'And what about George?' put in Mrs Griffith. 'D'you think the Polletts would stand it?' George was engaged to Edith Pollett.
'She'd be quite capable of breaking it off if Daisy came back,' said George. 'She's said as much.'
'Quite right too!' cried his mother. 'And I'm not going to be like Mrs Jay with Lottie. Everyone knows about Lottie's goings-on, and you can see how people treat them – her and her mother. When Mrs Gray passes them in the street she always goes the other side. No, I've always held my head high, and I'm always going to. I've never done anything to be ashamed of as far as I know, and I'm not going to begin now. Everyone knows it was no fault of mine what Daisy did, and all through I've behaved so that no one should think the worse of me.'
Mr Griffith sank helplessly into a chair, the old habit of submission asserted itself, and his weakness gave way as usual before his wife's strong will. He had not the courage to oppose her.
'What shall I answer, then?' he asked.
'Answer? Nothing.'
'I must write something. She'll be waiting for the letter, and waiting and waiting.'
'Let her wait.'
6
A few days later another letter came from Daisy, asking pitifully why they didn't write, begging them again to forgive her and take her back. The letter was addressed to Mr Griffith; the girl knew that it was only from him she might expect mercy; but he was out when it arrived. Mrs Griffith opened it, and passed it on to her son. They looked at one another guiltily; the same thought had occurred to both, and each knew it was in the other's mind.
'I don't think we'd better let Father see it,' Mrs Griffith said, a little uncertainly; 'it'll do no good and it'll only distress him.'
'And it's no good making a fuss, because we can't have her back.'
'She'll never enter this door as long as I'm in the world ... I think I'll lock it up.'
'I'd burn it, if I was you, Mother. It's safer.'
Then every day Mrs Griffith made a point of going to the door herself for the letters. Two more came from Daisy.
'I know it's not you; it's Mother and George. They've always hated me. Oh, don't be so cruel, Father! You don't know what I've gone through. I've cried and cried till I thought I should die. For God's sake write to me! They might let you write just once. I'm alone all day, day after day, and I think I shall go mad. You might take me back; I'm sure I've suffered enough, and you wouldn't know me now, I'm so changed. Tell Mother that if she'll only forgive me I'll be quite different. I'll do the housework and anything she tells me. I'll be a servant to you, and you can send the girl away. If you knew how I repent! Do forgive me and have me back. Oh, I know that no one would speak to me; but I don't care about that, if I can only be with you!'
'She doesn't think about us,' said George, 'what we should do if she was back. No one would speak to us, either.'
But the next letter said that she couldn't bear the terrible silence; if her father didn't write she'd come down to Black-stable. Mrs Griffith was furious.
I'd shut the door in her face; I wonder how she can dare to come.'
'It's jolly awkward,' said George. 'Supposing Father found out we'd kept back the letters?'
'It was for his own good,' said Mrs Griffith, angrily. 'I'm not ashamed of what I've done, and I'll tell him so to his face if he says anything to me.'
'Well, it is awkward. You know what Father is; if he saw her ...'
Mrs Griffith paused a moment.
'You must go up and see her, George!'
'Me!' he cried in astonishment, a little in terror.
'You must go as if you came from her father to say we won't have anything more to do with her and she's not to write.'
7
Next day George Griffith, on getting out of the station at Victoria, jumped on a Fulham bus, taking his seat with the self-assertiveness of the countryman who intends to show the Londoners that he's as good as they are. He was in some trepidation and his best clothes. He didn't know what to say to Daisy, and his hands sweated uncomfortably. When he knocked at the door he wished she might be out – but that would only be postponing the ordeal.
'Does Mrs Hogan live here?'
'Yes. Who shall I say?'
'Say a gentleman wants to see her.'
He followed quickly on the landlady's heels and passed through the door the woman opened while she was giving the message. Daisy sprang to her feet with a cry.
'George!'
She was very pale, her blue eyes dim and lifeless, with the lids heavy and red; she was in a dressing-gown, her beautiful hair dishevelled, wound loosely into a knot at the back of her head. She had not half the beauty of her old self ... George, to affirm the superiority of virtue over vice kept his hat on.
She looked at him with frightened eyes, then her lips quivered, and, turning away her head, she fell on a chair and burst into tears. George looked at her sternly. His indignation was greater than ever now that he saw her. His old jealousy made him exult at the change in her.
'She's got nothing much to boast about now,' he said to himself, noting how ill she looked.
'Oh, George ... !' she began, sobbing; but he interrupted her.
'I've come from Father,' he said, 'and we don't want to have anything more to do with you, and you're not to write.'
'Oh!' She looked at him now with her eyes suddenly quite dry. They seemed to burn her in their sockets. 'Did he send you here to tell me that?'
'Yes; and you're not to come down.'
She put her hand to her forehead, looking vacantly before her.
'But what am I to do? I haven't got any money; I've pawned everything.'
George looked at her silently; but he was horribly curious.
'Why did he leave you?' he said.
She made no answer; she looked before her as if she were going out of her mind.
'Has he left you any money?' asked George.
Then she started up, her cheeks flaming red.
'I would not touch a halfpenny of his. I'd rather starve!' she screamed.
George shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, you understand?' he said.
'Oh, how can you! It's all you and Mother. You've always hated me. But I'll pay you out, by God! I'll pay you out. I know what you are, all of you – you and Mother, and all the Blackstable people. You're a set of damned hypocrites.'
'Look here, Daisy! I'm not going to stand here and hear you talk like that of me and Mother,' he replied with dignity; 'and as for the Blackstable people, you're not fit to – to associate with them. And I can see where you learnt your language.'
Daisy burst into hysterical laughter. George became more angry – virtuously indignant.
'Oh, you can laugh as much as you like! I know your repentance is a lot of damned humbug. You've always been a conceited little beast. And you've been stuck up and cocky because you thought yourself nice-looking, and because you were educated in Tercanbury. And no one was good enough for you in Blackstable. And I'm jolly glad that all this has happened to you; it serves you jolly well right. And if you dare to show yourself at Blackstable we'll send for the police.'
Daisy stepped up to him.
'I'm a damned bad lot,' she said, 'but I swear I'm not half as bad as you are ... You know what you're driving me to.'
'You don't think I care what you do,' he answered, as he flung himself out of the door. He slammed it behind him, and he also slammed the front door to show that he was a man of high principles. And even George Washington, when he said, 'I cannot tell a lie; I did it with my little hatchet,' did not feel so righteous as George Griffith at that moment.
Daisy went to the window to see him go, and then, throwing up her arms, she fell on her knees, weeping, weeping, and she cried:
'My God, have pity on me!'
8
'I wouldn't go through it again for a hundred pounds,' said George, when he recounted his experience to his mother. 'And she wasn't a bit humble, as you'd expect.'
'Oh! that's Daisy a
ll over. Whatever happens to her, she'll be as bold as brass.'
'And she didn't choose her language,' he said, with mingled grief and horror.
They heard nothing more of Daisy for over a year, when George went up to London for the choir treat. He did not come back till three o'clock in the morning, but he went at once to his mother's room.
He woke her very carefully, so as not to disturb his father. She started up, about to speak, but he prevented her with his hand.
'Come outside; I've got something to tell you.'
Mrs Griffith was about to tell him rather crossly to wait till the morrow, but he interrupted her:
'I've seen Daisy.'
She quickly got out of bed, and they went together into the parlour.
'I couldn't keep it till the morning,' he said ... 'What d'you think she's doing now? Well, after we came out of the Empire, I went down Piccadilly, and – well, I saw Daisy standing there ... It did give me a turn, I can tell you; I thought some of the chaps would see her. I simply went cold all over. But they were on ahead and hadn't noticed her.'
'Thank God for that!' said Mrs Griffith, piously.
'Well, what d'you think I did? I went straight up to her and looked her full in the face. But d'you think she moved a muscle? She simply looked at me as if she'd never set eyes on me before. Well, I was taken aback, I can tell you. I thought she'd faint. Not a bit of it.'
'No, I know Daisy,' said Mrs Griffith; 'you think she's this and that, because she looks at you with those blue eyes of hers, as if she couldn't say boo to a goose, but she's got the very devil inside her ... Well, I shall tell her father that, just so as to let him see what she has come to ...'
The existence of the Griffith household went on calmly. Husband and wife and son led their life in the dull little fishing town, the seasons passed insensibly into one another, one year slid gradually into the next; and the five years that went by seemed like one long, long day. Mrs Griffith did not alter an atom; she performed her housework, went to church regularly, and behaved like a Christian woman in that state of life in which a merciful Providence had been pleased to put her. George got married, and on Sunday afternoons could be seen wheeling an infant in a perambulator along the street. He was a good husband and an excellent father. He never drank too much, he worked well, he was careful of his earnings, and he also went to church regularly; his ambition was to become churchwarden after his father. And even in Mr Griffith there was not so very much change. He was more bowed, his hair and beard were greyer. His face was set in an expression of passive misery, and he was extremely silent. But as Mrs Griffith said:
'Of course, he's getting old. One can't expect to remain young for ever' – she was a woman who frequently said profound things – 'and I've known all along he wasn't the sort of man to make old bones. He's never had the go in him that I have. Why, I'd make two of him.'
The Griffiths were not so well-to-do as before. As Black-stable became a more important health resort, a regular undertaker opened a shop there; and his window, with two little model coffins and an arrangement of black Prince of Wales's feathers surrounded by a white wreath, took the fancy of the natives, so that Mr Griffith almost completely lost the most remunerative part of his business. Other carpenters sprang into existence and took away much of the trade.
'I've no patience with him,' said Mrs Griffith of her husband. 'He's let these newcomers come along and just take the bread out of his hands. Oh, if I was a man, I'd make things different, I can tell you! He doesn't seem to care ...'
At last, one day George came to his mother in a state of tremendous excitement.
'I say, Mother, you know the pantomime they've got at Tercanbury this week?'
'Yes.'
'Well, the principal boy's Daisy.'
Mrs Griffith sank into a chair, gasping.
'Harry Ferne's been, and he recognized her at once. It's all over the town.'
Mrs Griffith, for the first time in her life, was completely at a loss for words.
'Tomorrow's the last night,' added her son, after a little while, 'and all the Blackstable people are going.'
'To think that this should happen to me!' said Mrs Griffith, distractedly. 'What have I done to deserve it? Why couldn't it happen to Mrs Garman or Mrs Jay? If the Lord had seen fit to bring it upon them – well, I shouldn't have wondered.'
'Edith wants us to go,' said George – Edith was his wife.
'You don't mean to say you're going, with all the Black-stable people there?'
'Well, Edith says we ought to go, just to show them we don't care.'
'Well, I shall come too!' cried Mrs Griffith.
9
Next evening half Blackstable took the special train to Tercanbury, which had been put on for the pantomime, and there was such a crowd at the doors that the impresario half thought of extending his stay. The Rev. Charles Gray and Mrs Gray were there, also James, their nephew. Mr Gray had some scruples about going to a theatre, but his wife said a pantomime was quite different; besides, curiosity may gently enter even a clerical bosom. Miss Reed was there in black satin, with her friend Mrs Howlett; Mrs Griffith sat in the middle of the stalls, flanked by her dutiful son and her daughter-in-law; and George searched for female beauty with his opera-glass, which is quite the proper thing to do on such occasions ...
The curtain went up, and the villagers of Dick Whtittington's native place sang a chorus.
'Now she's coming,' whispered George.
All those Blackstable hearts stood still. And Daisy, as Dick Whittington, bounded on the stage – in flesh-coloured tights, with particularly scanty trunks, and her bodice – rather low. The vicar's nephew sniggered, and Mrs Gray gave him a reproachful glance; all the other Blackstable people looked pained; Miss Reed blushed. But as Daisy waved her hand and gave a kick, the audience broke out into prolonged applause; Tercanbury people have no moral sense, although Tercanbury is a cathedral city.
Daisy began to sing:
I'm a jolly sort of boy, tol,
lol, And I don't care a damn who knows it.
I'm fond of every joy, tol, lol,
As you may very well suppose it.
Tol, lol, lol,
Tol, lol, lol.
Then the audience, the audience of a cathedral city, as Mr Gray said, took up the refrain:
Tol, lol, lol,
Tol, lol, lol.
However, the piece went on to the bitter end, and Dick Whittington appeared in many different costumes and sang many songs, and kicked many kicks, till he was finally made Lord Mayor – in tights.
Ah, it was an evening of bitter humiliation for Blackstable people. Some of them, as Miss Reed said, behaved scandalously; they really appeared to enjoy it. And even George laughed at some of the jokes the cat made, though his wife and his mother sternly reproved him.
'I'm ashamed of you, George, laughing at such a time!' they said.
Afterwards the Grays and Miss Reed got into the same railway carriage with the Griffiths.
'Well, Mrs Griffith,' said the vicar's wife, 'what do you think of your daughter now?'
'Mrs Gray,' replied Mrs Griffith, solemnly, 'I haven't got a daughter.'
'That's a very proper spirit in which to look at it,' answered the lady ... 'She was simply covered with diamonds.'
'They must be worth a fortune,' said Miss Reed.
'Oh, I dare say they're not real,' said Mrs Gray; 'at that distance and with the limelight, you know, it's very difficult to tell.'
'I'm sorry to say,' said Mrs Griffith, with some asperity, feeling the doubt almost an affront to her, 'I'm sorry to say that I know they're real.'
The ladies coughed discreetly, scenting a little scandalous mystery which they must get out of Mrs Griffith at another opportunity.
'My nephew James says she earns at least thirty to forty pounds a week.'
Miss Reed sighed at the thought of such depravity.
'It's very sad,' she remarked, 'to think of such things happening to a fellow c
reature ...'
'But what I can't understand,' said Mrs Gray, next morning, at the breakfast-table, 'is how she got into such a position. We all know that at one time she was to be seen in – well, in a very questionable place, at an hour which left no doubt about her – her means of livelihood. I must say I thought she was quite lost ...'
'Oh well, I can tell you that easily enough,' replied her nephew. 'She's being kept by Sir Somebody Something, and he's running the show for her.'
'James, I wish you would be more careful about your language. It's not necessary to call a spade a spade, and you can surely find a less objectionable expression to explain the relationship between the persons ... Don't you remember his name?'
'No; I heard it, but I've really forgotten.'
'I see in this week's Tercanbury Times that there's a Sir Herbert Ously-Farrowham staying at the George just now.'
'That's it. Sir Herbert Ously-Farrowham.'
'How sad! I'll look him out in Burke.'
She took down the reference book, which was kept beside the clergy list.
'Dear me, he's only twenty-nine ... And he's got a house in Cavendish Square and a house in the country. He must be very well-to-do; and he belongs to the Junior Carlton and two other clubs ... And he's got a sister who's married to Lord Edward Lake.' Mrs Gray closed the book and held it with a finger to mark the place, like a Bible. 'It's very sad to think of the dissipation of so many members of the aristocracy. It sets such a bad example to the lower classes.'
10
They showed old Griffith a portrait of Daisy in her theatrical costume.
'Has she come to that?' he said.
He looked at it a moment, then savagely tore it in pieces and flung it in the fire.
'Oh, my God!' he groaned; he could not get out of his head the picture, the shamelessness of the costume, the smile, the evident prosperity and content. He felt now that he had lost his daughter indeed. All these years he had kept his heart open to her, and his heart had bled when he thought of her starving, ragged, perhaps dead. He had thought of her begging her bread and working her beautiful hands to the bone in some factory. He had always hoped that some day she could return to him, purified by the fire of suffering ... But she was prosperous and happy and rich. She was applauded, worshipped; the papers were full of her praise. Old Griffith was filled with a feeling of horror, of immense repulsion. She was flourishing in her sin, and he loathed her. He had been so ready to forgive her when he thought her despairing and unhappy; but now he was implacable.