Double Harness

Directly Christine came in, he noticed how pretty and dainty and young she looked; she, at least, pleased him still. He greeted her with great cordiality and with no embarrassment, and made her sit down in a chair by the fire. She was a little pale, but he did not observe that; what he noted – and noted with a touch of amusement – was that she met his eyes as seldom as possible.

"I really couldn't think to what I owed this pleasure – " he began.

But she interrupted him.

"You couldn't possibly have guessed. I've got to tell you that."

"It's not these?"

He held up the letters in their envelope.

"What are they?"

"Only two or three notes of yours – all I've got, I think."

"Notes of mine? Oh, put them in the fire! It wasn't that."

"I suppose we may as well put them in the fire," he agreed.

As the fire burnt up the letters, Christine looked at the fire and said:

"John has sent me here."

"John sent you here?"

He was surprised, and again perhaps a trifle amused.

"You don't suppose I should have come of my own accord? I hate coming."

"Oh, don't say that! We're always friends, always friends. But suppose you do insist on 'hating' to come – well, why have you come?"

She looked at him now.

"I couldn't help it. I refused at first, but I – I had no reason to give if I'd gone on refusing. He'd have – suspected."

"Ah!" The explanation drew an understanding nod from him.

"So I came. He's sent me to borrow money from you."

"To borrow money? What, is John – ?"

"Yes, he's in great difficulties. He wants a lot of money at once."

"But why didn't he come himself? It's rather odd to – "

"I suppose he hated it too. He has done it once. I mean, he's been to Grantley Imason. And – and he thought – you'd be more likely to do it if I asked."

"Did he? Does that mean – ?"

"No, no, not in the least. He only thought you were – that you liked pretty women." She held out a piece of paper. "He's put it all down there. I think I'd better give it to you. It says what he wants, and when he must have it, and how he'll pay it back. I promised to tell you all that, but you'd better read it for yourself."

He took the paper from her and studied it. She looked round the room, which she had known very well. It was quite unchanged. Then she watched him while he read. He had grown older, but he had not lost his attractiveness. For a moment or two she forgot the present state of things.

"Fifteen thousand! It's a bit of money!" This remark recalled Christine's thoughts. "Has Imason lent him that?"

"Yes, on the same terms that he suggests there."

"Well, Imason's a good fellow, but he's a banker, and – well, I should think he expects to get it back. I say, John's been having a bit of a plunge, eh? Consequently he's in deep water now? Is he very much cut up?"

"Terribly! It means ruin, and the loss of his reputation, and – oh, I don't know what besides!"

"Poor old John! He's a good chap, isn't he?"

She made no answer to that, and he muttered:

"Fifteen thousand!"

"Frank," she said, "I've done what I had to do, what I promised to. I've shown you the paper; I've told you how much this money means to us; I've told you it means avoiding ruin and bankruptcy and all that disgrace. That's what John made me promise to tell you, and its all I have to tell you from him. I've done what I said I would on his behalf."

"Yes, yes, that's all right. Don't distress yourself, Christine. I just want to have another look at this paper, and to think it over a little. It is a goodish bit of money, you know. But then old John's always been a good friend of mine, and if times weren't so uncommon bad – "

He wrinkled his brow over the paper again.

"And now I have to speak on my own account. Frank, you must find some good, some plausible, reason for refusing. You mustn't lend John the money."

"Hallo?"

He looked up from the paper in great surprise.

"You see, John doesn't know the truth," she answered.

He rose and stood by the fire, looking down on her thoughtfully.

"No, of course he doesn't, or – or you wouldn't be here," he said after a pause.

Then he fell into thought again.

"And if he did know, he'd never ask you for the money," she said.

Caylesham made a wry little grimace. That might be true of John, but he would hesitate to say the same about every fellow. Christine, however, did not see the grimace.

"And you don't want me to lend it – not though it means all this to John?"

"I don't want you to lend it, whatever it means. Pray don't lend it, Frank!"

"Is that – Well, I don't quite know how to put it. I mean, is that on John's account or on your own?"

"I can't give you reasons; I can't put them in words. It's just terribly hateful to me."

He was puzzled by the point of view, and still more by finding it in her. Perhaps the last six years had made a difference in her way of looking at things; they had made none in his.

"And if I do as you wish, what are you going to say to John? Are you going to say to him that in the end you told me not to lend the money?"

"Of course not. I shall say that you said you couldn't; you'll have to give me the reasons."

He looked discontented.

"It'll look rather shabby," he suggested.

"Oh, no! It's a large sum. It would be quite likely that it wouldn't be convenient to you."

"Is he expecting to get it?"

"I don't think that has anything to do with it. I suppose – well, drowning men catch at straws."

She smiled dolefully.

The phrase was unlucky for her purpose. It stirred Caylesham's pity.

"Poor old John!" he murmured again. "What'll he do if he doesn't get it?"

"I don't know – I told you I didn't know."

He was puzzled still. He could not get down to the root of her objection; and she could not, or would not, put it plainly to him. She could not express the aspect of the affair that was, as she said, so terribly hateful to her. But it was there. All she had given she had given long ago – given freely long ago. Now was she not asking a price for it – and a price which her husband was to share? Only on that ground really was she there. For now the man loved her no more; there was no glamour and no screen. After all these years she came back and asked a price – a price John was to share.

But the case did not strike Caylesham at all like this. John suspected nothing, or John would not have sent his wife there. John had been a very good friend, he would like to do John a good turn. In his case the very circumstances which so revolted Christine made him more inclined to do John a good turn. Although he could not pretend that the affair had ever made him uncomfortable, still its existence in the past helped John's cause with him now.

"You're not a very trustworthy ambassador," he said, smiling. "I don't think you're playing fair with John, you know."

"Why, do you – you – expect me to?" she asked bitterly.

He shrugged his shoulders in a discreet evasion, seeing the threatened opening of a discussion of a sort always painful and useless.

"John will take failure and all that devilish hard."

He took up the paper again and looked at it. He knew the business was a very good one; after such a warning as this a man would surely go steady; and Grantley Imason had lent money. He built a good deal on that. And – yes – in the end he was ready to run a risk, being a good-natured man and fond of John, and feeling that it would be a very becoming thing in him to do a service to John.

"Look here, I shall attend to your official message. I shan't take any notice of these private communications," he said lightly, but kindly, almost affectionately. "And you mustn't feel that sort of way about it. Why, I've got a right to help you, anyhow; and I can't see why I mustn't help John."

He went to the table and wrote. He came back to her, holding a cheque in his hand.

"Here it is," he said. "John will send me a letter embodying the business side. I've post-dated the cheque four days, because I must see my bankers about it. Oh, it's not inconvenient; only needs a few days' notice – and it'll be in time for what John wants. Here, take it, Christine."

He pressed the cheque into her hands, and with a playful show of force shut her fingers upon it.

"I know this has been a – a – " He looked round the room, seeming to seek an apt form of expression. "This has been an uncomfortable job for you, but you really mustn't look at it like that, you know."

"If you give it me, I must take it. I daren't accept the responsibility of refusing it."

He was quite eager to comfort her.

"You're doing quite right. You were perfectly square with me; now you're being perfectly square with John."

Perfectly square with John! Christine's lips curved in a smile of scorn. But – well, sometimes one loses the right or the power to be perfectly square.

"And I'm downright glad to help – downright glad you came to me."

"I only came because I couldn't help it."

"Then I'm downright glad you couldn't help it."

She had loved this unalterable good-temper of his, and admired the tactful way he had of humouring women. If they wouldn't have it in one way, he had always been quite ready to offer it to them in the other, so long as they took it in the end; and this they generally did. She rose to her feet, holding the cheque in her hand.

"Your purse, perhaps?" he suggested, laughing. "You see, it might puzzle your young friend. And give old John my remembrances – and good luck to him. Are you going now?"

"Yes, Frank, I'm going now."

"Good-bye, Christine. I often think of you, you know. I often remember – Ah, I see I mustn't often remember! Well, you're right, I suppose. But I'm always your friend. Don't be in any trouble without letting me know."

"I shall never come to you again."

He grew a little impatient at that, but still he was quite good-natured about it.

"What's the use of brooding?" he asked. "I mean, if you're running straight now, it's no good being remorseful and that sort of thing; it just wears you out. It would make you look old, if anything could. But I don't believe anything could, you know."

She gave him her hand. Her lips trembled, but she smiled at him now.

"Good-bye, Frank. If I have any hard thoughts, they won't be about you. You can always" – she hesitated a minute – "always disarm criticism, can't you?"

Caylesham stooped and kissed her hand lightly.

"Don't fret, my dear," he said. "You're better than most by a long way. Now take your cheque off to poor old John, and both of you be as jolly as you can." He pressed her hand cordially and led her to the door. "I'm glad we've settled things all right. Good-bye."

She shook her head at him, but still she could not help smiling as she said her last good-bye. With the turning of her face the smile disappeared.

Caylesham's smile lasted longer. He stood on his hearthrug, smiling as he remembered; and an idea which forced its way into his head did not drive away the smile. He wondered whether, by any chance, old John had any vague sort of – well, hardly suspicion – but some vague sort of an inkling. He would not have hinted that to Christine, since evidently she did not believe it, and it might have upset her. But really, in the end, was it not more odd to send Christine if he had no inkling at all than if he had just some sort of an idea that there was a reason why her request might be very much more potent than his own? He was inclined to think that John suspected just a flirtation. The notion made him considerably amused at John, but not at all angry with him. It was not a thing he would have done himself, perhaps. Still you can never tell what you will do when you are in a really tight corner. His racing experiences had presented him with a good many cases which supported this conclusion.

Christine felt very tired, but she was not going to give way to that; Anna Selford was too sharp-witted. She chatted gaily as they drove home, mainly about the subject which grieved them both so much – Mrs. Selford's taste in frocks. Matters were in an even more dire way now; Anna could get no frocks! Between pictures and dogs, she declared, her wardrobe stood no chance. Christine was genuinely unable to comprehend such a confusion of relative importance.

"I detest fads," she said severely.

"It doesn't give me a fair chance," lamented Anna, "because I should pay for dressing, shouldn't I, Mrs. Fanshaw?"

Christine reiterated her belief to that effect. It was a melancholy comfort to poor Anna.

"Suppose I'd been going to see Lord Caylesham, dressed like this!"

"My dear, he's old enough to be your father."

"That doesn't matter. He's so smart and good-looking. I see him riding sometimes with Mr. Imason, and he's just the sort of man I admire. I know I should fall in love with him."

Christine laughed, but turned her face a little away.

"I won't help you there; our alliance is only on the subject of frocks."

But how well she knew what Anna meant and felt! And now she was a trifle uneasy. Had any of that talk filtered through leaky Selford conversations to Anna's eagerly listening ears?

"Mamma once told me he'd been very, very wild."

"Stuff! They always say that about a man if he's a bachelor. Sheer feminine spite, in my belief, Anna!"

"What did you go to see him about? Oh, is it a secret?"

Christine was really rather glad to hear the question. It showed that nothing very much of the talk had filtered. And she had her story ready.

"Oh, about a horse. You know we've had to sell our bays, and he's got one that we thought we could buy cheap. John was so busy that I went. But, alas, it's beyond us, after all."

"Yes, you told me you'd sold a pair." Anna nodded significantly.

Christine smiled. She was reflecting how many crises of life demand a departure from veracity, and what art resides in the choice of a lie. She had chosen one which, implying that Anna was in her confidence, pleased and quieted that young woman, and sent her off home without any suspicions as to the visit or its connection with the financial crisis otherwise than through the horses.

She did not ask Anna in to tea, because John would be there, home early from the City, waiting. Now that the thing was done, she was minded to make as light of it as possible. Since she had been compelled to go, let John forget under what pressure and how unwillingly she had gone. Thus the faintest breath of suspicion would be less likely to rest on her secret. She trusted to her self-control; she would chaff him a little before she told him of the success of her mission.

But the first sight of his face drove the idea out of her head. It might be safer for her; it would actually be not safe for him. She was convinced of this when she saw the strain in his eyes and how his whole figure seemed in a tension of excitement. She closed the door carefully behind her.

"Well," he cried, "what news? By God, I've been able to do no work! I haven't been able to think of anything else all day. Don't – don't say you've failed!"

"No," she said, opening her purse, "I haven't failed. Here's a cheque from Lord Caylesham. It's post-dated, but only a day or two. That doesn't matter?"

She came to him and gave him the cheque. He put it on the table and rested his head on his arm. He seemed almost dazed; the stiffness had gone out of his body.

"By Jove, he's a good sort! By Jove, he is a good sort!" he murmured.

"He was very kind indeed. He made no difficulties. He said he was sure he could trust you, and was glad to help you. And he sent his remembrances and good luck to you, John."

She had taken off her fur coat and her hat as she was speaking, and now sank down into a chair.

"By Jove, he is a good sort!" John suddenly sprang up. "It means salvation!" he cried. "That's what it means – salvation! I can pay my way. I can look people in the face. I shan't bring the business to ruin and shame. Oh, I've had my lesson – I go steady now! And if I don't pay these good chaps every farthing call me a scoundrel! They are good chaps, Grantley and old Caylesham – devilish good chaps!"

"Don't go quite off your head, John dear! Try to take it quietly."

"Ah, you take it quietly enough, don't you, old girl?" he exclaimed, coming up to her. "But you've done it all – yes, by heaven you have! I know you didn't like it; I know you hated it. You're so proud, and I like that in you too. But it wasn't a time for pride, and you put yours in your pocket for my sake – yes, for my sake, I know it. We've had our rows, old girl, but if ever a man had a good wife in the end, I have, and I know it."

He caught hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet, drawing her towards him at the same time.

"Quietly, John," she said, "quietly."

"What, don't you want to give me a kiss?"

"I'll give you a kiss, but quietly. Poor old John!"

She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Now let me go! I – I'm tired."

"Well, you shall rest," he said good-naturedly, and let her go.

She sank back in her seat and watched him turn to the cheque again.

"It's salvation!" he repeated, and paid no heed to a sudden quick gasp of breath from her throat.

Even Caylesham would have allowed that he had no suspicion. But Christine sat a prey to vague forebodings. She felt as though the thing were not finished yet. The dead would not bury its dead.

CHAPTER X

THE FLINTY WALL

There was one point about Jeremy Chiddingfold's system of philosophy – if that name may be allowed to dignify the rather mixed assortment of facts and inferences which he had gathered from his studies: This point was that there was no appeal against facts. Nature was nature, feelings were feelings, and change was development. One thing was right to-day; it became wrong to-morrow without ceasing to have been right yesterday. Let there be an end of ignorant parrot-like chatter about inconsistency. Is evolution inconsistency? Inconsistency with what? He put this question and kindred ones quite heatedly to Mrs. Mumple, who did not at all understand them, and to whom they savoured of unorthodoxy; she had ever distrusted a scientific education. If Jeremy could have put his case in a concrete form, he would have won her sympathy. But she did not know where such general principles would stop, and she had heard that there were persons who impugned the authority of Moses.

Jeremy did not care much about Mrs. Mumple's approval, though he tried his arguments on her as a boxer tries his fists on a stuffed sack (she suggested the simile). He did not expect to convince her, and would have been rather sorry if he had. In her present mental condition she was invaluable as a warning and a butt. But it was exasperating that Mrs. Hutting should hold antique, ludicrous, and (in his opinion) in the end debased views about social intercourse between the sexes – in fact (to descend to that concrete which Jeremy's soul abhorred) about girls of seventeen taking walks with young men of twenty-two. Mrs. Hutting's views on this point imposed on Jeremy proceedings which he felt to be unbecoming to a philosopher. He had to scheme, to lie in wait, to plan most unlikely accidents, on occasion to palter with truth, to slip behind a waggon or to hide inside a barn. A recognition on Mrs. Hutting's part of nature, of facts, and of development would have relieved Jeremy from all these distasteful expedients.

But Mrs. Hutting was an old-fashioned woman. She obeyed her husband – usually, however, suggesting on what points he might reasonably require obedience. She expected her daughter to obey her. And she had her views, which she had enforced in a very quiet but a very firm way. Modern tendencies were not in favour at the rectory; that being established as a premise, it followed that anything which was disapproved of at the rectory was a modern tendency; wherefore clandestine and spuriously accidental meetings between young men and young women were a modern tendency, or, anyhow, signs of one – and of a very bad one too. No ancient instances would have shaken Mrs. Hutting on this point; the train of logic was too strong. Certainly Dora never tried to shake her mother's judgment, or to break the chain. For Dora was old-fashioned too. She admitted that clandestine and spuriously accidental meetings were wrong. But sometimes the clandestine character or the spuriousness of the accident could be plausibly questioned; besides, a thing may be wrong, and yet not be so very, very bad. And the thing may be such fun and so amusing that – well, one goes and tries not to be found out. On these ancient but not obsolete lines Miss Dora framed her conduct, getting thereby a spice of excitement and a fearful joy which no duly licensed encounters could have given her. But she had no doubt that Mrs. Hutting was quite right. Anna Selford's critical attitude towards her parents was not in the rectory way.

"Suppose she'd seen us!" Dora whispered behind the barn, as the rectory pony-chaise rolled slowly by.

"We're doing nothing wrong. I should like to walk straight out and say so."

"If you do, I'll never speak to you again."

"I hate this – this dodging!"

"Then why don't you take your walks the other way? You know I come here. Why do you come if you feel like that about it?"

Thus Dora fleshed her maiden sword. It was an added joy to make Jeremy do things which he disliked. And all this time she was snubbing him and his tentative approaches. Lovers? Certainly not – or of course she would have told mamma! Accepted Jeremy? No – she liked to think that she was trifling with him. In fine, she was simply behaving shamefully badly, in a rapturously delightful way; and to see a pretty girl doing that is surely a refreshing and rejuvenating sight!

Well, the word pretty is perhaps a concession to Jeremy. The only girl in the place is always pretty. Dora was, at any rate, fresh and fair, lithe and clean-limbed, gay and full of fun.

A dreadful peril threatened, with which Dora appalled her own fancy and Jeremy's troubled heart. At seventeen school is still possible – a finishing-school. Mrs. Hutting had brandished this weapon, conscious in her own mind that the rectory finances would hardly suffice to put an edge on it. Dora did not realise this difficulty.

"You remember that time we were seen? Well, there was an awful row, and mamma said that if it happened once again I should go – for a year!"

Jeremy felt that something must be done, and said so.

"What could I do?"

That was a little more difficult for Jeremy.

"You must take pains to avoid me," said Dora, schooling her lips to primness. "You don't want to get me sent away, do you?"

Certainly these spring months were very pleasant to Miss Dora. But, alas, calamity came. It happened in Milldean just as it might have happened in the West End of London. The school-teacher said something to the post-mistress. There was nobody much else to say anything – for the wise-eyed yokels, when they met the youth and the maid, gave a shrewd kindly nod, and went on their way with an inarticulate but appreciative chuckle. However the school-teacher did say something to the post-mistress, whence the something came to Mrs. Hutting's ears. There was another "row," no doubt even more "awful." The finishing-school was brandished again, but, after a private consultation on finance, put aside by the rector and Mrs. Hutting. Another weapon was chosen. Mrs. Hutting dictated a note, the rector wrote and sealed it; it was sent across to Old Mill House by the gardener, addressed to "Jeremy Chiddingfold, Esq." In fact no circumstance of ceremony was omitted, and Dora watched the messenger of tyranny from her bedroom window. In the note (which began "Sir") Jeremy was plainly given to understand that he was no gentleman, and that all relations between the rectory and himself were at an end.

Jeremy stumped up and down the room, furiously exclaiming that he did not care whether he was a gentleman or not. He was a man. That was enough for him, and ought to be enough for anybody. Mrs. Mumple was positively frightened into agreeing with him on this point. But however sound the point may be, relations with the rectory were broken off! What was to be done? Jeremy determined to go to town and lay before Grantley and Sibylla the unparalleled circumstances of the case. But first there was – well, there would be – one more stolen meeting. But it was not quite of the sort which might have been anticipated. Dora's levity was gone; she played with him no more. But neither did she follow the more probable course, and, under the influence of grief and the pain of separation, give the rein to her feelings, acknowledge her love, and exchange her vows for his. The old-fashioned standards had their turn; evidently the rectory upbraidings had been very severe. Every disobedience, every trick, every broken promise rose up in judgment, and declared the sentence to be just, however severe. Jeremy was at a loss how to face this. He had been so convinced that nature was with them, and that nature spelt rectitude. He was aghast at a quasi-theological and entirely superstitious view that no good or happiness could come out of a friendship (Dora adhered obstinately to this word) initiated in such a way. He refused to recognise her wickedness and even his own. When she announced her full acceptance of the edict, her determination to evince penitence by absolute submission, he could only burst out: