Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “It’s settled now, at all events,” he said in a decided way, after a long time. “What’s the use of talking about it? I don’t know whether you mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon.”

  Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward, looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on his knees, and his hands hanging down.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Let us try and look at it quietly, boy. Don’t do anything in a hurry. You’re in love with the girl, are you? It isn’t a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at your age?”

  “Gad!” exclaimed Brook, half angrily. “I know it! that’s all. I can’t live without her. That is — it’s all bosh to talk in that way, you know. One goes on living, I suppose — one doesn’t die. You know what I mean. I’d rather lose an arm than lose her — that sort of thing. How am I to explain it to you? I’m in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to marry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can’t say that I don’t know what married life means.”

  “Other people’s married life,” observed Sir Adam, grimly. “You know something about that, I’m afraid.”

  “What difference does it make?” asked Brook. “I can’t marry the daughter of my father’s divorced wife.”

  “I never heard of a case, simply because such cases don’t arise often. But there’s no earthly reason why you shouldn’t. There is no relationship whatever between you. There’s no mention of it in the table of kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn’t kindred or affinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may do much more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father’s divorced wife when you are to have forty thousand pounds a year, Brook. I’ve found it out in my time. You’ll find it out in yours. And it isn’t as though there were the least thing about it that wasn’t all fair and square and straight and honourable and legal — and everything else, including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn’t have married me the second time, because the Church isn’t supposed to approve of divorces. But I was married in church all right, by a very good man. And Church disapproval can’t possibly extend to the second generation, you know. Oh no! So far as its being possible goes, there’s nothing to prevent your marrying her.”

  “Except Mrs. Crosby,” said Brook. “You’ll prove that she doesn’t exist either, if you go on. But all that doesn’t put things straight. It’s a horrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mother say if she knew? You haven’t told her about the Bowrings, have you?”

  “No,” answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. “I haven’t told her anything. Of course she knows the story, but — I’m not sure. Do you think I’m bound to tell her that — who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it’s anything like not fair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I’ll tell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, of course.”

  “Of course,” assented Brook. “You can’t do that, unless we go away. Besides, as things are now, what’s the use?”

  “She’ll have to know, if you are engaged to the daughter.”

  “I’m not engaged to Miss Bowring,” said Brook, disconsolately. “She won’t look at me. What an infernal mess I’ve made of my life!”

  “Don’t be an ass, Brook!” exclaimed Sir Adam, for the third time that morning.

  “It’s all very well to tell me not to be an ass,” answered the young man gravely. “I can’t mend matters now, and I don’t blame her for refusing me. It isn’t much more than two weeks since that night. I can’t tell her the truth — I wouldn’t tell it to you, though I can’t prevent your telling it to me, since you’ve guessed it. She thinks I betrayed Mrs. Crosby, and left her — like the merest cad, you know. What am I to do? I won’t say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything — and if I were low enough to do that I couldn’t say it to Miss Bowring. I told her that I’d marry her in spite of herself — carry her off — anything! But of course I couldn’t. I lost my head, and talked like a fool.”

  “She won’t think the worse of you for that,” observed the old man. “But you can’t tell her — the rest. Of course not! I’ll see what I can do, Brook. I don’t believe it’s hopeless at all. I’ve watched Miss Bowring, ever since we first met you two, coming up the hill. I’ll try something—”

  “Don’t speak to her about Mrs. Crosby, at all events!”

  “I don’t think I should do anything you wouldn’t do yourself, boy,” said Sir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. “All I say is that the case isn’t so hopeless as you seem to think. Of course you are heavily handicapped, and you are a dog with a bad name, and all the rest of it. The young lady won’t change her mind to-day, nor to-morrow either, perhaps. But she wouldn’t be a human woman if she never changed it at all.”

  “You don’t know her!” Brook shook his head and began to refill his refractory pipe. “And I don’t believe you know her mother either, though you were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, she won’t let her daughter marry your son. It’s not as though anything could happen now to change the situation. It’s an old one — it’s old, and set, and hard, like a cast. You can’t run it into a new mould and make anything else of it. Not even you, Governor — and you are as clever as anybody I know. It’s a sheer question of humanity, without any possible outside incident. I’ve got two things against me which are about as serious as anything can be — the mother’s prejudice against you, and the daughter’s prejudice against me — both deuced well founded, it seems to me.”

  “You forget one thing, Brook,” said Sir Adam, thoughtfully.

  “What’s that?”

  “Women forgive.”

  Neither spoke for some time.

  “You ought to know,” said Brook in a low tone, at last. “They forgive when they love — or have loved. That’s the right way to put it, I think.”

  “Well — put it in that way, if you like. It will just cover the ground. Whatever that young lady may say, she likes you very much. I’ve seen her watch you, and I’m sure of it.”

  “How can a woman love a man and hate him at the same time?”

  “Why do jealous women sometimes kill their husbands? If they didn’t love them they wouldn’t care; and if they didn’t hate them, they wouldn’t kill them. You can’t explain it, perhaps, but you can’t deny it either. She’ll never forgive Mrs. Crosby — perhaps — but she’ll forgive you, when she finds out that she can’t be happy without you. Stay here quietly, and let me see what I can do.”

  “You can’t do anything, Governor. But I’m grateful to you all the same. And — you know — if there’s anything I can do on my side to help you, just now, I’ll do it!”

  “Thank you, Brook,” said the old man, leaning back, and putting up his feet again.

  Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Then he got his hat and went off for a solitary walk to think matters over. They were grave enough, and all that his father had said could not persuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. There was a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not remember ever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with bent head.

  CHAPTER XIII

  SIR ADAM SAT still in his place and smoked another thick cigarette before he moved. Then he roused himself, got up, sat down at his table, and took a large sheet of paper from a big leather writing-case.

  He had no hesitation about what he meant to put down. In a quarter of an hour he had written out a new will, in which he left his whole fortune to his only son Brook, on condition that Brook did not marry Mrs. Crosby. But if he married her before his father’s death he was to have nothing, and if he married her afterwards he was to forfeit the whole, to the uttermost farthing. In either of these cases the property was to go to a third person. Sir Adam hesitated a moment, and then wrote the name of one of his sisters as the c
onditional legatee. His wife had plenty of money of her own, and besides, the will was a mere formality, drawn up and to be executed solely with a view to checking Lady Fan’s enthusiasm. He did not sign it, but folded it smoothly and put it into his pocket. He also took his own pen, for he was particular in matters appertaining to the mechanics of writing, and very neat in all he did.

  He went out and wandered up and down the terrace in the heat, but no one was there. Then he knocked at his wife’s door, and found her absorbed in an interesting conversation with her maid in regard to matters of dress, as connected with climate. Lady Johnstone at once appealed to him, and the maid eyed him with suspicion, fearing his suggestions. He satisfied her, however, by immediately suggesting that she should go away, whereat she smiled and departed.

  Lady Johnstone at once understood that something very serious was in the air. A wonderful good fellowship existed between husband and wife; but they very rarely talked of anything which could not have been discussed, figuratively, on the housetops.

  “Brook has got himself into a scrape with that Mrs. Crosby, my dear,” said Sir Adam. “What you heard is all more or less true. She has really been to a solicitor, and means to take steps to get a divorce. Of course she could get it easily enough. If she did, people would say that Brook had let her go that far, telling her that he would marry her, and then had changed his mind and left her to her fate. We can’t let that happen, you know.”

  Lady Johnstone looked at her husband with anxiety while he was speaking, and then was silent for a few seconds.

  “Oh, you Johnstones! You Johnstones!” she cried at last, shaking her head. “You’re perfectly incorrigible!”

  “Oh no, my dear,” answered Sir Adam; “don’t forget me, you know.”

  “You, Adam!”

  Her tone expressed an extraordinary conflict of varying sentiment — amusement, affection, reproach, a retrospective distrust of what might have been, but could not be, considering Sir Adam’s age.

  “Never mind me, then,” he answered. “I’ve made a will cutting Brook off with nothing if he marries Mrs. Crosby, and I’m going to send her a copy of it to-day. That will be enough, I fancy.”

  “Adam!”

  “Yes — what? Do you disapprove? You always say that you are a practical woman, and you generally show that you are. Why shouldn’t I take the practical method of stopping this woman as soon as possible? She wants my money — she doesn’t want my son. A fortune with any other name would smell as sweet.”

  “Yes — but—”

  “But what? “

  “I don’t know — it seems — somehow—” Lady Johnstone was perplexed to express what she meant just then. “I mean,” she added suddenly, “it’s treating the woman like a mere adventuress, you know—”

  “That’s precisely what Mrs. Crosby is, my dear,” answered Sir Adam calmly. “The fact that she comes of decent people doesn’t alter the case in the least. Nor the fact that she has one rich husband, and wishes to get another instead. I say that her husband is rich, but I’m very sure he has ruined himself in the last two years, and that she knows it. She is not the woman to leave him as long as he has money, for he lets her do anything she pleases, and pays her well to leave him alone. But he has got into trouble — and rats leave a sinking ship, you know. You may say that I’m cynical, my dear, but I think you’ll find that I’m telling you the facts as they are.”

  “It seems an awful insult to the woman to send her a copy of your will,” said Lady Johnstone.

  “It’s an awful insult to you when she tries to get rid of her husband to marry your only son, my dear.”

  “Oh — but he’d never marry her!”

  “I’m not sure. If he thought it would be dishonourable not to marry her, he’d be quite capable of doing it, and of blowing out his brains afterwards.”

  “That wouldn’t improve her position,” observed the practical Lady Johnstone.

  “She’d be the widow of an honest man, instead of the wife of a blackguard,” said Sir Adam. “However, I’m doing this on my own responsibility. What I want is that you should witness the will.”

  “And let Mrs. Crosby think I made you do this? No—”

  “Nonsense. I sha’n’t copy the signatures—”

  “Then why do you need them at all?”

  “I’m not going to write to her that I’ve made a will, if I haven’t,” answered Sir Adam. “A will isn’t a will unless it’s witnessed. I’m not going to lie about it, just to frighten her. So I want you and Mrs. Bowring to witness it.”

  “Mrs. Bowring?”

  “Yes — there are no men here, and Brook can’t be a witness, because he’s interested. You and Mrs. Bowring will do very well. But there’s another thing — rather an extraordinary thing — and I won’t let you sign with her until you know it. It’s not a very easy thing to tell you, my dear.”

  Lady Johnstone shifted her fat hands and folded them again, and her frank blue eyes gazed at her husband for a moment.

  “I can guess,” she said, with a good-natured smile. “You told me you were old friends — I suppose you were in love with her somewhere!” She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t mind,” she added. “It’s one more, that’s all — one that I didn’t know of. She’s a very nice woman, and I’ve taken the greatest fancy to her!”

  “I’m glad you have,” said Sir Adam, gravely. “I say, my dear — don’t be surprised, you know — I warned you. We knew each other very well — it’s not what you think at all, and she was altogether in the right and I was quite in the wrong about it. I say, now — don’t be startled — she’s my divorced wife — that’s all.”

  “She! Mrs. Bowring! Oh, Adam — how could you treat her so!”

  Lady Johnstone leaned back in her chair and slowly turned her head till she could look out of the window. She was almost rosy with surprise — a change of colour in her sanguine complexion which was equivalent to extreme pallor in other persons. Sir Adam looked at her affectionately.

  “What an awfully good woman you are!” he exclaimed, in genuine admiration.

  “I! No, I’m not good at all. I was thinking that if you hadn’t been such a brute to her I could never have married you. I don’t suppose that is good, is it? But you were a brute, all the same, Adam, dear, to hurt such a woman as that!”

  “Of course I was! I told you so when I told you the story. But I didn’t expect that you’d ever meet.”

  “No, it is an extraordinary thing. I suppose that if I had any nerves I should faint. It would be an awful thing if I did; you’d have to get those porters to pick me up!” She smiled meditatively. “But I haven’t fainted, you see. And, after all, I don’t see why it should be so very dreadful, do you? You see, you’ve rather broken me in to the idea of lots of other people in your life, and I’ve always pitied her sincerely. I don’t see why I should stop pitying her because I’ve met her and taken such a fancy to her without knowing who she was. Do you?”

  “Most women would,” observed Sir Adam. “It’s lucky that you and she happen to be the two best women in the world. I told Brook so this morning.”

  “Brook? Have you told him?”

  “I had to. He wants to marry her daughter.”

  “Brook! It’s impossible!”

  Lady Johnstone’s tone betrayed so much more surprise and displeasure than when her husband had told her of Mrs. Bowring’s identity that he stared at her in surprise.

  “I don’t see why it’s impossible,” he said, “except that she has refused him once. That’s nothing. The first time doesn’t count.”

  “He sha’n’t!” said the fat lady, whose vivid colour had come back. “He’ll make her miserable — just as you — no, I won’t say that! But they are not in the least suited to one another — he’s far too young; there are fifty reasons.”

  “Brook won’t act as I did, my dear,” said Sir Adam. “He’s like you in that. He’ll make as good a husband as you have been a good wife—”

&nbs
p; “Nonsense!” interrupted Lady Johnstone. “You’re all alike, you Johnstones! I was talking to him this morning about her — I knew there was the beginning of something — and I told him what I thought. You’re all bad, and I love you all; but if you think that Clare Bowring is as practical as I am, you’re very much mistaken, Adam, dear! She’ll break her heart—”

  “If she does, I’ll shoot him,” answered the old man with a grim smile. “I told him so.”

  “Did you? Well, I am glad you take that view of it,” said Lady Johnstone, thoughtfully, and not at all realising what she was saying. “I’m glad I’m not a nervous woman,” she added, beginning to fan herself. “I should be in my grave, you know.”

  “No — you are not nervous, my dear, and I’m very glad of it. I suppose it really is rather a trying situation. But if I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t have told you all this. You’ve spoiled me, you know — you really have been so tremendously good to me — always, dear.”

  There was a rough, half unwilling tenderness in his voice, and his big bony hand rested gently on the fat lady’s shoulder, as he spoke. She bent her head to one side, till her large red cheek touched the brown knuckles. It was, in a way, almost grotesque. But there was that something in it which could make youth and beauty and passion ridiculous — the outspoken truthful old rake and the ever-forgiving wife. Who shall say wherein pathos lies? And yet it seems to be something more than a mere hack-writer’s word, after all. The strangest acts of life sometimes go off in such an oddly quiet humdrum way, and then all at once there is the little quiver in the throat, when one least expects it — and the sad-eyed, faithful, loving angel has passed by quickly, low and soft, his gentle wings just brushing the still waters of our unwept tears.

  Sir Adam left his wife to go in search of Mrs. Bowring. He sent a message to her, and she came out and met him in the corridor. They went into the reading-room together, and he shut the door. In a few words he told her all that he had told his wife about Mrs. Crosby, and asked her whether she had any objection to signing the document as a witness, merely in order that he might satisfy himself by actually executing it.