Chapter IX

The ex-policeman-caretaker in Wilton Crescent was not wholly worthy of his office. He took enough care of Percy's note to place it in his pocket, but not enough to remember it for nearly a week. He then found it, displayed it to his wife, who advised its immediate posting; and thenceforward silence. It was only "the young gentleman," she said. All this was carried out; and the ex-policeman prepared an elaborate statement to be produced, if necessary, to the effect that he had certainly placed it in the pillar-box when he first opened the door to take in the milk, on the morning on which he had found it lying on the slab in the hall.

Two persons, therefore, were a little astonished, each at the other's silence: Miss Farham was surprised that not a word even of congratulation had reached her from Percy; and Percy was astonished to receive not even an acknowledgment of that which was considerably more than a word of congratulation.

Finally Miss Farham found it awaiting her in her flat late at night, undated, of course, except by the postmark; but such were its contents that she did not suspect any delay. It ran as follows:

" How can I tell you how impressed I have been? You are marvellous. And what you told me the other day makes me miserable. I hate to think that you are in trouble, and in such sordid trouble too. I must risk offending you once more by asking for the last time whether you

Digitized by Google will not give me the right to help you. When you went out towards the end of the last act I was nearly brokenhearted. Is there no hope for me at all?

" Yours devotedly,

" P. B.-S."

She read it through twice. Then she put it aside; and sitting down, still in her cloak and hat, began to open the others. They were precisely what she had expected them to be. Three were demands for the settlement immediately, of bills: the fourth was a receipt for a small account she had managed to pay. Then she took up Percy's note again. She was completely puzzled by it. It had seemed as clear as daylight to poor Percy, when he had written it in his excitement — an excitement generated by three glasses of hock on the top of a considerable emotion; he had wanted just then two things; first, simply to be allowed to help her so far as he could in her pecuniary straits, and, secondly, more of her confidence. It was later that his desires had become more complicated. They had sprung up, in their dim consciousness, after the writing of the letter, like weeds on a warm spring day. But to her it was not so simple. She could not, for the life of her, decide whether the two phrases "the right to help you" and "Is there no hope for me?" did or did not signify something a good deal more considerable.

She read the note through for the fourth and fifth time; and when she at last laid it down her fingers trembled a little; for she could not forget that Percy was wealthy, at least in prospect. And there were other causes too for her emotion.

She went straight to her desk and sat down at it, switching on the little electric standing-lamp.

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" Dear Mr. Brandreth-Smith," she wrote,

" I do not understand your note. Will you kindly come and call upon me here any afternoon next week except Saturday; between three and five?

" Yours sincerely,

"Gladys Farham."

And she directed it to his country address.

Meantime poor Percy's imagination had seized upon the delay and interpreted her silence into a thousand fantastic forms. He knew nothing whatever of human nature; at one time he imagined that she had cast him off for ever; at another that she was giving his suggestions serious consideration; at another that she described the whole story with jeering laughter to her "friend," whoever this might be. The one thing that he never contemplated even as a possibility was that she had not heard from him.

As was perfectly natural, therefore, the idea of proposing marriage to her, which he had just managed to resist at the close of his emotional evening in Wilton Crescent, became insistent, in spite of the disagreeable incident with regard to the Matthieson-Howleys.... His state of mind reached a kind of climax after a half sleepless night on the very morning he received her little note.

He had awakened about six, and found himself unable to sleep again; and had lain there, turning miserably from side to side in the dark, contemplating himself and her, da capo, from every possible aspect and point of view. He saw her now defiant, now kindly, now broken and unhappy: she seemed to him now and again even sinister and cruel. It is incredible, sometimes, how men and

Digitized by Google women will, respectively, misunderstand one another and read an endless elaborateness into situations of extreme simplicity. It was a windy morning outside, and, in the silence of the house, the sudden gusts against his window appeared to him terrible and threatening and suggestive of evil. There was not a detail of his mind which did not seem to be in relations with her. There were moments when she seemed wholly tragic; there were moments in which he remembered her kindliness and humour. He was only a boy still— easily moved and disturbed; he had met one of infinitely stronger personality than himself. She dominated him wholly.... It began to appear to him as if his fate stood or fell with hers; existence seemed meaningless without her. Oh! it was not the real thing; it was feverish and untrue; but he did not know that It seemed to him to have the genuine air of torture; to be so overpowering and masterful as to have extinguished all lesser emotions.

He turned and stared at the little wood and brass crucifix which he could faintly make out in the gloom above his bed: he groaned to it once or twice. Then again he shut his eyes and turned away. His religion seemed pale and colourless beside this passion.

He dozed off a little later, dreaming again of her. He awoke to find the room flooded with light and her note on the tray beside his bed.

Ill

At three o'clock that afternoon he stood by the door of her flat and pressed the bell.

His excitement was enormous.

He had come down to breakfast completely self-restrained and quiet. It had appeared to him that her

Digitized by Google note had been like a cool hand laid on his hot forehead. It solved nothing and told him nothing, except that she was not irreconcilably angry; and that the relief of that was complete, yet not sobering. Rather it seemed to him to open the door, perhaps for the last time. Yet even now he was not certain that he would do more than look through it. Again there had presented themselves to him all the objections he had already rehearsed.... It was enough, until he saw her, that he should see her.

He had been, then, quite quiet at breakfast. And when he had asked for the dog-cart to take him to the station, as he had promised to see Father Hilary some time this week and did not like to put it off any longer, his manner had caused no uneasiness. His mother had said that the dogcart was going in anyhow, and had told him not to miss the six o'clock train in the evening. She had manifested only the usual air of faint pity which she always showed now when he mentioned the priest.

The door was opened by a maid who showed him through into an empty drawing-room and said she would tell her mistress.

The room was just such a pleasant place as may be seen anywhere in the possession of a nice girl, except that the innumerable signed photographs which plastered one wall seemed excessive. It was white and light and airy; carpeted with dark rugs, furnished in chintz and oak: there were three or four mirrors, a couple of sofas, and a cage of singing birds. Yet to this poor boy it appeared a Paradise of delight. It seemed amazing to him that this should be her room... amazing that any mere place could be in such intimate relations with one who was the emotional centre of the world's Aife, A book lay face

Digitized by Google down and open on one of the sofas; he did not even dare to look at the title. He stood, motionless, with parted lips on the white hearthrug, afraid to move.

Then a door abruptly opened and she came in, a graceful figure. His heart stood still, and then raced.

She was quite grave, and rather white, and very selfcontrolled and dignified: her eyes were quite steady and questioning as she gave him her hand. In the other she held a scrap of paper.

" You'll forgive me asking you to come here," she said. " But I really thought we must have a proper talk. I don't understand at all. Sit down, please." (There was even a touch of severity in her tone.)

He sat down in silence.

" Here is your note," she said. " I don't understand in the least what you mean by it. What do you mean by ' a right to help you ' and ' having hope *? "

He put out his hand for it She gave it him and sat back. He read it through.

" Why didn't you answer it sooner? " he asked.

" Sooner! Why I answered it the same evening it came."

" What?"

" It came — let's see — by the last post on Tuesday "

" Tuesday — why I wrote it a week ago."

** It came on Tuesday," she repeated.

He drew a long breath of relief, and stared at her.

"Why, I thought you were angry. I... I can't tell

She jerked her head in a queer little impatient way she had.

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" Oh! don't let us discuss that/' she said. 99 I asked you to come to explain it Please tell me exactly what it means."

From the moment she had come into the room the last assault had begun. Her presence was to him so dominating and absorbing that his imaginative memories of her seemed shadowy and colourless after all. It was not her dress that he noticed — an hour later he could not have said anything about it, except vaguely that it was largely blue and had some fine needlework about the throat — yet her dress too, no doubt, contributed to his conquest. It was scarcely even her face, or her great quiet eyes or the masses of her hair, or her slender capable ringed hands or her dainty shoes, though his eyes wandered and rested on these. But it was that curious thing that is called magnetism, that quality which made her an actress of ability — that atmosphere that is neither solely physical, nor solely mental, nor solely spiritual, but a combination of at least two of these things. It was this of which he had caught a perfume in her very room, which he had breathed in deeply and strongly from the instant she entered, and which now saturated and dominated every thought and hope of his heart.

He looked at her again without speaking. He was charged with it all as a drunken man with wine — and it was intensified a hundredfold by his memory of her acting ten days ago. For very delight of the sensation he waited; and his inebriated will marshalled his other forces to their places.

"Well " she began: and stopped suddenly as she caught his eyes on hers.

Then he spoke — quite quietly, though his voice trembled a little once or twice.

" Listen," he said. " You know who I am and what

Digitized by Google my position is. You do not know, probably, that I am completely dependent on my mother. She could turn me out to-morrow if she wished, or could stop my allowance. My people are rather old-fashioned, too. They would look upon the stage as beneath them altogether, especially just now. They are trying, you know, to make a position for themselves in the county. Well, I must tell you all this first... and... and put myself entirely at your mercy...."

He dropped his eyes from her face. She sat as still as a stone.

"Well; knowing all this, I want to ask you whether you will marry me... as... as soon as it becomes possible."

He lifted his eyes again to her face, and saw how still more white it had become. Her long lashes lay on her cheek: he had not an idea of what she would say. Even at this moment, beneath his intoxication and recklessness, he could hear (so to speak) the loud clamor of prudence and commonsense. But he despised and mocked at the arguments. He felt a man as never before: for the first time since he had known her he was conscious of strength and a real virility: he was a man, now, and she a woman. •.. He was aware of a kind of triumph, and that this was independent of her answer.

Then she lifted her eyes to his, and he saw that they were full of tears.

" Yes," she said, " I will."

The wheels of the rolling train that carried him homewards sang in his ears a kind of deep full-throated chorus of joy. The black wet night outside glowed with the splendour which his own imagination cast into it. The

Digitized by Google warm lighted compartment in which he sat alone, was but a kind of phantom symbol of the new life in which he moved. The whole universe about him was as a whirling singing globe in the midst of which he rested inviolate and content....

They had been so sensible and business-like, these two, when the first few raptures had passed, and coherence had returned. She had told him of her life, and had promised to review her money matters once more and see what was the very least which would do — she hoped that perhaps thirty pounds would set her free for a year. And he, on the other side, had been very explicit indeed about his parents, and had even related the incident of the MatthiesonHowleys: and she had listened with divine patience and become, once more, still more adorably grave. And, together, they had decided that not a single step of any sort should be taken for at least six months, that no living being must be told, and that neither should make any move at all without the consent of the other. All that was to be allowed was that he should begin to lay the foundations, if he could, for some kind of independence to be secured to him, and that she, henceforward, should be extraordinarily careful in the matter of expenses.

They had even talked a little on religion — these two! — For Religion had come down again on Percy like a flood.... It appeared to him exquisite and wonderful that God had allowed such a joy to come to him. She was to call upon Father Hilary some time — say at the end of Lent — and while absolutely keeping secret any intention of hers to re-marry — for fear that details might leak out — was to begin to talk over the possibility of Instruction. It would be yet more exquisite and wonderful if they could be married as Catholics.... And she had appeared to consent to all this, and indeed to approve of it....

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All the way, then, in the train, and up in the brougham which his mother had sent as it was a wet night, life sang and triumphed in Percy. For the second time in his experience he had found the Secret of Existence; and now he perceived how the two were complementary one to the other, how the Love of the Creator which he had discovered in Catholicism was echoed and verified, so to speak, in the love of the creature. His friar-ideal seemed to him now a poor nerveless kind of thing: he smiled at its memory.... Of course he would have to tell Father Hilary — not, indeed, that he intended to be married, outright; but rather that his — well, his new responsibilities seemed to him very important; and.. • and that, well for the present, anyhow, he thought it but right to put away his first enthusiastic ideas. It was astonishing, he told himself, how a convert will get ideas in the first flush which need the correction of experience.

All then was glory with him as he came home, and sprang out of the brougham and into the warm bright hall.

Helen was crossing it as he came in, and stopped when she saw him. (How dull and ordinary she looked, he thought.)

" I say, have you heard about the Mains? " she said. " Are you just back? "

u Heard? No, of course I haven't."

Her face was all aglow with the excitement of giving startling news.

" Come in here/' she said; and drew him into the drawing-room. "It's too frightful!" she said, with scarcely repressed glee, " Mr. Main's become a Roman Catholic."

" What!"

"Yes: he has. Mr. Bennett's written to mother. And

Digitized by Google that's not all. Mrs. Main's written a book: and... and it's all about Hanstead." " But "

" It's all poking fun at the poor Vicar and... and lots of people. Mother's in it, too. I've got it upstairs, locked up. She doesn't know."

He looked at her, and even his exaltation was penetrated by the astonishingness of the news.

" And... and old Main's a Catholic."

She nodded, with dancing eyes.

"Well done, old Main!" said Percy. "I didn't think he'd got the pluck.... I say, lend me that book, won't you? I won't tell a soul."

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