CHAPTER II
A VERY PRESENT HELP
Virginia among her flowers, in the sweet, old-fashioned retired garden of the Dower House was a sight to refresh the eyes. She was gathering a sheaf of long-stalked May-flowering tulips as Humphrey pushed open the gate leading from the park, and came in.
He was not able to keep all signs of the terrible blow that had been dealt him, and the disappointment that had come of the appeal he had just made to his father, from showing on his face; but he had schooled himself, walking across the park, to a natural bearing. He had to make another effort to avert such ruin and disgrace as would overwhelm him utterly, and make the rest of his life a burden and a reproach.
The sun was setting behind the tall elms that bordered the garden of the Dower House. The rooks were busy with their evening conference. The westward windows of the ancient, mellowed house were shining. Peace and hope sat brooding on the fair, home-enchanted place, and a lump sprang up in Humphrey's throat as he came upon it, and saw his brother's wife, so sweet and gracious, protected here and shut in from the ugliness of life, and quietly happy in her seclusion. The contrast between Virginia in her garden, and the desperate wreck of his own married life, was too poignant. He turned round to shut the door in the wall, but by the time she had looked up and seen him he had hardened himself against emotion.
She gave a little cry of pleasure. "Why, Humphrey!" she said, "I had no idea you were here. I am so glad to see you. I am all alone. Dick has gone up to dine and sleep in London."
The disappointment was so keen that his taut-stretched nerves gave way for a moment, and he felt physically ill.
"Why, what's the matter?" she said. "Is there any bad news? You look dreadful, Humphrey."
He forced a laugh. "I'm not very fit," he said. "But I had made sure of seeing Dick, about something rather important. When will he be back?"
"To-morrow afternoon. But isn't there anything that I can do? Do tell me, Humphrey. Dick has no secrets from me, you know."
He was afraid to make any mystery. "Oh, it's only about the keeper, Gotch," he said at once. "Clark is leaving us, and they want to get married. They have both set their hearts on going to Canada, and I came down to see if I could get the Governor to consent to helping them. But he won't do it, and I was going to ask Dick if he could possibly raise the money."
"Oh, but, Humphrey—easily—if it isn't too much. What do they want?"
"Three hundred pounds—only as a loan. He would pay it back after the first year—in instalments—when he had got himself settled. He has a fine opportunity waiting for him over there. He ought not to miss it. I do feel that I owe him a lot. That scoundrel would have battered me to death, very likely, if he hadn't come on the scene. I wish to goodness I could give him the money myself. I could raise it, but it would take time. I want to go back to-morrow and tell Clark that it is all settled."
"Oh, you shall, Humphrey. Let me do it for you. I have heaps of money that I don't know what to do with. Dick won't let me spend a penny on living here. I believe he hates to think he has married a rich woman. I can write you a cheque now. Come indoors."
The relief was enormous. But many things had to be thought of. It was not only the money he had come for. He could have got that, as he had said, elsewhere, and no sacrifice would have been too great to make for it, if it had been all that was wanted.
"My dear Virginia," he said, "you are generosity itself; but I shouldn't like to take it from you without Dick knowing of it."
"Oh, I shall tell him, of course. But he won't mind. Why should he?"
"I don't know how he feels about Gotch going. The Governor is up in arms at his wanting to leave Ken cote at all. Dick may feel the same, for all I know."
She laughed. "Oh, I see," she said. "We are up against the dear old feudal system. I am always forgetting about that; and I do try so hard to be British, Humphrey."
Humphrey smiled. "You'll do as you are," he said. "I think myself that every fellow ought to have his chance. If he sees his way to doing well for himself it isn't fair to expect him to throw it away just because he's your servant, as his fathers were before him."
Virginia's face showed mock horror. "But, Humphrey!" she said, "this is rank Radicalism! What! A man who can have as many blankets and as much soup as he likes—to make up for the smallness of his wages—has a right to go off and be his own master! To think that I should hear such words from a Clinton!"
Humphrey could not keep it up. He smiled, but had no light answer ready. "Keepers get quite decent wages," he said, "and the Governor was prepared to put Gotch into that new cottage he's building; do well for him, in fact. That's why he thinks it ungrateful of him to want to go, and won't help in any way. The question is whether Dick won't feel the same."
"Oh, I think not," she said. "Dick is getting quite democratic. I, Virginia Clinton, have made him so. Why, the other day he actually said that the will of the people ought to prevail—if we could only find out what it was. He is getting on fast. No, Humphrey, I'm sure Dick won't mind. If I thought he would, I wouldn't do it—without asking him first. I am going to do it. I want to do it. I like to think of a young man like Gotch, good and strong, going off to carve himself out a place in a new country. You have all been very patient with me, and I love you all dearly, but I shall never come to think that it is a proper life for a man to spend all his days in bringing up birds for other people to kill. Now who shall I make the cheque out to—you or Gotch?"
She was at her writing-table with her cheque-book in front of her, and a pen in her hand. It was difficult to restrain her. But the cheque was not all that Humphrey wanted.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Let's get it right in our minds. Gotch doesn't want charity."
She put down her pen, and her delicate skin flushed. "I shouldn't offer it to him," she said. "I hate charity—the charity of the money-bags."
"Oh, my dear girl!" he said, "I didn't mean to hurt you. We're a clumsy race, you know; we think things out aloud. I was only wondering what would be the best way."
She smiled up at him, standing over her, her momentary offence gone. "Why, of course," she said. "We must help him without putting him under any obligation. How shall we do it?"
"You see, the money ought to come from the Governor, or Dick. If you or I were to give it him, and they had no hand in it, he would be leaving Kencote under a sort of cloud. He wouldn't want that, and I shouldn't like it for him. And I don't want the money to come from me. That would look as if I thought a money payment would be a suitable acknowledgment of what he did in coming to my rescue."
There was more earnestness in his voice than his words seemed to warrant. Virginia looked a little puzzled. But her brow cleared again. Perhaps this was only one of those little niceties of feudal honour which she never did and never would understand.
"Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do," she said. "Let us go to Gotch together, and I'll give him my cheque and tell him that it comes from Dick, who is away."
He breathed deeply. "Are you sure Dick won't mind?" he asked.
"Quite sure. He said the other day that Gotch ought to be allowed to go if he wanted to."
"Did he really say that, Virginia?"
"Yes, it was when your father settled that the other man should have the new cottage. No, Dick won't mind. By the bye, are you sure that Mr. Clinton won't? If he objects to Gotch going——"
"He objects to helping him to go. I told him I should ask Dick."
"What did he say?"
"He said he should wash his hands of it."
"Oh, then, that's all right. Here is the cheque; we'll go and find Gotch, and give it him, and wish him joy. There is just time before dinner."
"Virginia," said Humphrey devoutly, "you are an angel."
That night Humphrey and his father sat up late together.
The Squire had gone through a terrible time since Humphrey had left him to go down to the Dower House, with the words, "Whatever you do, or don't do, I'm going to fight hard to save our name." All the usual outlets through which he was accustomed to relieve the pressure of an offence were denied him. Irritability would cause remark. And this was too deep and dreadful an offence to create irritability. High words would not assuage it; cries raised to heaven about the ingratitude of mankind, and his own liability to suffer from it, had been used too often over small matters to make them anything but a mockery as applied to this great one. He was stricken dumb by it.
The night was black all around him. There was no light to guide his steps. Even the one he had already taken he was in doubt about, now he had taken it. He did not question his own action in refusing to cut the knot. He had simply felt unable to do it, and had followed that light, as far as it had led him. But when Humphrey had gone away to find Dick, and ask him to provide money for Gotch, without telling him why it must be found, somewhere or other, he had hoped that Dick would consent; and this troubled him.
When he went upstairs to dress for dinner, after sitting motionless in the library for over an hour, he locked the door and knelt down by the bed in his dressing-room and prayed to God for help in his trouble and guidance in his difficulties. He had felt increasingly, as he sat and thought downstairs, that prayer was the only thing that would help him; but he could not kneel down in the library, and it was dishonouring to God Almighty not to kneel down when you prayed. So he went upstairs, earlier than his wont, to the bedside at which he had said his daily and nightly prayers for over forty years. He never slept in this bed; it was the altar of his private devotions, which were never pretermitted, although by lapse of time they had slid into a kind of home-made liturgy, which demanded small effort of spirit, and less of mind. But now he prayed earnestly, with bowed head and broken words, repeating the Lord's Prayer at the close of his petitions, and rising from his knees purged somewhat of his fears, and supported in his deep trouble.
At dinner he was a good deal silent, but not perceptibly brooding over disclosures made to him, as Humphrey had feared of him. He even smiled once or twice, and spoke courteously to his wife and affectionately to Joan. He took Joan's hand in his as she passed him to go out of the room with her mother, and she gave him a hug, and a kiss, which he returned. She thought that Humphrey had told him about Bobby Trench's engagement, and this was his way of showing that she was finally forgiven for rejecting that fickle suit. But it was his desire to find contact with innocence, and the tranquillity of his home, that had prompted the caress.
"Dick has gone up to London," he said, raising his eyes, when Humphrey had shut the door and come back to the table.
"Yes," said Humphrey. "But Virginia had the money, and said that Dick would like her to give it. He had told her that Gotch ought to be helped to go away."
"He never said that to me," said the Squire, with no clear sense of relief at the news, except that it meant that a decision had been taken out of his hands.
"Well, he had said it to her, or she wouldn't have done it. She and I went to Gotch together. She said just the right things, and he was as grateful as possible. He takes it that he's forgiven for holding out. I told him that you wouldn't do it yourself after all you had said, but you had withdrawn your opposition."
"Why do you say these things, Humphrey?" asked the Squire, in a pained and almost querulous voice. "None of them are lies, exactly, but they are not the truth, either."
"I shouldn't care if they were lies," said Humphrey. "I'm long past caring about that."
The Squire sighed deeply. "I won't talk about it over the table," he said, rising, and leaving his glass of port half full. "We will go and ask Joan to play to us, and talk in my room later."
As Joan played, he sat in his chair thinking. Relief was beginning to find its way into his sombre thoughts. He took it to be in answer to his prayer. If you took your difficulties to God, a way of escape would be opened out. The old aunts who had brought him up in his childhood had impressed that upon him, and he had never doubted it, although he had had no occasion hitherto to try the experiment. He had not made it a subject of prayer when Walter had so annoyed him by refusing to take Holy Orders with a view to the family living, and insisted on studying medicine, which no Clinton had ever done before; or when Cicely had gone off to stay in London without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave; or when Dick had gone against his strong wishes and insisted upon marrying Virginia; or when Humphrey had come to him with debts; or even when Joan had refused to make a marriage which he thought to be well for her to make. Soothed by Joan's playing, his thoughts ran reflectively through these and other disturbances and difficulties that had marked his otherwise equable, prosperous life, and he saw for the first time how little he had really had to complain of.
But that enlightenment only seemed to deepen the black shadows that lay in the gulf opened out before him. The props of position and wealth that had sustained him were of no avail here. They had supported him in other troubles; they would only make this one worse to bear. It would find him stripped naked for the world to jeer at. This was the sort of trouble in which a man wanted help from above.
And the help had come, promptly; perhaps all the more promptly because he had acted uprightly. He could not have given in to Humphrey's request, whatever the consequences, knowing what he did. But that it should have been immediately met, in a way to which no objection could be taken, elsewhere, seemed to show that it was not the will of God that disgrace should overwhelm the innocent as well as the guilty. He could look that disgrace in the face now, or rather in the flank, as a peril past; and he went through almost unendurable pangs as he did so. He turned in his chair, and the perspiration broke out on his brow as the horror of what he had escaped came home to him. He thanked God that he had acted aright. If he had pictured to himself fully what might come from his refusal, he might have stained his honour with almost any act that would avert such appalling humiliation.
When he and Humphrey were alone together he spoke with more of his usual manner than he had hitherto done. "I can't justly complain of what you have done," he said. "Whether it would have been right to take any steps to save Susan herself from the consequence of what she has done—to hush it up—fortunately we haven't got to decide on. We can leave that in the hands of a higher power."
"She has been pretty well punished already," said Humphrey. "Right or wrong, I'm going to do what I can to keep the rest of her life from being ruined. Thank God, it has been done."
"Well, I think I can say 'Thank God' too. Others would have had to suffer—grievously—and, after all, no wrong has been done to anybody. With regard to Gotch, I can wash my hands of it. I couldn't have given him money myself, knowing what I did, and you must take the responsibility of it—with Dick."
"Oh, I'll take the responsibility," said Humphrey with a shade of contempt. "It won't trouble my conscience much."
"But now we have to consider what is to be done," said the Squire. "I can't have Susan here, Humphrey. She must never come here again. I won't add to your troubles, my boy, by talking about what she has done. I couldn't trust myself to do it. But I couldn't see her and behave as I always have done. It would be beyond my power."
"Very well," said Humphrey shortly. "I'll shoulder that, with the rest."
The Squire looked at him. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
"What do you mean? With her?"
"Yes. How are you going to live together, after this?"
"As we always have done. I took her for better or worse. I'm going to do my duty by her. I'm going to protect her first of all from suffering any more; and then I'm going to help her to live it down—with herself. I haven't helped her much, so far. She is weak, and I've been weak with her—weak and selfish. I've got something more in me than I've shown yet, and now's the time to show it, and to help her on as well as myself."
The Squire was deeply touched. "My dear boy," he said, "I'm glad to hear you talk like that. Yes, you're right; you must be right. One can't judge of her leniently, perhaps, but what she must have gone through at the time of that trial—and before! You will be able to work on her; and nobody else could. Perhaps, later on—I don't know—I might bring myself—-"
"I don't know that you need. I am going to take her away for some time—for some years, perhaps."
"What! You're not going to live in your new house?"
"No. I couldn't, yet awhile. So far, I've talked as if nothing mattered except getting clear of this horrible exposure that threatened us. I can't feel that anything does matter much until that is done. But that's not all I have been thinking of, father, since this blow came to me. It has gone pretty deep. I couldn't go on living the same sort of life, under rather different surroundings, but amongst people that we have known, and who would expect us to be just the same as we have always been. We've got to start together afresh, and get used to ourselves—to our new selves, if you like to put it so. We're going abroad. Susan is ill now, and we can make it seem natural enough. We shall stay abroad for some time, and then I shall let the house, if I can, so that it won't seem odd that we shouldn't come back. In a few years, if we want to, we can come back; and then perhaps we shall live there."
"Well, it wants thinking over carefully, Humphrey; but I think you are right. Still, I shouldn't like to lose sight of you—for years."
Humphrey was silent.
"I don't know—perhaps I was rather hasty, just now, when I said I couldn't have Susan here. I couldn't, now. But later on—— Oh, my boy, I don't want to make it harder for you than it is already. You've set yourself a big task. God help you to carry it through! Bring her here, Humphrey, in a year or so. I'm your father; I'll do what I can to help you."
"Thank you, father. You've been very good."
"If you want any money——"
"Oh no. We shan't be spending much—not for a long time."
Neither spoke for some minutes. Then the Squire frowned and cleared his throat. "There's one thing that has to be done," he said. "The—the taking of that necklace—Lady Sedbergh's—she has had this loss——"
"You mean about paying back the money. I've thought of that. I must do it by degrees. That's one reason why I'm going abroad. I can save more than half my income."
"Oh, you've thought of that."
"Yes. You didn't suppose I was going to hush it up, and do nothing about the money! I've not quite come down to that, father."
"Oh no, no, my boy. Only—well, it didn't occur to me for some time. But how could you do it—if it were left to you? How could you send money by degrees?"
"I haven't thought much about how to do it. Perhaps I should have to wait until I had got it all. Then I could send it in a lump, from some place where it couldn't be traced."
The Squire spoke after a thoughtful pause. "I don't like that, Humphrey."
"Well, there is plenty of time to think out a way. I haven't got a penny of it yet."
"No; and it can't wait until you have saved it. I should never have a moment's peace of mind while it was owing. I must help you there, Humphrey. It's what I can do to help."
"Oh no, father. It's part of the price. I mean to pay it. It will keep it before us—going short. I wish I could have raised the money at once. I wish you hadn't made old Aunt Laura put that clause into her will."
The Squire rather wished he hadn't, too. Seven thousand pounds was a large sum to find. Something like thirty thousand pounds had been left to Humphrey, with reversion to Walter and his children. But the Squire had advised that Humphrey should be restrained from anticipation of his life interest, and this had been effected.
"Well," he said, "that's done. But this money must be paid at once. It will only be fair to the others, Humphrey, that it shall come off your share. But I will find it for you now. If you like to pay it, or some of it, back again, I won't say no. But that shall be as you like. It will be the same in the end."
"You are very good, father. But how can you do it without Dick's knowing?"
"Dick doesn't take part in all my affairs; only in matters that have to do with the land. I can raise it without affecting the estate accounts. He will know, probably, that something is being done, but he won't ask questions. Dick is very careful not to touch on my right to do what I please with my own."
At any other time Humphrey would have been interested in this statement. Like the sons of many rich men, he knew little of his father's affairs, and had only the vaguest ideas as to the amount and sources of his wealth. But he was only interested now in the fact that his father was able, and willing, to provide so large a sum as seven thousand pounds at once.
"It would be a tremendous relief to be rid of that burden," he said. "If you can do it, I would pay you back what I don't spend out of my income."
"Yes, I can do it, and I will, as soon as possible. But, Humphrey, my boy, this money can't be sent anonymously."
"Why not?"
"I don't think you can be expected to see everything very clearly yet. If you will think it over, you will see that we can't act in that way. You mustn't expect me to do it."
Humphrey thought for a time. "What do you suggest?" he asked.
"Either you or I must make a clean breast of it to Sedbergh!"
"Oh, father!"
"Yes. That must be done. Our honour demands it. You will see it plainly enough if you think it over. I believe you were right in stipulating for secrecy on my part, as you did. Certainly I couldn't behave as I want to do to Susan, when the time comes, if I knew that others in the house besides myself knew her story. But this is different. We mustn't act like cowards."
"Isn't he annoyed with us—about Joan?"
"Not annoyed. He was sorry. So was I—though I'm not sure now. I think my first instinct was the right one. The sort of life that's lived in houses like Brummels—well, you see what it leads to."
It was the old familiar song; but set to how different a tune! Humphrey, even in his pre-occupation, noted the change, and felt a sense of comfort and support in something stable, underlying the habitual crudities and inconsistencies in his father.
"Jim Sedbergh was a very intimate friend of mine," said the Squire, "many years ago. He is a friend still. We found we hadn't changed much to each other when he came here. I can trust him as I would trust myself. He will take the view I do, whatever it is. You had better let me see him, Humphrey. He'll keep whatever I tell him to himself."
They settled that he should go up to London the next day. That was all there was to settle for the present, and it was already very late.
"Well, good night, Humphrey, my dear boy," said the Squire. "You'll get through this great trouble. We shall all get through it in time. You know where to go for help and comfort. I've been there already, and I've got what I went for. God bless you, my dear boy. He will, if you ask Him."