The Helpmate Part 7

"Oh yes, he was in it. The ocean swallowed him as it swallowed the others. But it couldn't keep him. He couldn't live in it, like them."

"But how did she get hold of him?"

"She got hold of him by appealing to his chivalry."

(His chivalry--she knew it.)

"It's what happens, over and over again. He thought her a vilely injured woman. He may have thought her good. He certainly thought her pathetic.

It was the pathos that did it."

"That--did--it?"

"Yes. Did it. She hurled herself at his head--at his knees--at his feet---till he _had_ to lift her. And that's how it happened."

Anne's spirit writhed as she contemplated the happening.

"I know it oughtn't to have happened. I know Walter wasn't the holy saint he ought to have been. But oh, he was a martyr!" She paused. "And--he was very young."

"Edith--when was it?"

"Seven years ago."

Anne pondered. The seven years helped to purify him. Every day helped that threw the horror further back in time--separated it from her. If--if he had not been steeped too long in it. She wanted to know _how_ long, but she was afraid to ask; afraid lest it should be brought nearer to her than she could bear. Edith saw her fear.

"It lasted two years. It was all my fault."

"Your fault?"

"Yes, my fault. Because of my horrid spine. You see, it kept him from marrying."

"Well, but--"

"Well, but it couldn't have happened if he had married. How _could_ it?

How could it have happened if you had been there? You would have saved him."

She paused on that note, a long, illuminating pause. The note itself was a divine inspiration. It rang all golden. It thrilled to the verge of the dominant chord in Anne. It touched her soul, the mother of brooding, mystic harmonies.

"You would have saved him."

Anne saw herself for one moment as his guardian angel, her mission frustrated through a flaw of time. That vision was dashed by another, herself as the ideal, the star he should have looked to before its dawn, herself dishonoured by his young haste, his pa.s.sion, his failure to foresee.

"He should have waited for me."

"Did you wait for him?"

A quick flush pulsed through the whiteness of Anne's face. She looked back seven years to her girlhood in the southern Deanery, her home. She had another vision, a vision of a Minor Canon, whom she had loved with the pure wors.h.i.+p of her youth, a love of which somehow she was now ashamed. Ashamed, though it had then seemed to her so spiritual. Her dead parents had desired the marriage, but neither she nor they had the power to bring it about.

Edith had never heard of the Minor Canon. She had drawn a bow at a venture.

"My dear," she said, "why not? It's only the very elect lovers who can say to each other, 'I never loved any one but you.'"

"At any rate," said Anne, "I never loved any one else well enough to marry him."

For, in her fancy, the Minor Canon, being withdrawn in time, had ceased to occupy s.p.a.ce; he had become that which he was for her girlhood, a disembodied dream. She could not have explained why she was so ashamed of him. What ground of comparison was there between that blameless one and Lady Cayley?

"Edith," she said suddenly, "did you ever see her?"

"Never," said Edith emphatically.

"You don't know what she was like?"

"I don't. I never wanted to. I dare say there are people in Scale who could tell you all about her, only I wouldn't inquire if I were you."

"Did it happen at Scarby?" She was determined to know the worst.

"I believe so."

"Oh--why did I ever go there?"

"He didn't want you to. That was why."

"Where is she now?"

"n.o.body knows. She might be anywhere."

"Not here?"

"No, not here. My dear, you mustn't get her on your nerves."

"I'm afraid of meeting her."

"It isn't likely that you ever will. She isn't the sort one does meet--now, poor thing."

"Who was she?"

"The wife of Sir Andrew Cayley, a tallow-chandler."

"Oh, how did Walter ever--"

"My dear, one meets all sorts of funny people in Scale. He was a very wealthy tallow-chandler. Besides, it wasn't he that Walter did meet, naturally."

"How can you joke about it? It makes me sick to think of it."

"It made me sick enough once, dear. But I don't think of it."

"I can't help thinking of it."

"Well, whenever you do, when it does come over you--it will, sometimes--think of what Walter's life was before he knew you. Everything was spoiled for him because of me. He was sent to a place he detested because of me; put into an office which he loathed, shut up here in this hateful house, because of me. And he was good to me, good and dear. Even at the worst he hardly ever left me if he thought I wanted him--not even to go to _her_. But he was young, and it was an awful life for him; you don't know how awful. It would have been bad enough for a woman. It was intolerable for a man. I was worse then than I am now. I was horribly fretful, and I worried him. I think I drove him to her--I know I did. He had to get away from it sometimes. Won't you think of that?"