“I expected nothing, but he’s in trouble. You’ve given him children—he’s your husband. In all your years together there must have been some hours that are sweet to remember. I did rather hope that, now that he’s in trouble, you might have remembered them.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m ashamed that I ever had them.”
“All right. It’s strange; but I think I understand. He still loves you, Jehane, and you could have helped the chap.”
“Love! What’s the value of his love?”
“I think its value once was whatever you cared to make it.”
Later in the day he said to her, “And you wouldn’t let Glory see him, I suppose? He mentioned her.”
“No, I wouldn’t. He’s not her father. Captain Spashett was a gentleman.”
The children were never told what occurred at the trial; all they knew was that the man who had laughed and played with them, who had loved the sunshine so carelessly, was to be locked up for a time so long that it seemed like the “ever and forever” of the Bible. It was like burying someone who was not dead—they seemed to hear him tapping. And they must not go to him; they must pretend they had not heard. He was a thing to be shunned and forgotten.
Jehane was anxious to earn her living. But how? She had been trained to do nothing. Barrington bought her a little cottage near Southgate, which at this time was still in the country. Gradually he got into the habit of letting her do a little outside reading for his firm—he did it to enable her to pretend that she was self-supporting. To his surprise she developed a faculty for the work and he began to trust her judgment. She had inherited a literary instinct of which, during her married life, she had remained unaware. It was a feeble instinct, but in the end it proved sufficiently rewarding. She took to writing sentimental novelettes, which found a market. Whatever her faults of heart, she had always been capable and gifted with a strong sense of duty; so, now that she had found a means of making money, she worked hard with her pen, stinting herself and treating her children with foolish liberality.
Her chief regret was that Ocky had spoilt the marriage chances of her girls; she tried to rub out this social stain by creating the impression that her husband was dead. She had two extravagances—the purchase of hair-tonics and a mania for visiting fortune-tellers. She had one great hope—that in the future she might re-marry. This would entail Ocky’s death; but she was not so cruel as to reason that out. She had one great mission—to teach her daughters to catch men. Her chief theme of conversation with her children was the wickedness of their father and the heroic loyalty of her own conduct. No doubt there were times when her conscience troubled her.