CHAPTER XII
Brook felt in his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokesgenerally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life,from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lightingwith great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, andpresently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just whereClare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes hispipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite stillin his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of theterrace.
He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlikethe self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousnesswas anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what shemight be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her hisformer mood returned, and he felt that he was not ashamed of what he haddone and said. Then he realised, all at once, for the second time, thatClare had been on the platform on that first night, and he tried torecall everything that Lady Fan and he had said to each other.
No such thing had ever happened to him before, and he had a sensation ofshame and distress and anger, as he went over the scene, and thought ofthe innocent young girl who had sat in the shadow and heard it all. Shehad accidentally crossed the broad, clear line of demarcation which hedrew between her kind and all the tribe of Lady Fans and Mrs. Cairngormswhom he had known. He felt somehow as though it were his fault, and asthough he were responsible to Clare for what she had heard and seen. Thesensation of shame deepened, and he swore bitterly under his breath. Itwas one of those things which could not be undone, and for which therewas no reparation possible. Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For aman who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he wassingularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he hadtold her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick andchoose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he mighthave chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare shouldhave understood nothing--if he had only known that she had been sittingup there by the cross in the dark. And again he cursed himself bitterly.
It was not because her knowing the facts had spoilt everything andgiven her a bad impression of him from the first: that might be setright in time, even now, and he did not wish her to marry him believinghim to be an angel of light. It was that she should have seen somethingwhich she should not have seen, for her innocence's sake--somethingwhich, in a sense, must have offended and wounded her maidenliness. Hewould have struck any man who could have laughed at his sensitivenessabout that. The worst of it--and he went back to the idea again andagain--was that nothing could be done to mend matters, since it was allso completely in the past.
He sat on the wall and pulled at his briar-root pipe, which had gone outand was quite cold by this time, though he hardly knew it. He had plentyto think of, and things were not going straight at all. He had pretendedindifference when his mother had told him how Lady Fan meant to get adivorce and how she was telling her intimate friends under the usualvain promises of secrecy that she meant to marry Adam Johnstone's son assoon as she should be free. Brook had told her plainly enough that hewould not marry her in any case, but he asked himself whether the worldmight not say that he should, and whether in that case it might notturn out to be a question of honour. He had secretly thought of thatbefore now, and in the sudden depression of spirits which came upon himas a reaction he cursed himself a third time for having told ClareBowring that he loved her, while such a matter as Lady Fan's divorce wasstill hanging over him as a possibility.
Sitting on the wall, he swung his legs angrily, striking his heelsagainst the stones in his perplexed discontent with the ordering of theuniverse. Things looked very black. He wished that he could see Clareagain, and that, somehow, he could talk it all over with her. Then healmost laughed at the idea. She would tell him that she disliked him--hewas sick of the sound of the word--and that it was his duty to marryLady Fan. What could she know of Lady Fan? He could not tell her thatthe little lady in the white serge, being rather desperate, had gotherself asked to go with the party for the express purpose of throwingherself at his head, as the current phrase gracefully expresses it, andwith the distinct intention of divorcing her husband in order to marryBrook Johnstone. He could not tell Clare that he had made love to LadyFan to get rid of her, as another common expression put it, with adelicacy worthy of modern society. He could not tell her that Lady Fan,who was clever but indiscreet, had unfolded her scheme to her bosomfriend Mrs. Leo Cairngorm, or that Mrs. Cairngorm, unknown to Lady Fan,had been a very devoted friend of Brook's, and was still fond of him,and secretly hated Lady Fan, and had therefore unfolded the whole planto Brook before the party had started; or that on that afternoon atsunset on the Acropolis he had not at all assented to Lady Fan's madproposal, as she had represented that he had when they had parted on theplatform at Amalfi; he could not tell Clare any of these things, for hefelt that they were not fit for her to hear. And if she knew none ofthem she must judge him out of her ignorance. Brook wished that somesupernatural being with a gift for solving hard problems would suddenlyappear and set things straight.
Instead, he saw the man who brought the letters just entering the hotel,and he rose by force of habit and went to the office to see if therewere anything for him.
There was one, and it was from Lady Fan, by no means the first she hadwritten since she had gone to England. And there were several for SirAdam and two for Lady Johnstone. Brook took them all, and opened his ownat once. He did not belong to that class of people who put off readingdisagreeable correspondence. While he read he walked slowly along thecorridor.
Lady Fan was actually consulting a firm of solicitors with a view togetting a divorce. She said that she of course understood his conduct onthat last night at Amalfi--the whole plan must have seemed unrealisableto him then--she would forgive him. She refused to believe that he wouldruin her in cold blood, as she must be ruined if she got a divorce fromCrosby, and if Brook would not marry her; and much more.
Why should she be ruined? Brook asked himself. If Crosby divorced her onBrook's account, it would be another matter altogether. But she wasgoing to divorce Crosby, who was undoubtedly a beast, and her reputationwould be none the worse for it. People would only wonder why she had notdone it before, and so would Crosby, unless he took it into his head toexamine the question from a financial point of view. For Crosby was, orhad been, rich, and Lady Fan had no money of her own, and Crosby wasquite willing to let her spend a good deal, provided she left him inpeace. How in the world could Clare ever know all the truth about suchpeople? It would be an insult to her to think that she could understandhalf of it, and she would not think the better of him unless she couldunderstand it all. The situation did not seem to admit of any solutionin that way. All he could hope for was that Clare might change her mind.When she should be older she would understand that she had made amistake, and that the world was not merely a high-class boarding-schoolfor young ladies, in which all the men were employed as white-chokeredprofessors of social righteousness. That seemed to be her impression, hethought, with a resentment which was not against her in particular, butagainst all young girls in general, and which did not prevent him fromfeeling that he would not have had it otherwise for anything in theworld.
He stuffed the letter into his pocket, and went in search of his father.He was strongly inclined to lay the whole matter before him, and to askthe old gentleman's advice. He had reason to believe that Sir Adam hadbeen in worse scrapes than this when he had been a young man, andsomehow or other nobody had ever thought the worse of him. He was sureto be in his room at that hour, writing letters. Brook knocked and wentin. It was about eleven o'clock.
Sir Adam, gaunt and grey, and clad in a cashmere dressing-jacket, wasextended upon all the chairs which the little cell-like room contained,close by the open window. He had a very thick cigarette between hislips, and a half-emptied glass of brandy and soda stood on t
he corner ofa table at his elbow. He had not failed to drink one brandy and sodaevery morning at eleven o'clock for at least a quarter of a century.
His keen old eyes turned sharply to Brook as the latter entered, and asmile lighted up his furrowed face, but instantly disappeared again; forthe young man's features betrayed something of what he had gone throughduring the last hour.
"Anything wrong, boy?" asked Sir Adam quickly. "Have a brandy and sodaand a pipe with me. Oh, letters! It's devilish hard that the post shouldfind a man out in this place! Leave them there on the table."
Brook relighted his pipe. His father took one leg from one of thechairs, which he pushed towards his son with his foot by way of aninvitation to sit down.
"What's the matter?" he asked, renewing his question. "You've got intoanother scrape, have you? Mrs. Crosby--of all women in the world. Yourmother told me that ridiculous story. Wants to divorce Crosby and marryyou, does she? I say, boy, it's time this sort of nonsense stopped, youknow. One of these days you'll be caught. There are cleverer women inthe world than Mrs. Crosby."
"Oh! she's not clever," answered Brook thoughtfully.
"Well, what's the foundation of the story? What the dickens did you gowith those people for, when you found out that she was coming? You knewthe sort of woman she was, I suppose? What happened? You made love toher, of course. That was what she wanted. Then she talked of eternalbliss together, and that sort of rot, didn't she? And you couldn'texactly say that you only went in for bliss by the month, could you? Andshe said, 'By Jove, as you don't refuse, you shall have it for the restof your life,' and she said to herself that you were richer than Crosby,and a good deal younger, and better-looking, and better socially, andthat if you were going to make a fool of yourself she might as well getthe benefit of it as well as any other woman. Then she wrote to asolicitor--and now you are in the devil of a scrape. I fancy that's thehistory of the case, isn't it?"
"I wish you wouldn't talk about women in that sort of way, Governor!"exclaimed Brook, by way of answer.
"Don't be an ass!" answered Sir Adam. "There are women one can talkabout in that way, and women one can't. Mrs. Crosby is one of the firstkind. I distinguish between 'women' and 'woman.' Don't you? Woman meanssomething to most of us--something a good deal better than we are, whichwe treat properly and would cut one another's throats for. We sinnersaren't called upon to respect women who won't respect themselves. We areonly expected to be civil to them because they are things in petticoatswith complexions. Don't be an ass, Brook. I don't want to know what yousaid to Mrs. Crosby, nor what she said to you, and you wouldn't be agentleman if you told me. That's your affair. But she's a woman with aconsumptive reputation that's very near giving up the ghost, and thatwould have departed this life some time ago if Crosby didn't happen tobe a little worse than she is. She wants to get a divorce and marry myson--and that's my affair. Do you remember the Arab and his slave?'You've stolen my money,' said the sheikh. 'That's my business,'answered the slave. 'And I'm going to beat you,' said the sheikh.'That's your business,' said the slave. It's a similar case, you know,only it's a good deal worse. I don't want to know anything that happenedbefore you two parted. But I've a right to know what Mrs. Crosby hasdone since, haven't I? You don't care to marry her, do you, boy?"
"Marry her! I'd rather cut my throat."
"You needn't do that. Just tell me whether all this is mere talk, orwhether she has really been to the solicitor's. If she has, you know,she will get her divorce without opposition. Everybody knows aboutCrosby."
"It's true," said Brook. "I've just had a letter from her again. I wishI knew what to do!"
"You can't do anything."
"I can refuse to marry her, can't I?"
"Oh--you could. But plenty of people would say that you had induced herto get the divorce, and then had changed your mind. She'll count onthat, and make the most of it, you may be sure. She won't have a pennywhen she's divorced, and she'll go about telling everybody that you haveruined her. That won't be pleasant, will it?"
"No--hardly. I had thought of it."
"You see--you can't do anything without injuring yourself. I can settlethe whole affair in half an hour. By return of post you'll get a letterfrom her telling you that she has abandoned all idea of proceedingsagainst Crosby."
"I'll bet you she doesn't," said Brook.
"Anything you like. It's perfectly simple. I'll just make a will,leaving you nothing at all, if you marry her, and I'll send her a copyto-day. You'll get the answer fast enough."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Brook, in surprise. Then he thoughtfully relightedhis pipe and threw the match out of the window. "I say, Governor," headded after a pause, "do you think that's quite--well, quite fair andsquare, you know?"
"What on earth do you mean?" cried Sir Adam. "Do you mean to tell methat I haven't a perfect right to leave my money as I please? And thatthe first adventuress who takes a fancy to it has a right to force youinto a disgraceful marriage, and that it would be dishonourable of me toprevent it if I could? You're mad, boy! Don't talk such nonsense to me!"
"I suppose I'm an idiot," said Brook. "Things about money so easily geta queer look, you know. It's not like other things, is it?"
"Look here, Brook," answered the old man, taking his feet from the chairon which they rested, and sitting up straight in the low easy chair."People have said a lot of things about me in my life, and I'll do theworld the credit to add that it might have said twice as much with agood show of truth. But nobody ever said that I was mean, nor that Iever disappointed anybody in money matters who had a right to expectsomething of me. And that's pretty conclusive evidence, because I'm aScotch-man, and we are generally supposed to be a close-fisted tribe.They've said everything about me that the world can say, except thatI've told you about my first marriage. She--she got her divorce, youknow. She had a perfect right to it."
The old man lit another cigarette, and sipped his brandy and sodathoughtfully.
"I don't like to talk about money," he said in a lower tone. "But Idon't want you to think me mean, Brook. I allowed her a thousand a yearafter she had got rid of me. She never touched it. She isn't that kind.She would rather starve ten times over. But the money has been paid toher account in London for twenty-seven years. Perhaps she doesn't knowit. All the better for her daughter, who will find it after her mother'sdeath, and get it all. I only don't want you to think I'm mean, Brook."
"Then she married again--your first wife?" asked the young man, withnatural curiosity. "And she's alive still?"
"Yes," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "She married again six yearsafter I did--rather late--and she had one daughter."
"What an odd idea!" exclaimed Brook. "To think that those two people aresomewhere about the world. A sort of stray half-sister of mine, thegirl would be--I mean--what would be the relationship, Governor, sincewe are talking about it?"
"None whatever," answered the old man, in a tone so extraordinarilysharp that Brook looked up in surprise. "Of course not! What relationcould she be? Another mother and another father--no relation at all."
"Do you mean to say that I could marry her?" asked Brook idly.
Sir Adam started a little.
"Why--yes--of course you could, as she wouldn't be related to you."
He suddenly rose, took up his glass, and gulped down what was left init. Then he went and stood before the open window.
"I say, Brook," he began, his back turned to his son.
"What?" asked Brook, poking his knife into his pipe to clean it."Anything wrong?"
"I can't stand this any longer. I've got to speak to somebody--and Ican't speak to your mother. You won't talk, boy, will you? You and Ihave always been good friends."
"Of course! What's the matter with you, Governor? You can tell me."
"Oh--nothing--that is--Brook, I say, don't be startled. This Mrs.Bowring is my divorced wife, you know."
"Good God!"
Sir Adam turned on his heels and met his son's look of horror andast
onishment. He had expected an exclamation of surprise, but Brook'svoice had fear in it, and he had started from his chair.
"Why do you say 'Good God'--like that?" asked the old man. "You're notin love with the girl, are you?"
"I've just asked her to marry me."
The young man was ghastly pale, as he stood stock-still, staring at hisfather. Sir Adam was the first to recover something of equanimity, butthe furrows in his face had suddenly grown deeper.
"Of course she has accepted you?" he asked.
"No--she knew about Mrs. Crosby." That seemed sufficient explanation ofClare's refusal. "How awful!" exclaimed Brook hoarsely, his mind goingback to what seemed the main question just then. "How awful for you,Governor!"
"Well--it's not pleasant," said Sir Adam, turning to the window again."So the girl refused you," he said, musing, as he looked out. "Just likeher mother, I suppose. Brook"--he paused.
"Yes?"
"So far as I'm concerned, it's not so bad as you think. You needn'tpity me, you know. It's just as well that we should have met--aftertwenty-seven years."
"She knew you at once, of course?"
"She knew I was your father before I came. And, I say, Brook--she'sforgiven me at last."
His voice was low and unsteady, and he resolutely kept his back turned.
"She's one of the best women that ever lived," he said. "Your mother'sthe other."
There was a long silence, and neither changed his position. Brookwatched the back of his father's head.
"You don't mind my saying so to you, Brook?" asked the old man, hitchinghis shoulders.
"Mind? Why?"
"Oh--well--there's no reason, I suppose. Gad! I wish--I suppose I'mcrazy, but I wish to God you could marry the girl, Brook! She's as goodas her mother."
Brook said nothing, being very much astonished, as well as disturbed.
"Only--I'll tell you one thing, Brook," said the voice at the window,speaking into space. "If you do marry her--and if you treat her as Itreated her mother--" he turned sharply on both heels and waited aminute--"I'll be damned if I don't believe I'd shoot you!"
"I'd spare you the trouble, and do it myself," said Brook, roughly.
They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and mightbe, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the sameway, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook's last speech.
"It's settled now, at all events," he said in a decided way, after along time. "What's the use of talking about it? I don't know whether youmean 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 onhis 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? Itisn't a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, atyour age?"
"Gad!" exclaimed Brook, half angrily. "I know it! that's all. I can'tlive 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 toexplain it to you? I'm in earnest about it. I never asked any girl tomarry me till now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can't saythat I don't know what married life means."
"Other people's married life," observed Sir Adam, grimly. "You knowsomething about that, I'm afraid."
"What difference does it make?" asked Brook. "I can't marry the daughterof 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 norelationship whatever between you. There's no mention of it in the tableof kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn't kindred oraffinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may domuch more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father'sdivorced 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'tas though there were the least thing about it that wasn't all fair andsquare and straight and honourable and legal--and everything else,including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterburywouldn't have married me the second time, because the Church isn'tsupposed 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 thesecond 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 existeither, if you go on. But all that doesn't put things straight. It's ahorrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mothersay if she knew? You haven't told her about the Bowrings, have you?"
"No," answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. "I haven't told her anything. Ofcourse she knows the story, but--I'm not sure. Do you think I'm bound totell her that--who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it's anything like notfair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I'lltell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, ofcourse."
"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. "Shewon'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 thatmorning.
"It's all very well to tell me not to be an ass," answered the youngman gravely. "I can't mend matters now, and I don't blame her forrefusing me. It isn't much more than two weeks since that night. I can'ttell her the truth--I wouldn't tell it to you, though I can't preventyour telling it to me, since you've guessed it. She thinks I betrayedMrs. Crosby, and left her--like the merest cad, you know. What am I todo? I won't say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything--and if I werelow enough to do that I couldn't say it to Miss Bowring. I told her thatI'd marry her in spite of herself--carry her off--anything! But ofcourse 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. "Butyou 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 trysomething--"
"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," saidSir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. "All I say is that thecase isn't so hopeless as you seem to think. Of course you are heavilyhandicapped, 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 atall."
"You don't know her!" Brook shook his head and began to refill hisrefractory pipe. "And I don't believe you know her mother either, thoughyou were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, shewon't let her daughter marry your son. It's not as though anything couldhappen 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 makeanything else of it. Not even you, Governor--and you are as clever asanybody I know. It's a sheer question of humanity, without any possibleoutside incident. I've got two things against me which are about asserious as anything can be--the mother's prejudice against you, and thedaughter's prejudice against me--both deuced well founded, it seems tome."
"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 forgivewhen 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 herwatch 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 lovethem they wouldn't care; and if they didn't hate them, they wouldn'tkill 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, whenshe 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, justnow, I'll do it!"
"Thank you, Brook," said the old man, leaning back, and putting up hisfeet again.
Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Thenhe 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 notpersuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. Therewas a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not rememberever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with benthead.
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