Double Harness

He bowed politely as she pa.s.sed out of the room. Then he sat down at the table again and rested his head on both his hands. It took long--it took a very long while. She was hard to subdue. Hard it was too to subdue himself--to be always courteous, never more than permissibly ironical, to wait for his victory. Yet not a doubt crossed his mind that he was on the right track, that he must succeed in the end, that plain reason and good sense must win the day. But the fight was very long. His face looked haggard in the light as he sat alone by the table and told himself to persevere.

And Sibylla, confirmed in her despair, bitterly resentful of the terms he had proposed, seeing the hopelessness of her life, fearing to look on the face of her child lest the pain should rend her too pitilessly, sat down and wrote her answer to Walter Blake. The answer was the promise he had asked.

The images had done their work--hers of him and his of her--and young Blake's fancy picture of himself.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DEAD AND ITS DEAD

"Well, have you managed to amuse yourself to-day?" asked Caylesham, throwing himself heavily on a sofa by Tom Courtland, and yawning widely.

He had dropped in at Mrs. Bolton's, after dinner. Tom had spent the day there, and had not managed to amuse himself very much, as the surly grunt with which he answered Caylesham's question sufficiently testified. He had eaten too much lunch, played cards too long and too high, with too many "drinks" interspersed between the hands; then had eaten a large dinner, accompanied by rather too much champagne; then had played cards again till both his pocket and his temper were the worse.

There had been nothing startling, nothing lurid about his day; it had just been unprofitable, boring, unwholesome. And he did not care about Mrs. Bolton's friends--not about Miss Pattie Henderson, nor about the two quite young men who had made up the card-party. His face was a trifle flushed, and his toothbrushy hair had even more than usual of its suggestion of comical distress.

"Been a bit dull, has it?" Caylesham went on sympathetically. "Well, it often is. Oh, I like our friend Flora Bolton, you know, so long as she doesn't get a fit of nerves and tell you how different she might have been. People should never do that. At other times she's a good sort, and just as ready to ruin herself as anybody else--nothing of the good old traditional harpy about her. Still perhaps it works out about the same."

It certainly worked out about the same, as n.o.body knew better than Tom Courtland. He was thinking now that he had paid rather high for a not very lively day. The only person he had won from was Miss Henderson, and he was not sure that she would pay.

"Must spend your time somewhere," he jerked out forlornly.

"A necessity of life," Caylesham agreed; "and it doesn't make so much difference, after all, where you do it. I rather agree with the fellow who said that the only distinction he could see between--well, between one sort of house and the other sort--was that in the latter you could be more certain of finding whisky and soda on the sideboard in the morning; and now I'm hanged if that criterion isn't failing one! Whisky and soda's got so general."

The card-party at the other end of the room was animated and even a little noisy. Mrs. Bolton was p.r.o.ne to hearty laughter. Miss Henderson had a penetrating voice, and usually gave a little shriek of delight when she won. The two young men were rather excited. Caylesham regarded the whole scene with humorous contempt. Tom Courtland sat in moody silence, doing nothing. He had even smoked till he could smoke no more.

He had not a pleasure left.

Presently Miss Pattie threw down her cards and came across to them. She was a tall ladylike-looking young woman; only the faintest trace of c.o.c.kney accent hung about the voice. She sat down by Caylesham in a friendly way.

"We hardly ever see you now," she told him. "Are you all right?"

"All right, but getting old, Pattie. I'm engaged in digging my own grave."

"Oh, nonsense, you're quite fit still. I say, have you heard about me?"

"Lots of things."

"No, don't be silly. I mean, that I'm

"No, are you, by Jove? Who's the happy man?"

"Georgie Parmenter. Do you know him? He's awfully nice."

"I know his father. May I proffer advice? Get that arrangement put down in writing. Then at the worst it'll be worth something to you."

Miss Pattie was not at all offended. She laughed merrily.

"They always said you were pretty wide-awake, and I believe it!" she observed. "He'll have ten thousand a year when his father dies."

"In the circ.u.mstances you mention he won't have a farthing a year till that event happens, I'm afraid, Pattie. A man of strong prejudices, old Sir George."

"Well, I'm sure I've got letters enough to----"

"That's all right. I shall watch the case with interest."

He yawned again and rose to his feet.

"Tom's pretty dull, isn't he?" asked Miss Pattie with a comical pout.

"Yes, Tom's pretty dull, certainly."

"I'm sleepy," said Tom Courtland.

"So am I. I shall go home," and Caylesham walked off to bid the lady of the house good-night.

The lady of the house came into the hall and helped him on with his coat. It appeared that she wanted to have a word with him--first about the wisdom of backing one of his horses, and secondly about Tom Courtland. Caylesham told her on no account to back the horse, since it wouldn't win, and waited to hear what she had to say about Tom.

"I'm distressed about him, Frank," she said. "You know I do like Tom, and I never saw a man so down in the mouth." Her face was rather coa.r.s.e in feature and ruddy in tint, but kindly and good-natured; her concern for Tom was evidently quite genuine. "What a devil that wife of his must be!"

"She has her faults. Perhaps we have ours. Be charitable, Flora."

"Oh, you can be as sarcastic as you like. Heaven knows I don't mind that! But I'm worried to death about him, and about what she'll do. And then there's the money too. I believe he's hard up. It's very tiresome all round. Oh, I don't care much what people say of me, but I don't want to go through the court again, if I can help it."

"Which of the two courts do you refer to?" he asked, as he b.u.t.toned his coat. "Bankruptcy or----?"

"Either of them, Frank, you old fool!" she laughed.

"Send him back to his wife. You'll have to soon, anyhow--when the money's gone, you know. Do it now--before those two men come and stand opposite to see who goes in and out of the house."

"But the poor chap's so miserable, Frank; and I like him, you see."

"Ah, I can't help you against honest and kindly emotions. They're not part of the game, you know."

"No, they aren't; but they come in. That's the worst of it," sighed Mrs.

Bolton. "Well, good-night, Frank. We shall get through somehow, I suppose."

"That's the only gospel left to this age, Flora. Good-night."

He had not been able to help poor Mrs. Bolton much; he had not expected to be able to. That things could not be helped and must be endured was, as he had hinted, about the one certain dogma of his creed. The thing then was to endure them as easily as possible, to feel them as little as one could either for oneself or for other people. There was Flora Bolton's mistake, and a mistake especially fatal for a woman in her position. She would probably have been much happier if she had not been just as ready to ruin herself as she was to ruin anybody else--if she had, in fact, been the old traditional harpy through and through.

In truth it was not the least use distressing himself about Tom Courtland. Still he was rather worried about the affair, because Tom, again, was not thoroughly suited to the part he was now playing. Plenty of men were, and they demanded no pity. But poor old Tom was not. He could not spend his money without thinking about it; he could not do things without considering their bearings and their consequences; he could not forget to-morrow. He had none of the qualifications. His tendencies were just as little suited to the game as were Flora Bolton's honest and kindly emotions. Tom was pre-eminently fitted to distribute the bacon at the family breakfast and to take the children for their Sunday walk; to work away at his politics in a solid undistinguished way, and to have a good margin in hand when he came to make up the annual budget of his household. But Lady Harriet had prevailed to rout all these natural tendencies. A remarkable woman, Lady Harriet!

Suddenly Caylesham saw ahead of him a figure which he recognised by the light of the street lamps. It was John Fanshaw going in the direction of his home. It was rather late for John to be about, and Caylesham's first idea was to overtake him and rally him on his dissipated hours. He had already quickened his steps with this view, when it struck him that, after all, he would not accost John. It might look as if he wanted to be thanked for his loan. Anyhow John would feel bound to thank him, and he did not desire to be thanked. So he fell behind, and followed in that fas.h.i.+on till his road home diverged from John's. But the encounter had turned his thoughts in a new direction. Tom and Lady Harriet were no more in his mind, nor was Flora Bolton. He was thinking about Christine as he turned into his flat, and being sorry that she had felt so much dislike to taking the money from him. It was all right that she should dislike it, but still he was sorry for her. Christine's small dainty face had always kept so much of the child about it that it had the power of making him very sorry for her just because she was sorry for herself, apart from any good reasons at all. His feelings, however well schooled they might be, would not easily have faced a great distress on Christine's face. But as he got into his dressing-gown the sombre hue pa.s.sed from his mind. Either there was nothing to worry about, or it was no good worrying. Everybody would get through somehow.

John Fanshaw pursued his homeward way heavily and slowly. He had gone straight from the Courtlands' house to the quietest of his clubs, and sent a messenger to his wife to say that he was going to dine there, and that she was not to sit up in case he were late back. He wanted to think the thing over, and he did not want to see Christine. He could not even try to doubt; Harriet Courtland's pa.s.sionate taunt and her pa.s.sionate remorse--her remorse most of all--had carried, and continued to carry, absolute conviction; and memory, hideously active and acute, still plied him with confirmatory details. After these six years he remembered things which at the time he could hardly have been said to know; they emerged from insignificance and took on glaring meanings. How had he been so blind? Yet he had been utterly blind. He had had many quarrels with Christine--over money and so forth; he had blamed her for many faults, sometimes justly, sometimes not. This one thing he had never suspected--no, nor dreamed of her. It seemed to shatter at one blow all his conceptions of their married life. He was confused and bewildered at the thought of it--so it cut away foundations and tore up deep-grown roots. Christine do that? Orderly, cool, sarcastic, self-controlled Christine! She seemed the old Christine no more. He did not know how to be towards her. He would hate to have her near him--she would not seem to be his.