Second String Part 56

Jack winked in great enjoyment. "Know of a certain house where a certain old gentleman used to live--him as kept the grammar school--Mr. Hayes, B.A. Oxon? The old house in Highcroft, Andy! It's on the market, and I'm goin' to buy it--to say nothin' of a nice range of stablin' opposite.

And there, if you'll accept of 'em, Andy, you'll have your own pair o'

rooms always ready for you, when you're down at Meriton over your politics. Parlour and bedroom, there they'll be, and I shan't disturb you. And when I'm gone, there's the old house for you. There's n.o.body poor Nancy would have been so glad to see in it."

There was a lump in Andy's throat, and he was not ashamed of it. The regard and love of his friends seemed to have been very much with him in the last few days, and to have done great things for him. Old Jack Rock's affectionate cunning touched him closely.

"I really think I'm the luckiest beggar alive!" he exclaimed.

"Folks mostly make their luck," said Jack. "You've made yours. There was no call on any of us to fret ourselves about you. You could have gone back to Canada and made your way for yourself--if it hadn't been that we got to want to keep you, Andy." He paused, drank his beer, and added, "Aye, but I shall feel a bit strange the day that sign comes down, and I've no more to say to the meat--only the horses! I've lived with the meat, man and boy, nigh on sixty year."

With a promise to return in good time for supper--for no risks must be run with what might be one of the last of Mr. Rock's own joints of beef that he would ever be privileged to eat--Andy left him and took the road to Nutley. He remembered Vivien's invitation; he looked forward to telling her his news, the great things that had been happening to him in the last three days. But he wanted yet more to meet her again; he had not seen her since the day after the catastrophe. Harry he had seen, and Harry had been happy, in high spirits, quite self-contented, until that untoward telegram eclipsed his gaiety. Would the interval of a few brief weeks have wrought a like change in her? It could not be looked for.

Harry effected such transformations with a celerity peculiar to himself.

Still there was room to hope for some lightening of her sorrow. Andy hoped to find it, and would approve of it. His mind was for the mean, for moderation, in all emotions. If he resented Harry's gaiety, unending unlifting woe was hardly more congenial to his temper, and certainly much more troublesome to deal with tactfully. Harry's implicit negation of responsibility had at least the merit of inviting other people not to make too much of his mischances.

What his changing moods--his faculty of emotional oblivion--did in truth for Harry, pride effected in outward seeming for Vivien. Some credit, too, must be given to Wellgood's training and Isobel's able co-operation. The discipline of the stiff upper lip redeemed some of its harshness by coming to her rescue now. Never had she held her head so high in Meriton as in the days that followed the announcement of Harry Belfield's marriage with Isobel Vintry. A poor, maimed, stunted announcement, compared with the column and a half of description, guests, presents, and felicitations which would have chronicled her wedding! Five lines in the corner of the local paper--an item of news for such of the population as did not see the London papers--it was enough to make Vivien fence herself about against any show of pity. To do Meriton justice, it understood which of the pair had suffered the greater loss. That Miss Wellgood was "well out of it," but that Mr.

Harry had "done for himself," was the prevailing verdict; somewhat affected, it is to be feared, by the advent.i.tious circ.u.mstance that Isobel was "the companion"--a drop to obscurity for brilliant Mr. Harry!

But the marriage dug deeper than to affect mere seeming. Besides erecting the useful barrier of impossibility, it raised the fence of an inward pride--or, rather, of that fastidiousness which Wellgood and Isobel had striven to eradicate. In that matter it was good for Vivien that they had failed. To allow herself to remember, to muse, to long--for whom? No more simply for Harry Belfield. In that name there were allurements for musing and for longing. But the bearer of it had contracted for himself now a new designation. It did him and his memory no good. Isobel Vintry's husband! The new character did much to strip him of his romantic habiliments. He was brought down to earth; he could no more float before the eyes, a dazzling though unprofitable figure, proceeding in a brilliant callousness to the wrecking of other hearts.

There is always a touch of the ridiculous about Don Juan married, or Sir Gawain Light-of-Love bound in chains in whose forging the Church has lent a hand to Cupid. And married to Isobel Vintry, who had stolen kisses behind the door! In a moral regard perhaps it is sad to say, but we easier forgive our own romantic wrongs when they may be supposed to form but a link in a series. She would have found it harder to despise Harry, if he had served Isobel after the same fas.h.i.+on as he had served herself. She knew it not, but perhaps Harry was ent.i.tled to ask her to wait for just a little while! As the case stood--to weep for Isobel's husband! The stiff upper lip which had been inculcated joined forces with the fastidiousness that had never been uprooted. She chid herself for every memory of Harry; every pang of envy for Isobel demanded from herself a discipline more stern than Isobel's own had ever supplied to meet Wellgood's theories of a manly training.

Wellgood was proud of his daughter and of his theories, readily claiming for his system of education the joint result of its success and of its failure--of the courage and of the fastidiousness alike. But the plague of it was that the thought of the training brought with it the memory of the preceptress who had so ably carried out his orders. Wellgood admired his daughter--and envied her. He burned still with a fierce jealousy; for him no appeas.e.m.e.nt lay in the marriage.

Yet between Vivien and Andy Hayes silence about the past could be no more than silence--merely a refraining from words, no real forgetfulness, no true putting aside. For with that past would go their old relations.h.i.+p to one another; its roots had grown from that soil, and it flourished still by the strength of it. At the start their common memories could envisage no picture without Isobel's face finding a place on the canvas; later, Harry was inevitably the central figure of the composition. If Andy had pitied and sought to comfort, if Vivien had given confidence and accepted sympathy, it had always, in some sort or another, been in regard to one of these two figures--in the later days, to both of them. Still they met, as it were, enc.u.mbered by these memories, she to him Isobel's pupil, Harry's lover, he to her Harry's follower, even though her own partisan against Isobel. It was hard to get their relations on to an independent footing; to be interested in one another for one another's sake, without that outside reference, which had now become mere matter of memory--and best not remembered; to find in one another and not elsewhere the motive of their intercourse and the source of a new friends.h.i.+p. The old kindliness must be transplanted to a fresh soil if it were to blossom into a life self-sufficient and underived.

The line of thought was hers rather than his, at least more explicit and realized for her than for him. When he thought of Harry--or of Isobel and Harry--it was with intent to avoid giving pain by an incautious reference; her mind demanded a direct a.s.sertion that the pair of them were done with, and that she and he met on the ground of a new and strictly mutual interest.

She had no thought, no dream, of more than friends.h.i.+p. The past was too recent, her heart still too sore. Yet the sore heart instinctively seeks balm; the wounded flower of pride will raise its head in grateful answer to a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne or a drop of rain. Andy's shy surety that she would rejoice in his luck, because aforetime he had grieved for her tribulation, struck home to a heart hungry for comrades.h.i.+p.

Thus by her pride, and by her will answering the call of her pride, she was different. She no longer merely suffered, was no longer pa.s.sive to, kindness or cruelty. He knew the change as soon as she came to him, in that very room which had witnessed the first stolen kiss, and, holding her hand out to him, cried, "Mr. Andy, you've not refused? There's no welcome for you in this house if you've refused. Father and I are quite agreed about it!"

Andy pressed her hand--Harry would have kissed it. "You know? I couldn't refuse their kindness. If I had, yours would have made me sorry."

"It's good of you to spare time to come and tell us."

Andy's answer had the compelling power of unconscious sincerity. "That seemed about the first thing to do," he said, with a simple unembarra.s.sed laugh.

The girl blushed, a faint yet vivid colour came on her cheeks. She drew back a little. Andy's words were, in their simplicity, bolder far than his thoughts. Yet in drawing back she smiled. But Andy had seen the blush. Successful man as he had now become--big with promise as he was, at all events--in this field he was a novice. His blush answered hers--and was of a deeper tint. "I'm afraid that's awfully presumptuous?" he stammered.

"Why, we've all been waiting to hear the news! Father had the offer--you know that? But he couldn't stand London. Then they asked Mr. Foot's advice. He said it ought to be you. You do your best to prevent people thinking of you, but as soon as you're suggested--why, it's obvious."

"You really think I shan't make a fool of myself?" asked Andy.

The delicate flush was still on her cheeks. "You'll make me very much ashamed of myself if you do," she answered. "Is my opinion to be as wrong as all that? Haven't I always trusted you?"

His surroundings suddenly laid hold on him. It was the very room--she stood on the very spot--where he had witnessed Harry's first defection, her earliest betrayal.

"It seems--it seems"--he stammered--"it seems treason."

She was silent for a minute. The colour glowed brighter on her cheeks.

"I don't care to hear you say that," she told him, daintily haughty. "I was waiting here to congratulate you--yes, I hoped you'd come. I've nothing to do with anybody except the best candidate! They say you're that. I had my good wishes ready for you. Will you take them--without reserve?"

"I--I say things wrong," pleaded poor Andy. "I'll take anything you'll give."

Her face flashed into a smile. "Your wrong things are--well, one can forgive them. It's all settled then--and you're to be the M.P.?"

Andy was still apologetic. "They know what to do, I suppose. It seems curious. Wigram says it's a certainty too. They've all joined in to help--Lord Meriton, Mr. Belfield, and old Jack. I'm much too poor by myself, you know."

"The man who makes friends makes riches." She gave a light laugh. "May I be a little bit of your riches?"

Andy's answer was his own. "Well, I always remember that morning--the hunt and Curly."

"I'm still that to you?" she asked quickly, her colour rising yet.

He looked at her. "No, of course not, but I had a sort of idea that then you liked me a bit."

She looked across the room at him--Andy was a man who kept his distance.

"You've been a refuge in time of trouble," she said. Her voice was soft, her eyes bright. "We won't talk of the old things any more, will we?"

Wellgood stood in the window. "Well, is it all right?" he asked.

"He's said yes, father!" she cried with a glad merriment.

"I thought he would. It's a change for the better!"

His blunt words--in truth they were brutal according to his brutality--brought silence. Andy flushed into a painful red--not for his own sake only.

"I've got to try to be as good a stop-gap as I can," he said.

"Something better than that!" Vivien murmured softly.

Chapter XXIV.

PRETTY MUCH THE SAME!

In the spring of the following year Miss Doris Flower returned from an extensive professional tour in America. She had enjoyed great success.

The Nun and the Quaker proved thoroughly to the taste of transatlantic audiences; Joan of Arc did not at first create the same enthusiasm in the United States as she had in London, the allusion to the happier relations between France and England naturally not exciting quite equal interest. However an ingenious gentleman supplied the Maid with a vision of General Lafayette instead; though not quite so up-to-date, it more than answered expectations. Across the Canadian border-line the original vision was, of course, restored, and went immensely. It was all one to Miss Flower what visions she had, so that they were to the liking of the public. She came back much pleased with herself, distinctly affluent, and minded to enjoy for awhile a well-earned leisure. Miss Sally Dutton returned with her, charged with a wealth of comment on American ways and inst.i.tutions, the great bulk of which sensible people could attribute only to the blackest prejudice.

The lapse of six months is potent to smooth small causes of awkwardness and to make little changes of feeling or of att.i.tude seem quite natural.

Billy Foot had undoubtedly avoided the Nun for the last few weeks before her departure; he saw no reason now why he should not be among the earliest to call and welcome his old friend. It was rather with a humorous twinkle than with any embarra.s.sment that, when they settled down to talk, he asked her if she happened to know the Macquart-Smiths.

"Of Kensington?" asked the Nun in a tone of polite interest.

"Yes, Kensington Palace Gardens," Billy replied, tranquilly unconscious of any other than the obvious bearing of the question. "I thought you must have heard of them." (The Nun never had, though she had seen at least one of them.) "The old man made a pile out in Mexico. They're very good sort of people."

"You brought one of the girls to hear me one night, didn't you?"