Men and Wives (23 page)

“They generally do their best,” said Jermyn.

“And small blame to them,” said Matthew.

“Matthew, no one would suggest,” said Dominic, “that you and Jermyn are in any way deserving of censure for the efforts you have lately made for yourselves, with such success.”

“The point is, do people make efforts for other people?” said Matthew.

“No, Matthew,” said Dominic, shaking his head; “in the course of a life spent in association with people's relations to each other, I am bound to say I have seldom seen it.”

“I have never seen it,” said Rachel.

“Well, I have seen it,” said Agatha. “I have come upon many instances of generous effort for others. Some of them I have even prompted myself, generally to meet with a ready response. I have great faith in the possibilities of human nature.”

“You must have,” said Rachel.

“Ah, you bring out the best in people, Mrs. Calkin,” said Godfrey.

“Well, I have found it so,” said Agatha.

“Fancy daring to prompt people to effort for others!” said Rachel. “We can't know what would happen if we explored unknown possibilities. Percy, we will go home. Buttermere is being prompted to too much effort for others. But I don't think it was in his sphere that Mrs. Calkin meant. She could hardly have got such wonderful results.”

Agatha moved on to where Sir Percy stood by himself, to exchange a word before parting.

“Your wife and I have been talking about our feelings as guests in this house, without our hostess. I fancy she thought I made a little too much of them, and I am quite prepared to say that I did. It is such a clearly defined thing to me, the setting asunder of husband and wife. When
you have once grasped it for yourself and in yourself, there it is once for all sharp-edged for you.”

“Yes, yes, undoubtedly,” said Sir Percy.

“I forgot for a moment that you had had the experience in your own earlier life,” said Agatha, laying her hand on his arm. “There must be much remaining, whatever has supervened, to give you the sense of my words.”

“Yes, yes, there has been everything, you know,” said Sir Percy, looking at the hand.

“My husband and I just had the one experience together,” said Agatha in a low, intoning voice. “We just shared the one with each other.”

“Don't probe Percy about his first marriage, dear Mrs. Calkin,” Rachel called from the door. “He feels too deeply about it for words, and I do all I can to make up for him. He will tell you about his second in return for what he has heard about yours.”

“Well, my dears, so we are to have an evening to ourselves,” said Godfrey. “We don't have that often in these days. People have rallied round us in a way that has warmed my heart; they have gathered to our fallen banner as one man. I shall thoroughly enjoy an evening with you alone. I shan't have the smallest regret or thought of dullness creeping in. And we shall soon be having this play to hearten us up and take our thoughts off ourselves. We need that in these days. I have protected you from danger of morbidity. I have seen fit to. It would have been your mother's wish; and knowing that I have done it, that has been enough. If I could tell her of your achievements, my cup would be full. I am convinced they would have her full sanction, if she returned to us whole in body and mind. But we must not expect complete fulfilment on this earth.”

“Well, So The performance was a success, was it, Ernest?” said Godfrey, standing outside the playhouse which Bellamy had hired in the town, or more truly he had himself hired through Bellamy. “It has fulfilled your hopes? It was worth your while that I should do it, that has been enough. If I could tell her of what you wanted for them? I declare they showed up bravely. Their achievement was astounding. I congratulate myself on affording them their opportunity; I feel I can do it. And what I marvel at for myself, is how I have spent all my life disapproving of the stage. I stand here and wonder about it. I take myself to task. For a play seems to do more for you in the time than anything within my experience. I have been living in another world these last three hours. You may laugh at me, but it is the truth. Now I suggest you should all come back and spend the evening at my house. I hope it is not a matter for discussion. Rachel, I may depend upon you to second me?”

“You certainly may,” said Rachel. “It goes entirely without saying.”

“Now I am glad to have you say that, Rachel. It gives me genuine gratification. I feel that life still offers something to me, when I can hear such words from my friends. Now we will go to the carriages. There will be seats for the least. We will all settle in together and go home. I hope it is beginning to seem that to all of you.”

“I think that is still an extravagant hope,” said Jermyn.

“We don't sleep there yet!” said Geraldine.

“You are quite a lighthouse in our midst, Sir Godfrey,” said Mrs. Christy.

“We are getting to make ourselves look very foolish,”
said Matthew. “We behave as if no one had meat and drink in his house but ourselves.”

“Well, there won't be any need for anyone to have any soon,” said Griselda. “There may not be any to be had.”

“Well, well,” said Godfrey, “I don't know that it is quite so much that we manage. But I am glad if we have made some little breaks for our friends. It seems to be a thing we can do. And we have a great deal done for us by them. Now let us disperse to the carriages. Mrs. Calkin, I must insist upon taking you.”

“Sir Godfrey,” said Dominic, speaking with serious insistence, “I must protest against again becoming a member of your party. I have too often inflicted the damper of my presence upon your spirited gatherings, and on this occasion I must ask your permission to decline.”

“No, no, Spong, don't set that example,” said Godfrey.

Dominic stood aloof and as if in thought.

“If I am to be taken as setting an example, and therefore precluding others from exercising their power of choice, I cannot regard myself as a free agent,” he said, and stooped to enter a carriage.

“No, that is right, Spong. I knew you would make the right decision.”

“I believe Mr. Spong got into this carriage because I was in it,” said Camilla.

“Mrs. Bellamy, I am not so ungallant as to dispute such a suggestion.”

“It seems inconsistent of Sir Godfrey not to put us all up,” said Kate.

“Miss Dabis, we must not overreach,” said Dominic gravely.

Camilla leant back in laughter.

“Miss Dabis,” said Dominic, “I admit that my quickness was at fault. But I am sure we neither of us regret a blunder that gave us that peal of mirth.”

“Mr. Spong does not dare to use my name,” said Camilla; “he feels it is too temporary and precarious. He
finds the whole question of my names is better passed over.”

“Well, well, here we are!” came in Godfrey's voice from his carriage. “Here we are at our destined halting-place. I hope we shall none of us leave it until the hours are small.”

“We are in the current phrase to make a night of it,” said Dominic, as he emerged and stood to assist Camilla.

Buttermere was standing in the lighted doorway, and spoke to his master as he passed him.

“Dr. Dufferin is waiting to see you, Sir Godfrey. He did not know you were all out, and can come again to-morrow if you would prefer it.”

“No, no, I will see him. I will go and find out if he is in any quandary, if I can settle up anything for him,” said Godfrey, going with swinging arms to the library. “Into the drawing-room, all of you, and dispose yourselves at your ease. I hope you are that already; I think I may feel you are. Now, Antony, my boy, in what way can I serve you? Out with it, without any effort. You have done so many services to me and mine that I should be a curmudgeon indeed not to be eager to make a return. I am finding it a privilege to accede to many requests from my friends. It has been a consolation to me in my widower-hood; for that is what it seems to be coming to be. While I can do something for others, I count my days as not lost.”

“That is what I have come to speak about. It is not to be widowerhood, Haslam. It is good news I have for you, the very best. I have prepared you in a measure, but I doubt if you have dared to take my meaning. I have kept you from Harriet lately because she was better, not worse, because she was getting well. I have put off the truth to save her the risk of a pressed recovery, and to save you both the memory of meetings while she was not herself. When she did not know you, it was different. Now she will be herself as soon as she is used to being so. She has been asking for you all.”

“Doctor,” said Godfrey, taking a step backwards, “you lift up my heart. I have been a dreary and lifeless man these last months. The gaiety of my life, its apparent variety, has gone on over an inner deadness. If I can see my wife at times, I shall feel there is a weekly or daily goal, as it may be granted. And in my gratitude for what is given, I shall not overstep and ask too much.”

“It is better than that,” said Dufferin. “You may ask what you will. You may make up your mind for the best. Harriet has only to bridge the gulf of her illness, and return to her place.”

“No, no, Doctor,” said Godfrey. “We will not keep you to that. You must not promise more than the most. You will not raise our hopes to dash them; we know you too well. We do not ask impossibilities even of you. That would be a risk we must not take. We do not blame you for the inevitability of that; it is not indeed to be set to your account. We do not forget ourselves, to grasp at the completion of our own life at the cost of hers. I speak for my children and myself. We will leave her where she is, watched over, contented, safe.”

“She is none of those things any longer, and I could have no better news. It is well I should not be clear in a moment, but I may be clear now. Harriet can soon come home. She is herself.”

“Is she asking to come home? Has it come into her mind? Has she spoken of it?”

“It has come into her mind, as she is herself. She has not said much of it. She takes it as going as a matter of course, as it goes.”

“It does, Doctor, it does. That is how the matter stands. We take up our life again, our old life. We go forward into it, resolute, resigned, rejoicing from our hearts. I will go and break it to my children, announce to my guests and my children this- coming of joy. I will give you your due. I will say that our debt is to you and to no other. You will come with me and hear your success
described to our common friends. I feel I cannot keep it from them another moment.”

“No, I will go home. You don't need me. I shall see you next when I take you to Harriet.”

“My dear old friends,” said Godfrey, throwing open the drawing-room door, “rejoice with me! My time of sufferance is past! My wife is to be amongst us, fully restored! The moment has come suddenly. It was thought that the strength for patience would not be ours. My heart is full to overflowing; my words falter. I do not ask for your sympathy. I know it is mine.”

Godfrey's children were in a group about him.

“Is it certain? Did Antony tell you?” said Griselda.

“Quite certain, my daughter. I would not raise your hopes to destroy them.”

“It must have been certain for some time, if it is so now,” said Matthew. “No doubt it has been certain. No doubt.”

“Did Antony tell you just now? Is it to be at once?” said Jermyn.

“It is to be at once, if Dufferin says it is to be at all,” said Matthew. “The end of it all has come. The whole thing is over.”

“Does Mother know about it?” said Gregory.

“My dear children,” said Godfrey, “there is one answer to all your questions. ‘Yes!' The Chapter of your orphanhood is closed. Your faithfulness and your courage are to have their reward. Our friends will forgive our blundering words of shock. For our hearts can harp only upon one note. They will bid us God-speed upon the road that is opening out to us, the road that is old to us and new.”

“God-speed always goes with separation,” said Rachel. “We will leave at once. I am full of selfish gladness for myself, Godfrey. That does not sound a credit to me, but such a credit to Harriet that I sacrifice myself to her, and put myself in a light especially becoming at the moment.
Percy, don't say anything, if you cannot sacrifice yourself. Godfrey will understand that I have spoken for both.”

“Yes, yes, for both. The old times again. Glad most of all for myself, most of all for you,” said Sir Percy, hastening his words and his steps.

“Camilla, we will do as we would be done by,” said Mrs. Christy. “At this moment of tense concentration we will not deal in the mere emptiness of words. Sir Godfrey, I stand amongst those whose instincts have been baulked of late of their truest fulfilment. They have repeatedly been baffled in the bent native to them. Lady Haslam cannot have a welcome more in touch with the atmosphere carried in her wake.”

“I am sure she cannot; it would be too terrible at the moment,” said Camilla, using a sweeping hand, and calling her own valedictions from the doorway. “Good-bye, dear Sir Godfrey. Good-bye, my Matthew. I have hated your mother's not having the opportunity to forbid our engagement. She must try to make up for it now. I can't bear for her to be denied anything. Tell me if we are ever to meet again. Her wishes must come first.”

“I must just shake hands with you, and say a word,” said Agatha to her host. “I was saying only the other day, how sad it was to me to see this house without its mistress, to see things having to plough their way, as it were, rudderless. I was saying it here in this room, it seems only a moment ago. It does seem such a coincidence, almost as if coming events do cast their shadows before them, to some minds perhaps that have a bent towards the future. We are full of thanksgiving for you. You will let me say it for all three of us.”