The Prisoner Part 64

"Well," said Alston curtly, "we've got 'em. And they've got us. You can't leaven the whole lump."

"I can't look much beyond Addington," said Jeff. "I believe I'm dotty over the old girl. I don't want her to go back to being Victorian, but I want her to be right--honest, you know, and standing for decent things.

That's why you're going to be mayor."

Alston made no answer, but when, in a few weeks' time, some citizens of weight came to ask him again if he would accept the nomination, he said, without parley, that he would. And it was not Jeff that had constrained him; it was the look in his mother's eyes.

x.x.xIV

The late autumn had a profusion of exhilarating days. The crops kept Jeff in the garden and brought his father out for his quota of pottering care. When the land was cleared for ploughing and even the pile of rubbish burned, Jeff got to feeling detached again, discontented even, and went for long tramps, sometimes with Alston Choate. Esther, seeing them go by, looked after them in a consternation real enough to blanch her damask cheek. What was the bond between them? Whatever bond they had formed must be to the exclusion of her and her dear wishes, and their amity enraged her.

Once, in walking, she saw Jeff turn in at Miss Amabel's gate, and she did not swerve but actually finished her walk and came back that way praying, with the concentration of thought which is an a.s.sault of will, that he might be coming out and meet her. And it happened according to her desire. There, at the gate was Jeff, handsomer, according to a woman's jealous eye, than she had ever seen him, fresh-coloured, his face set in a determination that was not feigned, hard, fit for any muscular task more than the average man might do. Esther was looking her prettiest. She continued to look her prettiest now, so far as woman's art could serve her, for she could not know what moment might summon her to bring her own special strength to bear. Jeff, at sight of her, took off his hat, but stopped short standing inside the gate. Esther understood. He wasn't going to commit her to walk with him where Addington might see. She, too, stopped, her heart beating as fast as she could have desired and giving her a bright accession of colour. Esther greatly prized her damask cheek.

Jeff, feeling himself summoned, then came forward. He looked at her gravely, and he was at a loss. How to address her! But Esther, with a beguiling accent of gentleness, began.

"Isn't it strange?" she said, wistfully and even humbly, as if it were not a question but a reflection of her own, not necessarily to be answered.

"What is strange?" asked Jeff, with a kindly note she found rea.s.suring.

"You and me," said Esther, "standing here, when--I don't believe you were going to speak."

Her poor little smile looked piteous to him and the lift of her brows.

Jeff was sorry for her, sorry for them both. At that moment he was not summoning energy to distrust her, and this was as she hoped.

"I'm sorry, Esther," he said impulsively. "I did mean to speak. It wasn't that. I only don't mean to make you--in other folks' eyes, you know--seem to be having anything to do with me when--when you don't want to."

"When I don't want to!" Esther repeated. There was musing in the soft voice, a kind of wonder.

"It's an infernal shame," said Jeff. He was glad to tell her he hated the privation she had to bear of having cast him off and yet facing her broken life without him. "I know what kind of time you have as well as you could tell me. You've got Madame Beattie quartered on you. There's grandmother upstairs. No comfort in her. No companions.h.i.+p. I've often thought you don't go out as much as you might for fear of meeting me.

You needn't feel that. If I see it's going to happen I can save you that, at least."

Esther stood looking up at him, her lips parted, as if she drank what he had to say through them, and drank it thirstily.

"How good you are!" she said. "O Jeff, how good! When I've--" There she paused, still watching him. But Esther had the woman's instinctive trick of being able to watch accurately while she did it pa.s.sionately.

Jeff flushed to his hair, but her cleverness did not lead her to the springs of his emotion. He was ashamed, not of her, but of himself.

"You're off," he said, "all wrong. I do want to save you from this horrible mix-up I've made for you. But I'm not good, Esther. I'm not the faithful chap it makes me seem. I'm different. You wouldn't know me. I don't believe we ever knew each other very well."

Something like terror came into her beautiful eyes. Was he, that inner terror asked her, trying to explain that she had lost him? Although she might not want him, she had always thought he would be there.

"You mean--" she began, and strove to keep a grip on herself and decide temperately whether this would be best to say. But some galled feeling got the better of her. The smart was too much. Hurt vanity made her wince and cry out with the pa.s.sion of a normal jealousy. "You mean," she continued, "you are in love with another woman."

It was a hit. He had deserved it, he knew, and he straightened under it.

Let him not, his alarmed senses told him, even think of Lydia, lest these cruelly clever eyes see Lydia in his, Lydia in his hurried breath, even if he could keep Lydia from his tongue.

"Esther," he said, "don't say such a thing. Don't think it. What right have I to look at another woman while you are alive? How could I insult a woman--" He stopped, his own honest heart knocking against his words.

He had dared. He had swept his house of life and let Lydia in.

"Yes," said Esther thoughtfully, and, it seemed, hurt to the soul, "you love somebody else. O Jeff, I didn't think--" She lifted widened eyes to his. Afterward he could have sworn they were wet with tears. "I stand in your way, don't I? What can I do, not to stand in your way?"

"Do?" said Jeff, in a rage at all the pa.s.sions between men and women.

"Do? You can stop talking sentiment about me and putting words into my mouth. You can make over your life, if you know how, and I'll help you do it, if I can. I thought you were trying to free yourself. You can do that. I won't lift a hand. You can say you're afraid of me, as you have before. G.o.d knows whether you are. If you are, you're out of your mind.

But you can say it, and I won't deny you've just cause. You mustn't be a prisoner to me."

"Jeff!" said Esther.

"What is it?" he asked.

She spoke tremblingly, weakly really as if she had not the strength to speak, and he came a step nearer and laid his hand on the granite gatepost. It was so hard it gave him courage. There were blood-red vines on it, and when he disturbed their stems they loosened leaves and let them drift over his hand.

"Now I see," said Esther, "how really alone I am. I thought I was when you were away, but it was nothing to this."

She walked on, listlessly, aimlessly even though she kept the path and she was going on her way as she had elected to before she saw him. But to Jeff she seemed to be a drifting thing. A delicate b.u.t.terfly floated past him, weakened by the coldness of last night and fluttering on into a night as cold.

"Esther," he called, and hurried after her. "You don't want me to walk with you?" he asked impatiently. "You don't want Addington to say we've made it up?"

"I don't care about Addington," said Esther. "It can say what it pleases--if you're kind to me."

"Kind!" said Jeff. "I could have you trounced. You don't play fair. What do you mean by mixing me all up with pity and things--" Esther's lids were not allowed to lift, but her heart gave a little responsive bound.

So she had mixed him up!--"Getting the facts all wrong," Jeff went on irritably. "You ignore everything you've felt before to-day. And you begin to-day and say I've not been kind to you."

Now Esther looked at him. She smiled.

"Scold away," she said. "I've wanted you to scold me. I haven't been so happy for months."

"Of course I scold you," said Jeff. "I want to see you happy. I want to see you rid of me and beginning your life all over, so far as you can.

You're not the sort to live alone. It's an outrage against nature. A woman like you--"

But Esther never discovered what he meant by "a woman like you." He had gone a little further than her brain would take her. Did he mean a woman altogether charming, like her--or? She dropped the inquiry very soon, because it seemed to lead nowhere and it was pleasanter to think the things that do not worry one.

Jeff remembered afterward that he had known from the beginning of the walk with her that they should meet all Addington. But it was not the Addington he had irritably dreaded. It was Lydia. His heart died as he saw her coming, and his brain called on every reserve within him to keep Esther from knowing that here was his heart's lady, this brave creature whose honour was untainted, who had a woman's daring and a man's endurance. He even, after that first alarm of a glance, held his eyes from seeing her and he kept on scolding Esther.

"What's the use," he said, "talking like that?" And then his mind told him there must be no confusion in what he said. He was defending Lydia.

He was pulling over her the green leaves of secrecy. "I advise you," he said, "to get away from here. Get away from Madame Beattie--get away from grandmother--" Lydia was very near now. He felt he could afford to see her. "Ah, Lydia!" he said casually, and took off his hat.

They were past her, but not before Esther had asked, in answer:

"Where shall we go? I mean--" she caught herself up from her wilful stumbling--"where could I go--alone?"

They were at her own gate, and Jeff stopped with her. Since they left Lydia he had held his hat in his hand, and Esther, looking up at him saw that he had paled under his tan. The merciless woman in her took stock of that, rejoicing. Jeff smiled at her faintly, he was so infinitely glad to leave her.

"We must think," he said. "You must think. Esther, about money, I'll try--I don't know yet what I can earn--but we'll see. Oh, hang it! these things can't be said."

He turned upon the words and strode off and Esther, without looking after him, went in and at once upstairs.