Dear me, how ashamed of this impulsive action I felt when I had regained my solitude. Should I not now be the jest of the Pollacke kitchen and drawing-room alike?—for even in my anxiety to attain Mr Crimble's private ear, I had half-consciously noticed what a cascade of talk had gushed forth when Mr Crimble had closed the door of the latter behind him.
That evening I shared with Mrs Bowater my experiences at Brunswick House. So absorbed was I in my own affairs that I deliberately evaded any reference to hers. Yet her pallid face, seemingly an inch longer and many shades more austere these last two days, touched my heart.
"You won't think," I pleaded at last, "that I don't infinitely prefer being here, with you? Isn't it, Mrs Bowater, that you and I haven't quite so many things to pretend about? It is easy thinking of others when there are only one or two of them. But whole drawing-roomsful! While here; well, there is only just you and me."
"Why, miss," she replied, "as for pretending, the world's full of shadows, though substantial enough when it comes to close quarters. If we were all to look at things just bare in a manner of speaking, it would have to be the Garden of Eden over again. It can't be done. And it's just that that what's called the gentry know so well. We must make the best use of the mess we can."
I was tired. The thin, sweet air of spring, wafted in at my window after the precocious heat of the day, breathed a faint, reviving fragrance. A curious excitement was in me. Yet her words, or perhaps the tone of her voice, coloured my fancy with vague forebodings. I pushed aside my supper, slipped off my fine visiting clothes, and put on my dressing-gown. With lights extinguished, I drew the blind, and strove for a while to puzzle out life's riddle for myself. Not for the first or the last time did wandering wits cheat me of the goal, for presently in the quiet out of my thoughts, stole into my imagination the vision of that dreaming head my eyes had sheltered on.
"Hypnos," I sighed the word; and—another face, Fanny's, seemed to melt into and mingle with the visionary features. Why, why, was my desperate thought, why needed she allow the world to come to such close quarters? Why, with so many plausible reasons given in her letter for keeping poor Mr Crimble waiting, had she withheld the one that counted for most? And what was it? I knew in my heart that that could not be "making the best use of the mess." Surely, if one just told only the truth, there wasn't anything else to tell. It had taken me some time to learn this lesson.
A low, rumbling voice shook up from the kitchen. Mrs Bowater was talking to herself. Dejection drew over me again at the thought of the deceit I was in, and I looked at my love for Fanny as I suppose Abraham at the altar of stones looked at his son Isaac. Then suddenly a thought far more matter-of-fact chilled through my mind. I saw again Mr Crimble huddling down towards me in that echoing hall, heard my voice delivering Fanny's message, and realized that half of what I had said had been written in mockery. It had been intended for my eye only—"Let alone my prayers." In the solitude of the darkness the words had a sound far more sinister than even Fanny can have intended.
Mr Crimble, however, had accepted them apparently in good faith—to judge at least from the letter which reached me the following morning:—
"Dear Miss M.,—Thank you. I write with a mind so overburdened that words fail me. But I realize that Miss Bowater has no truer friend than yourself, and shall be frank. After that terrible morning you might well have refused to help me. I cannot believe that you will—for her sake. This long concealment, believe me, is not of my own seeking. It cannot, it must not, continue, a moment beyond the necessity. For weeks, nay, months, I have been tortured with doubts and misgivings. Her pride, her impenetrable heedlessness; oh, indeed, I realize the difficulties of her situation. I dare not speak till she gives consent. Yet silence puts me in a false position, and tongues, as perhaps even you may be aware, begin to wag. Nor is this my first attempt, and—to be more frank than I feel is discreet—there is my mother (quite apart from hers) now, alas, aged and more dependent on my affection and care than ever. To make a change now—the talk, the absence of Christian charity, my own temperament and calling! I pray for counsel to guide my stumbling bark on this sea of darkest tempest.
"Can F. decide that her affections are such as could justify her in committing her future to me? Am I justified in asking her? You, too, must have many anxieties—anxieties perhaps unguessed at by those of coarser fibre. And though I cannot venture to ask your confidences, I do ask for your feminine intuition—even though this may seem an intrusion after my sad discomfiture the other day. And yet, I assure you, it was not corporeal fear—are not we priests the police of the City Beautiful? Might I not have succeeded merely in making us both ridiculous? But that is past, and the dead past must bury its dead: there is no gentler sexton.
"Need I say that this letter is not the fruit of any mere impulse. The thought, the very image of her never leaves my consciousness night or day; and I get no rest. I am almost afraid at the power she has of imprinting herself on the mind. I implore you to be discreet, without needless deception. I will wait patiently. My last desire is to hasten an answer—unless, dear Miss M., one in the affirmative. And would it be possible—indeed the chief purpose of this letter was to make this small request—would it be possible to give me one hour—no tea—this afternoon? There was a phrase in your whispered message—probably because of the peculiar acoustic properties of Brunswick House—that was but half-caught. We must not risk the faintest shadow of misunderstanding.
"Believe me, yours most gratefully, though 'perplexed in the extreme,'
"Harold Crimble.
"PS.—I feel at times that it is incumbent on one to burn one's boats; even though out of sight the further shore.
"And the letter: would it be even possible to share a glance at that?"