The Graftons: A Novel

by Archibald Marshall

Caroline kissed her again. As her heart grew lighter, the channels of her love were clearing.

"We went and walked in the garden," Beatrix went on. "We talked about what we would do when we were married—where we should live, and all that. I felt quite pleased and excited. It was something going to happen. I think only one part of me was working. And I felt as if I'd come to anchor. You know, darling, I haven't enjoyed myself this year, as I did last. That had spoilt everything for me. I think if I had lived quietly at home, as you have, it might have been different. But I'm rather tired of going about, and remembering that all the time. I don't want him any longer—of course. I hate him. But what I thought he was—having somebody all my own who would love me, and I would do all I could to make him happy—I suppose if you've once wanted that you always want it; and a home of your own, and children of your own to love."

"Yes, I know, dearest," said Caroline softly. She was longing to come to the point at which Beatrix might show her that all that, which lies before women made of their clay as the ultimate end of their lives, would come to Beatrix through the only gate which leads to its perfect fulfilment. She had thought at one time that it might be taken by a deliberate choice of a partner, and that the love that would sweeten it might come afterwards. But she thought differently now. Beatrix herself had taught her. That first love of hers, broken off as it had been, had been the right beginning; it would have led her through the only gate. Would this second adventure take her into the right path? If not, she might get much in life that would satisfy her; she would bend herself to it, and the world might not see that she had not all. But it would change her. She would not grow to the full stature of her true womanhood. Secondary things would be put above primary, for primary things would be out of her reach. It was not for such a one as Beatrix to make a merely satisfactory marriage.

The word she had been longing for came sooner than she had expected. "I won't go over it all any more," Beatrix said. "You saw what I was all last night and all to-day. I thought I should be able to keep it up, but I know now I couldn't have. Sometimes when I have been with him I felt like crying, because he was so matter-of-fact about everything, and I knew he wasn't really feeling like that, but was longing for me to give him a chance of being different. But I remembered what I had done before, and I wasn't sure that I really wanted him to—to make love to me.

"It was when he went away to-night. You know I went to see him out. I think if he had gone as he did last night—just as if we weren't engaged at all—I couldn't have gone on with it, I was feeling so miserable. Perhaps I looked at him in a way that showed him; for he looked at me as he was saying good-night. I saw by his eyes how much he loved me, and he kissed me very gently, on the forehead, and called me something sweet which I won't tell you; and then he went away."

"Oh, darling, I'm so glad," said Caroline. "I know by the way you tell me that it was what you really wanted all the time, wasn't it?"

"I don't know whether I did want it all the time. I know I should have been miserable if he had gone away without. And I wished when I'd gone upstairs that I'd given him something in return, some sign just to show that I didn't want him to go back to that horrid cold talk of to-day and yesterday. Do you think he will? He's not so frightfully strong, after all. I'm sure he never meant to show me what he did. He couldn't keep it under."

Caroline laughed gently at her. "Yes, he is strong," she said, "with the right sort of strength. He wouldn't have shown you that, if you hadn't shown him something first. Oh, darling, you do love him, don't you? You wouldn't be going to marry him if you didn't."

Beatrix didn't answer at once. "I suppose I'm frightened to let myself go," she said. "I did before, and it's as if something had got stopped up in me. I don't feel towards him as I did, and with him, though I admire and trust him a thousand times more. Will it come, Cara, dear? Can I go on, without doing him harm? He's so good and so fine, he ought to have somebody who would simply worship him, and think of nobody else; not somebody who has already thought of somebody else, somebody not to be compared with him."

Caroline wouldn't tell her that she thought it would all come. She knew it would, because now she saw that it was already there, though it was struggling for life through the dead waste of a once living but now withered love. "It's what you feel now, darling, that matters," she said. "I think something has been going on in you all the time that you can't recognise, because it's different from what it was."