Double Harness

It was Sibylla Imason whom Mrs. Raymore chose to pour out these feelings to. Who could better share them than the young wife still in the first pride and glory of her motherhood?

"Children bring you together and keep you together, whether in trouble or in joy. That's one reason why everybody ought to have children," Kate Raymore said with a rather tremulous smile. "If there are none, there's such a danger of the whole thing getting old and cold, and – and worn-out, you know."

Sibylla was in wonderful health now, and at the best of her looks. Her manner too had grown more composed and less impulsive, although she kept her old graciousness. To Kate Raymore she seemed very fair and good to gaze on. She listened with a thoughtful gravity and the wonted hint of questioning or seeking in her eyes. There was a hint of pain in them also, and of this Mrs. Raymore presently became aware.

"That's how it ought to be," said Sibylla. "But – well, the Courtlands have children too."

The remark struck Kate Raymore as rather odd, coming from Sibylla, and associated with the hint of pain in Sibylla's eyes; but she was just now engrossed in her own feelings. She went on describing family life on the true lines – she wouldn't have it that they were unreal or merely ideal – and was quite content that Sibylla should listen.

Sibylla did listen; it was easier to do that than to talk on the subject herself. But she listened without much interest. It was old ground to her, broken by imagination, if not by experience – very familiar to her thoughts some months before. She had lived with – nay, seemed to live on – such ideas in the early days of her marriage, before the accident and all that had come from it. The things Kate Raymore said were no doubt true sometimes; but they were not true for her. That was the upshot of the matter. They were not true for Grantley Imason's wife, nor for the mother of his child. Her reason, dominated by emotion and almost as impulsive as its ruler, had brought her to that conclusion before ever her child was born. It dated from the night when she battled with Grantley, and she had never wavered in it since. She had abandoned hope of the ideal.

What of that? Do not most people have to abandon the ideal? Many of them do it readily enough, even with a secret sense of relief, since there is always something of a strain about an ideal: it is, in famous phrase, so categorically imperative. But Sibylla was a stickler for ideals; they were what she dealt in, what she proposed to barter and to bargain with; she had no place in her stock for humbler wares. Ideals or nothing! And, in the ideal, wifehood and motherhood were so indissolubly united that the failure of one soured her joy in the other. She loved the little child, but loved him with bitterness. He had become the symbol of her lost ideal.

But she did not say this to Kate Raymore, for with the loss of the ideal comes a certain shame of it. We see it then as we did not before, as we know now that others – so many others – see it; and we veil the broken image. The heart, once its throne, becomes its hiding-place.

All this was not for Kate Raymore. She must be left to wonder that Sibylla said so little about the baby – left to be amazed at an apparent coldness in the young mother – left to miss gracious extravagances of maternal joy and pride. For if Sibylla could not be open, neither would she play the hypocrite by parading a light-hearted enjoyment and exultation in the child. How should she display the boy and her proud pleasure in him to the world outside, when her pleasure was not shared at home, and her pride made her love covert there?

Christine Fanshaw, sharply guessing, had cried once:

"But surely Grantley's manner is irreproachable?"

Even now Sibylla's humour rose at the challenge.

"Yes, irreproachable. Of course it would be. All through, his solicitude for both of us was – beautiful! Even Mumples was shaken!"

"Shaken? Why, I thought – "

"Shaken in her bad opinion, I mean, Christine dear. Yes, if ever a man did his duty, did and said all the proper things, Grantley did. And he wasn't the least angry with me; he was only annoyed with Adam and Eve, you know. Of course he was awfully busy just then: County Council elections and what not. But you'd never have guessed it. He never seemed hurried, and he was always very – very solicitous."

"And now, Sibylla?"

"Just the same – and quite pleased. Only I think he wishes babies were like kittens – more animated and growing up quicker, you know. We happen to have a kitten, and I think he's more at his ease with that."

"Nonsense! Men are men, you know."

"Most of them seem to be," admitted Sibylla.

"It would be becoming," Christine observed, "if you recollected that you'd been in the wrong all through. You believed in the wrong doctor, you wanted the wrong thing, you were quite unreasonable. Hadn't you better remember that?"

"I do remember it. And if you want another admission – well, Grantley never reminds me of it by a look or a word."

"He's very much of a gentleman, Sibylla."

"He's never the least ungentlemanlike, Christine."

Christine enjoyed a distinction; she laughed gently.

"And you're a very lucky woman," she went on.

"Don't I say so in my prayers?"

"In a very dangerous state of mind."

Christine's eyes were set on her friend. Sibylla met them full and square. Her mirth, real or affected, vanished. She looked hard at Christine, and made no answer for a moment.

"Yes, I suppose I know what you mean by that," she said at last.

"It's so much easier to despair of your husband than of anybody else in the world – except your wife."

"I try to consider him a type."

"Well, don't find an exception. Oh, I'm not talking at random. I know!" She paused a moment and then went on: "There's a question I should like to ask you, but I suppose it's a question nobody ought to ask; it's too impertinent, even for me, I'm afraid."

Sibylla looked at her, and a faint touch of colour rose on her cheeks. There was a little defiance about her manner, as though she were accused, and stood on her defence rather uneasily. She understood what question it was that even Christine could not ask.

"Grantley and I are – perfectly good friends," she said.

Christine's next question was drawled out in a lazy murmur, and was never completed, apparently from mere indolence.

"It's you who – ?"

Sibylla nodded in an abrupt decisive fashion.

"And who do you see most of?" asked Christine.

The colour deepened a little on Sibylla's face.

"That doesn't follow. Don't talk like that."

"I've gone a great deal too far?"

"I really think you have, rather, and without an atom of reason."

"Oh, entirely! I apologise. That sort of thing happens to be – to be in my thoughts."

Sibylla, in some anger, had risen to go. The last words arrested her movement, and she stood in the middle of the room, looking down on Christine's little figure, nestling in a big armchair.

"Your thoughts? That sort of thing in your thoughts?"

"Oh, entirely in retrospect, my dear; and it generally comes of not being appreciated, and of wanting an outlet for – for – well, for something or other, you know."

"Are you going to speak plainly, Christine?"

"Not for worlds, my dear! Are you going to drop my acquaintance?"

"Why is it in your thoughts? You say it's – it's all in the past?"

"Really I'm beginning to doubt if there's such a thing as the past; and if there isn't, it makes everything so much worse! I thought it was all done with – done with long ago; and now it isn't. It's just all – all over my life, as it used to be. And I – I'm afraid again. And I'm lying again. It means so many lies, you know." She looked up at Sibylla with a plaintiveness coloured by malice. "So if I've been impertinent, just put it down to what I happen to be thinking about, my dear."

Sibylla stood very quiet, saying nothing. Christine went on after a minute:

"Can't you manage to be wrapped up in the baby, my dear?"

"No, I can't." The answer was hard and unhesitating. "You've told me something people don't generally tell. I'll tell you something that I didn't think I ever should tell. I love my baby – and sometimes I hate to have to see him." Her eyes were on Christine's face, and there was distress – hopeless distress – in them. "Now I should think you'd drop my acquaintance," she ended with a laugh.

"Oh, I've never had a baby – I'm not shocked to death. But – but why, Sibylla?"

"Surely you can guess why! It's horrible, but it's not unintelligible, surely?"

"No, I suppose it's not," Christine sighed.

Christine's legs had been curled up on her chair; she let them down to the ground and rose to her feet.

"That's all from both of us for to-day?" she asked, with a wry smile.

"All for to-day, I think," answered Sibylla, buttoning her glove.

"I meant to be – friendly."

"You have been. I never guessed anything – anything of what you've said – about you."

"Nobody hinted it? Not even Harriet Courtland? She knew."

"I never see her. How did she know?"

"She was my great friend then. Rather funny, isn't it? I'm told Tom's getting quite regardless of appearances."

"Oh, I can't bear to talk about that!"

"No? Well, you can think of it now and then, can't you? It's rather wholesome to reflect how other people look when they're doing the things that you want – "

"Christine! Good-bye!"

"Oh, good-bye, my dear! And take care of yourself. Oh, I only mean the wind's cold."

But her look denied the harmless meaning she claimed for her parting words.

Grantley's attitude admits of simpler definition than his wife's. He attributed to her an abnormally prolonged and obstinate fit of sulks. People who have been in the wrong are generally sulky; that went a long way to account for it. Add thereto Sibylla's extreme expectations of a world and of an institution both of which deal mostly with compromises and arrangements short of the ideal, and the case seemed to him clear enough and not altogether unnatural, however vexatious it might be. He flew to no tragical or final conclusion. He did not despair; but neither did he struggle. He made no advances; his pride was too wounded, and his reason too affronted for that. On the other hand he offered no provocation. The irreproachability of his manner continued; the inaccessibility of his feelings increased. He devoted his mind to his work, public and commercial; and he waited for Sibylla to come to her senses. Given his theory of the case, he deserved credit for much courtesy, much patience, and entire consistency of purpose. And he, unlike Sibylla, neither talked to intimate friends nor invited questions from them. Both pride and wisdom forbade. Finally, while he acknowledged great discomfort (including a disagreeable element of the ludicrous), the idea of danger never crossed his mind; he would have laughed at Christine Fanshaw's warning, had it been addressed to him.

Whatever Sibylla's faults, levity was not among them, and danger in Christine's sense – danger of a break-up of the household, as distinguished from a continuance of it, however unsatisfactory that continuance might be – there would probably have been none, had not Walter Blake, after a lively, but not very profitable, youth, wanted to reform his life. He might have wanted to be wicked without creating any peril at all for the Imason household. But he wanted to be good, and he wanted Sibylla to make him good. This idea had occurred to him quite early in their acquaintance. He too had a faculty – even a facility – for idealising. He idealised Sibylla into the image of goodness and purity, which would turn him from sin and folly by making virtue and wisdom not better (which of course they were already), but more attractive and more pleasurable. If they were made more attractive and more pleasurable, he would be eager to embrace them. Besides he had had a good deal of the alternatives, without ever being really content with them. By this time he was firmly convinced that he must be good, and that Sibylla, and Sibylla alone, could make him good. He did not at all think out what the process was to be, nor whither it might lead. He had never planned much, nor looked where things led to. Until they led to something alarming, he did not consider the question much. How she was to reform him he seemed to leave to Sibylla, but his demand that she should do it grew more and more explicit.

This was to attack Sibylla on her weak spot, to aim an arrow true at the joint in her harness. For (one is tempted to say, unfortunately) she knew the only way in which people could be reformed and made good, and caused to feel that wisdom and virtue were not only better (which of course they felt already), but also more pleasurable than folly and sin. (People who want to be reformed are sometimes, it must be admitted, a little exacting.) That could be done only by sympathy and understanding. And if they are thorough, sympathy and understanding compose, or depend on, or issue in love – in the best kind of love, where friend gives himself unreservedly to friend, entering into every feeling, and being privy to every thought. This close and intimate connection must be established before one mind can, lever-like, raise another, and the process of reformation be begun. So much is old ground, often trodden and with no pretence of novelty about it. But much of the power of a proposition may depend not on its soundness, but on the ardour with which it is seized upon, and the conviction with which it is held – which things, again, depend on the character and temper of the believer. Sibylla's character and temper made the proposition extraordinarily convincing. Her circumstances, as she conceived them, were equally provocative in the same direction. What was wrong with her? In the end that she was not wanted, or not wanted enough, that she had more to give than had been asked of her, and no outlet (as Christine had put it) sufficient to relieve the press of her emotions. It was almost inevitable that she should respond to Blake's appeal. He was an outlet. He was somebody who wanted her very much, whom she could help, with whom she could expand, to whom she could give what she had to give in such abundant measure.

Thus far the first stage. The next was not reached. There was plenty of time yet. Sibylla loved the child. Blake had set up his idol, but he had not yet declared that he was the only devotee who knew how properly to honour and to worship it.

He sat watching Sibylla as she played with her baby-boy. He took a hand in the game now and then, since, for a bachelor, he was at his ease with babies; but most of the time he watched. But he watched sympathetically; Sibylla did not fear to show her love before his eyes. The baby was very young for games – for any that a man could play. But Sibylla knew some that he liked; he gave evidence of a strangely dawning pleasure distinct from physical contentment – of wonder, of amusement, of an appreciation of fun, of delight in the mock assaults and the queer noises which his mother directed at him. Sometimes he made nice, queer, gurgling noises himself, full of luxurious content, like a cat's purring, and laden with a surprise, as though all this was very new. She had infinite patience in seeking these signs of approval; half a dozen attempts would miscarry before she succeeded in tickling the infant groping senses. When she hit the mark, she had infinite delight. She would give a cry of joy and turn round to Blake for approval and applause; it was a very difficult thing, but she had kept confidence in her instinct, and she had won the day! Spurred to fresh effort, she returned to her loved work. A gurgle from the little parted lips, a movement of the wide-open little eyes – eyes of that marvellous transient blue – marked a new triumph.

"Isn't he wonderful?" she called to Blake over her shoulder.

"Oh, yes, rather!" he laughed, and added, after a short moment: "And so are you."

Sibylla was not looking for compliments. She laughed gaily and went back to her work.

"But can't he talk, Mrs. Imason?"

"How silly you are! But he's just wonderful for his age as he is."

"Oh, they all are!"

He was so obviously feigning scorn that Sibylla only shook her head at him in merry glee.

Was not this the real, the great thing? Blake's mind, disengaging from the past memories of what had once been its delights, and turning now in distaste from them, declared that it was. Nature had the secret of the keenest pleasure – it was to be found along nature's way. There pleasure was true to a purpose, achieving a great end, concentrated in that, not dissipated in passing and unfruitful joys. Blake was sure that he was right now, sure that he wanted to be reformed, more sure than ever that wisdom and virtue were more pleasurable (as well as being better) than their opposites. A man of ready sensibility and quick feeling, he was open to the suggestion and alive to the beauty of what he saw. It seemed to him holy – and the feelings it evoked in him seemed almost holy too. "Motherhood!" he said to himself, not knowing, at least not acknowledging, that his true meaning was this woman as mother, motherhood incarnate in her. Yet that it was. If his aspirations were awake, his blood too was stirred. But the moment for that to come to light was not yet. The good seemed still unalloyed, his high-soaring aspirations were guiltless of self-knowledge.

Sibylla played with the child till she could play no more – till she feared to tire him, she would have said – in truth till the tenderness which had found a mask in the sport would conceal its face no more, and in a spasm of love she caught the little creature to her, pressing her face to his.

"Poor little darling!" Blake heard her say in a whisper full of pity as well as of love.

Whence came the pity? The mother's natural fear that her sheltering may not avail against all the world? Most likely it was only that. But the pity was poignant, and he wondered vaguely.

They were thus, she and the child locked together, the young man dimly picturing the truth as he watched, when Grantley Imason came in. A start ran through Sibylla; she caught a last kiss from the little face, and then laid her baby down. Swiftly she turned round to her husband. Blake had risen, watching still – nay, more eagerly. For all he could do, his eyes sought her face and rested there, trying to trace what feeling found expression as she turned to her husband from her child.

"Glad to see you, Blake. Ah, you've got the little chap there!"

He chucked the child under its chin, as he went by, gently and affectionately, and came with outstretched hand to his friend – for he liked sunny impetuous young Blake, though he thought very lightly of him. As they shook hands, Blake's eyes travelled past him, and dwelt again on Sibylla. She stood by her child, and her regard was on her husband. Then, for a moment, she met Blake's inquiring gaze. The slightest smile came on her lips, just a touch of colour in her cheeks.

"Yes, but it's time for him to go upstairs," she said.

Grantley had passed on to the table, and was pouring himself out a cup of tea. Sibylla walked across the room and rang the bell for the baby's nurse. Blake took up his hat.

The spell was broken. What had it been and why was it dispelled? Blake did not know, but turgid feelings mingled with his aspirations now, and he looked at Grantley Imason with a new covert hostility.

CHAPTER IX

A SUCCESSFUL MISSION

Efforts were on foot to avert the scandal and public disaster which so imminently threatened the Courtlands. Grantley Imason, who had a real friendship for Tom, interested himself in them. Not merely the home was in danger, but Tom's position and career, also Tom's solvency. He had always lived up to his income; now, without doubt, he was spending sums far beyond it; and, as has been seen, the precautions which he had declared he would use were falling into neglect as the sense of hopelessness grew upon his mind. From such neglect to blank effrontery and defiance looked as though it would be but a short step. And he refused obstinately to make any advances to his wife; he would not hear of suing for peace.

"My dear fellow, think of the children!" Grantley urged.

Poor Tom often thought of the children, and often tried not to. He knew very well where he was going and what his going there must mean to them. Yet he held on his way, obstinately assuring himself that the fault for which they must suffer was not his.

"I do think of them, but – It was past bearing, Grantley."

"I think you must have given her a real fright by now. Perhaps she'll be more amenable."

"Harriet amenable! Good Lord!"

"Look here, if she can be got to express regret and hold out the olive branch, you know, will you drop all this, and give the thing one more trial?"

It was a favourable moment for the request, since Tom happened to be cross with his pleasures too – they were so very expensive. He allowed himself to be persuaded to say yes.

But who was to beard Lady Harriet in her den? There was no eagerness to undertake the task; yet everybody agreed that a personal interview was the only chance. Grantley fairly "funked it," and honestly said so. Raymore's nerves were still so upset that his excuses were accepted – it was morally certain that Harriet, if she became angry, would taunt him about his boy. Selford? That was absurd. And it was not a woman's work. The lot fell on John Fanshaw – John, with his business prestige and high reputation for common sense. And Lady Harriet liked him best of them all. The choice was felt to be excellent by everyone – except John himself.

"Haven't I enough worries of my own?" he demanded. "Why the devil am I to take on Tom Courtland's too?"

"Oh, do try! It can't hurt you if she does fly into a passion, John."

He grumbled a great deal more; and Christine, in an unusually chastened mood, performed the wifely function of meeting his grumbles with mingled consolation and praise.

"Well, I'll go on Sunday," he said at last, and added, with a look across the table: "Perhaps some of my own troubles will be off my mind by then."

Christine flushed a little.

"Oh, I hope so," she said rather forlornly.

"I do hope so!" he declared emphatically. "I build great hopes on it. It is to-day you're going, isn't it?"

"Yes, to-day. After lunch I said I'd come."

"Did he write back cordially?"

"Well, what could the poor man do, John?"

"Ha, ha! Well, I suppose a fellow generally does answer cordially when a pretty woman proposes to call on him. Ha, ha!" John's hopes made him merry and jovial. "I say, I shall get back as early as I can from the City, and try to be here in time to welcome you. And if it's gone all right, why – "

"Don't let yourself be too sure."

"No, I won't. Oh, no, I won't do that!"

But it was not hard to see how entirely he built all his trust on this last remaining chance. He rose from the breakfast-table.

"All right. To-day's Thursday. I'll go to Lady Harriet on Sunday. Not much harm can happen in three days. Good-bye, old girl, and – and good luck!"

Christine suffered his kiss – a ceremony not usual to their daily parting in the morning. When he had gone, she sat on a long while behind the tea-things at the breakfast-table, deep in thought, trying to picture the work of the day which lay before her. It was extraordinarily hateful to her, and she had hardly been able to endure John's jocularity and his talk about pretty women coming to call.

Because there had once been some talk, she had told Caylesham that she would bring a friend with her, naming Anna Selford. Anna would go in with her, and wait in another room while they had their meeting. Caylesham thought this rather superfluous, but had no objection to make. He could not form any idea why she was coming, until it occurred to him that perhaps he had a few letters of hers somewhere, and that women were apt to get frights about letters, picturing sudden deaths, and not remembering that a wise man chooses a discreet executor. With this notion in his head he hunted about, and did find two or three letters. But they were quite harmless; in order to see this he read them through, and then laid them down with a smile. After a few moments of reflection he put them into an envelope, sealed them up, and placed them on a table by him, ready for Christine. He was a man of forty-five, and he looked it. But he was tall, thin, well set-up, and always exceedingly well turned-out. Beyond his rank and his riches, his only fame lay in sporting circles. He and John Fanshaw had first made acquaintance over horses, and he still went in for racing on a considerable scale. He was unmarried, and likely to remain so. There was a nephew to inherit: and he had pleased himself so much that he found it hard to please himself any more now. And he had, unlike Walter Blake, no aspirations. He had a code of morals, and a very strict one, so far as it went; but it was not co-extensive with more generally recognised codes.