The High Heart

by Basil King

CHAPTER XIV

On Thursday Mr. Grainger came to the library to tea, but notwithstanding her suggestion Mrs. Brokenshire did not. She came, however, on Friday when he did not. For some time after that he came daily.

Toward me his manner had little variation; he was courteous and distant. I cannot say that he ever had tea with me, for even if he accepted a cup, which he did from time to time, as if keeping up a rôle, he carried it to some distant corner of the room where he was either examining the objects or making their acquaintance. He came about half past four and went about half past five, always appearing from the house and retiring by the same way. In the house itself, as I understood from Mrs. Daly, he displayed an interest he had not shown for years.

"It's out of wan room and into another, and raisin' the shades and pushin' the furniture about, till you'd swear he was goin' to be married."

I thought of Mr. Pyne, wondering if, before his trip to Atlantic City with Mrs. Grimshaw, he, too, had wandered about his house, appraising its possibilities from the point of view of a new mistress.

On the Friday when Mrs. Brokenshire came and Mr. Grainger did not she made no comment on his non-appearance. She even sustained with some success the fiction that her visit was on my account. Only her soft eyes turned with a quick light toward the door leading to the house at every sound that might have been a footstep.

When she talked it was chiefly about Mr. Brokenshire.

"It's telling on him—all this trouble about Hugh."

I was curious.

"Telling on him in what way?"

"It's made him older—and grayer—and the trouble with his eye comes oftener."

It seemed to me that I saw an opportunity.

"Then why doesn't he give in?"

"Give in? Mr. Brokenshire? Why, he never gave in in his life."

"But if he suffers?"

"He'd rather suffer than give in. He's not an unkind man, not really, so long as he has his own way; but once he's thwarted—"

"Every one has to be thwarted some time."

"He'd agree to that; but he'd say every one but him. That's why, when he first met—met me—and my mother at that time meant to have me—to have me marry some one else— You knew that, didn't you?"

I reminded her that she had told me so among the rocks at Newport.

"Did I? Perhaps I did. It's—it's rather on my mind. I had to change so—so suddenly. But what I was going to say was that when Mr. Brokenshire saw that mamma meant me to marry some one else, and that I—that I wanted to, there was nothing he didn't do. It was in the papers—and everything. But nothing would stop him till he'd got what he wanted."

I pumped up my courage to say:

"You mean, till you gave it to him."

She bit her lip.

"Mamma gave it to him. I had to do as I was told. You'd say, I suppose, that I needn't have done it, but you don't know." She hesitated before going on. "It—it was money. We—we had to have it. Mamma thought that Mr.—the man I was to have married first—would never have any more. It was all sorts of things on the Stock Exchange—and bulls and bears and things like that. There was a whole week of it—and every one knew it was about me. I nearly died; but mamma didn't mind. She enjoyed it. It's the sort of thing she would enjoy. She made me go with her to the opera every night. Some one always asked us to sit in their box. She put me in the front where the audience watched me through their opera-glasses more than they did the stage—and I was a kind of spectacle. There was one night—they were singing the 'Meistersinger'—when I felt just like Eva, put up as a prize for whoever could win me. But I was talking of Mr. Brokenshire, wasn't I? Do you think his eye will ever be any better?"

She asked the question without change of tone. I could only reply that I didn't know.

"The doctor says—that is, he's told me—that in a way it's mental. It's the result of the strain he's put upon his nerves by overwork and awful tempers. Of course, his responsibilities have been heavy, though of late years he's been able to shift some of them to other people's shoulders. And then," she went on, in her sweet, even voice, "what happened about me—coming to him so late in life—and—and tearing him to pieces more violently than if he'd been a younger man—young men get over things—that made it worse. Don't you see it would?"

I said I could understand that that might be the effect.

"Of course, if I could really be a wife to him—"

"Well, can't you?"

She shuddered.

"He terrifies me. When he's there I'm not a woman any more; I'm a captive."

"But since you've married him—"

"I didn't marry him; he married me. I was as much a bargain as if I had been bought. And now mamma sees that—that she might have got a better price."

I thought it enough to say:

"That must make it hard for her."

A sigh bubbled up, like that of a child who has been crying.

"It makes it hard for me." She eyed me with a long, oblique regard. "Don't you think it's awful when an elderly man falls in love with a young girl who herself is in love with some one else?"

I could only dodge that question.

"All unhappiness is awful."

"Ah, but this! An elderly man!—in love! Madly in love! It's not natural; it's frightful; and when it's with yourself—"

She moved away from me and began to inspect the room. In spite of her agitation she did this more in detail than when she had been there before, making the round of the book-shelves much as Mr. Grainger himself was in the habit of doing, and gazing without comment on the Persian and Italian potteries. It was easy to place her as one of those women who live surrounded by beautiful things to which they pay no attention. Mr. Brokenshire's richly Italianate dwelling was to her just a house. It would have been equally just a house had it been Jacobean or Louis Quinze or in the fashion of the Brothers Adam, and she would have seen little or no difference in periods and styles. The books she now looked at were mere backs; they were bindings and titles. Since they belonged to Stacy Grainger she could look at them with soft, unseeing eyes, thinking of him. That was all. Without comment of my own I accompanied her, watching the quick, bird-like turnings of her head whenever she thought she heard a step.

"It's nice for you here," she said, when at last she gave signs of going. "I—I love it. It's so quiet—and—and safe. Nobody knows I come to—to see you."

Her stammering emboldened me to take a liberty.

"But suppose they found out?"

She was as innocent as a child as she glanced up at me and said:

"It would still be to see you. There's no harm in that."

"Even so, Mr. Brokenshire wouldn't approve of it."

"But he'll never know. It's not the sort of thing any one would think of. I leave the motor down at Sixth Avenue, and this time of year it's so dark. As soon as I heard Miss Davis was leaving I thought how nice the place would be for you."

Since it was useless to make the obvious correction here, I thanked her for her kindness, going on to add:

"But I don't want to get into any trouble."

"No, of course not." She began moving toward the door. "What kind of trouble were you thinking of?"

I wondered whether or not, having taken one liberty, I could take another.

"When I see my boat being caught in the rapids I'm afraid there's a cataract ahead."

It took her some thirty seconds to seize the force of this. Having got it her eyes fell.

"Oh, I see! And does that mean," she went on, her bosom heaving, "that you're afraid of the cataract on your own account—or on mine?"

I paused in our slow drifting toward the door. She was a great lady in the land, and I was nobody. I had much to risk, and I risked it.

"Should I offend you," I asked, deferentially, "if I said—on yours?"

For an instant she became as haughty as so sweet a nature knew how to be, but the prompting passed.

"No; you don't offend me," she said, after a brief pause. "We're friends, aren't we, in spite of—"

As she hesitated I filled in the phrase.

"In spite of the difference between us."

Because she was pursuing her own thoughts she allowed that to pass.

"People have gone over cataracts—and still lived."

"Ah, but there's more to existence than life," I exclaimed, promptly.

"There was a friend of my own," she continued, without immediate reference to my observation; "at least she was a friend—I suppose she is still—her name was Madeline Grimshaw—"

"Yes, Mrs. Pyne; but she wasn't Mrs. Brokenshire."

"No; she never was so unhappy." She pressed her handkerchief against the two great tears that rolled down her cheeks. "She did love Mr. Grimshaw at one time, whereas I—"

"But you say he's kind."

"Oh yes. It isn't that. He's more than kind. He'd smother me with things I'd like to have. It's—it's when he comes near me—when he touches me—and—and his eye!"

I knew enough of physical repulsion to be able to change my line of appeal. "But do you think you'd gain anything if you made him unhappy—now?"

She looked at me wonderingly.

"I shouldn't think you'd plead for him."

I had ventured so far that I could go a little farther.

"I don't think I'm pleading for him so much as for you."

"Why do you plead for me? Do you think I should be—sorry?"

"If you did what I imagine you're contemplating—yes."

She surprised me by admitting my implication.

"Even if I did, I couldn't be sorrier than I am."

"Oh, but existence is more than joy and sorrow."

"You said just now that it was more than life. I suppose you mean that it's love."

"I should say that it's more than love."

"Why, what can it be?"

I smiled apologetically.

"Mightn't it be—right?"

She studied me with an air of angelic sweetness.

"Oh no, I could never believe that."

And she went more resolutely toward the door.

Hugh returned in good spirits from Philadelphia. He had been well received. His name had secured him much the same welcome as that accorded him on his first excursions into Wall Street. I didn't tell him I feared that the results would be similar, for I saw that he was cheered.

To verify the love I had acknowledged to him more than once, I was eager to look at him again. I found a man thinner and older and shabbier than the Hugh who first attracted my attention by being kind to me. I could have borne with his being thinner and older; but that he should be shabbier wrung my heart.

I considered myself engaged to him. That as yet I had not spoken the final word was a detail, in my mind, considering that I had so often rested in his arms and pillowed my head on his shoulder. The fact, too, that when I had first allowed myself those privileges I had taken him to be a strong character—the shadow of a rock in a thirsty land, I had called him—and that I now saw he was a weak one, bound me to him the more closely. I had gone to him because I needed him; but now that I saw he needed me I was sure I could never break away from him.

He dined with me at the Mary Chilton on the evening of his return, sitting where Larry Strangways had sat only forty-eight hours previously. I was sorry then that I had not changed the table. To be face to face with two men, on exactly the same spot, on occasions so near together, in conditions so alike, gave me a sense of faithlessness. Though I wanted nothing so much as to be honest with them both, I was afraid of being so with neither; and yet for this I hardly knew where to place the blame. I suffered for Hugh because of Larry Strangways, and I suffered for Larry Strangways because of Hugh. If I suffered for myself I was scarcely aware of it, having to give so much thought to them.

Nevertheless, I regretted that I had not chosen another table, and all the more when Hugh brought the matter up. He had finished telling me of his experiences in Philadelphia. "Now what have you been doing?" he demanded, a smile lighting up his tired face.

"Oh, nothing much—the same old thing."

"Seen anybody in particular?"

I weighed my answer carefully.

"Nobody in particular, except Mr. Strangways."

He frowned.

"Where did you see that fellow?"

"Right here."

"Right here? What do you mean by that?"

"He came to dine with me."

"Dine with you! And sat where I'm sitting now?"

I tried to take this pleasantly.

"It's the only place I've got to ask any one I want to talk to."

"But why should you want to talk to—to—" I saw him struggling with the word, but it came out—"to that bounder?"

"He's a friend of mine, Hugh. I've asked you already to remember that he's a gentleman."

"Gentleman! O Lord!" He became kindly and coaxing, leaning across the table with an ingratiating smile. "Look here, little Alix! Don't you think that for my sake it's time you were beginning to drop that lot?"

Though I revolted against the expression, I pretended to see nothing amiss.

"You mean just as Libby Jaynes had to drop the barbers and the pages in the hotel when she became Mrs. Tracy Allen."

He laughed nervously.

"Oh, I don't go as far as that. And yet if I did—"

"It wouldn't be too far." I gave him the impression that I was thinking the question out. "But you see, Hugh, dear, I don't see any difference between Mr. Strangways—"

"And me?"

"I wasn't going to say you, but between Mr. Strangways and the people you'd like me to know. Or rather, if I do see a difference it's that Mr. Strangways is so much more a man of the world than—than—"

Perceiving my embarrassment, he broke in:

"Than who?"

I took my courage in both hands.

"Than Mr. Rossiter, for example, or your brother, Mr. Jack Brokenshire, or any of the men I met when I was with your sister. If I hadn't seen you—the truest gentleman I ever knew—I shouldn't have supposed that any of them belonged to the real great world at all."

To my relief he took this good-naturedly.

"That's what we call social inexperience, little Alix. It's because you don't know how to distinguish."

"That is, I don't know a good thing when I see it."

"You don't know that sort of good thing—the American who counts. But you can learn. And if you learn you've got to take as a starting-point the fact that, just as there are things one does and things one doesn't do, so there are people one knows and people one doesn't know—and no one can tell you the reason why."

"But if one asked for a reason—"

"It would queer you with the right people. They don't want a reason. If people do want a reason—well, they've got to stay out of it. It was one of the things Libby Jaynes picked up as if she'd been born to it. She knew how to cut; she knew how to cut dead; and she cut as dead as she knew how."

"But, Hugh, darling, I don't know how."

He was all forbearance.

"You'll learn, sweet." As for the moment the waitress was absent, he put out his hand and locked his fingers within mine. "You've got it in you. Once you've had a chance you'll knock Libby Jaynes into a cocked hat."

I shook my head.

"I'm not sure that you're right."

"I know I'm right, if you do as I tell you: and to begin with you've got to put that fellow Strangways in his place."

I let it go at that, having so many other things to think of that any mere status of my own became of no importance. I was willing that Hugh should marry me as Tracy Allen married Libby Jaynes, or in any other way, so long as I could play my part in the rest of the drama with right-mindedness. But it was precisely that that grew more difficult.

When Mrs. Brokenshire and Mr. Grainger next met under what I can only call my chaperonage they were distinctly more at ease. The first stammering, shamefaced awkwardness was gone. They knew by this time what they had to say and said it. They had also come to understand that if I could not be moved I might be outwitted. By the simple expedient of wandering away on the plea of looking at this or that decorative object they obtained enough solitude to serve their purposes. Without taking themselves beyond my range of vision they got out of earshot.

As far as that went I was relieved. I was not responsible for what they did, but only for what I did myself. I was not their keeper; I didn't want to be a spy on them. When, at a certain minute, as they returned toward me, I saw him pass a letter to her, it was entirely by chance. I reflected then that, while she ran no risk in using the mails in writing to him, it was not so with him in writing to her, and that communications of importance might have to pass between them. It was nothing to me. I was sorry to have surprised the act and tried to dismiss it from my mind.

It was repeated, however, the next time they came and many times after that. Their comings settled into a routine of being twice a week, with fair regularity. Tuesdays and Fridays were their days, though not without variation. It was indeed this variation that saved the situation on a certain afternoon when otherwise all might have been lost.