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He looked at her when he had finished, and, behind their smiles, each saw that the other was trying to make the best of things – that there was something now between them to be feared, which might rise up in the future and give them pain.
CHAPTER XVIII
Those aggressive impulses inherited from the pre-social state – those tendencies to seek self-satisfaction regardless of injury to other beings, which are essential to a predatory life, constitute an anti-social force, tending ever to cause conflict and eventual separation of citizens. – Herbert Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy.
Nina Lindon had by no means given up the pulse-stirring and secret drives with Geoffrey. The only thing she had given up was saying to herself that in the future she would not go any more. The result of this frequent yielding to inclination was that she was miserable enough when away from him and not particularly contented when with him. Between her and Margaret Mackintosh a coolness had arisen. Margaret was an unsuspicious person, but her affections had developed her womanhood, and in some mysterious way she had divined that Nina cared to be with Geoffrey more than she would confess. There was no jealousy on Margaret's side. She simply dropped Nina, and perhaps would have found it hard to say on what grounds. In such matters women take their impressions from such small occurrences that their dislikes often seem more like instinct even to themselves.
As for Nina, she had liked Margaret only with her better self, and now she had become conscious of a growing feeling of constraint when in her presence. The increasing frigidity with which the taller beauty received her seemed to afford ground for private dislike. She was unconfessedly trying to bring herself to hate Margaret, and was on the lookout for a reasonable cause to do so. To undermine a detested person treacherously would be far more comfortable than undermining a friend. The difficulty lay in being unable to hate sufficiently for the hate to become a support.
Later on in June a ball was given at Government House. The usual rabble was present. Margaret did not go, as her father happened to be ill at the time. Nina was there in full force. Geoffrey appeared late in the evening with several others who had been dining with him at the club. As the host he had been observing the hospitalities, and it took several dances to bring his guests down to the comfortable assurance that they really had their sea-legs on. They looked all right and perhaps felt better than they looked; but during the first waltz or two there seemed to be unexpected irregularities in the floor that had to be treated with care.
After a few dances, which Geoffrey found kept for him as usual, Nina and he disappeared – also as usual. Nina was not among the dissolving views who do nothing but dissolve. She was fond of her dancing as yet, and, as a rule, only disappeared once in the course of the evening. This sounds virtuous, but there is perhaps more safety in a plurality of disappearances.
The next day she telegraphed to some friends in Montreal, from whom she had a standing invitation, that she was coming to see them. They wired back that they would be charmed to see her. Then she telegraphed again: "Had arranged to stop at Brockville on my return from you, but have just heard that they go away in ten days. Would it be all the same if I went to you about Monday week?"
The answer came from Montreal: "That will suit us very well – though we are disappointed. Mind you come." Then Nina wrote and posted to her Montreal girl friend a note, in which she said: "If any letters should come for me just keep them until I arrive. I will go to Brockville now."
Jack Cresswell saw her off by the evening train, bought her ticket to Montreal, and secured her compartment in the sleeper. Her two large valises were carried into the compartment. She said she preferred to have her wearing apparel with her and not bother about baggage-checks.
When everything was settled in the compartment she said in a worried nervous way to Jack: "And I suppose you will be wanting me to write to you?"
"When you get a chance, Nina. It is not easy, sometimes, to get away, at a friend's house, to write letters. Don't write till you feel like doing so and get a good chance."
This was his kind, self-controlled way of taking her vexatious remarks. But to-day it seemed as if kindness was what she least wished to receive from him.
"If I waited till I wished to write to you I don't think I would ever write again."
"You don't quite mean that, Nina. You are worried and anxious to-night. It makes you unkind and fretful."
"Well, perhaps so," said Nina. "I think I danced too much last night. And this stupid affair of ours worries me. I want a change, and I am going to have it. No. I shall not write for at least ten days – perhaps two weeks, and you had better think over the advisability of getting somebody else to wear down to a shadow with a long engagement."
The bell was ringing for departure. Jack tried to make the best of it, and to excuse her inconsiderate remarks. "Remember," she repeated, "I shall not write for at least ten days, and you had better not write for a week or so either. I want a complete change."
This was so very decisive that Jack could hardly repress a sigh as he rose and said: "Well, good-by, old lady; I hope you will have a pleasant visit."
As he lightly kissed her cheek she stood before him as inanimate as marble. All at once it seemed dreadful to let him believe in her so thoroughly. A feeling of kindness toward him came over her – a moment of remorse – remorse for everything. The train was moving off now. She suddenly put her arms round his neck and burst into tears. Then she pushed him away. "Run quickly now and get off. Go at once – "
"But Nina, darling what is the matter?"
"Never mind – run, or you'll be killed getting off. I'm only worried. Good-by!" And she pushed him through the door.
Nina continued her passage to Montreal as far as Prescott, where she left the train with her luggage, and crossed the St. Lawrence to Ogdensburg.
CHAPTER XIX
E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn…
When Jack, with the agility of a railroad employé, landed on his feet all right, he stood watching the disappearing train, annoyed, disappointed, and mystified. He usually found moderate speech sufficient for daily use, and as he walked back slowly toward his club, all he said was: "Well, if all women are like Nina, I don't think I altogether understand them!"
He felt lonely already, and for diversion bethought himself of turning and going down to the Ideal to inspect the preparations for the race to be sailed on the following day. There he met Charley Dusenall, and as the yacht gently rose and fell on the slight swell coming in from the lake, these two sat watching some of the racing spars floating alongside and rolling about in the wavelets of the evening breeze, soaking themselves tough for the coming contest.
"What's the matter with you?" said Charley, noticing how grumpy and silent Jack was. "The old story, I suppose. Has Her Majesty gone back on you again?"
Jack grunted assent.
"Only pro tem., though?" asked Charley.
"Oh yes, only pro tem., of course, but still – "
"I know. Deuced unpleasant. But, after all, what does it matter about a woman or two when you have got a boat under you that can cut the eye-teeth out of an equinoctial and make your soul dance the Highland fling. Bah, chuck the whole thing up. Finish your grog and we'll have another. Vive le joy, as we say in Paris."
Jack's face grew less long. "That's all very well, but – "
"Rubbish! you want to hug your melancholy to yourself. Rats! whistle it down the wind. D'you think I don't know? Look at me! D'you think I haven't been through the whole gamut – from Alpha to Omaha – with all the hemidemisemiquavers thrown in? Lord, I have quavered whole nights. And I say that le jew ne vaut pas the candle."
"You are quite Frenchy to-night," said Jack, brightening.
"I always get more or less Parisian after eight o'clock at night. Dull as a country squire in the morning, though. Woke up awfully English, and moral to-day. By the way, you had better sleep on board to-night, so as to be ready in good time to-morrow. And don't be spoiling your nerves with the blues. I want you to tool her through to-morrow, and get over your megrims first. Remember this, that —
Womankind more joy discovers
Making fools than keeping lovers."
"Perhaps you are right," smiled Jack, getting up as if to shake himself clear of his gloom. "And yet —
To be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain."
"There isn't much the matter with you," said Charley, as he saw Jack swing over the water and make a gymnastic tour round a backstay. And when the second gun was fired the next morning, and the Ideal was preening her feathers as she swept through a fleet of boats, there was nothing very sad about Jack. When the huge club topsail, sitting flat as a board, caused her to careen gently as she zipped through the preliminary canter, and when in the race she drew out to windward, eating up into the wind every chance slant, Charley was watching how Jack's finger-tips gently felt the wheel, and how his eager eye took in everything, from the luff of the topsail to the ripples on the water or the furthest cloud, and he whispered in his ear: "What about Her Majesty just now, old man?"
Jack was too intent on getting up into a favoring breath of air to answer; but he tossed his head to signify that he was all right, and fell to marveling that he had not thought of Nina for a full hour.
In spite of the yachting, however, it was difficult to keep from being lonely at other times, especially at the chambers, because Geoffrey was out of town, taking his summer vacation, and Jack was forced to fly from the desolation in the city and pass most of his nights on the Ideal. This, with the afternoon sailing and a daily bulletin sent to Nina, addressed to Montreal, served to help him to pass away the time until the return of Geoffrey, who was greeted, as it were, with open arms. Their bachelor quarters were very homelike and comfortable. The sitting-room and library, which they shared together, always seemed a little lonely when either of them was absent.
Hampstead was pleased to get back to his luxurious arm-chair and magazines. Jack's unsuspicious and welcoming face gave the place all the restfulness of home after a period of more or less watchfulness against detection. They stretched out their legs from the arm-chairs in which they sat, and smoked and really enjoyed themselves in the old way among their newspapers and books. After having settled in New York, when he first came to America, Geoffrey had employed an old friend, on whose secrecy he could rely, to call at his father's house in Shropshire and procure for him all his old relics and curiosities. These the friend had sent out to him. Every one of them recalled some more or less interesting memory, and as they hung drying in the dust that Mrs. Priest seldom attempted to remove they were like a tabular index of Geoffrey's wanderings, on which he could cast his eyes at night and unconsciously drop back into the past. There were whips, Tartar bridles, Arab pipes and muskets, and old-fashioned firearms. No less than six cricket bats proclaimed their nationality, as an offset against the stranger trophies. There were foils and masks, boxing-gloves, fishing-rods, snow-shoes, old swords, and any quantity of what Mrs. Priest called "rotten old truck, only fit for a second-'and shop." Besides all this, there were hanging shelves, covered with cups and other prizes that Geoffrey and Jack had won in athletic contests. Even the ceiling was made to do duty in exhibiting some lances and a central trophy composed of Zulu assegais and Malay arrows and such things. These, with the large bookcases of books, and, of course, Mrs. Priest, constituted their Penates.
Here Geoffrey ensconced himself for several evenings after his return, immersed in his books until long after Jack had knocked out his last pipe and turned in. His manner of taking his holidays had been an episode which was forgotten now if anything arose to divert him, something for him to smile at, but powerless to distract his attention from a good article in the Nineteenth Century.
But he did not visit Margaret for three or four days after his return. When he saw her again, all his better nature came to the fore. He delighted again in the quiet worship he felt for her now that he could see more clearly the beauties of temperate life. "Now," he said, as he stretched himself in his arm-chair one night, after having visited Margaret earlier in the evening, "now, I will soon get married. With Margaret, goodness will not only be practicable, but, I can imagine, even enjoyable." Then, after a while, his mind recurred to his holidays, which seemed to have been a long time ago. He yawned over the subject, and thought it was time to go to bed. "Heigh-ho! I have exhausted the devil and all his works now. He has got nothing more to offer me that I care to accept. Now I have done with risks and worries. If I can only get my money affairs straightened out I'll get married in September. Federal stock is bound to rise, with the new changes in the bank, and then I'll be all right. I'll just let Lewis have my horse and trap. He'll give me more than I paid for them. The seven hundred will wipe out a few things, and then if I can turn myself round again, I'll get married at once."
For several days after this he saw Margaret; and the more he saw of her the more he really longed for the life that seemed best. He was tired of plot and counterplot. As one whose intellect was generally a discerning one, when not clouded by exciting vagaries, he had had, all his life, the idea of enjoying goodness for itself – at some time or other. And entering Margaret's presence seemed like going to a pure spring fountain from which he came away refreshed. She had the quick brain that could skim off the best of his thought and whip it up and present it in a changed and perhaps more pleasing form. Even the look of her hands, the way she held up cut flowers, and delighted in their faintest odors (to him quite imperceptible) showed how much keener and more refined her sensibilities were than his own and made him marvel to find that in some respects she lived in a world wherein it was a physical impossibility for him to enter. As the days wore on in which he daily saw her, he found himself making little sacrifices for her sake, and even practicing a trifle of self-denial. He did things that he knew would please her, and afterward he felt all the healthy glow and ability for virtue which are the essences that gracious deeds distill. "Doing these things makes me better," he said. "This moral happiness is a thing to be worked up. I can not cultivate goodness in the abstract. I must have something tangible – something to understand; and if good deeds pay me back in this sort of way I may yet become, partly through my deeds, what she would wish me to be."
Full of all this, while ruminating late one night, he took it into his head to put it into verse, and he rather liked the simple lines.
TO MARGARET
I
My Love! I would Love's true disciple be,
That, 'neath the king of teachers' gracious art,
Refined sense and thought might be to me
The stepping-stones to lead me to thy heart;
That thine own realm of peace I too might share.
Where Nature's smallest things show much design
To teach kind thoughts for all that breathe; and where,
As music's laws compel by rule divine,
Naught but obeying good gives joy and rest;
Where thou can'st note the immaterial scent
Of thought and thing, which we gross men at best
Can hardly know, with senses often lent
To heavy joys that leave us but to long
For that unknown which makes thyself a song.
II
From gracious deeds exhale the perfumes rare
Of active rest, glad care, and hopeful trust
The soul snuffs these, well pleased, and seems to share,
For once, a joy in concord with the dust.
Thus simple deeds, through Love, make known th' unknown —
That immaterial most substantial gain
Which makes of earth a heaven all its own.
And claims from spirit-land no sweeter reign.
So, while I learn in thine own atmosphere
To live, guard thou with patience all my ways,
For chance compels when weakness rules, and fear
Of self brings blackest night unto my days;
E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn,
And darkness breaks before the blushing morn.
He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language – whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more likely, the song that perfect love sings in the heart has no possible language, but is part of 'the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world,' and to which we have all been trying to put words, in religions and poems.
"In twenty thousand years from now," he said, smiling, "archæologists will be fighting over a discussion as to whether, in these early days, any superstition still existed. Just before they come to blows over the matter my sonnets will be found, produced, and deciphered, and there will be rejoicing on one side to have it proved that at a certain time Anno Domini (an era supposed to refer to one Abraham or Buddha) man still claimed that a local god existed called 'Margaret,' who was evidently worshiped with fervor.
"But certainly," he added, as he read the sonnet for the third time, "their mistake will not be such a palpable one as that about the Song of Solomon."
CHAPTER XX
Never but once to meet on earth again!
She heard me as I fled – her eager tone
Sank on my heart, and almost wove a chain
Around my will to link it with her own,
So that my stern resolve was almost gone.
"I can not reach thee! whither dost thou fly?
My steps are faint. Come back, thou dearest one!
Return, ah me! return!" – The wind passed by
On which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.
Shelley, The Revolt of Islam.
After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything from hara-kari to marrying somebody else.
At this time Geoffrey received a note one morning, addressed in Nina's handwriting. He turned pale as he tore it open:
"Dear Mr. Hampstead: I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five o'clock?
"Yours sincerely,
"Mossbank, Tuesday.
"Nina Lindon."
There was nothing very exciting on the face of this line, nothing to create wrath. Yet Geoffrey tore it into shreds as if it had struck him a blow and was dangerous.
When he was shown into the drawing-room at Mossbank that afternoon, he was stepping forward with courteous demeanor and a faint "company smile" on his face, ready to look placidly and innocently upon any people who might be calling at the time. He passed noiselessly over the thick carpets toward the place where Nina was sitting, seeing quickly that there was nobody else in the room, but aware that the servant was probably at the door.
"How-de-do, Miss Lindon?" he said aloud, for the benefit of the inquisitive. "So you have come back to Toronto at last?"
"Yes," said Nina, also with an engaging smile. "And how have you been since I saw you last?" There was a charming inflection in her "company voice" as she said these words. Then, raising her tone a little, she said "Howard."
The servant outside the door took several steps in a circle on the tesselated pavement of the hall to intimate that he approached from afar and then appeared.
"Shut the door, please, Howard," said Nina softly. The man obliterated himself.
As soon as they were alone the heavenly sweetness of the caller and the called upon vanished. Geoffrey's face became grave and his eyes penetrating. He went toward her and took her hand in an effort to be kind, while he looked at her searchingly with a pale face. Nina looked weary and anxious. Neither of them spoke for a while. As Geoffrey regarded her, she turned to him beseechingly with both anxiety and affection in her expression. What he interpreted from the unhappiness of her visage was more than sufficient to disturb his equanimity. He got up and walked silently and quickly twice backward and forward. During this moment his mind apparently made itself up on some point finally, for, as he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, the tension of his face gave place to something more like nonchalance and kindness.
"You have something to tell me?" he said, in tones that endeavored to be kind.
Nina's face – sad, sorrowful, and tearful – bent itself low that she might hide it from his sight. "Yes," she managed to say at last, almost inaudibly.
Geoffrey endeavored to assist her. "Don't say any more," said he. "Bad news, I suppose?"
"The very worst," cried Nina, starting up, her eyes dilating wildly and despairingly with a sudden accession of fear.
"Hush, hush!" said Geoffrey, laying his hand soothingly and kindly on her arm. "You must not give way like that. You must control yourself. We have both of us too much at stake to tell our story to every one who likes to listen. Come and let us sit down and talk things over sensibly."
She gave him a quick look, half reproach, as if to say, "It is easy for you to be calm." But she sat down beside him, holding his coat-sleeve with both hands – hardly knowing what she did.
Hampstead leaned back, crossed his long legs in front of him, and counted the eyelet holes in his boot. Then he took her hand, in order to appear kind and to deal with the matter in an off-hand way.
"As Thackeray says, Nina, 'truly, friend, life is strewn with orange-peel.' Now and then we get a bad tumble; but we always get up again. And I don't think that we ought to allow ourselves to be counted among those weak creatures who most complain of the strength of a temptation that takes at least a year to work up. After all, there is no denying Rochefoucauld's wisdom when he said: 'C'est une espèce de bonheur de connaitre jusques à quel point on doit être malheureux.' I have been in a good many worries one way or another, and I always got out of them. We will get out of this one all right, so cheer up and take heart."
"I don't see how," said Nina, turning her head away and feeling a sudden hope. What was he going to say? Then she recollected that she had lavished a small income on a dress especially for this interview. Perhaps if he had an idea worth the hearing the dress might help it out. She arose, as if absently, and walked to the side window and rested her elbows against the sash in front of her. The attitude was graceful. As she turned half over her shoulder to look back at him she could hardly have appeared to better advantage. Her dress was really magnificent, and it fitted a form that was ideal. In spite of his late resolutions, Geoffrey was affected by the cunningly devised snare. A quick thought came through his head, which he banished about as quickly as it came.
"Well, of course, there is only one thing to be done," said he decisively, in a tone which told her that so far she had failed.
"What is that, dear Geoffrey? Do tell me, for I am very, very miserable. And say it kindly, Geoffrey. Don't be too hard with me now."
As she said this she swept toward him. She sank down beside him and kissed him, and looked up into his face. Again the thought came to him. Here were riches. Here was a woman whose beauty was talked about in every city in Canada, who could be his pride, who cared for him despairingly. If he wished, this mansion and wealth could be his. The delicate perfumes about her seemed to steal into his brain and affect his thought.
An hour ago his resolves for himself had appeared so unchangeable that they seemed of themselves to prop him up. And now he found himself trying, with a brain that refused to assist him, to prop up his resolutions, trying to remember what their best merits had been. One glimmer of an idea was left in him – a purpose to preserve his fealty to Margaret, and he thought that, if he could only get away for a moment to think quietly, he might remember what the best points of his resolutions had been. The perfumes, the beauty, the wealth, the liking he felt for her, the duty he owed to her, and perhaps her concentration upon what she desired – all conspired against him. But, with this part of an idea left to him, he succeeded in being able slightly to turn his head away.
When she asked him again what was to be done there was an unreal decisiveness in his voice as he said:
"Of course, the only thing to be done is for you to immediately marry Jack."
She sprang from him as if he had stabbed her. She was furious with disappointment.
"I will never marry Jack! What a dishonorable thing to propose!"
The idea of dishonor to Jack seemed, for the first time, quite an argument. When the ethics of a matter can be utilized they suddenly seem cogent.
"Very well," said Geoffrey, shrugging his shoulders and rising as if to go away. "My idea was 'any port in a storm' – a poor idea, perhaps, and certainly, as you say, entirely dishonorable, but still feasible. Of course, if you have made up your mind not to marry him, we may as well consider the interview as ended. I'm afraid I have nothing more to suggest."
He did not intend to go away, but he held out his hand as if about to say good-by. She stood half turned away trying to think. The idea of his leaving her to her trouble dazed her. She was terrified to realize that she would be without help.
"Oh, how cruel you are!"
She almost groaned as she spoke. She was in despair. She put her hands to her head hopelessly, her eyes dilated with trouble.
"Don't go yet, Geoffrey." Then she tried to nerve herself for what she had to say. After a pause: "Geoffrey, I can say things to you now, that I could never have said before. I must speak to you fully before you go. I must leave no stone unturned. There is no one to help me, so I must look after myself in what must be said. I went away with you, Geoffrey, because I loved you." She bit her lips to stay her tears and stopped to regain a desperate fortitude. "I cared for you so much that being with you seemed right – nay more, sacred. Oh, it drags me to the dust to speak in this way! But I must. Does not my ruin give me a right to speak? The question of a girl's reticence must be put away. I am forced to do the best I can for myself. And now I say, will you stand by me?" Her head drooped and her hands hung down by her side with shame at the position she forced herself to take when she added: "Will you do me justice, Geoffrey? Will you marry me?"
Hampstead was about to speak, but she knew at once that she had asked too much, and she continued more quickly and more despairingly: "Nay, I won't ask so much. I only ask you to take me away. I am distracted. I don't know what to do. I will do anything. I will be your slave. You need not marry me – only take me away and hide me – somewhere – anywhere – for God's sake, Geoffrey, from my shame – from my disgrace."
She was on her knees before him as she said these last words. If our pleasure-loving acquaintance could have changed places with a galley-slave at that moment he would have done so gladly.
The first thing he did was to endeavor to quiet the wildness of her despair. To be surprised by any person with her on her knees before him in an agony of tears would be a circumstance difficult to explain away.
As soon as he began to talk, it seemed to him a most dastardly thing to sacrifice Margaret's life now to conceal his own wrong-doing. In the light of this idea, Nina's wealth and beauty suddenly became tawdry. Margaret's nobility and happiness suddenly seemed worth dying for. They must not be wrecked in a moment of weakness. As if dispassionately, he laid before Nina the history of their acquaintance, and also his 'other obligations.' Really, it placed him in a very awkward, not to say absurd, position. He wished to do what was right, but did not see his way at all clear. The only way was to efface himself entirely, and consider only what was due to others. Before the world he was engaged to Margaret, and had been so all along. She had his word that he would marry her. If it were only "his word" that had to be broken, that might be done. But was the happiness of Margaret's life to be cast aside? Which, of the two, was the more innocent – which, of the two, had the better right or duty to bear the brunt of the disaster?
The way he effaced his own personality in this discourse was almost picturesque. Justice blindfold, with impartial scales in her hand, was nothing to him.
Nina said no word from beginning to end. All she heard in the discourse was something to show her more and more that what she wished must be given up. It was something to know that at least she had tried every means in her power to move him – feeling that she had a helpless woman's right to do so. And as the deep, kindly tones went on they calmed her and gradually compelled her tacitly and wearily to accept his suggestion, while his ingenuity showed her the sinuous path that lay before her.
At the same time, in spite of all his arguments and her own resolutions, she could not clearly see why she should be the one to suffer instead of Margaret. Margaret had so much more strength of character to assist her. The ability to bear up under sorrow and trouble was a virtue she was ready to acknowledge to be weaker in herself than in others. The confession of this weakness, through self-pity, seemed half a virtue, even though only made to insist upon compensations.
