Chapter XX Betty sees a Sprig of Rue
Archibald returned to Westchester some three days later. In the small black bag was another MS. quite as bulky as the first, and covered with Mark’s handwriting. Blots and smudges deformed it; the edges were dog-eared, whole sentences were excised, red pencil marks flamed amidst the black. Yet Archibald read it through again and again, smiling, and nodding his handsome head. He was not alone in his first-class carriage, and his companion, a shrewd Scotch lawyer, guessed why the minister kept moving his lips as he read his MS. In fancy he was declaiming it.
The day after his arrival at the lodge the elder brother had said to Mark: “By the way, Betty Kirtling sent her love to you. Have you any message for her?”
“None,” said he slowly. “I hope she is well.”
Archie, not detecting the anxiety in his tone, thought Betty was looking very well. Then he mentioned Jim.
“He comes from Friday to Monday, every week. He wants Betty, but I don’t fancy he’ll get her.”
“Have you any reason for saying that?” Mark asked, wondering whether Archie was clearer-sighted than he had supposed.
“Jim is a materialist.”
“Oh, come now!”
“A money-grubber and an agnostic.”
“One of the best of fellows. Ross never appeals to him in vain.”
“As if any rich man couldn’t write a cheque. Betty ought to marry somebody very different.”
“Don’t abuse him to Betty.”
“Betty is rather—undisciplined.”
“You can say that of all of us. I hope to God she won’t marry a schoolmaster.” He glanced at his brother with an eye that flamed. He had been smitten by the fear that Betty might marry Archie.
“What strong expressions you use, Mark. It doesn’t sound quite—how shall I put it?—well, seemly, for a man who holds Orders. I see no chance of Betty marrying a schoolmaster. I have great hopes that she will choose wisely. She said ‘No’ to Harry Kirtling, and she will say ‘No’ to Jim Corrance.”
“And she said ‘No’ to you,” Mark reflected.
Within the week Archibald rode over to King’s Charteris, where he found Betty in Mrs. Corrance’s garden gathering roses. He had wired that he was returning without Mark. She took the telegram to her room, where pride dried her eyes and hardened her heart. That night Jim told himself he had a chance. She had never been so kind to him, so understanding, so alluring. But on the brink of declaration he hesitated, fearing to leap. Afterwards he wondered what might have happened if he had—leaped boldly instead of looking and longing.
Betty received Archie with the question, “Is Mark really ill?”
Archie hesitated.
“He looks stronger,” he said slowly. “And he is in his usual spirits: the life and soul of the place. There can’t be anything really wrong. In fact he joked about his health. He doesn’t take anything very seriously, you know. David Ross told me that he had overworked himself—more or less.”
“You gave him my love?” Betty murmured lightly. She had the faintest tinge of colour in her cheeks, but her voice was almost cold.
“Yes.”
“And I hope he sent a nice message to me in return?”
“No. He asked if you were well. I said—yes. You do look uncommonly well, Betty.”
She wore white, which set off the delicate tints and admirable texture of her skin, but her hat was black, giving a necessary note of contrast. At her throat, holding together a jabot of creamy laces, sparkled an old-fashioned enamel ornament set with tiny brilliants. Standing on the sloping lawn, her figure defined against a towering yew fence, and holding in her hand the roses she had just gathered, the girl made a picture which lured Archie’s thoughts even from Windsor.
“I suppose a country life agrees with me.”
“You are wonderful.”
She moved to a bench, the young man following her with eager feet and eyes. He could not see that her heart was beating, nor did he notice that the brilliancy of her eyes was due to an abnormal enlargement of the pupil. She sat down, smiling derisively. Then she bade him tell her about the sanatorium. When he had finished, she said quietly, “You were very, very kind to take that long journey.”
“It’s easy to be kind to people like you—and Mark.”
His delightful voice softened, because when he mentioned his brother’s name the memory of what that brother had done on his behalf filled him with gratitude.
“I hear you are kind to everybody. All Slowshire sings your praises.”
Archibald shook his head, wondering whether Betty would mention the sermon. He was burning with impatience to try on, so to speak, some of its phrases, to watch the effect of them on a woman who had listened to the Gamaliels of the day. Betty possessed sincerity, imagination, sympathy. These would flow freely at the touch of a friend’s hand.
“If it would not bore you,” he said, “I should like to talk over the Windsor sermon. You can help me——”
“I? Help—you?”
“You can, indeed”; his voice grew eager. “Whatever I say will be the fresher and purer if it passes through your mind before it is given to the world.”
“My mind is a sort of filter.” She laughed. None the less she was pleased and flattered. Archibald began to speak in a soft monotone. Betty half closed her eyes and the lines of her figure slightly relaxed beneath the caressing inflections of the speaker’s voice. Whenever Archie sang she was affected in the same way. A languor overcame her. For the moment she was not attempting to grasp the meaning of his words, which, even as inarticulate sounds, possessed value and significance. But, soon, she opened her eyes wide and sat up. By this time Archie was at the core of his theme, and his treatment of it was so masterly that Betty found herself thrilling with surprise and delight. A few minutes before life had seemed empty. Now it was full again, brimming over, bubbling, with possibilities swelling from shadow into substance. Archie, be it remembered, was not preaching the sermon. He was rather submitting the material, the tissues, the threads, the patterns, out of which a fine piece of work had been already fashioned. Now and again Betty was invited to choose, to select, out of these wares some one which pleased her fancy. She realised that Archie had more of Mark in him than she had deemed possible. Once or twice she seemed to hear Mark’s eager tones.
“You say that like Mark.”
“Has Mark talked to you on this theme?”
“Oh, no,” Betty replied, “but he pours out his ideas, as you do.”
“Mark and I have talked about this. He helped me. He always does.”
Archie spoke hesitatingly, on the edge of full confession. He had a genuine desire to tell Betty the truth. The words formed on his lips.
“Yes, yes,” said Betty absently. “Mark has helped me too, many a time; but he’s in Sutherland.” Her voice became cold as she recalled his letter. “I feel as if he were at the North Pole! Well, Archie, I’ve enjoyed our talk immensely.”
“And when may I come to talk to you again?”
“You are not going—now?”
The “now” brought a sparkle to his eyes.
“I must. I’m one of the busiest men in Westchester.”
“I shall run down to Windsor to hear your sermon,” she said.
“Our sermon, Betty.”
“That’s rubbish. You must never pay me compliments, Archie. I couldn’t stand them from you——” she broke off, irrelevantly: “How did you attain to your pinnacle? I suppose you’ve been climbing ever since we were children. It’s quite wonderful. Don’t come Friday or Saturday. Jim will be here. Poor, rich Jim! What do you think of Jim?”
Archie remembered, in the nick of time, what Mark had said about not abusing Jim.
“I think what you think,” he said slowly. “Poor, rich Jim!”
After he had gone, Betty picked no more roses, but sat down on the bench, feeling rather forlorn. Archibald had taken something away with him. What it was she could not define precisely. For instance—was it Jim’s character? He had said nothing. Nothing—except her own words: “Poor, rich Jim.” Jim had been his friend, although the men had now little in common. Of course, he would not speak unkindly of an old schoolfellow. Yet as a preacher of Christ’s gospel, he must in his heart rank Jim amongst Christ’s enemies. Jim was not with Christ. He did not believe in Christ. The conclusion was obvious: he must be counted as an enemy. An enemy? Poor Jim!
She was still thinking of Jim, when his mother came towards her. She seemed to ascend the grass slope with difficulty; so Betty ran forward to offer an arm, which was accepted. As they moved slowly on, Betty glanced at the quiet face so near her own. Again, curiosity devoured her. She observed a faded look which she tried to interpret. Did it spell disappointment? Were the last draughts of life proving bitter? Perhaps she felt that her work was done, that her little world would wag on without her. They sat down, and Mrs. Corrance produced her needle, her silks, and a piece of embroidery from the old-fashioned velvet bag, which she always carried on her arm. Betty, who never sewed, wondered if the day would ever dawn when she would find solace in such trivial occupations. Then Mrs. Corrance asked for news of Mark. After that was told, silence fell on both: the silence which precedes the breaking of barriers. Then Betty said softly: “Are you glad that you have lived—or sorry?”
The frail hands, poised above the delicate embroidery, sank upon it, and remained still, while faint lines of interrogation puckered the placid forehead. Betty continued: “I ought not to ask such questions. I rush in like a fool. But then I am a fool, although I long to be wise. There is so much a girl like me wants to know, but if you tell me to hold my tongue I shall not be surprised or offended.”
“I’m glad that I have lived, Betty.”
“That is because you have loved. Your love for Jim has filled your life, ever since I have known you. If—if—oh, I am ashamed to put it so brutally—but if you lost Jim, or if Jim had never been born—what then?”
“My dear, you press me too hard. I can hardly conceive of life without Jim,” she smiled. “He came when all was dark, and there has been light for me—ever since.”
“When all was dark——” repeated Betty. She knew that Jim’s father had died when Jim was a small boy.
“Yes. My married life was not happy. Perhaps I expected too much, as is the way with women; perhaps it was not meant that I should be happy.”
“Not meant?” Betty spoke with impatience. “Surely the design, the intention, includes happiness, only we mar it.”
“All young people think that,” said Mrs. Corrance, “but as we grow older we see so little real happiness that we must believe, if we believe in the mercy of God, that, save for the few, happiness on earth is not to be enjoyed but earned rather, so that it may be enjoyed, without alloy, hereafter. And I believe that to everyone a glimpse of happiness is vouchsafed. Were it not for that, how many would struggle on?”
Betty asked no more questions. The youth in her rebelled against this placid acceptance of suffering and strife. She told herself that she had enormous capacity for enjoyment. Politics, literature, history, sport: all were fish to her net. But religion, and in particular that concrete presentation of it by the Church of England, had, so far, left her cold. She seemed to have touched but its phylacteries, out of which came no virtue. She had met many clever men who confessed themselves agnostic. Her kind friend, Lady Randolph, never spoke of religion, either in its wide or narrow sense. Certainly she did her duty without aid or formulæ. In fact, when Betty came to think of it, some freethinkers of her acquaintance lived more Christian lives than many Churchpeople who took the Sacrament every Sunday. This was puzzling. On the other hand, the life she had led since the Admiral’s death, the life of Mayfair, of big country houses, of race-meetings, of perpetual pleasure-seekings, had begun to pall. The grandmothers—some of them—who gambled, and made love, and over-ate themselves, revolted her. That they were at heart discontented and unhappy she could not doubt. Finally, she had just come to the trite conclusion that, in or out of the fashionable world, the people least to be pitied were those who had some definite object in view. Politics, for instance, had probably saved Lord Randolph from the hereditary curse of his family; fox-hunting made Harry Kirtling ride straight and walk straight; Jim Corrance admitted that money-grubbing kept him out of mischief. These pursuits, however, led to negative results: being preventive of evil, not productive of good, except indirectly. Mark Samphire not only avoided evil, but did good, as dozens were eager to testify, including herself. When with Mark she had always been conscious of his power to bring out the good in her. And this afternoon, listening to Archie, she had felt the same thrill, the same irresistible yearning to ascend, to scale the heights. None the less, she was whimsically aware, being a creature of sense as well as sensibility, that Mark cast a glamour. She loved him, and, loving him, loved what he loved, tried to see Heaven’s wares with his eyes, and succeeded, so long as the magician remained at her side. When he was at work in Whitechapel and she was shopping in Bond Street, Heaven, somehow, seemed distant. At such times she looked at a set of sables or a diamond ornament with a pleasure which proved that the clay within her was very far from being purged.
Upon the following Saturday, when Jim asked her to become his wife, to share the fortune which would be no fortune without her, she said No, as kindly as words and looks could say it. Her distress at the pain she inflicted touched him profoundly.
“I shall remain your pal, Betty,” Jim declared. “The other thing was always a forlorn hope. Is it any use saying that I have known for years that I wasn’t first, and that I was sanguine enough to believe that if the first failed, I might be second? Isn’t half a loaf better than no bread, dear?”
She let him take her hand, but she turned aside eyes full of tears.
“We’ll go on as before. The mater needn’t know—eh? It has been a great thing for her having you here.”
“And a great thing for me,” said Betty unsteadily. “I wish I could marry you, dear old Jim, but I can’t—I can’t.”
She broke down, sobbing bitterly. Jim patted her hand, wondering what he could say to comfort her, but the words which came into his head seemed inadequate. If he had taken her face between his strong hands, kissed away her tears, and sworn passionately that he would love and cherish her so long as she lived, she might have changed a mind which was less strong than her body. While she sat weeping beside him, she was thinking not so much that she had lost Mark, but that she had lost love. The woman within her groaned, the flesh and blood protested. She saw herself as in a vision, treading the dreary years alone, with no strong arm to protect and defend, with no tiny hands to cling to and caress her. And at the end of the pilgrimage stood old age, grim and grey, carrying a sprig of rue in palsied shrivelled hands!