Double Harness

"Much good it's done me, my dear!" she sighed. "But people who've not got looks never will believe how little good they are. Oh, I didn't mean to be rude, Anna! I believe in you, you know. I can do something with you. Only----" She stopped, frowning a little and looking vaguely unhappy. "Well," she resumed, "if it turns out that I can't take you under my wing, we must get hold of Sibylla. She's always ready to do things for people--and they've got lots of money, anyhow."

Anna's curiosity was turned in the direction of Sibylla.

"What was the truth about Mrs. Imason, Mrs. Fanshaw?"

"I made sure you'd know that too!" smiled Christine. "And if you don't, I suppose I oughtn't to tell you."

"I know she--she had an accident."

"Oh, well, everybody knows. Yes, she had, and they thought it was worse than it was. The country doctor down at Milldean made a mistake--took too serious a view, you know. And--and there was a lot of bother. But the London man said it would be all right, and so it turned out. The baby came all right, and it's a splendid boy."

"It all ended all right, then?"

Christine looked a little doubtful.

"The boy's all right, and Sibylla's quite well," she answered.

"But mamma said Mrs. Raymore hinted----"

"Well, Sibylla wouldn't believe the London man, you see. She thought that he--that he'd been persuaded to say she needn't have the operation she wanted to have, and that they meant to---- Well, really, Anna, I can't go into details. It's quite medical, my dear, and I can't express myself discreetly. Anyhow Sibylla made a grievance of it, you know, and relations were a little strained, I think."

"Oh, well, I suppose that's over now, since everything's gone right, Mrs. Fanshaw?"

"It ought to be," said Christine, shy of a.s.serting the positive fact.

"But very often fusses about nothing do just as much harm as fusses about something big. It's the way one looks at them."

"Yes, I ought to know that, living in our house," remarked Anna Selford.

"You do give your parents away so!" Christine complained, with a smile in which pity was mingled.

The pity, however, was not for the betrayed, but for the traitor. Anna's premature knowingness and the suggestion of hardness it carried with it were the result of a reaction against the atmosphere of her home, against the half-real gush and the spasmodic emotionality of the family circle. In this revolt truth a.s.serted itself, but sweetness suffered, and freshness lost its bloom. Christine was sorry when that sort of thing happened to young girls. But there it was. Anna was not the _ingenue_, and it was no good treating her as if she were.

"I'm really half glad you don't live in this house. I'm sure John and I couldn't bear the scrutiny--not just now, anyhow." She answered Anna's questioning eyes by going on: "Oh, it's terrible, my dear. We've no money--now, really, don't repeat that! And John's full of business worries. It's positively so bad that I have to try to be amiable about it!"

"I'm so sorry, and I really won't talk about it, Mrs. Fanshaw."

"No, don't, my dear--not till we're in the bankruptcy court. Then everybody'll know. And I daresay we shall have some money again; at least bankrupts seem to have plenty generally."

"Then why don't you?"

"Anna! John would cut his throat first. Oh, I really believe he would!

You've no idea what a man like him thinks of his business and of his firm's credit. It's like--well, it's like what we women ought to think (again Christine avoided a.s.serting the actual fact) about our reputations, you know. So you may imagine the state of things. The best pair is being sold at Tattersall's this very day. That's why I'm indoors--cabs are so cold and the other pair will have to go out at night."

s.h.i.+veringly she nestled to the fire again.

"I'm so awfully sorry, Mrs. Fanshaw! It'll all come right, won't it?"

"It generally does; but I don't know. And John says I've always been so extravagant--and I suppose I have. Well, I thought it was just that John was stingy. He had a splendid business, you know." She paused

Christine was not in the habit of giving praise beyond measure or without reservation either to herself or to other people, and she had done no more than justice to her present effort to be amiable. Money was the old cause of quarrel between her husband and herself; the alternation of fat and lean years had kept it always alive and intermittently active. But hitherto, while the fat seasons had meant affluence, the lean had never fallen short of plenty or of solvency. It had been a question of more or less lavish expenditure; that was all.

Christine was afraid there was more now. Her husband was worried as he had never been before; he had dropped hints of speculations gone wrong and of heavy commitments; and Christine, a constant glancer at City articles and an occasional dabbler in stocks, had read that there was a crisis in the market in which he mainly dealt. Things were black; she knew it almost as well as he. Both showed courage, and the seriousness of the matter forbade mere bickering. Nor was either invulnerable enough to open the battle. Her extravagance exposed her to attack; he was conscious of hazardous speculations which had wantonly undermined the standing, and now threatened the credit, of a firm once strong and of excellent repute. Each needed at once to give and to receive charity.

Thus from the impending trouble they had become better friends, and their underlying comrades.h.i.+p had more openly a.s.serted itself. This amount of good there was in it, Christine thought to herself; and John, in his blunt fas.h.i.+on, had actually said as much to her.

"We're in the same boat, and we must both pull at our oars, old girl,"

he said, and Christine was glad he should say it, although she hated being called "old girl." John had a tendency towards plebeian endearments, she thought.

So the best pair went to Tattersall's, and some of the diamonds to a corresponding establishment in the jewellery line; and various other things were done or attempted with the view of letting free a few thousand pounds and of diminis.h.i.+ng expenditure in the future. But John Fanshaw's brow grew no clearer. About these sacrifices there hung the air of doing what was right and proper--what, given the worst happening, would commend itself to the feelings of the creditors and the Official Receiver--rather than of achieving anything of real service. Christine guessed that the speculations must have been on a very large scale and the commitments very heavy. Could it be that ruin--real ruin--was in front of them? She could hardly realise that--either its coming or what life would be after it had come. And in her heart--here too she had said no more than truth--she did doubt whether John would stay in the world to see. Well, what could she do? She had three hundred a year of her own tied up, and (since they had no children) to go back to her people on her death. If the ruin came, she could find crusts for herself and John--if John were there. These were the thoughts which had kept intruding into her mind as she talked to Anna Selford and s.h.i.+vered now and then over the blazing fire. Yet she could face them better than John, thanks to a touch of fatalism in her nature. She would think of no violent step to avoid what she feared. Hating it, she would sit s.h.i.+vering by the fire, and wait for it all the same. She knew this of herself, and therefore was even more sorry for John than on her own account. This state of mind made the amiability easier. It also awoke her conscience from a long sleep with regard to the way in which she had treated John in the past. Against this, however, she struggled not only fiercely, but with a conviction of justice. Here conscience was overdoing its part, and pa.s.sing from scrupulousness to morbidity. The thing in question, the thing conscience had awoken about, belonged to the far past; it had been finished off and written off, enjoyed and deplored, brooded over and violently banished from thought, ever so long ago. Hardly anybody knew about it; it was utterly over. None the less, the obstinate irrational digs which conscience--awake again--gave her about it increased as John's face grew gloomier.

Late in the afternoon John Fanshaw came to his wife's room for a cup of tea.

"The pair went for only two hundred and forty-five," he said; "I gave four hundred for them six months ago. Ah, well, a forced sale, you know!"

"It doesn't make much difference, does it?" she asked.

"No," he said, absently stirring his tea. "Not much, Christine."

She sat very quiet by the fire watching him; her screen was in her hand again.

"It's no use, we must face it," he broke out suddenly. "Everything's gone against me again this week. I had a moral certainty; but--well, that isn't a certainty. And----"

He took a great gulp of tea.

A faint spot of colour came on Christine's cheek.

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"I've been to see Grantley Imason to-day. He behaved uncommonly well.

The bank can't do anything more for me, but as a private friend----"

"Had you to ask him for money, John?"

"Well, friends often lend one another money, don't they? I don't see anything awful in that. I daren't go to the money-lenders--I'm afraid they'll sell the secret."

"I daresay there's nothing wrong in it. I don't know about such things.

Go on."

"He met me very straight; and I met him straight too. I told him the whole position. I said, 'The business is a good one, but I've got into a hole. Once I get out of that, the business is there. On steady lines (I wish to G.o.d I'd kept on them!) it's worth from eight to ten thousand a year. I'll pay you back three thousand a year, and five per cent. on all capital still owing.' I think he liked the way I put it, Christine. He asked if he could take my word for it, and I said he could; and he said that on the faith of that he'd let me have fifteen thousand. I call that handsome."

"Grantley always likes to do the handsome thing." She looked at him before she put her question. "And--and is that enough?"

He was ashamed, it was easy to see that--ashamed to show her how deep he was in the bog, how reckless he had been. He finished his tea, and pottered about, cutting and lighting a cigar, before he answered.

"I suppose it's not enough?" said Christine.

"It's no use unless I get some more. I don't know where else to turn, and I must raise thirty thousand in a fortnight--by next settling day--or it's all up. I shall be hammered, Christine."

"If we sold up absolutely everything----?"

"For G.o.d's sake no! That would ruin our credit; and then it wouldn't be thirty thousand we should want, but--oh, I don't know! Perhaps a hundred! We've sold enough already; there's nothing more we can do on the quiet."