Double Harness Part 30

He found himself wishing he had known of the thing at the time. It would have been a fearful shock, but by now he would have grown used to it.

Something would have been done, or, if nothing had been done, the thing would have become ancient history--a familiar fact to which they would have adjusted themselves. It was awful to be told of it now, when it seemed too late to do anything, when the wound was so old, and yet the smart of it so fresh!

And she had been such a good wife--yes, on the whole. Their bickerings had been only bickerings, and he had often been as much to blame as she.

On the whole, she had been such a loyal friend and such a comforting companion. He had liked even her acid little speeches--on the whole. He had always thought her not very demonstrative perhaps, but very true--true as steel. Cold perhaps--he had felt that and resented it sometimes--but always true. He had never had a misgiving as to that in all his married life.

When he got home he went straight to his study and sat down at his writing-table. It was one o'clock, and Christine would have gone to bed--he was glad of that. He made an effort to collect his mind, because the immediate question was not of what Christine had done, not of the blow to him, not whether he wanted to see Christine or even could bear to see her, not of the change all his life and all his ideas had undergone. There was plenty of time to think of all that later on. He must think now of the other thing--of how he stood and of what he was going to do.

He took out his keys and unlocked the despatch-box that stood on the table. After pausing to take a drink of whisky and water, he opened the upper drawer and drew forth Caylesham's cheque for fifteen thousand pounds. It had been post-dated to the Monday--it was already Monday now.

In nine hours it was to have been credited to his account at the bank, ready to answer his obligations, to discharge his commitments, to rea.s.sure his creditors, to drive away all the clouds which had obscured the fair fame of his firm. Caylesham's cheque and Grantley's were to have been salvation. Grantley's alone was no use. And Caylesham's--he held it in his fingers and looked at it with a poring scrutiny.

Twice he reached for an envelope, in the mind to send it back--to send it back either with the truth or with a lie. Once he took hold of either end, as though to tear it across. But a paralysis fell on his fingers.

How should he send back, how should he destroy, that all-potent little slip of paper? It meant credit, honour, comfort, peace--perhaps even life. His imagination pictured two scenes--going to the City, to his office, next day, with that slip of paper; and going without it. The sketch was enough--his thoughts were too busy to fill in the details.

One picture meant a gradual ascent from out of all his troubles; the other, a fall into a gulf of calamity unfathomable. His hands refused to destroy or to send back the cheque.

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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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.