Part 17

"I don't know, quite, when I first realised that I--I had been making the people at the College talk," she said, and again she coloured. "It was only a few days ago that it began, and then I had that horrible feeling that everything was soundlessly working up to a crisis, and that sooner or later something must snap. You know?"

"Yes, I know."

"It was after Iris Easter's wedding, I think. And at first I was glad that it had come. Oh, you don't know, you can't imagine, what _fools_ girls can be. How they can imagine and fancy and plan things, till it all seems true, and they try to go on into real life with the romance that they've been living in their dreams and fancies. And it doesn't come true. Mine didn't come true. Even if I was wrong and absolutely wicked even to let myself imagine what I did imagine, it was just as real to me as if things had been all right. It meant just as much to me as it does to a girl like Iris Easter, who knows that the man she cares for can ask her to marry him."

"Perhaps it meant more," said Sir Julian.

She gave him a glance of gratitude out of her shadow-encircled eyes.

"But when the people at the College suddenly began to watch--and talk--and look at me--then I thought that it was going to--to--well," said Miss Marchrose desperately, "to give me my chance."

"Tell me what happened."

"Nothing happened. Only, you see, at the end of twenty-four hours I saw that he was--well, just frightened. He didn't want there to be a crisis. He never had wanted it."

Sir Julian, who was Mark's friend, involuntarily paid tribute to the truth of her description. Mark had been afraid.

No wonder that Miss Marchrose had capitulated, after all. The citadel for which she had been prepared to stand siege had been only the flimsiest of castles in the air. The cause for which she had held that no casualties could be too heavy had no existence outside her own imagination.

She spoke again.

"So, though I know I've been crying, in a little while I shall be glad that he's gone. Nothing can ever be worse than the last few days. They're over now."

"They're over now," repeated Sir Julian. "Do you want to stay on at the College next week, or had you better not go back on Monday at all?"

"I don't know," she said, in a bewildered way. "Mr. Fuller has been extraordinarily kind to me. And, anyhow, I shall be gone before Mr. Easter comes back. I told him that yesterday."

"You saw him, then?"

"He came to my office to say good-bye to me."

She waited a little and then said, with something that was half a laugh in her voice, although the tears had welled into her eyes again:

"He said, 'Good-bye, Annie Laurie.'"

"Poor Mark!" said Julian in a low tone.

Presently he made her walk, afraid of the sunless spring afternoon for her.

"Where are you going to, when you leave?" he asked her.

"London, I suppose. I can get another post there and this won't affect my references," she answered, unconsciously using Alderman Bellew's phrase.

"Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you," said Sir Julian rather hopelessly, neither thinking that there was likely to be anything that he could do, nor that there was much probability of her applying to him.

She made reply with candour.

"I think you've done everything that you can do, Sir Julian. I'm--I'm not trying to thank you. Will you leave me here, when you go back?"

"I can take you to the farm, or wherever you want to go."

"I would rather stay here a little while longer, by myself. Then I shall be all right," she said, like a child.

He left her.

"Perhaps," said Sir Julian to himself, as he climbed the sand slopes with long strides, "perhaps I ought to have said 'Good-bye,' or 'Remember' or 'God bless you,' or something like that to her. But whatever the rights or the wrongs of her point of view, her sincerity is worthy of respect. And I will mock her unhappiness with no catchwords, poor child."

As he went towards Culmhayes in the gathering dusk, he met a frantically-bicycling figure violently urging forward a machine that was devoid of lights.

"Fuller!"

"Sir Julian?"

Fairfax Fuller came to attention, as it were, with a promptitude that nearly sent him over his handle-bars head foremost.

"You had better not go through Culmouth at that rate and without a light, surely?" said Sir Julian mildly. "Can I give you a match?"

"Are my lamps out?" enquired Mr. Fuller negligently.

Sir Julian felt convinced that they had never been lit, but he handed the Supervisor a box of matches without observation.

"Thank you, Sir Julian. The fact is," said Fuller, with an air of candour, "that I'm upset and I hardly know what I'm doing."

"What's wrong?"

"This resignation," elliptically said the Supervisor.

"My dear chap, I'm very sorry about it, but we've got to make the best of it. I've told Miss Marchrose that we accept her resignation from a week yesterday."

Mr. Fuller groaned.

"May I ask, Sir Julian, whether you have any idea where the girl is now?"

"Isn't it Saturday afternoon?" was Sir Julian's rather pointed reply.

Mr. Fuller brushed aside this suggestion of the liberty of the individual.

"I'm uneasy about her. I tell you quite frankly, Sir Julian, that I didn't like her looks this morning. One never knows."

"She strikes me as level-headed enough, you know, Fuller."

Mr. Fuller bent down and examined his rear light, but Sir Julian knew very well by the mere set of his shoulders that he remained, and would continue to remain, entirely of his own opinion.

"I think that's all right now. Just as well not to run any risks, perhaps," easily observed Mr. Fuller, once more preparing himself to bestride his machine.

"Good evening, Sir Julian."

"Good evening."

He watched the red glimmer of Fuller's rear light shoot away into the dusk, and then descry a sudden curve.

"By Jove!" said Sir Julian.

Mr. Fairfax Fuller, guided by some unexplained instinct, had swept away from the road and taken the path that led down to the sea-wall. The incident, for reasons which he did not seek to analyse, rather amused Sir Julian as he went on his way.

His thoughts remained occupied round the subject until he entered his own house, to find it in possession of the two most unwelcome guests possible, in the persons of Miss and Master Easter.

"Daddy went away at lunch-time and we're all alone," proclaimed Ruthie with pathos. "And Sarah said, she said--Sarah said, to come and see if Lady Rossiter wouldn't like to invite us to tea."

Sir Julian had his own opinion to the amount of liking bestowed by his wife upon the suggested festivity, but evidently she had fallen a prey to Sarah's unblushing design for dispensing for a while with the society of her charges.

"We'll all sit round the table and have nursery tea," said Lady Rossiter, brightly endeavouring to make the best of a situation that, from the Rossiters' point of view, left much to be desired.

"Have you any of you heard from Auntie Iris?" enquired Julian.

"She wrote to Daddy, and she sent her love to us. She didn't say anything about that baby," remarked Ruthie in a tone of regret.

Sir Julian felt that Edna could have dealt with Miss Easter's tendency to call a spade a spade a good deal more fully had he not been present. He could almost hear the few strong, tender phrases in which she would have bade the child refrain from the public consideration of such matters of eugenics as now appeared to be engaging her attention.

Proceedings varied but little when Mark Easter's children were entertained at Culmhayes. Sir Julian began by indifference, proceeded to annoyance, and ended in a mood but little removed from infanticide. Edna remained forbearing throughout, but became less maternal and more repressive as the necessity for repressment increased.

Ruthie monopolised the conversation with as much determination as ever; Ambrose whined quite as much as usual, and surpassed himself in the degree of stickiness to which he attained; and the _séance_ ended with the usual violent quarrel between the two and their eventual expulsion from the room and from the house--Ruthie rampant and Ambrose in tears--and the inevitable valedictory wish expressed by the host that they should never be permitted to return.

Edna said, "Poor motherless children," in a tone that sounded rather more evidently exasperated and less compassionate than she had intended it to sound, and Sir Julian retired to the smoking-room.

He remembered presently that Edna probably knew nothing of the complete victory signalised by Miss Marchrose's resignation from the College staff; but he realised that the episode, in all essentials, was already past.

That which he termed "atmosphere" was dissipated, and he knew that it was almost as an afterthought that Edna, that evening, asked him whether Miss Marchrose was going.

"Yes, she is."

"At once?"

"I don't know. I've left her to settle that with Fuller."

"She must go before Mark comes back. It's far better so."

"I think probably she will."

"Julian, I've been thinking about her. And it seems to me," said Edna, "that we must help her. God knows, I can judge no one, least of all to condemn, but I think that her weakness and recklessness are going to make life terribly, terribly hard for her. And I, for one, can't see her drift away like that without one effort to help."

The depth of Sir Julian's disapproval for the suggested scheme of philanthropy left him bereft of speech. Finally he observed:

"In my opinion, Edna, you have done rather too much already. Leave her alone."

"What do you mean? Julian, you carry your mania against officiousness too far. Indeed you do. What are we here for, unless it is to help one another?"

Sir Julian shrugged his shoulders.

"I knew the character of this woman before she ever came here--I couldn't help knowing it--I saw her trying to wreck Mark, as she nearly wrecked poor Clarence. I believe that I have saved Mark--and I thank God for it, very humbly, and very proudly. As for her, I hold no brief against her. I condemn no one, and I seek only to help her.... If she cares to turn to me now, all the love that I _can_ give that poor, struggling, feeble soul is waiting for her."

"I don't think she will ask you for it, Edna."

Sir Julian thought of many things. For a moment he wondered whether he should say them aloud. Then the habit of apathy that had possessed him for a number of years asserted itself anew, and he did as he had almost always done--he left things alone.

The episode was past.

He told himself so again, with a faint sense of surprise that already it should rank as an episode merely.

There had been no calamity, and, as Edna had said, nothing had been put into words.

He revised the collection of infinitesimal ripples that had momentarily disturbed the atmosphere common to the little groups of people with whom he was concerned.

Almost each one had contributed vibrations in a greater or lesser degree.

Miss Farmer, Miss Sandiloe, young Cooper--each and all of them had tittered a little, wondered a little, talked foolishly.

Auntie Iris--for the life of him, Julian could not feel as angry with pretty, ridiculous Iris as he thought that her folly deserved--Iris, too, had played out her little comedies, her childish attempts at directing the hand of fate.

Old Alderman Bellew--Julian gave only an instant's half-amused recollection to the dogmatic condemnations and assertions of old Alderman Bellew. He had merely found it easy to follow the lead given him, after all.

On the thought of Edna's many activities Sir Julian dwelt not at all. Somewhere at the back of his mind lingered the echo of her specious gospel, her creed of "giving out."

For himself, he preferred to think that the trend of events had been in no way deflected by all that Edna had done and said.

The whole had been fated to remain an episode, devoid of climax.

XX

Nevertheless the last word remained to be spoken, and it was destined to be heard by Sir Julian when he made casual enquiry of Fairfax Fuller on Monday morning.

"Have you settled the day that Miss Marchrose leaves us?"

"Yes, Sir Julian."

"Well?" enquired Sir Julian, after a moment, as his subordinate appeared quite indisposed to make any further communications.

"She's not coming back here at all."

"Is that with your sanction?" said the surprised Julian.

"I talked it over with her on Saturday evening, Sir Julian."

"Then you did find her?"

"Down by what they call the sea-wall."

Fuller, his dark face marvellously heated, looked full at his chief.

"I've asked the girl to marry me, Sir Julian," he remarked.

* * * * *

Some weeks later, Julian wrote a letter, and addressed it to Miss Marchrose in London.

_My dear Pauline Marchrose_,

_Since you ask for my opinion, I send it to you for what it is worth, admitting that, as you say, I stand committed to a certain degree of officiousness already. That, however, is not the word of which you made use. Thank you, on the contrary, for the expressions that you have selected._

_I am glad that you are marrying Fuller. He is a good fellow through and through, and the other side of his bulldog tenacity is a very real and dependable loyalty. I think that that loyalty will be of great service to you. And don't think that you are relinquishing the abstract ideal of which we spoke one afternoon down by the sea-wall. You were never false to your standards for a moment, and to recognise defeat is not always an implication of weakness. It may, as in your case, denote the courage of a perfectly sincere outlook. Humbug is the only thing to be afraid of. You have eliminated that, and Fairfax Fuller is not prone to illusion or self-deception. Besides, your intercourse took place at a time and in circumstances which admitted of the luxury of sincerity. For that, and for the fact that Fuller knows something of the extent of his incredible good fortune, I send you my congratulations and I wish you luck._

Sir Julian paused for a long while.

The episode was over. His letter was a postscript merely.

"Are you coming upstairs, Julian?" said Edna's most forbearing tones, full of fatigue.

"Is it late?"

"It's nearly twelve. It's the servants that I'm thinking of. I hate keeping them up."

"It's quite unnecessary to keep any of them up. I am perfectly capable of putting out the lights in the hall without Horber's assistance."

"I shall not ring for Mason. I never do ring for her if I'm later than eleven o'clock. After all, it's a very little thing, when once one realises that a maid is a sister-woman, when all's said and done...."

All was so far from being said that Julian, taking up his pen again, slowly added the final sentence to his letter, unconsciously adjusting his speed to words that struck upon his hearing and penetrated hardly at all to his thoughts.

"I believe so much in _little_ things, in the immense power of a thought, of a kind glance, of a smile...."

_If the Colonial scheme materialises rapidly, as I think it will, I shall send Fuller out. It is largely owing to his management that we have the funds in hand to extend the branches of the College, and I can see both you and him as pioneers, in the near future._

"Sometimes I think that when one has not received very much oneself, it only makes one readier to give. One knows the lack----"

_Keep up a very good courage--but that I believe you will always do. You have got your scale of relative values clear, and, once that's done, you can afford to accept truth. Nothing else matters._

"Perhaps one would be less tired at the end of the day if one gave out less, but after all, it's all part of the great, wonderful, Divine plan."

"Have you finished writing, Julian? 'Jorrocks' is on the table."

"Yes, quite finished," said Sir Julian, and, first signing his name, he sealed his letter.

Cornwall, Jan., 1919. Surrey, June, 1919.

THE END

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