A Question of Marriage Part 25

The worst had happened; every penny that could be sc.r.a.ped together had already been confiscated; he faced the situation, and calmly and courageously set his face towards a fresh start.

"Jean doesn't mind. Jean says she is prepared. That takes away the sting. So long as she is happy, it doesn't matter a rap to me where we live. After all, we ought to consider ourselves jolly lucky. It's only the extras which we shall have to shed, while many poor wretches will be in actual need. We ought to be thankful!"

As the weeks pa.s.sed by, Robert's complacence increased, just as, in inverse ratio, Jean's courage collapsed. It was one thing to declare the world well lost, when her husband lay in her arms, broken-hearted, dependent on her support; but it required a vastly more difficult effort to maintain that att.i.tude during the painful process of hunting for a house at about a third of the old rent, and arranging her treasured possessions for an auction sale. To Vanna, her invariable safety-valve, Jean poured forth her feelings, in characteristic, highly coloured language.

"I feel sometimes as if I could not bear it another moment--as if I must shriek, as if I must scream, as if I must take Rob by the arms and shake him till I drop! It's so maddening to be taken so literally at one's word, and to be expected to sit smiling on the top of a pedestal while the world rocks. Yesterday, going over that hateful, stuffy little house, when he would persistently make the best of everything, even the view of the whitewashed yard and I had to go on smiling and smiling as if I agreed, I felt as if something in my head would snap... I believe it will some day, and I shall lose control, and rage, and say terrible things, and he will be broken hearted with sorrow--and surprise! He hasn't an idea, not a glimmering ghost of an idea, what I'm suffering!

I said I didn't care, and he _believed_ it, just as simply as if I'd told him the time. Oh, dear! the blindness of men."

"And the strangeness of women!" Vanna looked at her with her tender, whimsical smile. "You believed it yourself at the time, dear girl. I can imagine how eloquent you would be. No wonder poor Robert was convinced. I was overcome with admiration for you that first week, but being a woman, I knew that the reaction must come. That's inevitable; but you must live up to yourself, Jean; you've created a precedent by being magnificently brave, and you must keep it up."

"I--_can't_!" said Jean, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "That night I could think of nothing but Rob--his poor face! I would have cut off my hand to make him smile, but my home--my home! To have to break it up! My home where we came after we were married, where the babies were born... It breaks my heart to leave it, and to give up all my treasures that I collected with such joy... And Robert doesn't see, he doesn't know--that seems hardest of all. If he just realised--"

"He would suffer again! Is _that_ what you want?"

Jean cast a startled glance, and sat silent, considering the problem.

Her eyes were circled by dark violet stains, as from long wakeful nights; there were hollows at her temples which the cloudy hair could not altogether conceal.

"It sounded rather like it," she said slowly at last, "but _no_! indeed I don't--I love him far too much. But just sympathetic a little, Vanna--and _appreciative_ of my loss! Yesterday when we stood in that little back dining-room if he had said to me: 'it's awfully hard on you, darling, but it's only for a time: put up with it for a time!' I should have hugged him, and felt a heroine. But he looked out on that awful backyard, and said serenely, 'oh, it doesn't matter about views! You never cared about looking out of windows,' and went on calmly planning where we could put a sideboard. And I wanted to scream! He doesn't _understand_, Vanna. He doesn't understand--"

"Men don't, dear! It's no use expecting more than they can give. They pull a wry face, accept a situation, and say no more about it. It would seem to them contemptible to go on grizzling. It's a fine att.i.tude-- much finer than ours; and if you look upon it in the right light, Robert's unconsciousness is a great compliment. He simply gives you credit for being as good as your word, as he is himself."

But Jean pouted, and protruded her chin in the old pugnacious fas.h.i.+on.

"But--in our case, I'm not so sure that it _is_ finer! This upheaval is not one hundredth part so great a trial to Rob as it is to me. He's sorry, of course, and regrets that he did not sell out his shares; but it will be no trial to him to have a small house, with a greengrocer's shop at the corner of the road. _He_ won't mind a marble paper in the hall; it won't cost him a thought to have a drawing-room composed of odd hideosities, instead of my lovely Chippendale. He won't even notice if the little girls are shabby, and I wear a hat two years. Is there much credit in being calm and resigned over a thing you don't _feel_? I nag at the servants, and snap at the children, and grizzle to you, and any one looking on would say: What a saint! What a wretch! but really and truly I'm fighting hard, and slaying dragons every hour of the day; and if I succeed in stifling my feelings and being decently agreeable for an hour or two in the evening, I've won a big victory; and it's I who am the saint, not he! Vanna--do you think I am a beast?"

Vanna's laugh was very sweet and tender.

"Not I! I quite agree; but I want to help you, dear, to fight to the end. Grumble to me as much as you like. I'm a woman, and understand; but play the game with Robert. You are his Ideal, his Treasure. Be pure gold! Hide the feet of clay--"

"Don't preach! Don't preach!" cried Jean; but before the words were out of her mouth, she had rushed across the room and thrown her arms impetuously round Vanna's neck. "Yes; I will! I will! Oh, Vanna, how you help! Scold me! Make me ashamed! I don't want anything in the world but to be a good wife to Rob."

A month later the removal was accomplished, and Jean struggled valiantly to make the best of the altered conditions. She rarely complained-- never in Robert's presence; set herself diligently to the study of economy, and put aside embroidery and painting in favour of plain sewing and mending. In six months' time the new _menage_ was running as smoothly as if it had been in existence for years, and neither the master of the house nor his children had suffered any diminution of comfort from the change. Robert's special little fads were attended to as scrupulously as in the larger establishment; the little girls were invariably spick-and-span, but no observant eyes could fail to notice the change in Jean herself. She was older, graver, less ready to sparkle with mischievous gaiety. She had hidden her trouble out of sight, as years before she had hidden the baby clothes destined for the little dead son, but it had left its mark. With the best will in the world she could not change her nature, and her artistic sensibilities met a fresh wound every time she walked up and down stairs, every time she entered a room, every time she walked down the dull suburban street.

She was in the wrong environment, and her beauty-loving nature was starved and hungry.

Robert was happily unconscious of the change, or if he noticed it was content to ascribe it to a more obvious reason. He himself was ready to welcome his fourth child with an ardour undamped by considerations of money. He adored children, and was delighted that the three-year-old Joyce should have a successor; but Jean's satisfaction was dependent on a possibility--"If it is a boy!" A live son would compensate a hundred times over for the added strain and burden involved by the addition to the nursery. But the son was not forthcoming, and when a third little daughter was put into her arms Jean shed weak tears of disappointment.

"She's the prettiest of all your babies, Jean," Vanna declared a week later as she nursed the little flannel bundle on her arm, and gazed down at the small downy head. "She has just your eyes."

"All babies' eyes are the same."

"This baby's aren't; and she has the daintiest little head! Lorna's head was ugly at this stage. And her nose! Her nose is perfect."

"Is it?" The voice from the bed was so listless and faint that Vanna held up the little face, insisting upon notice.

"Look at her! Look for yourself. Acknowledge that she is a duck!"

Jean's lip quivered.

"I wanted a boy, a little son to make up... It seems so hard--"

Vanna pressed the downy head to her heart.

"Poor little superfluous woman! You are not wanted, it seems. Give her to me, Jean--she'd be worth the whole world. I mean it, you know! Say the word and I'll take her home this moment, and adopt her for life."

But at this Jean opened wide, protesting eyes.

"As if I would! My own little child! She _isn't_ superfluous. I shall adore her as much as the others, but just at first it _is_ a disappointment. But I'll call her after you this time, Vanna, say what you will, and you shall be her second mother."

"Yes! I'd like this one to have my name, and she _is_ mine, for I wanted her, and you didn't. Remember that, if you please. No one pays one penny piece for anything this baby wears, or wants, or learns, but her Mother Vanna. I'm going to have a _real_ claim, not only sentiment.

She's going to mean a great, great deal in my life!"

Jean smiled, well content. For herself it would be a relief to be freed from extra expense; and she realised that in giving her consent she was enriching rather than impoveris.h.i.+ng her friend's life. And so little Vanna adopted a second mother.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE INDIAN MAIL.

Two years had pa.s.sed since Piers Rendall had left England, and still there came no word of his return. Vanna heard from him regularly every mail, letters as long, as intimate, as tender as during the first month after his sailing, yet gradually there dawned in them a difference which made itself surely, increasingly felt. What was it? In the depths of her own heart, where alone the change was admitted, Vanna pondered the question, but could find no reply. The first zest of interest and occupation in a new world had died an inevitable death; that was natural enough and could raise no surprise. The effects of a hot climate were beginning to make themselves felt, he had been overworked, overstrained--natural again; but in this case the remedy lay in his own hands. Why did he not use it? Vanna had never allowed herself to ask one questioning word on the subject of Piers's return; but she could not avoid knowing that the junior partner whose place he had taken was entirely recovered, and most anxious to return to his post. Old Mrs Rendall, too, was growing sadly impatient, and, on the rare occasions when they met, treated Vanna with frigid disapproval. It was this girl's doing that her son was homeless and exiled--deprived of the joys of manhood. There was some mystery about this long, dragging engagement--a mystery which had been purposely concealed, a mystery which in some inexplicable fas.h.i.+on referred to Vanna herself. What could it be? The consciousness of this underlying curiosity had been one of Vanna's greatest trials in her social intercourse during the last few years, and its presence heightened the ever-growing longing for Piers's return. The evening of mail-day often found her depressed rather than cheered, though the three closely written sheets had arrived as usual; for weary and disconsolate as was Piers's mood, there was still no reference to a return; but during the week hope would again lift up its head and whisper encouragement concerning "next time." So elastic a thing is the human heart, that a bracing wind, a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne through the fog, will send the spirits racing upwards, and open out possibilities where the road has appeared hopelessly barred.

It was in such a mood that Vanna greeted her weekly letter one grey morning in February. The night before she had spent a particularly happy evening with Jean and Robert, who had appeared in better spirits than since the beginning of their trouble. Little Vanna had developed a fresh set of baby charms, and had allowed herself to be nursed with bland complacence, and on returning to her own house Robert had spoken a few memorable words when saying good-bye: "Every day of my life I thank G.o.d for you, Vanna! Such a friend is a big gift. You have been a good angel to us this last year." The memory of those words had been a good sleeping-draught; the warmth of them remained to cheer her as she dressed in the morning, and when her eye fell on the well-known envelope on the breakfast table, a little leap of the heart prophesied good news.

To-day it seemed fitting that her waiting should come to an end.

It was a thin envelope. One sheet of paper replaced the usual three.

So much the better. Four words would be sufficient to say all that she wanted to know. Vanna seated herself at the table, and bent eagerly over the sheet.

"My Dearest and Best--

"I have your last letter beside me, and have been reading it over and over, wondering how to answer all that is written between the lines.

I can read it, Vanna; I have read it for a long time, but have not had courage to reply. You are too sweet and unselfish to allow yourself to write what is really in your thoughts, but I know you so well--you are no calm, equable, cold-blooded saint; you must have known many moments of bitterness, of anger, of resentment. I know it; I understand; I bless you for your patience. _Why have I not come home to you_? That is the question you are asking me across the world; the question I can almost hear spoken in my ear. You know by my letters that I am miserable and alone; you must have heard by this time that Brentford is anxious to get back. He wrote to me last mail. It is for me as senior partner to make my choice, and I have made it. I wrote to-day to say that I preferred to stay on--"

The paper trembled in Vanna's hand; her lips lost their curves and straightened into a thin red line. She shut her eyes for a moment before she could see clearly to continue her reading:

"There! it is out. It is terrible to write it. I feel as if with the writing I have cut myself off from the best and happiest years of my life. For that is what it means, Vanna--the end! I have suffered tortures this last year, fighting it out, arguing it over and over again in my heart. I could not have borne it if it had not been for your letters, and yet in a fas.h.i.+on they have added to my suffering.

If ever a man loved a woman, with his soul and strength, I have loved you. I have waited eight years, and it would have seemed as a day if there had been hope at the end. I would wait twenty years to gain you in the end. But, Vanna, when hope is dead!... I am very sad, very lonely; I miss you every hour, but I dare not come home to endure a worse pain. The years are pa.s.sing; my youth is over; I cannot face a solitary age. Vanna, dearest, I promised you to be honest. I swore it. I must keep my word. If the best is denied me, I must be content with what I can have. There is a girl here--"

Vanna's arm dropped on to the table, the fluttering sheet fell from her fingers, the dull, heavy thuds with which her heart had been beating for the last few minutes seemed suddenly to cease. She lifted her hand to her head, and brushed back her hair.

"A _girl_!" For one moment the room seemed to swim; consciousness appeared about to desert her, the next _she_ was tinglingly alert, devouring the remaining words with hot, smarting eyes.

"--The daughter of our Colonel. I have seen a good deal of her these last months. She is not pretty, but she is sweet and kind, and has an echo of _your_ charm. If I tried, I think I could love that girl.

_Vanna, I am going to try_!... Do you despise me? Do you think me a faithless hound? Can you understand in the faintest degree that it is just because you have shown me what love can mean that I cannot live my life alone? Will you care to write to me still? I don't know; I can't tell. I dare not think how you may feel. I, who longed above all else in life to s.h.i.+eld and guard you, to have to deal you this blow!... Forgive me, Vanna--my dearest, dearest love..."