For the Cause Part 12

"I fear we must p.r.o.nounce her so. All other considerations apart, the fact that he no longer wishes to make her his wife should be conclusive. He might feel--and I don't say that he ought not to feel--bound in honor to her; but it seems to me that she is equally bound in honor to release him from his engagement."

"Oh, you think she is bound to release him?"

"I do," answered the Professor firmly. "Yes; I may say without any hesitation that that is what I think."

"I am not quite sure that I agree with you," said Mrs. Harrington. "I can't, of course, form any guess as to who the person to whom you allude may be; but let us put an entirely imaginary case, and see how it looks from the lady's point of view. Because, you know, even unsuitable women have their point of view, and some of them might be disposed to think their happiness almost as important as Mrs.

Annesley's. Let us take the case of a woman with whom life has gone very hardly--a woman who was married young to a husband who ill-treated her, deserted her, and left her at his death with a mere pittance to live upon. Well, this imaginary woman is not very wise, let us say, although she has no great harm in her. She is fond of amus.e.m.e.nt, she likes riding, she likes dancing, and we won't disguise that she likes flirting too. She has no near relations; so, instead of taking lodgings in a suburb of London, or hiring a cottage in the depths of the country, as no doubt she ought to do, she attaches herself to a cavalry regiment in which she has friends, and she rides her friends' horses and dances at their b.a.l.l.s, and has great fun for a time. Perhaps it serves her right that this way of going on causes her to be cut by all the ladies, wherever she betakes herself; perhaps she doesn't care a straw for that at first, and perhaps she cares a great deal as she grows older. Perhaps she sees no way of escape from a kind of existence which she has learnt to hate, and perhaps that serves her right again. What do you think, Canon Stanwick?"

The Professor's honesty compelled him to reply, "I should not blame her for seizing any opportunity of escape from it that offered."

"Yet most people would blame her; she would have to make up her mind to that. We are supposing, you know, that Mr. Annesley is the way of escape that offers itself, and when this forlorn woman seizes him ecstatically she must expect his friends and relations to tear their hair and call her bad names. I dare say that would trouble her very little. After knocking about the world for so many years, she wouldn't be over and above sensitive, and she would know perfectly well that, when once she was married and had plenty of money, everybody, including her husband's relations, would be civil enough to her. But now, just as she is exulting in the prospect of peace and plenty, lo and behold! the miserable young man goes and falls in love with somebody else. What is she to do? You, in an off-hand sort of way, answer, 'Oh, let him go free, of course;' but I, on the side of the poor disappointed woman, venture to say that she should be guided by circ.u.mstances. Suppose she knew this good-natured Bob Annesley to be a man who couldn't break his heart about anything or anybody if he tried ever so hard? Suppose she knew that she was quite as well able to make him happy as Miss Cecil? Mightn't she in that case be justified in thinking a little bit about her own interests, and holding him to his promise?"

"I can't answer positively," said the Professor, sighing.

"Justification must depend entirely upon the standard by which we judge. All I know is, that if such a woman as you describe resolved to sacrifice her worldly prospects she would err upon the safe side."

"Such a woman as I describe would probably differ from you there,"

observed Mrs. Harrington.

"No!" exclaimed the Professor suddenly, bringing his stick down upon the floor with an emphatic thump. "You may say that, but I don't believe it. I believe her to be a good-hearted and high-minded woman, in spite of all that she may have gone through. I believe that she has a conscience, and I believe that she will end by obeying it, no matter at what cost."

"You must know a great deal about her," said Mrs. Harrington, raising her eyebrows. "Are you not forgetting that she is a purely imaginary person?"

The Professor was about to reply, but what he was going to say will never be known, for at this inopportune juncture the door opened, and who should walk in but Bob Annesley himself! The three persons thus unexpectedly confronted with one another all lost their presence of mind a little, and the Professor could not afterwards have given any coherent account of what happened next, or of how long an interval elapsed before he found himself in the street again; but as he wended his way homewards, he astonished more than one pa.s.ser-by by calling out in a loud, distinct voice, "She'll let him go! mark my words, sir, she'll let him go!" And when he had reached the privacy of his own study, he added confidentially, "And between ourselves, I'm not by any means sure that she isn't worth a dozen of the other."

V.

It is one thing to make a sudden and enthusiastic profession of faith in a prodigy, and it is quite another to reiterate that profession in cold blood the next morning. The Professor did not find himself able to accomplish the latter feat. Calmer reflection showed him that he had given Mrs. Harrington credit for the most extreme disinterestedness, not because of any single thing that she had said or done, but simply from an instinctive feeling that her nature was n.o.bler than it appeared to be upon the surface. Now instinctive feelings do not ordinarily commend themselves as a sound foundation for faith or sober philosophers on the shady side of fifty; and the Professor, while maintaining the high opinion which he had formed of the harpy, wished that he had not been interrupted just when he was upon the point of asking her in plain terms whether she intended to marry Bob Annesley or not. It is possible that he might have called again and repaired the omission, had he not at this time found it necessary to consult certain authorities at the British Museum; and when once he was in town a variety of accidents detained him there.

After that he had to go down to Oxford, so that, what with one thing and another, it was very nearly a month before he was in Lichbury again.

Almost the first person whom he saw after his return was Bob Annesley, and Bob's round face wore an air of such profound dejection that even a short-sighted and absent-minded man could not help noticing it.

"All well here, I hope?" said the Professor interrogatively. "Have you seen our friends the Cecils lately?"

Bob shook his head. "Never go there now." He added, with something of an effort, "I shall never go there any more; I shall be out of this before long. Sent in my papers last week."

"What!" exclaimed the Professor, rather startled. And then, as they were near his door, "Come in," he said, "and tell me all about it."

The young man obeyed listlessly. "You may as well be told all about it now," he remarked; "everybody will have to know soon."

The Professor was greatly perturbed, feeling that he had been somehow to blame in absenting himself at a critical time. He did not ask for further explanations, but having preceded his young friend into the library, began at once: "This must not be allowed to go on, Annesley.

I am sincerely sorry for Mrs. Harrington, but I can't think it right that two people should be made miserable in order that she may be provided with a large income. I am disappointed in her, I confess. I had hoped--but no matter. Since she won't break with you, you must break with her; and possibly some sort of compensation might be offered in a delicate manner----"

"I can't break with her," interrupted Bob quietly. "We were married three weeks ago."

The Professor's consternation was too great to be expressed in any vehement fas.h.i.+on. He could only murmur under his breath, "Dear, dear!

what a sad pity!"

"There was no help for it," said Bob. "I promised her ages ago that I would marry her if her husband died, and I couldn't go back from my word when the time came."

"Her husband!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Professor. "This is worse than I thought. Do I understand you that she has had a husband alive all this time?"

"Well, he died a month or two ago--when she was away in the summer, you know. He had behaved awfully badly to her--deserted her soon after they were married. It was no fault of hers."

"It was certainly a fault of hers to receive another man's addresses while she was still a married woman," said the Professor severely.

"Oh, well, if you like to call it so; but I suppose I was as much in the wrong as she was. Anyhow, I was bound to her. I told her about--about Violet, you know, but she didn't seem to think that made much difference. So, you see, there was no getting out of it,"

concluded Bob simply.

"There is no getting out of it now," remarked the Professor, with a rueful face; "and I don't think you have improved matters by getting married in this hole-and-corner way. What was your object in doing that?"

"She thought it would be better," answered the young man indifferently; "and, as far as that goes, I agreed with her. It has saved us a good deal of bother with my people; besides which, I didn't care to let all the fellows in the regiment hear about it before I left."

The Professor groaned. He saw that the only course open to him, or to any of Bob's friends, was to make the best of a bad business; but for the moment he could think of nothing except what a very bad business it was, and after promising to keep the secret until it should be a secret no longer, he allowed the young man to depart without offering him a word of consolation. Why he should have felt moved, some hours later, to walk over to the lodgings which were still occupied by the bride, he would have been puzzled to explain. She could not undo what she had done, nor was there anything to be gained by upbraiding her.

Perhaps it was rather a strong feeling of curiosity than anything else that led him to her door.

Having learnt that she was at home and alone, he followed the servant upstairs, and was presently in the shabby little drawing-room so well known to the officers of the 27th. Mrs. Harrington--to call her by the name which she had not yet formally resigned--rose from the chair in which she had been sitting by the fireside, and turned a curiously altered countenance towards her visitor. The Professor was at once struck by her extreme pallor, and by her air of weary despondency. To look at her, one would have thought that she had just sustained a crus.h.i.+ng defeat, instead of having gained a victory.

"You have seen Bob!" she began.

"Ah!" sighed the Professor, speaking out his thoughts without ceremony, "I fear you have made a terrible mistake, both of you."

"Yes," she answered, and said no more, though he waited some time for her to explain herself.

"What made you do it?" he exclaimed at length. "You must have known that you were laying up an endless store of wretchedness for your husband and yourself; and I can hardly believe that you were influenced only by the motives that you mentioned when I was here last."

"There was one motive which I didn't mention," said Mrs. Harrington.

"You hardly know enough about me to be amused by it; but I have no doubt that the regiment would consider it an exquisite joke if I were to a.s.sert that I had married Bob Annesley because I loved him. And yet it isn't very odd that I should love him. He was crazily in love with me once; he was kind to me when no one else was kind; he treated me like a lady; while other men, who by way of being my friends, were insulting me, more or less directly, every day. Oh, I know what you are saying to yourself. You are saying that if I had really cared for him at all, I should not have married him against his will. But I thought I might reckon without his will--he has so little of it. That has always been Bob's defect; and I don't mind saying so, because it is the only defect that I have ever discovered in him. I believed that I could win him back, and that, when once we were married, he would forget his fancy for Miss Cecil, as he has forgotten other fancies before. Now that it is too late, I have found out that I was wrong. If I had known three weeks ago as much as I know now, I would have died a thousand times rather than have married him. He hates me, and I am rightly punished for my blindness and obstinacy."

She had spoken quietly at first, then with a good deal of excitement; but now her voice dropped to a whisper as she crouched down over the fire, muttering, "Yes, I am punished--I am punished!"

The Professor frowned. He disliked melodrama, and had no great belief in a repentance which could be evidenced only by words. "Perhaps money and lands may afford you some consolation," he observed rather cruelly.

Mrs. Harrington did not notice the sneer. "Why did you go away and leave me alone with my temptation?" she cried suddenly. "You might have prevented this."

"I cannot flatter myself," answered the Professor coldly, "that my influence with you would have been sufficiently strong for that."

"It was stronger than you think. I liked you; you had been kind to me, and I was ready to listen to you. I have not forgotten how you stood by me that day when Mrs. Cecil turned her back upon me; women in my position don't forget such things. But you went away just when I most needed a friend, and so I allowed myself to be deceived by my vain hopes."

"If any words of mine could have caused you to think twice before you took this irrevocable step," returned the Professor, "I can only regret most sincerely that business should have called me away at so important a moment; but there is little use in discussing what might have been. The only thing for you and your husband to do now is frankly to accept a situation from which you cannot escape."

"Unless by means of an over-dose of chloral," suggested Mrs.

Harrington, with a faint smile.

The Professor got up. "Mrs. Harrington," said he, "you may yet prove yourself an excellent wife and make your husband happy; but you can hardly expect to do this easily or immediately. And if I were you, I would not begin by making speeches which are silly if they are insincere, and wicked if they are not."

Thereupon he left the room without further leave-taking, while she, still bending over the fire, appeared unconscious alike of his rebuke and of his exit. The Professor, as he walked home, felt that he had been very severe, yet not unwarrantably so. "She is a foolish, theatrical woman," he said to himself; "and I strongly suspect that all that exaggerated penitence was a.s.sumed for a purpose. Of course her chief object now will be to conciliate her mother-in-law, and she probably imagines that my report of her may carry some weight in that quarter. But she makes a mistake, because I shan't report anything about her--good, bad, or indifferent. No more meddling with other people's business for me!"