“What is all this?” the Canon enquired rather sternly.
Valeria felt utterly incapable of replying.
“Answer me, Valeria.”
“Captain Cuscaden is looking for you,” said Valeria almost inaudibly.
“Captain Cuscaden?”
“Yes.”
They gazed speechlessly at one another.
A weight had descended upon the Canon’s brow and the lines round his mouth were set sternly.
“Valeria, has he insulted you?”
The intimate conviction overwhelmed her that the Canon’s opinion of her recent interview with Captain Cuscaden would certainly demand an emphatically affirmative reply to the enquiry. She felt a purely hysterical desire to burst out laughing at the thought.
“How is Captain Cuscaden concerned with you? If it is as I think, Valeria, you did well to refer him to me.”
“But it isn’t. He — I — we are both to blame, Father. I’m going to break off my engagement to Owen. I love George.”
The words were said, and although Valeria broke into a flood of tears, it was with a sense of relief. Telling Owen that she did not intend to marry him after all, was, she honestly felt, nothing to telling the Canon so.
She sank down on the stairs and hid her face in her hands, afraid to face her father’s realization of the implication that her words contained.
It did not tarry.
“Do you want me to understand that you are under a solemn engagement to marry Owen Quentillian, and that you have at the same time been allowing — encouraging — the clandestine attentions of this — this fellow? You, my daughter, behaving like a wanton? I won’t believe it — I can’t believe it—” the Canon’s voice rose violently. “Valeria, for God’s sake tell me I’m mistaken — don’t crouch there like a guilty creature — tell me I’m wrong, tell me you’re the pure, honest maiden I’ve tried to make you and not — not — a creature without honour, without decency”
The rising note of anguish broke on a strangled sob. Below, a door was shut sharply.
“Get up,” said the Canon with violence.
Valeria rose, and he pulled her to her feet and gazed searchingly into her face.
“And this is my child!” said the Canon, and in his turn dropped his face into his hands, groaning.
“I couldn’t help it,” she spoke between her sobs, like a child. “Owen knew I wasn’t in love with him ... only I never realized, I didn’t know George cared, too — it was always him...”
“Stop!” thundered the Canon. “Are you without shame, Valeria? Is that fellow waiting for me downstairs, or has he crawled away as I should expect, from one who has so repaid my hospitality?”
The words gave Valeria a needed impetus.
“He is ready to meet you, Father — he went to find you. And I love him — I suppose I’ve been very dishonourable, but I — I believe Owen will understand.” She broke into tears again, and left him.
Overwhelmed with the sense of her own dishonour, regarding the Canon’s wrath as might have a child, in the light of the greatest calamity that life could present, she turned with absolute relief to the thought of Owen’s dispassionate judgments, his studiously impersonal attitude towards life. Owen would understand. There came a knock at the door.
“Val, may I come in?”
“What is it?” said Valeria unwillingly.
Lucilla entered the room, unperturbed, but fully accepting the disordered aspect of its occupant.
“I’m afraid, Val, that the drawing-room door was open, and it was impossible to help hearing Father. I thought you’d rather know, in case you wanted to speak to Owen.”
“Owen knows?” almost shrieked Valeria.
“I suppose he does. He must have drawn his own conclusions.”
“I couldn’t help it,” said Val again. “I never meant anything like that to happen — it’s George Cuscaden, Lucilla. It was always him, indeed it was, only I didn’t know it, and it all seemed to happen in a minute — it was stronger than either of us.”
“I dare say you did quite right. Why don’t you wash, Val?”
“Oh, Lucilla, how like you!”
Valeria laughed shakily, but she followed her sister’s advice.
Lucilla methodically produced Val’s brush and comb, and dry clothing.
“Maud Admaston and Miss Duffle have gone, and Adrian went with them. Mr. Clover has gone, too, so it was only Owen and Flossie and I that heard.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. Shall I fasten you up, Val?”
“Lucilla — what am I to do?”
“Tell Owen you can’t marry him, and tell George you will marry him.”
“I wish it was as simple as that! You always take things so literally.”
“Well” said Lucilla unmoved, “I don’t see any other way of taking this. You can’t be engaged to two people at once. You know — Owen will understand.”
“That’s what I feel,” said Val to her own surprise. “But Father — Father will never, never understand.”
“Probably not. But after all, it’s you, and Owen, and George, isn’t it, that are concerned? I shouldn’t let there be scenes and upsets about it, Val, if I were you — really I shouldn’t. Why don’t you just see Owen tonight, and tell him about it, and then you and he and George could all talk it over quietly tomorrow morning?”
Val was conscious of profound astonishment and also of extreme relief.
“Do you think one could? But Father—”
“You needn’t go downstairs again. I quite understand that you don’t want to see Father again tonight. Shall I tell Owen to come up here?”
“Here? How could he, in my bedroom?”
“Goodness me, child, you may just as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, surely. But if you think it’s so dreadful, I suppose you can come out on the landing and speak to him.”
Impossible to disconcert Lucilla!
Val assented to the surprising propositions so matter-of-factly delivered.
“Yes, tell Owen to come up. I’d better get it over.
But Lucilla — George”
“Do you want me to see him, or give him a message?”
“I want to know what Father says to him,” Val said faintly.
“Very well. I’ll ask Father if George has gone.”
“And, oh, Lucilla! I know you can’t prevent it, really, but if only you could make Father not come up to me tonight! I can’t bear any more — indeed I can’t.”
“Well,” said Lucilla, “you’d better lock the door then.” She took the key from the lock, put it on the inside of the door and tried it in a practical manner. “That’s all right. You can lock it on the inside as soon as Owen has gone.”
She went downstairs, but turned and came up again the next moment.
“I’ll have dinner sent up to you, shall I?”
“I don’t want any.”
“I should think you’d better have something, Val. I’ll send up soup and chicken. The pudding is only ginger, and you know how badly she makes ginger pudding.”
Lucilla departed in earnest, upon this prosaic pronouncement.
She was succeeded by Owen Quentillian, and Val went out upon the landing to meet him.
“Will you forgive me, Owen? I can’t marry you.”
“What has happened?”
“I thought you knew,” she said piteously.
“I suppose I do. Is it Cuscaden?”
“Yes.”
“Then why,” Owen demanded in reasonable accents, “couldn’t he have proposed to you himself without waiting for you to be engaged to me?”
“He thought he couldn’t ask me to go to Canada — and he’s badly off — and then, when you came, he — he thought it was you I cared about.”
“I see,” said Quentillian dryly.
“I don’t think I knew, exactly, that I still cared for him, and I was sure he hadn’t meant anything, and it — it was really all over �
� only then — Flora’s music, somehow — and he asked me what it was — and I cried. Owen, won’t you forgive me? Surely it’s better than if I’d tried to go on with it?”
“Of course it is.”
They looked at one another rather helplessly.
“Val, if I can do anything to help you, of course I will. What are you going to do?”
“I can’t think,” said Valeria faintly.
“When does Cuscaden sail?”
“Next week.”
“That’s bad luck,” said Owen impartially. “Look here, my dear, you must be tired out. Won’t you go and sleep now, and in the morning we could see what’s to be done?”
“Oh, how good you are!”
He frowned slightly.
“Surely the day of heroics is over. I haven’t the slightest desire to exchange pistol-shots with Captain Cuscaden, I assure you. We are three reasonable human beings, and we find ourselves in a difficulty from which only clear thinking and absolute plain speaking can extricate us. You may believe me when I tell you that I am perfectly prepared to discuss the case upon its own merits.”
Valeria could believe him without difficulty. Even in the midst of her distress, she could not altogether stifle a slight suspicion that Owen was appreciating the opportunity afforded him of being thoroughly modern and rational.
“Have you seen Father?”
“Not yet.”
Quentillian’s tone betrayed no great eagerness for the prospective interview.
“He is very, very angry with me, and I know he has every right to be. But indeed, Owen, I was coming straight to you, only I met him first, and it somehow came out. George was going to tell him.”
“Your father has never liked Captain Cuscaden,” said Quentillian meditatively. “I am afraid he will make things very difficult.”
“I deserve it.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Quentillian, with severity. “This is that foolish idea of atonement and repentance — and all the other cheap salves to the humiliation of having made a mistake. Don’t you see that it’s all waste of time and energy, Val? You ought to be thinking of what you’re going to do next, and how you can do it with least wear and tear for us all. Life isn’t a series of sins and punishments or virtues and rewards, as it is in one’s nursery story-books. There are actions and their consequences — that’s all.”
She looked up at him, bewildered, and yet slightly relieved at perceiving that he still possessed the power of sententiousness.
“Only say you forgive me, Owen.”
“If you wish it, my dear, of course. Please don’t cry any more.”
Valeria, however, crying more than ever, drew the sapphire and diamond ring from her finger and mutely held it out to him.
Owen gazed at it for a moment through his pincenez.
Then he put it gently back into her hand again, and closed her fingers round it with his own.
“Please, Val.”
Still holding her hand, he bent forward and very softly kissed her wet cheek.
“If we’re not engaged any more, we’ve got to go back to what we were before — brother and sister, Val. Good night — don’t cry any more.”
The smile with which he left her was in his eyes as well as on his lips, and held nothing so much as very gentle amusement, and an affectionate concern.
VII
The amusement was no longer to be seen in the eyes of Quentillian, and the concern had no affinity with affectionateness, when he reached the door of the Canon’s study.
He felt himself to be eleven years old once more, and in complete uncertainty as to the manner in which he might be received, after the discovery of some unwonted misdemeanour.
The thunderous voice that bade him come in did nothing to dispel the unpleasing illusion.
The Canon was sitting at the writing table, under the carved crucifix that hung against the green velvet plaque. A blotting pad, deeply scored with heavy black lines, lay beneath his hand, and a broken lead pencil testified to the energy with which that hand had sought an outlet for the feelings that presumably agitated its owner.
The Canon swung round in his chair as the door closed behind Quentillian.
“Owen, Owen!” His voice broke. “My boy, how can I face you?”
The Canon answered his own question by rising impetuously and leaning heavily upon Quentillian’s shoulder, one hand across his eyes.
“My dear, dear fellow!”
His voice, charged with emotion, broke horribly over each fresh ejaculation.
“My son — Owen — you’ve been nothing less to me — and now — treated like this — one of mine own household — what can I say, what can I say?”
Quentillian longed heartily to implore the Canon to say nothing at all.
“Won’t you sit down, sir? I thought I’d better come and talk to you, if I may.”
“Anything, anything, dear lad. Have you seen my unhappy child?”
“Valeria and I have agreed that we are no longer engaged,” said Owen carefully. “I don’t consider that I have been unfairly treated. She discovered, rather before the eleventh hour, that she and Captain Cuscaden were in love with one another, and it would have been quite as unjust to me as to herself, if she had not acted upon the discovery.”
Canon Morchard gazed anxiously at the victim of this neatly-analysed situation.
“For Heaven’s sake, Owen, don’t let yourself become bitter. It is so easy — so fatally easy, when one is suffering. Take a stronger grip of your faith than ever before, dear lad — remember that ‘all things work together for good.’ One learns to dwell upon those words, and the meaning deepens into something so unspeakably precious...”
To Owen’s relief the Canon sank back into his chair again.
“I can offer you no atonement,” he said presently, with a deep weariness in his voice.
“I am still unutterably bewildered. How I have failed, how I have failed, with my motherless girl! And I thought I knew my child — my merry Valeria, as I have called her from her babyhood — I thought I knew her through and through! She to be dishonourable, she to be heartless, she to attach herself to a godless, brainless, mannerless fellow — and when a man like yourself had received her troth! Owen, it is as though mine own right hand had turned against me.”
The Canon held out a trembling right hand and gazed upon it.
“Where is Captain Cuscaden now, sir?” enquired Quentillian, almost expecting to hear that the object of his solicitude had been bound and cast into outer darkness.
“Where!” Canon Morchard struck the table with his clenched fist until the blotting-paper and the broken pencil bounded again. “Where! I have dismissed him, Owen. Does he think that I shall give my daughter to one who comes like a thief in the night? There is such a thing as a righteous anger, and such an anger was mine then.”
It seemed to be his still, Owen reflected, and boded ill for his own wish to discuss the situation impartially.
“Valeria is very unhappy, sir.”
The Canon groaned.
“I can’t trust myself to see her, to speak to her. God knows that my place is with my unhappy child, but my shameful lack of self-control makes me tremble. I have been angry — I am angry still.”
He looked piteously at Owen.
“I have thought to get the better of my devil with prayer and fasting, but the old Adam is strong — terribly strong. When I saw my child — my little Valeria — her eyes wild, her person disordered, dashing upstairs as might a shamed creature, to hide itself — when I realized the depths of her dishonour — Owen, it was in me to have struck her. I could have raised my hand against my own child!”
His head sank upon his breast.
Quentillian waited before making a further, strangely inadequate, contribution to the conversation.
“Do you think, sir, perhaps you may be taking this too seriously?”
Canon Morchard stared at him. Then he smiled grimly.
“Generous —
very generous, Owen. But I am to be deceived by no such feint. I, who have had the care of souls these thirty years! Do you think that, whatever front you may present to the world, my eyes — mine — are to be blinded? Do you think that I do not know that the iron has entered into your soul?”
The Canon’s eyes were so extraordinarily piercing as they gazed into Quentillian’s, that the object of his penetration sought in himself almost hopefully for some of the searing emotions attributed to him.
He discovered none.
Wounded in his vanity, annoyed, disappointed even, — but nothing more.
Owen, quite aware of futility, inwardly formed phrases of complete truthfulness, only to reject them.
“I assure you that I am not in the least unhappy at having been jilted by your daughter ... it leaves me quite cold ... I don’t think I ever really wanted to marry Val very much ... we were much better friends before we tried to become engaged...”
Or, with a yet more devastating candour:
“I’ve been certain for days that I made a complete fool of myself by ever proposing marriage to Valeria...”
This surprisingly agile form of mental gymnastics was tempestuously interrupted by the Canon.
“For God’s sake, Owen, break down!” he groaned. “My boy, my boy, you’re safe with me. Forget that I’m Valeria’s father — think of me only as one who has known suffering — aye, and sin, too. Make a safety-valve of me — let yourself go. But I can bear this sham cynicism of yours no longer. It’s wrong, Owen, it’s wrong. True fortitude faces what lies before it, finds its Gethsemane, and rises, purged of bitterness. Break down — weep, nay, curse if you will, only cast open the floodgates. Let loose whatever devils possess your soul, you, the victim of treachery — let them loose, I say, and we will conquer them together.”
For an instant, all that Quentillian could do hardly sufficed to prevent his letting loose a violent fit of laughter.
He drove his teeth into his lower lip. It was his increasing perception of the Canon’s overwhelming misery that steadied him.
“Val has hurt me less than you think, sir,” he said gently at last. “I have sometimes thought that she and I had made a mistake.”
The Canon gazed at him with a pathetic unbelief.
“My unhappy child does not know what she has lost.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 221
