Double Harness Part 67

"Yes, but then they wouldn't see you smile--and you've an adorable smile; and they wouldn't see the flash in your eyes--and you've such wonderful eyes, Sibylla."

He delivered these statements with a happy simplicity.

"You're not imposing on me," she said. "I know you mean it." Her voice trembled just a little. "And perhaps that's the best way to tell me."

"On the other hand, I shall become a persistent and accomplished hypocrite. You'll never know how I grind the faces of the poor at the bank, nor my inmost thoughts when Frank drops half his food on my best waistcoat."

"You're outrageous. Please stop, Grantley."

"All right. I'll talk about something else."

"I think I'd better find Christine. No, wait a minute. If you're going to do all these fine things, what have you planned for me?"

"Nothing. You've just to go on being what you can't help being--the most adorable woman in England."

"I don't know what you mean to do, but what you are doing is----"

"Making love to you," interposed Grantley.

"Yes, and in the most unblushing way."

"I'm doing the love-making, and you're doing the----"

"Stop!" she commanded, with a hasty merry glance of protest.

"You ought to be used to it. I've been doing it for a month now," he complained.

Sibylla made no answer, and Grantley lit a cigarette. When she spoke again she was grave and her voice was low.

"Don't make love to me. I'm afraid to love you. You know what I did before because I loved you. I should do it again, I'm afraid. I haven't learnt the lesson."

"Are you refusing the only way there is of learning it? How have I learnt all the fine lessons that I've been telling you?"

"I've not learnt the lesson. I still ask too much."

"If I give all I have, it'll seem enough to you. You'll know it's all now, and it'll seem enough. All there is is enough--even for you, isn't it?"

"You didn't give me all there was before."

"I had a theory," said Grantley. "I'm not going to have any more theories."

She turned to him suddenly.

"Oh, you mustn't ask--you mustn't stand there asking! That's wrong, that's unworthy of you. I mustn't let you do that."

"That was the theory," Grantley said with a smile. "That was just my theory. I'm always going to ask for what I want now. It's really the best way."

"We're friends, Grantley?" she said imploringly.

"Is that all there is? Would it seem to you enough?"

"And we've Frank. You do love him now, you know."

"In and through you."

She made no answer again. He stood with his eyes fixed on her for some moments. Then he took the telegram gently from her hand and went into the house with it, to seek Christine Fanshaw.

He left Sibylla in a turmoil of feeling. That she loved him was nothing new; she had always loved him, and she had never loved any other man in that fashion. The fairy ride had never been rivalled or repeated; and she had never lost her love for him, even when she hated him as her great enemy. It had always been there, whether its presence had been prized or loathed, welcomed or feared, whether it had seemed the one thing life held, or the one thing to escape from if life were to be worthy. Blake had not displaced it; he had been a refuge from it.

Grantley's offence had never been that he did not love her, nor that he could not hold her love; it was that he loved her unworthily and claimed to hold her as a slave. Her case was not as Christine Fanshaw's, any more than her temper was the temper of her friend. And now he came wooing again, and she was sore beset. So memory helped him, so the unforgettable communion of bygone love enforced his suit. Her heart was all for yielding--how should it not be to the one man whose sway it had ever owned? He was to her mind an incomparable wooer--incomparable in his buoyant courage, in the humour that masked his pa.s.sion, in the pa.s.sion which used humour with such a conscious art, feigning to conceal without concealing, pretending to reveal without impairing the secrecy of those impenetrable sweet recesses of the heart, concerning which conjecture beats knowledge and the imagination would not be trammelled by a disclosure too unreserved. But she feared and, fearing, struggled.

They were friends. Friends could make terms, bargains, treaties, arrangements. Friendship did not bar independence, absolute and uninfringed. Was that the way with love--with the love of woman for man, of wife for husband? No, old Nature came in there with her unchanging decisive word, against which no bargain and no terms, no theory and no views, no claims or pretensions, no folly and no wisdom either, could prevail. All said and done, all concessions made, all promises pledged, all demands guaranteed, they all went for little. The woman was left to depend on the trust she had, helpless if the trust failed her and the confidence were misplaced. If she were wrong about herself or about the man, there was no help for it. The love of the woman was, after all and in spite of all, surrender. Times might change, and thoughts and theories; this might be right which had been wrong, and that held wrong which had been accounted right. The accidents varied, the essence remained. The love of the woman was surrender, because old Nature would have it so. If she gave such love--or acknowledged it, for in truth it was given--she abandoned all the claims, the grievances, the wrongs, all that had been the basis of what she had done. She took Grantley on faith again, she put herself into his hands, again she made the great venture with all its possibilities. She had seemed wrong once. Would she seem wrong again?

There was a change in him: that she believed. Was there a change too in her? Unless there were, she did not dare to venture. Had all that she had suffered, all that she had seen others suffer, brought nothing to her? Yes, there was something. When you loved you must understand, and, knowing the truth, love that or leave it. You must not make an image and love that, then make another image and hate that. You must love or leave the true thing. And to do that there is needed another surrender--of your point of view, your own ideas of what you are and of how you ought to be treated. To get great things you must barter great things in return. There are seldom cheap bargains to be had in costly goods. Had not Grantley learnt that? Could not she? It took generosity to learn it.

Was she less generous than Grantley? The question hit her like a blow.

If Grantley had done as she had, would she still have loved, would she have come again to seek and to woo? Ah, but the case was not truly parallel. Grantley sought leave to reign again--to reign by her will, but still to reign. That was not what was asked of her.

Was it not? Eagerly stretching out after truth, seeking the bed-rock of deep truth, her mind, spurred by its need, soared above these distinctions, and saw, as in a vision, the union of these transient opposites. Was not to reign well to serve well, was not faithfully to obey the order of the universe to be a king of life? If that vision would abide with her, if that harmony could be sustained, then all would be well. The doubts and fears would die, and the surrender be a great conquest. When she had tried before, she had no such idea as this. Much had been spent, much given, in attaining to the distant sight of it. But if it were true? If Grantley, ever courageous, ever undaunted, had won his way to it and now came, in a suppliant's guise, to show her and to give her the treasures of a queen?

While she still mused, the little boy came toddling over the lawn to her side, holding up a toy for her interest and admiration. She caught him up and held him in her arms. Had he nothing to say to it all? Had he nothing to say? Why, his eyes were like the eyes of Grantley!

The clock of the old church struck five, and on the sound a cab appeared over the crest of the opposite hill. Sibylla, with Frank in her arms, watched its descent to Milldean, and then went into the house to put on her hat. In view of the ancient love between her and Mumples, it was her privilege to be the first to greet the returned wanderer; she alone would properly understand and share Mumples' feeling. For all her sympathy, Kate Raymore was a friend of too recent standing--she had not witnessed the years of waiting. Jeremy's affection was true enough, but Mumples feared the directness of his tongue and the exuberance of his spirits. Highly conscious of the honour done to her, somewhat alarmed at the threatened appeal to her ever too ready emotion, Sibylla went down the hill.

A pale frail old student with the hands of a labouring man--that was her first impression of Mumples' husband. He had the air of remoteness from the world and of having done with the storms of life which comes to men who have lived many years in a library; his face was lined, but his eyes calm and placid. Only those incongruous hands, with their marks of toil, hinted at the true story. He spoke in a low voice, as though it might be an offence to speak loud; his tones were refined and his manner respectful and rather formal. It was evidently unsafe to make any parade of sympathy with Mumples--she was near breaking-point; but the exchange of a glance, on which Sibylla ventured, showed that her agitation was of joy and satisfaction. Evidently the meeting had disappointed the worst of her fears and confirmed the dearest of her hopes.

"I have to thank you, madame," the old man said, "for the great kindness you and your family have shown to my wife during my absence."

"We owe her far more than she owes us. I don't know what we should have done without her."

"The knowledge that she had good friends did much to enable me to endure my absence," he went on. "She's looking well, is she not, madame? She appears to me less changed than I had thought possible."

Sibylla could not resist another quick glance at Mumples.

"And I haven't seen her for ten years."

He paused and looked at Sibylla in a questioning way.

"Don't worry any more about that, Luke," said Mrs. Mumples with her hand on his shoulder. "You knew what suited you best. What was the good of my coming, if it wasn't to be a comfort to you."

"It was selfish of me, madame; but you've no idea what it is to be in--in such circ.u.mstances as I was. I've been unfortunately a man of quick temper, and I couldn't trust myself in all cases. I got beside myself if I was reminded of the outside world--of all I was losing--how the years went by--of my wife, and the home and the life I might have had. It was because I loved her that I wouldn't see her----"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure of that," said Sibylla hastily.

"But it was selfish, as love sometimes is, madame. I ought to have put her first. And I never thought what it would mean to her when I did what brought me to that place. Well, I've paid for it with my life. They've taken my life from me."

"You've many years before you, dear," whispered Mrs. Mumple.

"I have so few behind me," he said. "They've blotted out two-thirds of my life. Looking back on it now, I can't see it as it was. It seems long, but very empty--a great vacant s.p.a.ce in my life, madame."

"Ah, but you've your home and your dear wife now--and we shall all be your friends."