to re-read was the one in which Walter Blake's movements were mentioned.

Grantley looked across to Jeremy.

"Have you heard from Sibylla since she went to Milldean?" he asked.

"Not a line. But she doesn't write much to me."

Again Grantley looked at the paper. Then he laid it down and took up his pen.

"Now for the deed," he said, and drew it to him.

He signed. Thompson fulfilled the formality for which he was required, and then left them alone. Jeremy did not break out into new thanks. That unexplained something in Grantley's face forbade him.

"I can only say that I'll try to justify your extraordinary kindness," he said soberly.

Grantley nodded absently, as he rose and put Christine's letter into the fire. It was better there – and there was no danger that he would forget the contents.

"I say, there's no bad news, is there?" Jeremy could not help asking.

"No news at all, good or bad," answered Grantley, as he held out his hand. "Good-bye and good luck, Jeremy."

Jeremy took his hand and gripped it hard, emotion finding a vent that way. Grantley returned the pressure more moderately.

"Remember, under no circumstances, a word about it to Sibylla!" he said.

"I give you my honour."

"Good."

He released Jeremy's hand and turned away. He had much self-control, but he could not be sure of what was showing on his face.

Jeremy had his great good-fortune, but his joy was dashed. Grantley looked like a man whom heavy calamity finds unprepared.

"All the finer of him to sign the deed then and there," Jeremy muttered as he left the house. "Whatever has happened, he didn't forget his word to me."

But it had not been of Jeremy or of his word that Grantley had been thinking when he signed. His signature was a defiance of his wife and of his fate.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE TEETH OF THE STORM

An instinct of furtiveness, newly awakened by the suggestion of Christine Fanshaw's letter, had led Grantley Imason to send no word of his coming. He hired a fly at the station, and drove over the downs to Milldean. It was a wild evening. A gale had been blowing from the south-west all day, and seemed to be increasing in violence. A thick rain was driven in sharp spats against the closed windows. The old horse toiled slowly along, while the impatient man chafed helplessly inside.

At last he stopped at Old Mill House and dismissed the carriage. Mrs. Mumple's servant-girl came to the door, and said her mistress was up at his house, and was, she thought, to stay there all night. Grantley nodded, and began to trudge up the hill. He had no thought but to seek and find Sibylla. It was now between seven and eight, and dusk had fallen.

He saw a light in the dining-room windows. He walked into the hall and took off his hat. A servant saw him and ran to help him. Saying briefly that he would want some dinner, he went into the dining-room. Mrs. Mumple sat there alone over a chop.

"You come home, Mr. Imason!" she exclaimed. "Sibylla didn't expect you, did she?"

"No, I didn't expect to come. I didn't think I could get away, and it wasn't worth wiring. Where is Sibylla?"

"How unlucky! She's gone away – to Fairhaven. She didn't expect you. She's to sleep the night there."

He came to the table and poured himself out a glass of sherry. He was calm and quiet in his manner.

"To sleep at Fairhaven? Why, who's she going to stay with?"

"Mrs. Valentine. You know her? She lives by the church – a red house with creepers."

Mrs. Valentine was, as he knew, an old, but not an intimate, acquaintance. He shot a keen glance at Mrs. Mumple's simple broad face.

"I'm here to look after baby. But of course since you've come – "

"No, no, you stay here; and go on with your dinner. They'll bring something for me directly."

He pulled up a chair and sat down.

"To sleep at Mrs. Valentine's? Has she often done that before when I've been away?"

"She used to as a girl sometimes, Mr. Imason; but no, never lately, I think – not since she married."

There were no signs of disturbance or distress about Mrs. Mumple. Grantley sat silent while the servant laid a place for him and promised some dinner in ten minutes.

"Has Sibylla been all right?"

"Oh, yes! A little fretful the last day or two, I think. But Mr. Blake came over from Fairhaven yesterday, and she had a nice walk with him; and she was with baby all the morning."

"All the morning? When did she go to Fairhaven?"

"I think it was about three o'clock. It's a terrible evening, Mr. Imason."

"Very rough indeed."

"The wind rose quite suddenly this morning, and it's getting worse every minute."

Grantley made no answer. After a pause the old woman went on —

"I've got some news."

"News have you? What news?"

He was suddenly on the alert.

She glanced at the door to make sure the servant was not within hearing.

"Very great news for me, Mr. Imason. My dear husband's to come home three months sooner than I thought. I got a letter to say so just after Sibylla started."

"Oh, really! Capital, Mrs. Mumple!"

"It's only a matter of six months now. You can't think what I feel about it – now it's as near as that. I haven't seen him for hard on ten years. What will it be like? I'm full of joy, Mr. Imason; but somehow I'm afraid too – terribly afraid. The thought of it seems to upset me, and yet I can't think of anything else."

Grantley rubbed his hand across his brow. Old Mrs. Mumple's talk reached him dimly. He was thinking hard. This sleeping at Mrs. Valentine's sounded an unlikely story.

Mrs. Mumple, in her turn, forgot her chop. She leant back in her chair, clasping her fat hands in front of her.

"We shall have to pick up the old life," she went on, "after seventeen years! I was thirty-five when he left me, and nearly as slight as Sibylla herself. I'm past fifty now, Mr. Imason, and it's ten years since I saw him; and he's above sixty, and – and they grow old soon in there. It'll be very different, very different. And – and I'm half afraid of it, Mr. Imason. It's terribly hard to pick up a life that's once been broken."

The servant brought in Grantley's dinner, and Mrs. Mumple pretended to go on with her chop.

"Nurse said I was to tell you Master Frank is sleeping nicely," the servant said to Mrs. Mumple, as he placed a chair for Grantley.

That was a strange story about Mrs. Valentine.

"We must have patience, and love on," said Mrs. Mumple. "He's had a grievous trial, and so have I. But I don't lose hope. All's ready for him – his socks and his shirts and all. I'm ahead of the time. I've nothing to do but wait. These last months'll seem very long, Mr. Imason."

Grantley came to the table.

"You're a good woman, Mrs. Mumple," he said.

She shook her head mournfully. He looked at the food, pushed it away, and drank another glass of sherry.

"Don't think I've no sympathy with you, but – but I'm worried."

"Nothing gone wrong in town, I hope, Mr. Imason?"

"No."

He stood there frowning. He did not believe the story about Mrs. Valentine. He walked quickly to the bell and rang it loudly.

"Tell them to saddle Rollo, and bring him round directly."

"You're never going out on such a night?" she cried.

"I must"; and he added to the surprised servant, "Do as I tell you directly."

"Where are you going?" she asked wonderingly.

"I'm going to Mrs. Valentine's."

"But you've no cause to be anxious about Sibylla, Mr. Imason; and she'll be back to-morrow."

Grantley was convinced that she, at least, was innocent of any plot. Simple sincerity spoke on her face, and all her thoughts were for herself and her dearly cherished fearful hopes.

"I must see Sibylla on a matter of urgent business to-night," he said.

"It'll be hardly safe up on the downs," she expostulated.

"It'll be safe enough for me," he answered grimly. "Don't sit up for me; and look after the baby." He smiled at her kindly, then came and patted her hand for a moment. "Yes, it would be hard to pick up a life that's once broken, I expect," he said.

She looked up at him with a sudden apprehension in her eyes. His manner was strangely quiet; he seemed to her gentler.

"There, I mean nothing but what I say," he told her soothingly. "I must go and get ready for my ride."

"But, Mr. Imason, you'll take something to eat first?"

"I can't eat." He laughed a little. "I should like to drink, but I won't. Good night, Mrs. Mumple."

Ten minutes later he was walking his horse down the hill to Milldean, on his way to Fairhaven. But he had little thought of Mrs. Valentine; he had no belief in that story at all. It served a purpose, but not the purpose for which it had been meant. What it did was to remove the last of his doubts. Now he knew that Christine's suggestion was true. He was going to Fairhaven not to find Sibylla at Mrs. Valentine's, but to seek Sibylla and Blake he knew not where.

He thought not much of Sibylla. He had taught himself to consider his wife incalculable – a prey to disordered whims, swept on by erratic impulses. This whim was more extraordinary, more disorderly, more erratic than any of the others; but it was of the same nature with them, the same kind of thing that she had done when she determined to hold herself aloof from him. This blow had fallen entirely and utterly unforeseen, but he acknowledged grimly that it had not been unforeseeable. He thought even less of young Blake, and thought of him without much conscious anger. The case there was a very plain one. He had known young Blake in the days when aspirations did not exist, and when the desire to be good was no part of his life. He took him as he had known him then, and the case was very simple. Whatever an attractive woman will give, men like Blake will take, recking of nothing, forecasting nothing, careless of themselves, merciless to her whom they are by way of loving. In regard to Blake the thing had nothing strange in it.

Here too it was unexpected, but again by no means unforeseeable.

No, nothing had been unforeseeable; and in what light did that fact leave him? What flavour should that give to his meditations? For though he rode as quickly as he could against the gale and the rain which now blinded and scorched his eyes, his mind moved more quickly still. Why, it set him down as a fool intolerable – as the very thing he had always laughed at and despised, as a dullard, a simpleton, a dupe. He could hear the mocking laughter and unashamed chuckling, he could see the winking eyes. He knew well enough what men had thought of him. They had attributed to him successes with women; they had joked when he married, saying many husbands would feel safer; they had liked him and admired him, but they had been of opinion that he wanted taking down a peg. How they would laugh to think that he of all men had made such a mess of it, that he had let young Blake take away his wife – young Blake, whom he had often chaffed for their amusement or instructed for their entertainment! Imason had got a pretty wife, but he couldn't keep her, poor old boy! That would be the comment – an ounce of pity to a hundredweight of contempt, and – yes, a pound of satisfaction. And it would be all true. Somehow – even allowing for Sibylla's vagaries and unaccountable whims, he could not tell how – somehow he had been a gross dupe, a blockhead blindly self-satisfied, a dullard easily deluded, a fool readily abandoned and left, so intolerable that not all his money, nor his houses, nor his carriages could make it worth while even to go on with the easy task of deceiving him. He was not worth deceiving any more; it was simpler to be rid of him. In the eyes of the world that fact would be very significant of what he was. And that same thing he was in his own eyes now. The stroke of this sharp sword had cloven in two the armour of his pride; it fell off him and left him naked.