CHAPTER XXIII.
There was a florist’s near by—in London there always is a florist’s nearby—and Judith stood in the little place, among the fanciful strawbaskets and the wire frames and the tin boxes of cut flowers and thedamp pots of blooming ones, and made her choice. In her slenderness andher gladness she herself had somewhat the poise of a flower, and thedelicate flush of her face, with its new springing secret of life, didmore to suggest one—a flower just opened to the summer and the sun.
She picked out some that were growing in country lanes then—it was themiddle of July—poppies and cornbottles and big brown-hearted daisies.They seemed to her to speak in a simple way of joy. Then she added a potof ferns and some clustering growing azaleas, pink and white and verylovely. She paid the florist’s wife ten shillings, and took them allwith her in a cab. This was not a day for economies. She drove back toher rooms, the azaleas beside her on the seat making a picture of herthat people turned to look at. In her hand she carried a folded brownenvelope. On the form inside it was written, in the genericallyinexpressive characters of the Telegraph Department, “_Arrive London2.30. Will be with you at five. Ancram._”
She drove back.]
It was ten o’clock in the morning, but she felt that the day would betoo short for all there was to do. There should be nothing sordid in hergreeting, nothing to make him remember that she was poor. Her atticshould be swept and garnished: women think of these little things. Shehad also with her in the cab a pair of dainty Liberty muslin curtains tokeep out the roof and the chimneys, and a Japanese tea-set, and tea of akind she was not in the habit of drinking. She had only stopped buyingpretty fresh decorative things when it occurred to her that she mustkeep enough money to pay the cabman. As she hung the curtains, and putthe ferns on the window-seat and the azaleas in the corners, and theplump, delicate-coloured silk cushions in the angles of her small hardsofa, her old love of soft luxurious things stirred within her.Instinctively she put her poverty away with impatience and contempt.What in another woman might have been a calculating thought came to heras a hardly acknowledged sense of relief and repose. There would be nomore of _that_!
A knock at the door sent the blood to her heart, and her hand to herdusty hair, before she remembered how impossible it was that this shouldbe any but an unimportant knock. Yet she opened the door with athrill—it seemed that such a day could have no trivial incidents. Whenshe saw that it was the housemaid with the mail, the Indian mail, shetook it with a little smile of indifference and satisfaction. It was nolonger the master of her delight.
She put it all aside while she adjusted the folds of the curtains andtook the step-ladder out of the room. Then she read Philip Doyle’sletter. She read it, and when she had finished she looked gravely,coldly, at the packet that came with it, carefully addressed in theround accurate hand of the clerk who made quill pens in Doyle’s office.She was conscious of an unkindness in this chance; it might so well havefallen last week or next. There was no ignoring it—it was there, it hadbeen delivered to her, it seemed almost as urgent a demand upon her timeand thought and interest as if John Church himself had put it into herhand. With an involuntary movement she pushed the packet aside andlooked round the room. There were still several little things to do. Shegot up to go about them; but she moved slowly, and the glow had gone outof her face, leaving her eyes shadowed as they were on other days. Shemade the cornbottles and the daisies up into little bouquets, but shelet her hands drop into her lap more than once, and thought about otherthings.
Suddenly, with a quick movement, she went over to where the packet layand took it up. It was as if she turned her back upon something; she hada resolute look. As she broke the wax and cut the strings, any one mighthave recognised that she confronted herself with a duty which she didnot mean to postpone. It would have been easy to guess her unwordedfeeling—that, however differently her heart might insist, she could notslight John Church. This was a sensitive and a just woman.
She opened letter after letter, reading slowly and carefully. Every wordhad its due, every sentence spoke to her. Gradually there came round herlips the look they wore when she knelt upon her hassock in St. Luke’sround the corner, and repeated, with bent head,
/* “But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders: SpareThou them, O Lord, which confess their faults.” */
It seemed to her that in not having loved John Church while he lived normourned him in sackcloth when he was dead she had sinned indeed. She wasin the midst of preparations that were almost bridal, yet it is quitetrue that for this man whose death had wrought her deliverance and herjoy, her eyes were full of a tender, reverent regret. Presently she cameupon a letter which she put aside, with a pang, to be read last of all.It was like Ancram, she thought, to have borne witness to her husband’sworth—he could never have guessed that his letter would hurt her alittle one day. She noticed that it was fastened together with anewspaper, by a narrow rubber circlet, and that the newspaper was markedin red pencil. She remembered Ancram’s turn for journalism—he hadacknowledged many a clever article to her—and divined that this was sometribute from his pen. The idea gave her a realising sense that her lovershared her penance and was vaguely comforting.
She went through all the rest, as I have said, conscientiously,seriously, and with a troubled heart. Philip Doyle had not been mistakenin saying that they were sincere, and spontaneous. The tragedy ofChurch’s death had brought out his motives in high relief; it was notlikely he could ever have lived to be so appreciated. These wereimpressions of him struck off as it were in a white heat of feeling. Hiswidow sat for a moment silent before the revelation they made of him,even to her.
Then, to leave nothing undone, Judith opened Ancram’s letter. Herstartled eyes went through it once without comprehending a line of itssequence, though here and there words struck her in the face and made itburn. She put her hand to her head to steady herself; she felt giddy,and sickeningly unable to comprehend. She fastened her gaze upon thepage, seeing nothing, while her brain worked automatically about thefact that she was the victim of some terribly untoward circumstance—whatand why it refused to discover for her. Presently things grew simplerand clearer; she realised the direction from which the blow had come.Her power to reason, to consider, to compare, came back to her; and shecaught up her misfortune eagerly, to minimise it. The lines of Ancram’shostility and contempt traced themselves again upon her mind, and thistime it quivered under their full significance. “Happily for Bengal,”she read, “a fool is invariably dealt with according to his folly.” Thenshe knew that no mollifying process of reasoning could alter the factwhich she had to face.
Her mind grew acute in its pain. She began to make deductions, shelooked at the date. The corroboration of the newspaper flashed upon herinstantly, and with it came a keen longing to tell her husband who hadwritten that article—he had wondered so often and so painfully. All atonce she found herself framing a charge.
A clock struck somewhere, and as if the sound summoned her she got upfrom her seat and opened a little lacquered box that stood upon themantel. It contained letters chiefly, but from among its few photographsshe drew one of her husband. With this in her hand she went into herbedroom and shut the door and locked it.
When the maid brought Sir Lewis Ancram’s card up at five o’clock shefound the door open. Mrs. Church was fitting a photograph into a littleframe. She looked thoughtful, but charming; and she said sounhesitatingly, “Bring the gentleman up, Hetty,” that Hetty, noticingthe curtains and the cushions in Mrs. Church’s sitting-room, brought thegentleman up with a smile.
At his step upon the stair her eyes dilated, she took a long breath andpulled herself together, her hand tightening on the corner of the table.He came in quickly and stood before her silent; he seemed to insist uponhis presence and on his outstretched hands. His face was almost open andexpansive in its achieved happiness; one would have said he was afellow-being and not a Lieutenant-Governor. It loo
ked as if to him themoment were emotional, but Mrs. Church almost immediately deprived it ofthat character. She gave him the right hand of ordinary intercourse andan agreeable smile.
“You are looking surprisingly well,” she said.
If this struck Ancram as inadequate he hesitated about saying so. Thewords upon his own lips were “My God! how glad I am to see you!” but hedid not permit these to escape him either. Her friendliness was toocheerful to chill him, but he put his eyeglass into his eye, which hegenerally did when he wanted to reflect, behind a pause.
“And you are just the same,” he said. “A little more colour, perhaps.”
“I am not really, you know,” she returned, slipping her hand quickly outof his. “Since I saw you I am older—and wiser. Nearly two years olderand wiser.”
The smile which he sent into her eyes was a visible effort to bringhimself nearer to her.
“Where have you found so much instruction?” he asked, with tenderbanter.
Her laugh accepted the banter and ignored its quality. “In ‘The ModernInfluence of the Vedic Books,’ among other places,” she said, and rangthe bell. “Tea, Hetty.”
“I must be allowed to congratulate you upon that,” she went onpleasantly. “All the wise people are talking about it, aren’t they? Andupon the rest of your achievements. They have been very remarkable.”
“They are very incomplete,” he hinted; “but I am glad you are disposedto be kind about them.”
They had dropped into chairs at the usual conversational distance, andhe sat regarding her with a look which almost confessed that he did notunderstand.
“I suppose you had an execrable passage,” Judith volunteered, withsociable emphasis. “I can imagine what it must have been, as far asAden, with the monsoon well on.”
“Execrable,” he repeated. He had come to a conclusion. It was part ofher moral conception of their situation that he should begin hislove-making over again. She would not tolerate their picking it up andgoing on with it. At least that was her attitude. He wondered,indulgently, how long she would be able to keep it.
“And Calcutta? I suppose you left it steaming?”
“I hardly know. I was there only a couple of days before the mail left.Almost the whole of July I have been on tour.”
“Oh—really?” said Mrs. Church. Her face assumed the slight sadimpenetrability with which we give people to understand that they aretrespassing upon ground hallowed by the association of grief. Ancramobserved, with irritation, that she almost imposed silence upon him fora moment. Her look suggested to him that if he made any further carelessallusions she might break into tears.
“Dear me!” Judith said softly at last, pouring out the tea, “how youbring everything back to me!”
He thought of saying boldly that he had come to bring her back toeverything, but for some reason he refrained.
“Not unpleasantly, I hope?” He had an instant’s astonishment at findingsuch a commonplace upon his lips. He had thought of this in poems formonths.
She gave him his tea, and a pathetic smile. It was so pathetic that helooked away from it, and his eye fell upon the portrait of John Church,framed, near her on the table.
“Do you think it is a good one?” she asked eagerly, following hisglance. “Do you think it does him justice? It was so difficult,” sheadded softly, “to do him justice.”
Sir Lewis Ancram stirred his tea vigorously. He never took sugar, butthe manipulation of his spoon enabled him to say, with candid emphasis,“He never got justice.”
For the moment he would abandon his personal interest, he would humourher conscience; he would dwell upon the past, for the moment.
“No,” she said, “I think he never did. Perhaps, now——”
Ancram’s lip curled expressively.
“Yes, now,” he said—“now that no appreciation can encourage him, noapplause stimulate him, now that he is for ever past it and them, theycan find nothing too good to say of him. What a set of curs they are!”
“It is the old story,” she replied. Her eyes were full of sadness.
“Forgive me!” Ancram said involuntarily. Then he wondered for what hehad asked to be forgiven.
“He was a martyr,” Judith went on calmly—“‘John Church, martyr,’ is theway they ought to write him down in the Service records. But there werea few people who knew him great and worthy while he lived. I was one——”
“And I was another. There were more than you think.”
“He used to trust you. Especially in the matter that killed him—thateducational matter—he often said that without your sympathy and supporthe would hardly know where to turn.”
“His policy was right. Events are showing now how right it was. Everyday I find what excellent reason he had for all he did.”
“Yes,” Judith said, regarding him with a kind of remote curiosity. “Youhave succeeded to his difficulties. I wonder if you lie awake over them,as he used to do! And to all the rest. You have taken his place, and hishopes, and the honours that would have been his. How strange it seems!”
“Why should it seem so strange, Judith?”
She half turned and picked up a letter and a newspaper that lay on thetable behind her.
“This is one reason,” she said, and handed them to him. “Those havereached me to-day, by some mistake in Mr. Doyle’s office, I suppose. Oneknows how these things happen in India. And I thought you might like tohave them again.”
Ancram’s face fell suddenly into the lines of office. He took the papersinto his long nervous hands in an accustomed way, and opened the pagesof the letter with a stroke of his finger and thumb which told of amultitude of correspondence and a somewhat disregarding way of dealingwith it. His eyes were riveted upon Doyle’s red pencil marks under “_hisbeard grows with the tale of his blunders_” in the letter and thenewspaper, but his expression merely noted them for future reference.
“Thanks,” he said presently, settling the papers together again.“Perhaps it is as well that they should be in my possession. It wasthoughtful of you. In other hands they might be misunderstood.”
She looked at him full and clearly, and something behind her eyeslaughed at him.
“Oh, I think not!” she said. “Let me give you another cup of tea.”
“No more, thank you.” He drew his feet together in a preliminarymovement of departure, and then thought better of it.
“I hope you understand,” he said, “that in—in official life one may beforced into hostile criticism occasionally, without the slightestpersonal animus.” His voice was almost severe—it was as he werecompelled to reason with a subordinate in terms of reproof.
Judith smiled acquiescently.
“Oh, I am sure that must often be the case,” she said; and he knew thatshe was beyond all argument of his. She had adopted the officialattitude; she was impersonal and complaisant and non-committal. Hercomment would reach him later, through the authorised channels of theempty years. It would be silent and negative in its nature, the denialof promotion, but he would understand. Even in a matter of sentiment theofficial attitude had its decencies, its conveniences. He was vaguelyaware of them as he rose, with a little cough, and fell back into hisown.
Nevertheless it was with something like an inward groan that heabandoned it, and tried, for a few lingering minutes, to remind her ofthe man she had known in Calcutta.
“Judith,” he said desperately at the door, after she had bidden him acheerful farewell, “I once thought I had reason to believe that youloved me.”
She was leaning rather heavily on the back of a chair. He had made onlya short visit, but he had spent five years of this woman’s life since hearrived.
“Not you,” she said: “my idea of you. And that was a long time ago.”
She kept her tone of polite commonplace; there was nothing for it but arecognisant bow, which Ancram made in silence. As he took his waydownstairs and out into Kensington, a malignant recollection of havingheard something very like this be
fore took possession of him andinterfered with the heroic quality of his grief. If he had a Nemesis, hetold himself, it was the feminine idea of him. But that was afterward.
* * * * *
One day, a year later, Sir Lewis Ancram paused in his successful conductof the affairs of Bengal long enough to state the case with ultimateemphasis to a confidentially inquiring friend.
“As the wife of my late honoured chief,” he said, “I have the highestadmiration and respect for Mrs. Church; but the world is wrong inthinking that I have ever made her a proposal of marriage; nor have Ithe slightest intention of doing so.”
THE END.
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Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, andare noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
76.21 she [give] that young lady _sic_
116.1 the _Free Press_[,] the _Hindu Patriot_, the Added. _Bengalee_
160.20 afternoo[o]n still hung mellow in mid air Removed.
207.3 as lovely, a[s] embarrassing as divine. Added.
281.9 and occupied herself with the[n/m] Replaced.
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