III
Mr. George Ordith, later a baronet, and head of the great armament firm honoured by the serious jealousy of Ibble and Co., had trained his son Nicholas with extraordinary care and consistency. He had been terrified lest Nick, who was to inherit all that a life’s toil had accumulated, should value it little and dissipate it rashly. Therefore, almost as soon as Nick’s fingers were able to close about the coin, a penny had been thrust into his palm, and, when he had held it a little while, been taken from him and dropped loudly into a money-box bearing his name. Nick enjoyed the tinkle, and crowed in accompaniment. The process was repeated every Saturday morning, until at last, because he was never allowed to play with them, Nick came to have a respect for pence. The money-box was cleared annually, its contents supplemented by a sovereign, which was George Ordith’s Christmas gift to his baby (for it was left to womenfolk to present what were described as “baubles and gewgaws”), and the whole was added to Nick’s deposit in the Post Office Savings Bank. By the time he was out of dresses he was a capitalist. Only Mrs. Ordith’s earnest entreaties saved her son from being taught to read from the financial columns of the newspapers. At school, Stocks and Shares were to Nick an exciting reality, and, at the age of fifteen, he withdrew from the Post Office all his money except half a crown, gave it to his father in return for a cheque drawn in favour of the parental broker, and instructed this gentleman to purchase on his behalf certain Meat Shares in the Argentine.
From this it must not be deduced either that George Ordith was a miser or that he wished his son to become one. He said a thousand times that money was not everything; that it could not purchase happiness; that, though it was a blessing to wise men, it was a curse to fools. And Nick said, “Yes, father,” and asked, as other children might ask for a coveted toy, when he might have some of those coupons that were cut off with scissors. George Ordith had acted upon a theory that the sons of hard-working, careful men are often wasters. He had wished to nip in the bud any natural tendency in Nick to become a waster. And he erred in this, that Nick had been so made that waste would in any case have been repugnant to him. If George had not provided a money-box, Nick would have been impelled by instinct to manufacture one out of the first empty tobacco-tin whose lid he could pierce. If George had not built up the firm of Ordith, Nick would probably have established it.
Thus had nature and training, instead of counteracting each other’s effects, as Sir George Ordith had intended, been allies in the production of the young Gunnery Lieutenant in whom Mr. Fane-Herbert found so much to admire. He had taken firsts in every examination in which it had been possible for him to take firsts; he had created a reputation for himself at Whale Island; he had played cricket and Rugby football for the Navy; he had smiled and danced himself into the favour of innumerable hostesses; he had a nice taste in wines, a beautiful touch in billiards, a safe seat on any horse, and an inexhaustible supply of words, which flowed like oil from his lips. He was tall, dark, and technically handsome. Moreover, he had a level head—a head so level that business men, while they admired him, looked back sometimes to the days of their own youth, and reflected that, after all, young Ordith must be missing a great deal. They would have liked an opportunity to raise their eyebrows now and then, and to say, “Ah well, boys will be boys!”
But Nick never gave them a chance. He condescended so far as to appear gallant and rash in the presence of women who he thought would like that kind of thing; but in the presence of men from whom something might be expected he gave no judgment which was not a considered judgment, offered no opinion without quoting his authority for the facts upon which it was based, relapsed into thoughtful silence when he had no opinion to offer, and added little by little to his reputation for soundness.
In a book to which he made frequent reference he wrote down such details concerning his friends’ habits and tastes as might aid him in his dealings with them. A glance into this volume reveals much of the writer.
“Fane-Herbert, Walter.—Proud of cellar. Always offers to pay for things—don’t let him. Likes to be taken aside from large company as if conversation private and important. Sharp business man—try no tricks. Wants me in Ibble’s—obviously with view to amalgamation. Be dense about this. Probably fond of daughter when it comes to the pinch. Personalty (authority, K.S.K.), over 700 thou. One son in addition to daughter. Pleased with his feet—ask size of boots occasionally. Eton best school in the world. Expectancy of life, 15 yrs.
“Fane-Herbert, Mrs.—Avoid cynicism. Ask her advice often. Points for flattery: upbringing of children; fineness of bed and table linen; acquaintance with Parnell—touch this carefully; Irish descent, rather remote. Keep off subject of husband’s success. Keep business in the background. Money not mentioned—except in connection charitable purposes. Acute woman. Guesses about Ibble and Ordith, and about daughter. Private income probably small. Ought to die well first.
“Fane-Herbert, Margaret.—Exceptional, requiring exceptional treatment. Flattery must be restrained and veiled. Probable points for flattery: shape of fingers; piano; knowledge of books; power to see through pretences. Certain points for flattery: imperviousness to it—and ability to keep secret. Necessary to cultivate literary conversation. (Literature Primers, Edited by J. H. Green, and English Lit. by Stopford Brooke, Macmillan and Co.; for contemporary lit. try Bookman—? something more advanced.) Be careful not to split infinitives; also use singular after none—e.g., ‘none of them is....’ Introduce ideals into all talk of the future. Might talk of improving the conditions of Ordith’s workpeople, and thus establish secret between her and me—but make quite sure bunkum of that kind doesn’t spread and make things awkward at Ordith’s. Probably make good hostess. Not extravagant, but might develop philanthropic tendencies. To me very attractive: keep this clear in mind, as it may be dangerous. Don’t touch her too much; guard eyes. Go slow. Impulsiveness would probably be effective, but I am not good at this, so better act judiciously.”
Nick Ordith clearly perceived his own weakness. He wished that Margaret, the girl, were less important to him, and that he could regard her as no more than a link with Ibble’s and a beneficiary under her father’s will. This amalgamation was to be a big affair, and he would have preferred to approach it with a cool head—with a head, that is, not inflamed by any passion that disputed his customarily perfect control. But, though you bind the Devil hand and foot, he will lash you with his tail. All Nick’s care to restrict every tendency in him that might interfere with his material success could not prevent him from losing command a little in Margaret’s presence, and he knew that some day, at a moment when he least expected it, that command might break down altogether. He thrilled at her touch; he thought of her at night when he ought to have been thinking of fire-control instruments. And he knew he stood in danger of revealing all this. Women, a few women, had so twisted him before. He had no confidence in his ability to handle Margaret as if she were built of the cool ivory of a chess-piece. She was young—ten years his junior, and she was unspoiled. Youth and the unspoiled had for him an attraction more powerful than his will. There might come a time when he would lose the game as a result of his reluctance to sacrifice his Queen. Certainly she would exercise an undue influence upon his strategy.
He determined to dance with her that Saturday night as often as he dared neglect more urgent business, and at dinner primed himself for brilliance. Mr. Hartfeld of the Foreign Office and Mr. Street of the Admiralty were present, and treated him with more deference than the ordinary naval officer has a right to expect from Government Departments. Mr. Fane-Herbert established himself with his back to the smoking-room fire when dinner was over, smiling at Street, Hartfeld, and Ordith, and glaring at Hugh until he suggested that he and John should go and play billiards. At last the four great men were left alone to discuss the prospects of the Empire overseas.
The detail of their conversation is not for the ears of the less fortunate who hold no stock in armament firms, but the spirit of it may be revealed in its conclusion.
“Of course,” said Mr. Fane-Herbert, “it is understood that we shall act with the greatest reserve. Ordith’s presence out there will appear accidental—or at any rate, whatever they may think, no one will dare to say that it is otherwise. He will be my friend and personal adviser—in no way personally interested.”
“The Foreign Office has nothing to do with it,” said Hartfeld.
“Nor the Admiralty,” Street echoed.
Street flicked the ash from his cigarette. “It is of the utmost importance that we should be committed to nothing.”
“But we can rely upon your support?”
Hartfeld nodded. “Speaking for myself alone; I can’t answer for others.”
“Isn’t that a little nebulous?” Ordith asked.
“We can do no more than promise to do our utmost,” said Street, in the pained voice of one whose offer of his life’s blood has been scorned.
“We shall be grateful,” said Ordith.
“Most grateful,” Mr. Fane-Herbert added solemnly. He knew how foolish it was to ruffle officials. “Another brandy, Street? A cigar?”
“But, apart from the question of gratitude and the gentlemanly preamble,” Ordith continued, “let’s see exactly how we stand. As I see it——”
“My dear fellow,” Hartfeld exclaimed, flourishing a delicate hand, “why this passion for black and white? Everything depends upon the fluctuations of circumstance——”
“Lord help us! Why not say of ‘Change’?”
Mr. Fane-Herbert gave him a glance which advised that, since these were not business men, they should not be treated as such. They must be allowed to talk if they wanted to. “You were saying, Hartfeld—the fluctuations of circumstance?”
“Upon the fluctuations of circumstance and the—er—signs of the times. Definite commitments in affairs of this kind are always dangerous, and are only to be obtained at the price of elasticity.”
“In other words,” said Street, “we want to give you the freest possible hand.”
Three of them nodded wisely. Ordith’s fingers moved lightly on the arms of his chair. He had not wanted these people brought into it. “They can’t help,” he had said. But Mr. Fane-Herbert had taken him by the shoulder; “No, they can’t help—granted. But they can hinder. Look on their talk as the price you pay for a retainer, see?”
“Then what it comes to,” Ordith said, “is that you are concerned in these contracts that we hope to obtain simply from the point of view of the national interest, eh?” So far as he knew the question was meaningless, but he felt that it would please them.
“Exactly,” they answered together.
“And you afford facilities?—a diplomatic phrase, surely?”
“Every facility.”
Mr. Fane-Herbert’s approving eye was upon him. “Then success ought to be assured so long as there are no competitors.” That was the point.
“Competitors?” said Hartfeld. “We can’t answer for foreign competition.”
“No; I was thinking of competition from home. Ibble’s is not the only firm in the British Isles.”
“By no means,” said Street gracefully.
“Oh, I can answer for Ordith’s; we have arranged that. There are others.”
“I’m afraid we couldn’t possibly interfere with legitimate commercial competition.”
“No one would ask it of you. But your attitude towards us will be at least benevolent?” Ordith said.
“Certainly,” Hartfeld answered.
“Good.”
“It will be a brilliant success!” Street exclaimed.
“Success,” said Ordith, “depends less upon genius than upon an adequate appreciation of the platitudes.”
This faith, so authoritatively expressed by a successful young man, was put to the test soon after the dance had begun. He saw Margaret dancing with John—her eyes shining with happiness in a manner that might have caused another lover a little uneasiness. But Ordith did not for a moment feel insecure. He could see that John had gained ground, that the first ramparts of reserve had been overpassed; but he had no fear. “Unlike poles attract,” he repeated, choosing his platitude, and confident of his power to carry attack upon that line to a successful issue. So, before seeking out the important lady he had seen among the crowd and had chosen for his immediate favour, he stood gazing at Margaret’s neck and shoulders and admiring her movement with the eye of an anatomist.
He did not know that John had advanced farther than the first ramparts. In the morning, when he and Hugh had gone together to buy their China equipment, Margaret had come to offer feminine advice on materials. She had watched them turning over shirts, and hesitating, and retracting decisions in the manner of men at the counter. Women and their shopping? Oh, but men were infinitely worse! They had so small a field of choice, and yet they got lost in it. She laughed at this and a thousand trifles, and laughter is the truest ranging-arrow in love’s quiver. London, too, with its bright sun and sky, and the cool wind that stirred up the sweet scent of her furs, had conspired to bring them together. Hugh joined the conspiracy by accepting an invitation to lunch with an old friend whom he met in Mr. Reeve’s shop. John and Margaret came home by way of Marble Arch and a diagonal cut through the Park. The dying winter was old and weak—so weak that he could not gather up and hide away in his dark box the coins of gold scattered beneath the trees by the sunshine or the strands woven among the grasses. And, as they went, they talked of all the things on earth they held most dear—their nurseries and old toys, terra-cotta flower-pots, the summer sound of lawns being mown, firelight in mirrors, books, the silky touch of dogs’ ears—each as the centre of some tale which seemed peculiar to their own autobiographies, though, at that moment, it was being remembered afresh, in one form or another, by every young creature—and every old one, too, who wasn’t too stupid to value such things—from Kensington Palace to the western pavement of Park Lane.
John and Margaret, like all the other young creatures, had no idea of this. They felt as if they were telling each other secrets—which is the best known of love’s tricks. In truth, they were but beginning to discover the secrets of themselves, and had not yet had time to become so confused as the rest of us in life’s attempt to draw a boundary between the soul and the body. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes! There was no dust, there were no ashes, their hearts argued; therefore all—her lips and the colour the wind had whipped into her cheeks, his frank eyes, and brown, fine-cut hands—all must have something of the soul in them. What reason had they to doubt? They were not afraid, and fear goes hand in hand with the Devil. Their happiness was of the clean kind they would have liked to sing about to all the world.
So it happened that they danced together that evening with all the memories of daylight and keen air to lend magic to the flowers and the sparkling lamps and the murmur of stringed instruments.
“I love the little pointed shadows under everybody’s feet,” she said, “and the vague pools of light in the polished floor. It’s better than fairies on the village green.”
“That’s not an absolute opinion,” he answered, laughing. “Shouldn’t we be on the side of the fairies if we were dancing on green grass now?”
To him it mattered only that they were dancing together, and her silence acquiesced in his mood.
“There’s any number of people,” he exclaimed, “who are wishing the music would stop. It’s strange to think of other people being tired and bored.”
“Perhaps this isn’t the music they care for.”
“The old people?”
“Yes; probably they remember other tunes. Shall I ask the orchestra to play something that was heard all over London thirty—forty—fifty years ago? Shall I?”
They are for ever asking each other questions.
“Do you think anyone would dance to it?”
“I don’t know. Would we dance to this—fifty years on?”
He brushed aside the unimaginable future. At this moment she was his, her voice speaking close to him, the curve of her cheek and forehead clear beneath his eyes. He imagined suddenly that he would remember this instant, that his future would be full of it; and it took to itself already some of the glamour of history.
“Oh,” said she, “there’s Mr. Ordith watching us!”
The charm was lifted. He could not endure that another should peer over his shoulder into the history-book of fancy, or that a stranger’s eye should witness the building of this magic temple in which the moment was to be preserved against the assaults of all time. Soon the music faded into silence. A few feet slid on, and then stopped. The room filled with human voices.
“That’s the end,” she said softly, and he did not find the remark unnecessary. They sat down somewhere and talked little, each aware of anticlimax. John was almost glad when Ordith, graceful and self-confident, came up and took her away.
Perhaps her own emotion was communicated to Ordith; perhaps he, perceiving it in her, realizing—as she did not—from what source it flowed, and trying to take advantage of it, was himself entrapped. He pursued a policy of what he described to himself as “talking big”; he played upon an imagination already excited.
“I can’t bear to leave London,” he said. “And you are actually eager to go! Life centres here. The people in this room have their fingers on the pulse of the world.”
“The politicians?”
He smiled over her shoulder. “Yes. I know it is a middle-class fashion to despise them. I can’t despise men with power and knowledge. And not the politicians only. Everybody is here—the artists who matter, the thinkers who are in touch. And at this moment, a crisis in the history of the world, I am to go away.”
He made it sound a tragedy.
He knew that to Twenty Years the present is always the opportunity of mankind—and an unpromising Twenty Years it would be if it thought otherwise. He knew, too—for his shrewdness went deeper than the surface—that Twenty Years has an understanding of many truths that Disappointment, not Philosophy, describes subsequently as illusions. But, so far as his immediate purpose was concerned, it mattered nothing whether the ideas that dominated Margaret were illusory or not. Only the fact of their domination was of importance to him, for they were to be a means to his own dominion. He spun a web of dreams that he might entangle her in it. His voice, which he could tune to the very ring of sincerity, told her how the future was to be glorious. There was to be battle against all the powers of evil—a new political outlook, new relations between state and state, and between governors and governed. That was the mission of their generation.
“We must grip the essentials,” he said. “We must permit no compromise. And, above all, we mustn’t lose ourselves in mere talk—we must act temperately, and according to a clearly-conceived plan.... And women!” he exclaimed. “What a tremendous chance! Your influence is growing every day; soon it will be direct as well as indirect. And then the best of you will not be content to manipulate the party strings at dinner-tables. You will be cutting them where they are obstructive. You will come with free hands—no stale tradition—no fear of precedent—no corruption of ideals.”
He felt proud when he had delivered himself of this. It would win him laurels, he thought, among the forward young men, with their pamphlets and loose collars, their carpet-slippers and their political ikons. And Margaret was in a mood to question little. Cynicism and doubt had small influence over her that night. Was not Mr. Ordith her father’s friend?—and, Heaven knew! he was no vague idealist. And had not Mr. Ordith a reputation for soundness and level-headedness where such a reputation was most difficult to win? She paused neither to doubt nor to believe. It was enough that his enthusiasm awakened in her a sensation of warmth and brilliance, of assurance and power. And, though she danced with him a second and a third time, and though intervals elapsed between the dances, the sensation endured, and grew in intensity, grew until—so inflammatory are wine, ideals, and the contact of dancing—Ordith, too, became aware of its heat, and flamed amazingly, so that he was cool-headed no more. The conflagration, he found, gave him greater power over her—though power of a new kind. He was too wise to speak personal endearments to her, even the lightest, but his voice assumed a lower, more intimate tone, and vibrated now with a passion that was not artificial. He spoke of the foolishness and selfishness of other women, their blindness to ideals—how he loved that word!—their fear of sacrifice, their failure to understand the real needs of the world. It was implied that she was wonderfully different from them all. How many and far-reaching were the victories within the scope of a mind inspired by her motives! Somehow he was to be her ally in these victories. “We,” he said, and “I,” but never “You,” thereby binding her to him without emphasizing her submission to the bond. The reality of triumph is in an opponent’s ignorance of his own defeat.
But control was slipping from Ordith. After a brief struggle he let it go, and rejoiced in his freedom. His eyes, looking down on her, lost their breadth of vision, and saw none of her surroundings. Her proximity obscured all else; his touch on her overwhelmed every other sensation. His muscles tightened his grip, but it seemed to him only that her body was laying a heavier and heavier weight upon his arm. He danced faster, but was aware only of greater rapidity of movement and breathing close to his heart.
Slowly this extraordinary concentration of his mind produced its effect upon her. First she became conscious of having, in his view, lost individuality, of having been relegated somehow to the position of an instrument. Her will was to revolt against that, but revolt was contrary to her inclination. She found a certain pleasure in the strength of the current that was bearing her away, even while she feared it. She said something; he did not answer. She repeated it; and from his silence understood that his mind would not receive her words. It was as if a wave, sweeping over her head and robbing her voice of its effect, had roused her to resistance. His arm had grown firmer about her. Her feet were scarce touching the ground. She wanted breath and foothold. She became frightened, active, determined to break free.
“Why are you dancing so fast?” was all she contrived to say.
But he heard, and looked down to drink in her powerlessness, to exult in his own power, to strengthen his grip again. He could not talk. His imagination was running on and on, dragging him with it. His thoughts, which had no traceable sequence, were presenting to him pictures of such vividness that he screwed up his eyes as if he might physically see them.
“I am tired,” Margaret said, shrinking into the conventional. “Shall we stop?” Then, a moment later, with a flash of determination that compelled his attention: “I want to stop.”
He let her go suddenly—too suddenly. Her eyes were raised questioningly for an instant, and, as he met them, were abruptly turned away. He took her out of the crowd. He wanted to get beyond the range of the many eyes that he imagined were turned upon him. She sat down where he told her to sit.
“Listen,” he said. “I told you just now that I was sorry to leave England. I want to tell you why. There’s so much to do here—so much danger to be warded off. And this going away is”—he paused feelingly—“is somehow shirking the fight. My father and I don’t agree on all points. I should like to see Ordith’s run differently—the position of our labour improved. I am on their side.... They know it.... Further, the whole attitude of armament firms must be changed. As matters stand their ambitions are warlike; their influence on political action is—well, you can understand that. And my chance to change all this is unique. No other young man has my opportunities. But I stand alone, absolutely alone. I——”
“But why are you telling this to me?”
“Because—oh, don’t you feel as I do? Don’t you——”
“But why are you telling it to me now?”
He was seized by an impulse to put away even this rattling imitation of reason, to make his spring now. All the world was moving so swiftly about him that he felt only force and sensation could keep pace with it. It pleased him to see that her eyes were frightened, and that, though she wanted to go away, she could not move. This was power; but he would not use it yet; he must not use it for months to come. Now he would go on saying something while he watched her.
“Can’t you understand why I am telling it to you?”
“You talk so fast,” she said, her hand travelling to her forehead.
“Then I’ll talk slower.”
“No,” she said, under her breath; but he paid no attention. His voice continued—to her ears as inexplicit as music.
“Between us we will lay great plans,” she heard him say presently, and her protest against being thus included was never uttered. “Out in the East—the home of all philosophy—we shall have time to think. Margaret, you will help me to get all this clear in my mind?”
All what? He didn’t know or care. It sufficed that he had bound her to him by some tie, the more difficult to break because it was so vague. Moreover, his use of her name had been resisted only by a quick intaking of breath.
“You will help me?” he repeated. “You must—you must.” Then, too confident, he stooped over her and reached with his hands for hers. By his lightest touch the spell he had laid upon her was broken. She started up, the blood tingling in her. She knew that she had acquiesced in something she had not considered, as if she had spoken in her sleep. His ascendancy was revealed as menacing—a cloud that overshadowed her, and, while it held her attention, warned her to take shelter.
“I can hear the music again.”
“But the next dance is ours.”
“No.”
“You promised. Look—your name.” He offered his programme, sure that she would not examine it or remember the number of the dance.
And she said without looking, “I can’t dance now.”
He answered as if he were stroking her. “Ah, you are trembling. What is the matter? Have I frightened you?”
“Frightened?” The sound of her own laugh restored her calmness. “What is there to be frightened of? But see,” she went on, holding out her programme, “I am sure you have made a mistake. This dance is Mr. Lynwood’s.”
John was coming up the stairs towards them. “Then I will find you again a little later,” said Ordith, and disappeared.
“What has happened?” John asked, looking into her face, which had now grown pale.
“Happened? Nothing—oh, nothing. I was a little tired, that’s all.”
And, in truth, Margaret knew of no cause for an effect so overwhelming. Looking back, she wondered how so strong an emotion had taken hold of her. Why had she been afraid? and why now was she conscious of having escaped, of having awakened—of having lost something, too?
“Let’s go and dance,” she said.
“No, not now,” John answered, “not if you are tired.” He led her away, and stopped opposite two chairs. “There,” he said, “sit there for a little while where it is cool. Don’t talk or worry.”
When she was seated he moved away a few yards, wishing to give her the time she needed. Gradually she realized that the cloud charged with so much power over her was indeed gone. The atmosphere seemed less stifling. Freedom of thought and action was returning. Presently she remembered John and was grateful because he had taken her away from the place where she had been with Ordith; and grateful, with warmth of gratitude, because he had known how to be silent. Her look summoned him.
“You don’t know how good you have been,” she said.
“I hated to see you hurt, to-night of all nights.”
“To-night?”
“Because everything seemed so good. I was looking forward to China and seeing you there. To-night seemed a kind of celebration of the future.”
“But that remains,” she said, as if the recollection of the fact surprised her. She could not forget Ordith’s power, or, for the time, think of any part of her existence as being altogether free from his influence. Where was he now? Was he near her? Involuntarily her hand went out to John’s sleeve.
She tried to thank him for what he had done. Her sense of relief, of safety after danger, made his chance intervention seem the result of his kindness of heart; and every word she spoke, hesitating and tremulous, between tears and laughter, was marvellous to him.
“Tell me,” he said, “what can I do? You haven’t told me the facts. Do you trust me a little?”
“There are no facts.”
“But he——”
“Oh, leave him!” she exclaimed. “Let’s go down to where all the people are. What time is it?” she added suddenly, as if awaking from a wild dream to the surer business of the day.
He told her, but was certain she did not hear, her thoughts having fled great distances by then. As he followed her, he realized dimly with how great a force he had to contend, but he did not understand how indirectly this force could act. He felt sure that Ordith must have been in some manner definitely violent—have tried to kiss her, he angrily imagined. Then her “Oh, leave him!” echoed in his ears.
“Margaret,” he said, “I haven’t been trying—to find things out. I wanted to help if I could.”
She turned to him with a little movement of confidence which was a full reward. “I know. Don’t think I am ungrateful. I shan’t ever forget. Your coming made everything different—and secure again. I would tell you about it if I could—if there was anything to tell; I think telling would help. But there’s nothing—nothing tangible, at least.” She shivered, as if something cold and flat had touched her. “Only a feeling of having been caught and of having broken free again.”
Together they went into the ball-room, where faces, still smiling their response to some jest spoken a moment earlier, seemed out of touch with reality. This colour, this light on chin and throat, this flash of jewels and gleaming of shirt-fronts, was as a picture in oils that had hung unnoticed while life pursued its course swiftly, and to which, now there was breathing space, attention had reluctantly returned.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NET
On Sunday, John and Ordith were much with Margaret, and even when she contrived to be alone she found she could not exclude them from her mind. To think of either was disquieting, and she needed peace. She felt that John was watching her. He knew how she needed help and was eager to render it would she but indicate a means. Her failure to indicate it was being interpreted by him as a lack of trust for which he blamed himself. He could not understand, his eyes said continually, what he had done or left undone that repelled her confidence. And that he should attribute her silence to a fault in himself added to her uneasiness. She could not speak her mind to him; she could not ask him to help her with a problem the terms of which were not yet clear to herself. She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and reproaching himself with some dullness or hardness that, as he imagined, was sealing her lips. Several times she tried to speak—if only to tell him that she was aware of his sympathy; but words would not come.
Moreover—and this itself was an element in her difficulty—was not John weak with her own weakness? Together they were set about by forces stronger, infinitely stronger, than themselves. There was comradeship in that, but not help. It was as if they were two children side by side in a darkness that contained a menace, of which both were in different measures conscious, but which neither was able to grapple or even to define.
For a time, while she was in church, her trouble had been less. The air of security, of permanence, of prosperity about the place, and the absence of any kind of tumult within it had lulled and comforted. “The peace of God which passeth all understanding....” She had bowed her head with the rest, mistaking the decorous silence for peace indeed. But, as she rose from her knees, her eyes encountered Ordith’s which seemed half-laughingly to search and accuse her; and, as if following a suggestion of his, she began to think that the support she had received from the service had been based, not upon faith, but upon the extraordinary beauty of its prose. The hymns, with their redundancies and bad rhymes, had meant nothing to her, despite their devotion, and to the modern prayers on contemporary subjects she had given no heed. The balance and completeness of the Litany, the Lessons’ direct beauty, the Collects’ vigorous restraint—upon these her attention had been concentrated. Though the matter of the Benediction had remained unchanged, it would have brought no comfort to her if it had been expressed differently—by the Archbishops, for example.
“Hadn’t old man Cranmer a wonderful ear for words?” Ordith said lightly, cutting Margaret to the quick. She felt that he read her thoughts, or—and this with a pang of fear that was reflected in the eyes she suddenly raised—that he had imposed his thoughts upon her.
“You don’t like my saying that?” he asked, looking into her face. And even as she moved her lips to reply, to express somehow the resentment that was burning in her, his power asserted itself and drove her back to say, scarcely of her own will:
“Yes; it’s quite true.”
Like a pleasing, habitual vice, Ordith frightened and controlled her. Her father had chosen him as her husband, and her mother seemed to acquiesce in the choice. She pictured herself saying “No” to Ordith, and “No” to her father and mother. She would be very calm, very determined, and then all would be over, the battle fought and won. Surely it would be easy to say “No.” One word to be spoken, one definite resolve to be kept—that was all. Nowadays coercion was impossible; the time of starvation, and imprisonment, and whips was long past. What she had to do was to look Ordith in the face, say “No,” and stand by her decision. It sounded easy.
And, on the other side, was the tradition of obedience to her father, hard to break she knew, for she had failed often to break it, but not unbreakable; and there was one thing more. Of this she thought, as men think of all things that are too vast for their imagination’s canvas, in a concrete, limited manner: so are we compelled to picture God in the form of man. She thought of it as Ibble’s works and yards as she had seen them when she had gone with her mother to the launching of ships—bare tracts of granite setts, buildings in common stock brick that had the motley appearance of disease, sheds of corrugated iron, cranes that groped above her head, railway-lines that tripped her feet, cables coiled up like gigantic snakes, flames from darkness, the mutter of machinery and the creaking of belts, the glass roofs through which the light came blurred and thin. The foundries, where the molten metal grumbled and spat and threw up scum on the runner-cups, had been her childhood’s conception of hell. The whole place filled her with terror. She had seen the workmen, with their sullen, yellow faces streaked with machine-oil, and eyes dulled by labour into which imagination had never entered. Her life had been overshadowed by Ibble’s, and not her life only, but her father’s and mother’s lives. Her parents had been omnipotent in her nursery. What power was this, then, that stood behind them and dominated them? She learned to think of Ibble’s as a tyrant inexorable because unapproachable; an immovable background against which alone the movements of life were visible, and in contrast to whose darkness life’s colours shone out. As she grew older she discovered that Ibble’s did not stand alone, but was a unit in a complex system, a string in a universal net. The nature and extent of the net itself were not clear. These facts stood out: that nearly all the world was in its meshes; that somehow inclusion in it was profitable; that those who thought to break it were fools and dreamers; that at any rate, though it was delicate and fragile so that the winds of fate blew it hither and thither, it was impossible to break. That was the first article in a traditional faith—impossible to break. Margaret had seen her own mother fight to get out of it, and seen her fail. This acquiescence in the matter of Ordith was the seal upon her failure.
This intangible, this invincible force, that swayed all she knew, swayed Margaret also. Though she denied it to herself, saying that she was young and her life her own, she believed it in her heart. All her experience contributed to this belief—the house with the wonderful attics and passages which she and her mother had wanted to buy, but which her father had rejected because its reception-rooms were not magnificent enough to receive the guests of Ibble and Co.; the sending of Hugh into the Navy because, since his intellect seemed unlikely to qualify him for inclusion in the firm, it would be as well to have a representative among the customers of Ibble and Co. Ibble’s was their God. Even her father, who was said to have the controlling interest, was himself controlled, working in sickness and health, growing tired and hollow-eyed and nervous, all for the sake of Ibble and Co. Once he had been seriously ill.
“I wish you would retire, Walter,” her mother had said. “Surely we have money enough? Haven’t we every material thing we want? Couldn’t you come out of it now? Couldn’t we go back to the old days before Ibble’s——”
“Come out of it!” her father had answered. “My dear, I can’t give in yet. Besides, I have my duty to do by Ibble and Co.”
They had thought Margaret too young to understand, but she had understood something of the tragedy, for already Ibble’s foundries were her Hell; and now she remembered it. And she was to play it out with Nick Ordith. Some day he would be, not Ordith the individual, but Ordith’s, the firm and the tradition. Ibble and Ordith, Ordith and Ibble.... She had read in her mother’s mind concerning the amalgamation, and knew what was planned but not spoken of. Her marriage likewise was planned but not spoken of.
After all, she asked herself, making a little kick within the mesh, what had her marriage to do with Ibble’s? But what, too, had the attics and passages in which she would have liked to play had to do with Ibble’s? She had but to say “No” to Ordith, she repeated—one word, one resolve. Often, when her thoughts returned to this point, she would laugh at herself as we laugh when we know we have uttered an empty boast; and sometimes while she laughed there were tears in her eyes.