"I am not worthy to look upon your face," she murmured, and she closed the ivory case, letting it fall upon her lap. She hid her face in her hands. Oh, why had she during those six months of marriage patronised him in her thoughts? Why had she told him he was "irresponsible,"

jestingly calling him "her son," and now after his death, was she to add a further injustice and become unfaithful to his memory--the memory of her boy, who would never return?

Sharp, burning tears oozed up painfully between her eyelids. She tried to pray, and into her whole being came a profound silent sense of self-abas.e.m.e.nt, absorbing her as if it were a prayer.

CHAPTER XI

NO ESCAPE

Lady Dashwood sat on in the drawing-room. Now that she was alone it was not necessary to keep up the show of reading a book. She put it down on a table close at hand and gave herself up to thought.

But what was the good of plans--until Jim came back? The first thing was to find out whether the engagement was a fact and not an invention of Belinda's. Then if it was a fact, whether Jim really wanted to marry Gwendolen? If he did want to, plans might be very difficult to make, and there was little time, with Belinda clamouring to come and play the mother-in-law. The vulture was already hovering with the scent of battle in its nostrils.

Then, on the other hand, supposing Jim didn't want to marry Gwen, but had only been run into it--somehow--before he had had time to see May Dashwood, then plans might be easier. But in any case there were almost overwhelming difficulties in the way of "doing anything." It was easy to say that she would never allow the marriage to take place, but how was she to prevent it?

"I must prevent it," she murmured to herself. "Must!"

What still amazed and confounded Lady Dashwood and made her helpless was: why her brother showed such obvious interest--more than mere interest--in May Dashwood, if he was in love with Gwendolen Scott and secretly pledged to her? Jim playing the ordinary flirt was unthinkable.

It did look as if he had proposed in some impulsive moment, before May arrived, and then---- Why, that was why he had not announced his engagement! Was he playing a double game? No, it was unthinkable that he should not be absolutely straight. Gwendolen had somehow entangled him.

The very thought of it made Lady Dashwood get up from her chair and move about restlessly. Then an idea struck her. Jim coveted Gwendolen for her youth and freshness and only admired May! Yes, only admired her, and regarding her as still mourning for her young husband, still inconsolable, he had treated her with frankness and had shown his admiration without the restraint that he would have used otherwise.

When would Jim return? How long would she have to wait?

She had told Robinson to take a tray of refreshments for the Warden into the library. Now that she was alone in the drawing-room she would have the tray brought in here. When Jim did come in, she would have to approach her subject gradually. She must be as wily as a serpent--wily, when her pulses were beating and her head was aching? It would be more easy and natural for her to begin talking here than to go into the library and force him into conversation after the day's work was done.

Yet the matter must be thrashed out at once. She could not go about with Belinda's letter announcing the engagement and yet pretend that she knew nothing about it. Gwendolen probably knew that her mother had written; or if she didn't already know, would very likely know by the morning's post.

She rang the bell, and when Robinson appeared, she told him to bring the tray in, instead of taking it to the library.

"When the Warden comes in, tell him the tray is here," she said. Oh, how the last few minutes dragged! It was some distraction to have Robinson coming in and putting the tray down on the wrong table, and to be able to tell him the right table and the most suitable chair to accompany it.

Then, when he had gone and all was ready, she chose a chair for herself.

Not too near and not too far. She had Belinda's letter safe? Yes, it was here! She was ready, she was prepared. She was going to do something more difficult than anything she had experienced in her life, because so much depended on it, so much; and a great emotion is not easy to hide, it takes one's breath sometimes, it makes one's voice harsh, or indistinct, or worse still, it suddenly benumbs the brain, and thoughts go astray and tangle themselves, and all one's power of argument, all one's grip of the situation, goes.

And the minutes pa.s.sed slowly and still more slowly. When at last she heard sounds on the stairs, the blood rushed to her cheeks and her hands became as cold as ice. That was a bad beginning! She went to the door and opened it. He had come in and had gone into the library. She called out to him to come into the drawing-room. She heard his voice answer "Coming!" She left the door open and went back to her chair, the chair she had chosen, and she stood by it, waiting, looking at the open door.

He came in. He looked all round the room, and closed the door behind him.

"All alone?" he said, and there was a question in his voice. Who was he thinking of? Who was absent? Whose absence was he thinking of?

She sat down. "You're not cold?" she asked.

"Not at all," he said, and he walked to the table arranged for him and sat down.

"Did you have a satisfactory day?" she asked.

"On the whole," he said slowly, "yes."

"You're not tired?" she asked.

"Not a bit," he answered. "Why should I be?" and he looked at her and smiled.

"I don't know why you should be, Jim. I'm glad you're not. My guests seemed to be tired, for they both went off long ago."

She was now making the first step in the direction which she must boldly travel.

"I expect you are tired too," he said, "only--as usual--you wait up for me."

The Warden poured himself out a cup of coffee, and took up a sandwich, adding: "I managed to get a sc.r.a.ppy dinner before seven; if I had waited longer I should have missed my train."

"We were very dull at dinner without you," she said, bringing him back again to the point from which she was starting.

The Warden looked pleased, and then pained. Lady Dashwood was watching him with keen tired eyes.

"We lunched at Chartcote, and then we did all that you particularly wanted me to do," she said. "And then something rather amazing happened--I found a letter waiting me from Belinda Scott!"

She paused. The Warden glanced at her: his face became coldly abstracted.

"I don't mean that it was strange that she should write, but that what she said was strange."

He glanced at her again, and she saw that he was arrested. She went on.

It seemed now easier to speak. A strange cold despair had seized her, and with that despair a fearlessness.

"I can't help thinking that there is some mistake, because you would have told me if--well, anything had happened to you--of consequence! You would not have left me to be told by an--an outsider."

The Warden raised the cup of coffee to his lips, and then put it down carefully.

"Anything that has happened," he said, "has not been communicated by me to anybody. It did not seem to me that--there was anything that ought to be."

Lady Dashwood waited and finding her lips would stiffen and her voice sounded hollow, measured her words.

"Will you read Belinda's letter, and then you will see what I mean?" she said, and she rose and held the paper out to him.

His features had grown tense and severe. He half rose, and reached out over the table for the letter, and took it without a word. Then he put on his eye-gla.s.ses and read it through very slowly.

Lady Dashwood sat, staring at her own hands that lay in her lap. She was not thinking, she was waiting for him to speak.

He read the letter through, and sat with it in his hand, silent for a minute. For years he had been accustomed to looking over the compositions of men who had begun to think, and of men who never would begin to think. He was unable to read anything without reading it critically. But his criticism was criticism of ideas and the expression of ideas. He had no insight either by instinct or training for the detection of petty personal subterfuges, nor did he suspect crooked motives. But the discrepancy between this effusion of maternal emotion and Gwendolen's a.s.sertion that she had no home and that n.o.body cared was glaring.

The writer of the letter was a bouncing, selfish woman of poor intelligence. That fact, indeed, had become established in the Warden's mind. The letter was in hopelessly bad taste. It became pretty plain, therefore, that Gwendolen had spoken the truth, and the lie belonged to the mother.

Already, yes, already he was being drawn into an atmosphere of paltry humbug, of silly dishonesty, an atmosphere in which he could not breathe.

Couldn't breathe! The Warden roused himself. What did he mean by "being drawn"? He had carried out his life with decisive and serious intentions, and whoever shared that life with him would have to live in the atmosphere he had created around him. Surely he was strong enough not only to hold his own against the mother, but to mould a pliable girl into a form that he could respect!

"Somehow, I can't imagine how," said Lady Dashwood, breaking the silence, "I found a letter from Belinda to Gwendolen on my toilet table among other letters, and opened it and I began reading it--without knowing that it was not for me. Belinda's writing--all loops--did not make the distinction between Gwen and Lena so very striking. I read two sentences or so, and one phrase I can't forget; it was 'What are you doing about the Warden?' I turned the sheet and saw, 'Your affectionate mother, Belinda Scott.' I did not read any more. I gave the letter to Gwen, and I saw by her face that she had read the letter herself. 'What are you doing about the Warden?' Knowing Belinda, I draw conclusions from this sentence that do not match with the surprise she expresses in this letter you have just read. You understand what I mean?"