CHAPTER LXIII
On the twenty-fifth Isaac Rickman lay dead in his villa at Ilford. Two days after Keith's visit he had been seized by a second and more terrible paralytic stroke; and from it he did not recover. The wedding was now indefinitely postponed till such time as Keith could have succeeded in winding up his father's affairs.
They proved rather less involved than he had expected. Isaac had escaped dying insolvent. Though a heavy mortgage delivered Rickman's in the Strand into Pilkington's possession, the City house was not only sound, as Isaac had said, but in a fairly flourishing condition. Some blind but wholly salutary instinct had made him hold on to that humbler and obscurer shop where first his fortunes had been made; and with its immense patronage among the Nonconformist population Rickman's in the City held a high and honourable position in the trade. The bulk of the profits had to go to the bookseller's widow as chief owner of the capital; still, the slender partnership settled on his son, if preserved intact and carefully manipulated, would yield in time a very comfortable addition to Keith's income. If Isaac had lived, his affairs (as far as he was concerned) would have been easily settled. But for his son and heir they proved most seriously complicated.
For Keith was heir, not only to his father's estate, but to that very considerable debt of honour which Isaac had left unpaid. It seemed as if the Harden library, the symbol of a superb intellectual vanity, was doomed to be in eternal necessity of redemption. Until yesterday it had not occurred to Keith that it could be his destiny to redeem it. Yesterday he had refused to let his mind dally with that possibility; to-day it had become the most fitting subject of his contemplation.
The thing was more easily conceived than done. His literary income amounted, all told, to about three hundred and fifty a year, but its sources were not absolutely secure. Metropolis or The Planet might conceivably at any moment cease to be. And there was his marriage. It was put off; but only for a matter of weeks. He had only a hundred and fifty pounds in ready money; the rest had been swallowed up by the little house at Ealing. It was impossible to redeem the Harden library unless he parted with his patrimony; which was, after all, his only safe and imperishable source of income. Still, he had not the smallest hesitation on this head. Neither he nor Flossie had taken it into their calculations when they agreed to marry, and he was not going to consider it now.
The first step proved simple. Mrs. Rickman had no objection to buying him out. On the contrary, she was thankful to get rid of a most reckless and uncomfortable partner. But in the present state of the trade it was impossible to estimate his share at more than four thousand. That covered the principal; but Isaac had paid no interest for more than two years; and that interest Keith would have to pay. Though the four thousand was secure, and Pilkington had given him three years to raise the seven hundred and fifty in, it was not so easily done on an income of three hundred and fifty. Not easy in three years; and impossible in any number of years if he married. Possible only, yes, just possible, if his marriage were postponed until such time as he could have collected the money. Some brilliant stroke of luck might unexpectedly reduce the term; but three years must be allowed. Metropolis and The Planet were surely good for another three years. The other alternative, that of repudiating the obligation, never entered his head for an instant. He could not have touched a shilling of his father's money till this debt was cleared.
There could be no doubt as to what honour demanded of him. But how would Flossie take it? The worst of it was that he was bound (in honour again) to give her the option of breaking off their engagement, if she didn't care to wait. And after all that had passed between them it might not be so easy to persuade her that he was not glad of the excuse; for he himself was so lacking in conviction. Still she was very intelligent; and she would see that it wasn't his fault if their marriage had to be put off. The situation was inevitable and impersonal, and as such it was bound to be hard on somebody. He admitted that it was particularly hard on Flossie. It would have been harder still if Flossie had been out of work; but Flossie, with characteristic prudence, had held on to her post till the very eve of her wedding-day, and had contrived to return to it when she foresaw the necessity for delay. Otherwise he would have had to insist on providing for her until she was independent again; which would have complicated matters really most horribly. It was quite horrible enough to have to explain all this to Flossie. The last time he had explained things (for he had explained them) to Flossie the result had not been exactly happy. But then the things themselves had been very different, and he had had to admit with the utmost contrition that a woman could hardly have had more reasonable grounds for resentment. That was all over and done with now. In that explanation they had explained everything away. They had left no single thread of illusion hanging round the life they were to live together. They accepted themselves and each other as they were. And in the absence of any brighter prospect for either of them there was high wisdom in that acceptance.
If then there was a lack of rapture in his relations with Flossie, there would henceforth at any rate be calm. Her temperament was, he judged, essentially placid, not to say apathetic. There was a soft smoothness about the plump little lady that would be a security against friction. She was not great at understanding; but, taking it all together, she was now in an infinitely better position for understanding him than she had been two weeks ago. Besides, it was after all a simple question of figures; and Flossie's attitude to figures was, unlike his own, singularly uninfluenced by passion. She would take the sensible, practical view.
The sensible practical view was precisely what Flossie did take. But her capabilities of passion he had again misjudged.
He chose his moment with discretion, when time and place and Flossie's mood were most propitious. The time was Sunday evening, the place was the Regent's Park, Flossie's mood was gentle and demure. She had been very nice to him since his father's death, and had shown him many careful small attentions which, with his abiding sense of his own shortcomings towards her, he had found extremely touching. She seemed to him somehow a different woman, not perhaps so pretty as she had been, but nicer. He may have been the dupe of an illusory effect of toilette, for Flossie was in black. She had discussed the propriety of mourning with Miss Bishop, and wore it to-day for the first time with a pretty air of solemnity mingled with satisfaction in her own delicate intimation that she was one with her lover in his grief. She had not yet discovered that black was unbecoming to her, which would have been fatal to the mood.
The flowers were gay in the Broad Walk, Flossie tried to be gay too; and called on him to admire their beauty. They sat down together on a seat in the embrasure of a bed of chrysanthemums. Flossie was interested in everything, in the chrysanthemums, in the weather and in the passers-by—most particularly interested, he noticed, in the family groups. Her black eyes, that glanced so restlessly at the men and so jealously at the women, sank softly on the children, happy and appeased. Poor Flossie. He had long ago divined her heart. He did his best to please her; he sat down when she told him to sit down, stared when she told him to stare, and relapsed into his now habitual attitude of dejection. A little girl toddled past him in play; stopped at his knees and touched them with her hand and rubbed her small body against them, chuckling with delight.
"The dear little mite," said Flossie; "she's taken quite a fancy to you, Keith." Her face was soft and shy under her black veil, and when she looked at him she blushed. He turned his head away. He could not meet that look in Flossie's eyes when he thought of what he had to say to her. He was going to put the joy of life a little farther from her; to delay her woman's tender ineradicable hope.
This was not the moment or the place to do it in. They rose and walked on, turning into the open Park. And there, sitting under a solitary tree by the path that goes towards St. John's Wood, he broke it to her gently.
"Flossie," he said, "I've something to tell you that you mayn't like to hear."
She made no sign of agitation beyond scraping a worn place in the grass with the tips of her little shoes. "Well," she said, with an admirable attempt at patience, "what is it now?"
"You mean you think it's been about enough already?"
"If it's really anything unpleasant, for goodness' sake let's have it out and get it over."
"Right, Flossie. I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid we shan't be able to marry for another two years, perhaps three."
"And why not?" Her black eyes darted a vindictive look at him under her soft veil.
"My father's death has made a difference to me."
Her lips tightened, and she drew a sharp but inaudible breath through her nostrils. He had been wrong in supposing that she had not looked for any improvement in his finances after his father's death. On the contrary, knowing of their reconciliation and deceived by the imposing appearance of Rickman's in the Strand, she had counted on a very substantial increase of income.
"Do you mean to say, Keith, he hasn't left you anything?"
He laughed softly—an unpleasant way he had in situations where most people would consider it only decent to keep grave.
"He has left me something. A bad debt."
"What have you got to do with his bad debts? Nobody can come down on you to pay them." She paused. A horrible thought had struck her. "Can they? You don't mean to say they can?"
He shook his head and struggled with his monstrous mirth.
"Keith! What 'ave you done? You surely haven't been backing any bills?"
He laughed outright this time, for the sheer misery of the thing.
"No, oh dear me, no. Not in your sense at least."
"There isn't any other sense. Either you did or you didn't; and I think you might tell me which."
"It's not quite so simple, dear. I didn't back his bills, d'you see, but I backed him.'
"Can they make you responsible? Have they got it down in black and white?"
"Nobody can make me responsible, except myself. It's what they call a debt of honour, Flossie. Those debts are not always down in black and white."
"Why can't you speak plain? I really can't think what you mean by that."
"Can't you? I'll endeavour to explain. A debt of honour, Beaver dear, is a debt that's got to be paid whoever else goes unpaid."
"A fine lot of honour about that," said she.
Was it possible to make the Beaver understand? He, gave her a slight outline of the situation; and he really could not complain of any fault in the Beaver's intelligence. For, by dint of a masterly cross examination, she possessed herself of all the details, even of those which he most desired to keep from her. After their last great explanation there had been more than a tacit agreement between them that the name of Lucia Harden was never to come up again in any future discussion; and that name he would not give. She, however, readily inferred it from his silence.
"You needn't tell me the lady's name," said she.
"I certainly needn't. The name has nothing whatever to do with it.'"
"Oh, hasn't it? You'll not make me believe that you'd 'ave taken it up this way for any one but her."
"Whether I would or wouldn't doesn't affect the point of honour."
"I don't see where it comes in there."
"If you don't I can't make you see it."
"I said I didn't see where it comes in—there. I know what's honourable as well as you, though I daresay my notions wouldn't agree with yours."
"Upon my soul, I shouldn't wonder if they didn't!"
"Look here, Keith. Did you ever make Miss Harden any promise to pay her that money when your father died?"
"Of course I didn't—How could I? Do you suppose she'd have let me do anything of the sort?"
"I don't know what she wouldn't have let you do. Anyhow you didn't make her any promise. Think of the promises and promises you've made to me."
"I do think of them. Have I broken one of them?"
"I don't say you have yet; but you want to."
"I don't wa—I won't break them, I'll keep every one of the blessed lot, if you'll only give me time."
"Give you time? I know what that means. It means that I'm to go back and earn my living. I can slave till I drop for all you care—while you go and throw away all that money on another woman. And I'm to give you time to do it in!"
"I won't ask you to wait for me. I'm perfectly willing to release you from your engagement if you like. It seems only fair to you."
"You care a lot, don't you, about what's fair to me? I believe you'd take the bread out of my mouth to give it to her."
"I would, Flossie, if it was her bread. That money doesn't belong to you or me; it belongs to Miss Harden."
"It seems to me," said Flossie, "that everything belongs to her. I'm sure you've as good as told me so."
"I've certainly given you some right to think so. But that has nothing to do with it; and we agreed that we were going to let it alone, didn't we?"
"It wasn't me that brought it up again, it was you; and it's got everything to do with it. You wouldn't have behaved like this, and you wouldn't be sitting there talking about what's honourable, if it hadn't been for Miss Harden."
"That may very well be. But it doesn't mean what you think it does. It means that before I knew Miss Harden I didn't know or care very much about what's honourable. She taught me to care. I wasn't fit to speak to a decent woman before I knew her. She made me decent."
"Did she sit up half the night with you to do it?".
He made a gesture of miserable impatience.
"You needn't tell me. I can see her."
"You can't. She did it by simply being what she is. If I ever manage to do anything right it will be because of her, as you say. But it doesn't follow that it'll be for her. There's a great difference."
"I don't see it."
"You must try to see it. There's one thing I haven't told you about that confounded money. It was I who let her in for losing it. Isn't that enough to make me keen?"
"You always were keen where she was concerned."
"Look here, Flossie, I thought you were going to give up this sort of thing?"
"So I was when I thought you were going to give her up. It doesn't look like it."
"My dear child, how can I give up what I never had or could have?"
"Well then—are you going to give up your idea?"
"No, I am not. But you can either give me up or wait for me, as I said. But if you marry me, you must marry me and my idea too. You don't like my idea; but that's no reason why you shouldn't like me."
"You're not taking much pains to make me like you."
"I'm taking all the pains I know. But your liking or not liking me won't alter me a little bit. You'll have to take me as I am."
As she looked up at him she realized at last the indomitable nature of the man she had to deal with. And yet he was not unalterable, even on his own showing. She knew some one who had altered him out of all knowledge.
"Come," said she, "don't say you never change."
"I don't say it. You'll have to allow for that possibility, too."
"It seems to me I have to allow for a good many things."
"You have indeed."
"Well, are we going to sit here all night?"
"I'm ready."
They walked back in silence over the straight path that seemed as if it would never end. Flossie stopped half-way in it, stung by an idea.
"There's something you haven't thought of. What are you going to do with the house? And with all that furniture?"
"Let them to somebody. That's all right, Beaver. The house and the furniture can't run away."
"No, but they'll never be the same again."
Nothing would ever be the same again; that was clear. The flowers were still gay in the Broad Walk, and the children, though a little sleepier, were still adorable; but Flossie did not turn to look at them as she passed. Would she ever look at them, at anything, with pleasure again? He had made life very difficult, very cruel to this poor child, whom after all he had promised to protect and care for.
"I say, Beaver dear, it is hard luck on you."
The look and the tone would have softened most women, at least for the time being; but the Beaver remained implacable.
"I'll try to make it easier for you. I'll work like mad. I'll do anything to shorten the time."
"Shorten the time? You don't know how many years you're asking me to wait."
"I'm not asking you to wait. I'm asking you to choose."
"Do you want me to do it now?"
"No, certainly not." She was not indeed in a mood favourable to choice; and he would not influence her decision. It was mean to urge her to an arduous constancy; meaner still to precipitate her refusal. "You must think. You can, you know, when you give your mind to it."
She appeared to be giving her mind to it for the rest of the way home; and her silence left him also free to think it over. After all, what had he done? He had not asked her to wait, but what if he had? Many men have to ask as much of the woman who loves them. Some men have asked even more of the woman whom they love. That was the secret. He could have asked it with a clear conscience if he had but loved her.