I
In the early days of the New Year, when the Pathshire, after her voyage to Woo-Sung, had proceeded to Hong Kong to refit, Margaret found herself singularly alone at Wei-hai. Her mother and father were with her, but their presence accentuated rather than lessened her sense of isolation. She could never shake off her consciousness of the opposition of their wishes to her own. They did not argue with her or seek to persuade her. They gave her no opportunity to state her case. Instead, by their kindness, by their consideration of all her inessential interests, they made her understand that if she would repent and make reparation they were ready to forgive and forget.
Forgive!... There were moments when she rebelled in her heart against the idea that she stood in need of forgiveness. But her rebellion lacked support and objective. If her mother had sought to persuade, she too could have persuaded. But this tacit assumption that she had done wrong and foolishly, this treatment of her as a child with whom it were idle to negotiate, this slow pressure of silence and unwelcome generosity—there was no fighting against these things.
She began to understand the secret of her father’s power over men. He did not threaten, he gave no opening for retaliation; but he impressed upon her continually and with infinite patience a sense of the extent of his own resources and of her lack of resource. It was as if she fought one possessed of unlimited reserves. She might hold out a month, she might hold out a year, but the time would come when she would fail and yield, and abandon all she had defended.
Why, then, struggle?... Was that the question that all the opponents of her father were at last persuaded to ask themselves?... It would be easier to yield. She had only to accept Ordith in order to escape for ever from the intolerable atmosphere of coercion which filled her own home. As Ordith’s wife she would be, in many respects, independent. If she could but overcome her increasing fear of him, her instinctive shrinking from his touch, her dread of his presence, she might be happy.... And what was the alternative? So long as she was unmarried she could never escape from her home. Her thoughts went out to John, but there was no help in him. He was caught as she was caught. Through different channels the power of Ibble’s was exercised over them both.
“Some day,” she said suddenly to her mother, “some day the young men will break free.”
“As one gets older one learns the meaning of compromise. I have learnt it myself,” Mrs. Fane-Herbert answered.
“That may have been true of the last generation.”
“It’s true for all time.”
“But don’t you feel, mother, that everything is going to change? There’s going to be a catastrophe, a great breaking-up. And at first it will be a tragedy—flat tragedy. We shall pay for all that’s gone by—the young men will pay. And out of it will come——”
“Nothing will come of it. Revolution, chaos, a military dictatorship, and then slowly back to a system essentially the same as the old.”
“I’m not speaking of a political revolution—only. Not a change of means, but a change of motive.”
Mrs. Fane-Herbert smiled at her. “You strike truth, Margaret.” Then, swiftly serious, she touched her daughter’s hand. “You know what you are asking for—a revolution for Christ?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that possible?”
“I——” For a moment Margaret could not speak. “It must be made possible. It can’t go on like this. We must substitute the motive of Sharing for the motive of Gain. It’s the only way out. It’s the only way to stop the cruelty everywhere—in slums or in the Congo or in Gunrooms—that horrible kind of cruelty which is half-excused by a plea of the necessities of competition.... I suppose it does mean a revolution for Christ.... Mother, why do you make it all seem so difficult?”
“Because I didn’t want your father’s daughter to starve for a dream. There is no leader for such a revolution.”
“But if Christ came again?”
“To end the world?”
“No; if He came now—as a man.”
The elder woman’s eyes filled with fear. Her white fingers trembled on the necklace she wore.
“Did I ever give you that idea—that hope? Is it your own?”
“Yes, it is my own. Why do you ask? Why do you look like that, mother dear? Are you afraid? What have I done wrong? Tell me.”
“I had that hope when I was a child. It is like knowledge of sunshine in a darkened room. But you are tied down, Margaret. You can’t move. You can’t pull back the curtains. It is terrible to be aware of one’s own captivity.”
“‘As the fishes that are snared in an evil net,’” Margaret said. “Mother, I don’t believe—I believe there is a breaking free. I believe——”
“Ah!”
It was like a cry, soft, from a great distance, almost inaudible.