Part 11

"--Matilda Wellow? Yes, of course I do. It's astonishing to me, it's even surprising to Matthew, that you've never noticed how much she likes you. Why, she's the only person in Market Dalling who ever takes any trouble about little Rosy, or who ever gives the child anything; Rosy always calls her Auntie Tiddy."

"Matilda Wellow?" he repeated, honestly bewildered. "Why, of course I like her, and think well of her, but I've never thought of her--and don't believe she's ever thought of me, Kate--in that way!"

"Don't you?" she said drily. "There's none so blind as those who won't see."

Then, prompted by a shrewd instinct, she remained quite silent, and withdrew her anxious gaze from her brother's face.

Only to-day Banfield had received a letter from South Africa which had sorely tempted him to throw up everything and make a home in the country which, perhaps unfortunately for himself, held none of the glamour of the unknown. As a matter of fact, the letter was now in his pocket, and he felt guiltily aware of the angry pain with which his sister would regard the offer, especially if she guessed how tempting was its effect on his imagination.

But during their strange conversation he had realised, as he had never done before, that there were only two ways open to him--either to go away and make a new life, or to attempt some such solution of his troubles as that which his sister had just proposed to him.

So it was that during those moments of tense silence Matilda Wellow assumed in David Banfield's mind the importance of an only alternative. Perhaps the very fact that the young man was so familiar with her personality, while always regarding her as a contemporary of his sister, made it easier for him to come to a sudden decision.

To another important fact--never forgotten for a moment by Mrs. Rigby--namely, that Miss Wellow was the wealthiest spinster in Market Dalling, Banfield gave no thought, and it certainly played no part in his hurried, anxious self-communing.

"I confess," he said at last, "that this is a new idea to me--but that's no reason why it should be a bad idea. And if you really believe that it would be better for Rosy, and that Miss Wellow would not--" he hesitated awkwardly, "think it strange of me, I will do as you advise, Kate. But you must let me take my own time. Perhaps when she's heard what I've got to say, she won't feel about it as you believe she's likely to do. I cannot pretend that I--well, that I--" his lips refused to form the word--to him the infinitely sacred word--of love.

Mrs. Rigby was bewildered, awed into deep joy. No piece of good fortune which could have befallen herself would have given her so acute a feeling--it almost amounted to pain--of passionate relief, and David Banfield, dimly gathering that it was so, felt exceedingly moved. Surely it was worth almost anything in the way of self-sacrifice to have brought such a look to his sister's face?

They both moved more closely to one another and she, so chary of caress, put her arms round his neck.

"I'm quite sure," she spoke with a catch in her voice, "quite, quite sure that you will never regret it! After all, life does get smoothed out, doesn't it? I'll tell you something about myself that I've never told anybody. Before Matthew came along, there was someone else I loved--loved, maybe, just as dearly as you loved Rosaleen."

"I know," said her brother, wincing at the sound of his late wife's name, "you mean Nat Bower?"

"Why, how did you ever guess that?" she asked, surprised.

"Oh! he used to take me walks when I was a kid, and he always talked about you."

Had Mrs. Rigby left the matter there, she would have been a wiser woman, but something prompted her to draw a moral.

"And don't you think I'm glad now?" she cried. "Think of what that poor fellow has become, and what Matthew is now!"

But this was too much for David Banfield.

"I don't think that's fair!" he exclaimed. "What you ought to say is--'Think of what that poor fellow might have become if he had married me!' I don't believe any man could have helped going straight with you, Kate. If I'd been more like you----"

Then, to the young man's relief, his brother-in-law, Matthew Rigby, came into the room, with a smile on his thin lips, a joke on his tongue.

Mrs. Rigby went out into the garden. "Matilda!" she cried. "Tiddy dear, come in! Matt is here. Dinner will be ready in a minute."

But as the two women met, and together walked down the path, the hostess gave her guest no hint of the good fortune which lay in wait for her--indeed, in spite of, or perhaps because of, her moment of softening, she was sharply, almost cruelly, intolerant of Miss Wellow's sentimental references to that ceremony of which they were about to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary.

* * * * *

And now the Silver Wedding festivity was drawing to a close.

The dinner, in its old-fashioned way, had been really excellent, for Kate Rigby was a notable housewife; but not even that fact, nor the equally excellent champagne--for Matthew Rigby was too shrewd a man to drink bad wine--had had the effect of brightening the little party, and a certain constraint now sat on the four people who were linked so closely together.

The host, a man of equable temperament, felt faintly uncomfortable; as he looked from one to the other, he told himself that something was wrong.

His brother-in-law was certainly oddly unlike himself, yet surely David Banfield was too sensible, and by this time too well accustomed to his sister's ways, to have taken offence at anything she might have said concerning the well-worn subject of Brew House domestic difficulties. Mrs. Rigby was also unnaturally silent, and during the long course of the meal she uttered none of the sharp pungent sayings with which she generally enlivened each one of her husband's repasts and which, it must be admitted, never to him lost their savour. Last, but not least, Miss Wellow, whose flowered muslin gown was as much too youthful as that of her hostess was too old, seemed more sentimental and more foolish than usual.

Mr. Rigby told himself with much satisfaction that his Kate had certainly worn better than Tiddy Wellow. And yet----? Yet, twenty-five years ago, Tiddy had been such a pretty girl! Soft and round, with dewy brown eyes and pink dimpled cheeks. She still had the appealing, inconsequent manner which, so charming in a girl, is apt to be absurd in a woman--and then she had grown stout! Mr. Rigby liked a woman to have a neat trim figure--his Kate had kept hers--but Tiddy. Alas! Tiddy had not been so fortunate.

So it was that Mr. Rigby paid poor Miss Wellow but little attention, regarding her with a curious mixture of affectionate contempt and respect, the former due to his knowledge of her character, and the latter to his knowledge of her very considerable fortune.

Even to such a man as Matthew Rigby,--that is, to a man whose profession implies the constant hearing of family secrets, and the coming across of strange, almost inconceivable human occurrences,--the melancholy domestic story of David Banfield remained painfully vivid. On him had fallen all the arrangements which had finally resulted in the divorce, and, unlike his wife, he had sometimes doubted the wisdom of what he and she had brought about, for Banfield, left to himself, would never have severed the legal tie between himself and the mother of his child.

Even now, during the course of his Silver Wedding dinner, Matthew Rigby wondered uneasily whether his wife's constrained silence, and his brother-in-law's odd, abstracted manner, meant that any tidings had been received of the woman who had now so completely passed out of their lives. But Mr. Rigby was compelled to bide his time. He knew that whatever explanation there was would be given to him once he and Kate were alone together.

Sure enough, when the two men joined the ladies in the now twilit sitting-room, the hostess lost no time in unceremoniously turning her brother and Miss Wellow out into the garden.

And then, at once, Matthew Rigby realised that something of real importance and moment had indeed occurred. For the first time since the great day when her brother's divorce had become an absolute fact, Mrs. Rigby seemed inclined to be soft and tender in her manner to the man who, she would have been the first to admit, had been to her the most admirable of husbands.

There are certain human beings, men perhaps, more than women, who use those they love as princes of old used their whipping boys, and among these human beings Mrs. Rigby could certainly have claimed a high place. Matthew Rigby was, therefore, the more surprised, even, perhaps, a little relieved, when he noted the unwonted tenderness with which she slipped her arm through his; it couldn't be anything so very bad after all!

"I don't suppose I need tell you, Matt, what has happened--or what is just going to happen--to our David and Tiddy Wellow?" and she nodded her head significantly towards the two figures which were now disappearing into the rustic arbour, which, erected by Mrs. Rigby's father-in-law, some thirty years ago, had always vexed her thrifty soul as an extravagant and useless addition to her garden; just now, however, she would have admitted that even arbours have their uses.

"Phew----!" exclaimed Matthew Rigby, and had it not been for the presence of his wife, he would certainly have sworn some decorous form of oath to express his extreme surprise. His pause prolonged itself, and then, with a certain effort, he exclaimed: "You're an even cleverer woman than I took you for, Kate, and that's saying a good deal!"

Mrs. Rigby turned and looked at him steadily. Their heads were almost on a level, but even she could guess nothing from his expression. It was his tone, rather, that jarred on her very true contentment.

"Surely you think it's the best thing that could happen to him?" she asked, a note of wistful anxiety in her voice. "Why, you and I have talked it over dozens of times!"

"I've heard _you_ say that you thought Matilda Wellow was the very woman for him, time and again, but--but I don't think, Kate, you ever heard _me_ say so. Still, I daresay it's all right; you generally know best,"--and the husband spoke with less irony than might have been expected. Twenty-five years of married life had taught him that, on the whole, his wife generally did know best.

"And surely you think so, too?" and she pressed more closely to him, "surely, Matt, you don't doubt that Matilda Wellow will make him a good wife, and be kind to the child?"

"Of course, I've no doubt about that," he answered reassuringly. "But still, she's not exactly the woman I'd have chosen for myself, and, after all, David was very fond of that queer, cold little hussy."

Mrs. Rigby was given no time for a reply, for her brother and Miss Wellow were coming slowly towards the house. She turned up the gas with a quick movement, and when they approached the window a glance at her future sister-in-law's face was enough. She saw that David had spoken, but she also saw that he had had the power--and unconsciously her respect for her brother grew--to stifle in his companion the mingled emotions his offer of marriage had called forth.

Not till the long dull evening was over, not till Banfield and Miss Wellow were actually bidding the Rigbys good-night, did the young man say the word which let loose Matilda's incoherent words of pathetic joy, of rather absurd amazement, at the good fortune which had befallen her.

Mrs. Rigby bustled out the two men into the hall.

"Matilda! Don't be silly!" she commanded.

But her words had no effect.

"It's just a dream--" gasped Miss Wellow, "just a dream come true! I never thought, Kate, to be so happy--and dear little Rosy, too----"

The other woman checked her harshly.

"Don't be a fool, Tiddy!" she said in a low, stern voice; "if my brother were a different kind of man he'd make you remember this to your dying day. You're lowering yourself--and you're not raising him. Don't go behaving like a pullet that's just laid her first egg!"

Then, seeing the other's face redden into a painful blush, "There, there, I shouldn't have said that, I know. But I can't bear to see a woman cheapen herself to a man!"

* * * * *

Banfield and his new betrothed walked arm in arm through the now sleeping town to the garden gate of the old Georgian house where Miss Wellow had now lived for some five years in solitary spinster state, and where her forefathers had led lives of agreeable, if monotonous, respectability for over a hundred years.

When they reached the gate, each hesitated a moment. Miss Wellow longed to ask him in, but like most maiden ladies possessed of means, she had a tyrant, a Cerberus in the shape of a faithful servant who would now be sitting up waiting sulkily for her mistress's return. Banfield was awkwardly debating with himself whether Matilda expected him to kiss her; on the whole he thought--he hoped--not.

But he was spared the onus of decision concerning this delicate point; for suddenly he felt himself drawn on one side, and there, in the deep shadow of the wall, his companion threw her arms about him, murmuring, with a catch in her voice, "I know you don't love me yet, but--but--David, I'll _make_ you love me," and the face turned up to his in the half darkness was full of eager yearning.

Feeling a traitor--to himself, to Rosaleen, above all, to the poor soul now leaning on his breast--Banfield bent and kissed her; then he turned on his heel, leaving her to make her way as best she could up the trim path leading to her front door.

Hardly aware of what he was doing, he walked away quickly, taking the opposite direction to that of the quiet lane of houses which would have led him straight home. Instead he struck out, instinctively, towards the flat open country, for he had a fierce, unreasoning desire to be alone--far away from all humankind. As he strode along, his eyes having become so fully accustomed to the dim light that he could see every detail of the white-rutted road gleaming between low hedges, Banfield's feeling of bewilderment, even of horror, grew and grew, making him feel physically cold in the warm, scented night.

For the first time there swept over him that awful sense of unavailing repentance for the word said which might so well have been left unsaid, which most human beings are fated to feel at some time of their lives.

Not even over his divorce had he felt so desperate a passion of revolt, for that act, or so he had believed, was forced on him by Rosaleen herself. But to-night he realised that before doing what he had just done he had been free--free to remain free--and he now saw with a sense of impotent anger how deliberately he had given himself into slavery.

As he strode along, eager to escape from the material surroundings of his surrender, Banfield remembered each word of his talk with his sister, and so remembering, he was amazed at his own weak folly.

What were the trifling troubles connected with his Irish servant, Mary Scanlan, compared to those which lay before him?--to the awful knowledge that he was now the prisoner--henceforth the body and soul prisoner--of Matilda Wellow? How sluggish had been his imagination when he had thought of the woman, whose tears had but just now scalded his lips, as of a kind, unobtrusive lady housekeeper! He was now aware that there was another Matilda Wellow, of whom till to-night he had been ignorant, and it was this stranger who was demanding as a right, and indeed had the right to demand, that tenderness and devotion which he knew himself incapable of bestowing on any woman except on the elusive, cold-natured woman who had been his wife.

And then a strange thing happened to David Banfield.

The near image of Matilda Wellow faded, giving place to the distant, and yet in a spiritual and even physical sense poignantly present, personality of Rosaleen.

As far as was possible, Banfield till to-night had banished his wife's image from his emotional memory. But what he had just done--that is, his own lack of constancy--had the odd effect of making him feel lowered to the level to which those about him regarded Rosaleen as fallen. He told himself that now he and Rosaleen were quits--and deliberately he yielded to the cruel luxury of recollection.

His mind travelled back to the early days of their acquaintance, to the pretence at a "friendship" which on his side had so soon become overwhelming passion. Then had come his formal offer of marriage, and for a long time she had played with him, saying neither yes nor no. Then for a while he had flung everything to the winds in order to be with her--on any terms. He remembered with a pang of pain the trifling reasons which at last made her quite suddenly consent to become his wife. A quarrel with the manager of the concert company to which she then belonged, followed by a bad notice in the local paper of the town to which he, David Banfield, undeterred by more than one half-laughing refusal, had come to make what he intended should be a final offer--these, it seemed, had brought Rosaleen to the point of decision.

Even now, Banfield never heard the name of that little Sussex town without a leap of the heart, for it was there that had taken place their marriage, the quietest and least adorned of weddings, celebrated in a small, bare Roman Catholic chapel, the incumbent of which, a wise old man, had spoken to Banfield very seriously, asking him to give the young Irishwoman more time for thought, and impressing upon him the gravity of the promises which he, a Protestant, had consented to make concerning their future married life.

With regard to the latter, Banfield had been scrupulously honourable, going, indeed, out of his way to remind Rosaleen of her religious obligations, and at the time of the divorce acting, in the matter of their child's future education, according to the spirit rather than the letter of his promise....

With bent head and eyes fixed on the white road, David Banfield insensibly slackened his steps while his mind concerned itself with the five years he and Rosaleen had spent together at Market Dalling. They had been years of secret drama, on his part of almost wordless struggle for some kind of response to the passion which her mysterious aloofness--to so many men the greater part of a woman's attraction--evoked and kept alive in him.

He now remembered how during these years there had been minor causes of disagreement, trifling matters--or so he had considered them--to which Rosaleen attached far more importance than he had done.

The constant criticism and interference of his half-sister, the dislike and jealousy of those town folk who regarded themselves as having a right to the close friendship and intimacy of David Banfield's young wife, these were the things--forming such unimportant asides to the course of that hidden struggle--which Rosaleen had brought forward when begging her husband, with passionate energy, to allow her to go back to her profession.

But to-night, the grey fear with which he now regarded his own future life at Market Dalling brought to David Banfield a sudden understanding of what Rosaleen had felt, caged, as he had caged her, in the little town to which he was now reluctantly turning his laggard steps, and which had been, till so few years ago, the centre of his universe.

He told himself that had he had the courage, had he been possessed of the necessary imagination, to make another life for himself and for her, none of this need have happened.

But why torture himself uselessly? He and Rosaleen had now drifted as far apart as a man and a woman can drift. What he had done to-night was in its way as irrevocable as what she on her side had done--nay more, the very fact that he had Matilda Wellow so completely at his mercy made Banfield feel, as a less simple-hearted, generous-minded man would never have felt, how impossible it was for him to draw back....

While returning to what had now become his place of bondage, David Banfield made a determined effort to dam the mental floodgates through which had run so strange a stream of violent revolt and emotion, and he was so far rewarded that almost at once something occurred which had the effect of bracing him up, of hardening him in his determination to do what he believed to be right.

As he walked down the silent, shuttered High Street at the end of which stood the Brew House, he saw that his hall light had not been extinguished; and as he opened the front door, he was confronted with the spare form and the gaunt, though not ill-visaged countenance of Mary Scanlan, the elderly Irishwoman who had for so long waged triumphant battle with her master's sister, Mrs. Rigby. Utterly different as the two women were, they yet, as Banfield sometimes secretly told himself, not without a certain sore amusement, had strong points of resemblance the one with the other.

Impelled by some obscure instinct that thus was he certain to be strengthened in the course of action to which he had just pledged himself, Banfield invited the woman into the dining-room, which had been, since his first wife's departure, used by him as living and eating room in one.

Very deliberately he lit the gas, and then turned and faced his housekeeper. "I think it right that you should be among the first to know," he said, "that I am going to be married again--to Miss Wellow."

There was a moment's pause. Banfield expected either a word of sullen acquiescence or an outburst of anger; he had known Mary Scanlan in both moods, but now she surprised him by assuming a very disconcerting attitude.

"If that's the case," she said slowly, twisting and untwisting a corner of the black apron that she was wearing, "I will be getting ready little Rosy's clothes, for you will be sending her to the convent rather sooner, I reckon, than you meant to do. I make no doubt the nuns will let me stay there for a week or two till the child gets accustomed to the place--that is, if you have no objection, Mr. Banfield?"

Banfield looked at the woman in some perplexity.

"But I've no thought of sending Rosy to school yet!" he exclaimed--then added: "Of course, I mean to keep my promise to her mother, but--but the child's a little thing yet--too young to go to school."

Mary Scanlan was the only woman to whom Banfield ever spoke of his wife, and Mrs. Rigby would have been amazed indeed had she known how often these allusions and semi-allusions were made, for to Kate, much as he trusted and respected his sister, Banfield had never till that day bared his heart.

"I am going to ask you," he went on, "to stay in my service, simply to look after the child. I know well, Mary, how devoted you are to my little girl, and how good you've been to her. When Miss Wellow has become--" he hesitated awkwardly, and then with a certain effort, uttered the words "my wife--she will, of course, take charge of the house, and I suppose she will bring her own servants with her. I shall no longer have any need for a housekeeper--but I know she will be only too glad if you will stay on with Rosy."

"I don't think I can do that, sir."

Banfield moved uneasily. Mary Scanlan almost invariably called him "Mr. Banfield"; it was one of the woman's many Irish idiosyncrasies which irritated his sister.

"I don't think I can stay on here, sir," repeated Mary Scanlan in a low, hesitating voice. "I don't hold with a man, a gentleman I mean, having two wives. I can't say a word of excuse for my poor Miss Rosaleen--I beg your pardon, sir, I mean Mrs. Banfield. I know she behaved very wickedly and strangely, but still you see, Mr. Banfield, to my thinking and according to my holy religion, she's the woman who owns you, sir, and no one else can ever take her place."