CHAPTER VIII

OUR ESSIE

I

Walks with Essie are frequent now; and in the house talk with Essie at all odd moments that bring them together. Jolly little Essie! Mr. Wriford finds himself often thinking of her as that, and for that quality always seeking her when moodiness oppresses him. Days pass and there is a step in advance of this: good little Essie! Careless, he realises himself, of what mood he takes to her. He can be silent with her, depressed, oppressed, thinking, puzzling: Essie never minds. He can be irritable with her and speak sharply to her: Essie never minds. Essie is content just to rattle along and not be answered, or, if that seems to vex him further, then just to occupy herself with those bright, roving eyes of hers, and with those merry thoughts which they pick up and reflect again in the movements of those expressive lips. Days pass and his thoughts of her take yet a further step: pretty little Essie!--Essie who likes to be kissed, who sees "no odds to it," who likes to think somebody is fond of her! She is jolly little Essie--always cheers him: "Oh, Arthur!" when for an hour he has not spoken a word, or speaking, has snubbed her, "Oh, Arthur! Just look at those dogs chasing! Oh, did you ever! Aren't they funny, though! Let's have a laugh!" She is good little Essie--never minds: "Well, whatever's the odds to that?" when sometimes he apologises for having been ungracious. "I daresay I'm not half a nuisance, chattering, when you want to be quiet. Why, you're always quiet though, aren't you? I don't mind." She is pretty little Essie: "Oo-oo!" cries Essie. "I say, though!" and then, as on that first occasion, relaxes and gives him those pretty, expressive lips of hers, and is warm and soft and clinging in his arms; and then one day, when in his kiss she detects some ardour, born, while he kisses her, of a sudden gathering realisation of his frequent, his advancing thoughts of her, says to him softly, snuggling to him: "What, are you fond of me, Arthur?"

More swiftly than the space of the inspiration of a single breath an idea springs, fixes, spreads within him. It is determination of all his thought of her in their advancing stages: it is swiftest look from that vacant corner in the room of his life to Essie, always so jolly, always so good, ah, so pretty, yielding in his arms. Swift as a single breath it is. Why should not Essie fill that vacant place?

"What, are you fond of me, Arthur?"

Deep in his sudden thought he does not answer her. What sees she responsive to her question in his eyes? She sees that which makes her leave his grasp.

In her eyes he sees sudden moisture shining.

Deep in the sudden thought that has him--bemused as one that, in earnest conversation with a friend, turns bemusedly to address a remark to another, he says: "Hulloa, you're not crying, Essie?"

"Likely!" says Essie, blinking.

"You are, though. What's up?"

"That's the sun in my eyes."

"There's precious little sun."

Essie dabs her eyes with her handkerchief and gives a little sniff. "Well, there's precious little tears."

"Essie, you asked me if I was fond of you."

She turns upon him with sudden sharpness. "More fool me then."

"What do you mean? Essie, I am. I'm very, very fond of you."

"Come on," says Essie briskly. "We'll be late. I was only having a game--so are you."

II

Here is a new idea for Mr. Wriford--come to him suddenly, but, as now he sees, in process of coming these many days. Here is a new idea, completely developed in that swift moment while Essie asked him: "What, are you fond of me, Arthur?" but over whose development now constantly he ponders--welding it, shaping it, assuring himself of it in its every detail. It is solution--no less--of what has hounded him these many years. It is discovery of what shall fill that vacant place over which, in the quietude of these more recent days, dispassionately he has puzzled. Essie the solution: Essie the thing that shall fill up the vacancy. He wonders he has not thought of it before. Who, out of the turmoil, the hopelessness, the abject misery in which he came here, who found him the quietude? Essie. Who for the old grinding torments, the abysmal fears, has exchanged him the dispassionate wondering? Essie. Look, look upon the present state that now is his, contrast it with the old, and seek who is responsible. Essie. His early constraint in the Bickers' household is vanished as completely as his early miseries at the Tower House School. He is confident and at ease and actively interested when among his boys. Who showed him the way of it? Essie. In the life behind the plumber's shop he is become very intimately the "one of us like" that Mrs. Bickers, at their first meeting, had told him they liked their lodgers to be. By whose agency? Essie's. Essie has told Mother and Dad his name is Arthur and to call him Arthur: and Arthur he is become, alike to the cert. plumber, who delights to instruct him in the mysteries of plumbing and often from his workshop in the yard hails him "Arthur! Arthur, come an' look at this here! I'm fixin' a new weight to a ball-tap;" and to Mrs. Bickers who as often as not adds a "dear" to it and says: "Arthur, dear, give over talking to Essie a minute an' jus' see if you can't put that shop bell to rights like Mr. Bickers showed you how. It's out of order again." Who to this pleasant homeliness introduced him? Essie. Who supports him in its enjoyment? Essie. Who is the centre, the mainspring of this happy household? Essie. Essie, Essie, Essie, jolly and good and pretty little Essie! He meets her at every thought. She, she, supplies his moods at every turn!

Very well, then. The school term at Tower House is drawing to a close. Scarcely a fortnight remains before the holidays begin. What then?

Ah, then the new thought that suddenly has come to him. In the quietude of mind, in the dispassionate puzzlement upon what it is that he has missed in life--in this convalescent attitude towards life that now is his he has no desire to return, when the school term is ended and he is unemployed, to the wandering, to the hopeless quest that brought him here. Why not advance by Essie the quietude that by Essie he has found? Why not by Essie fill the dispassionate puzzlement that by Essie has become dispassionate where for so long it had so cruelly been frenzied? What if he went away with Essie? What if he took her away? What if he so far resumed touch with the prosperity that waited him in London as to get money from his agent, due to him for his successful novels, and go away with Essie--live somewhere in retreat with Essie, have Essie for his own? Why not? No reason why. It was fixed and determined in his mind in that very instant when, as she asked him "What, are you fond of me, Arthur?" it came to him.

The more he thinks upon it the more completely it attracts him....

He thinks upon it, and it attracts him, with no delusion of what, if he acts upon it, it will give him. It will not give him positive happiness. He would take Essie away with no such delusion as that. But strongly, seductively, it offers him a negative peace. With Essie no need longer to brood on what it was in life that he had missed: Essie who never minded, who always brightened him, who then would be his own--Essie would stifle that old hopeless yearning. There would be pleasure in money with Essie--pleasure in pleasing her, in watching her delight in little things that it could buy. He first would travel on the Continent with Essie, delighting in her delight at worlds of which she had scarcely so much as heard. How she would laugh at funny foreigners and at funny foreign ways! Then he would settle down, take a house somewhere, live quietly, take up his novel-writing again, have Essie always to turn to when he wanted her, to minister to him and entertain him, and have her--being Essie--at his command to keep out of his way when he wished to work, or perhaps to think--ah, for thoughts sometimes still would come!--and not be worried. Yes--jolly little Essie, good little Essie--there was refuge, refuge to be found with her! Yes--pretty little Essie--she was desirable, desirable, desirable to him! Yes, let it be done! Yes, let him immediately set about the accomplishment of it!

III

His purpose was no sooner definitely fixed, than in the way of its fulfilment practical difficulties began to arise. They arose in form of scruples. He intended no harm to Essie. She never should suffer in smallest degree, by word or act, in giving herself to him. But to marry her never--at the first making of his purpose--so much as crossed his mind. A little later this aspect of his moral intentions towards her came up in his thoughts--and marriage he at once dismissed as altogether subversive of that very peace of mind he anticipated in having her for his own. To marry her, as he saw it, were an irrevocable and dreadful step that immediately would return him to new torments, new despair. Bound for life to such as Essie was, not loving her, only very fond of her, very grateful to her--why, the bond would terrify him and goad him as much as ever he was terrified and goaded by the bonds and responsibilities of the London days from which in frenzy he had fled. Misery for him and, knowing himself, he knew that he would visit it in misery upon her. Panic at what he had done would fill him, consume him in all the dreadful forms in which he knew his panics, directly he had done it. He would hate her. Despite himself, despite his fondness for her, despite all she had given him and could give him, despite all these, if he were bound to her he would be unkind to her, cruel to her. Merely and without bond to have her for his own presented his Essie--his jolly little Essie, good little Essie, pretty little Essie--on a footing immeasurably different. That very fact of being responsible for her without being bound to her would alone--and without his happiness in her--assure her of his constant care, his unfailing protection always and always. Natured as he was--or as he had become in the days of his stress--he thought of bondage as utterly intolerable to him. No; marriage was worse than unthinkable, marriage was to lose--and worse than lose--the very happiness upon which now he was determined.

Yet scruples came.

He had not the smallest doubt of winning Essie to his intentions--Essie who liked to think somebody was fond of her, who liked to be kissed, who had confessed of the lodgers that "most of 'em had"--who, in fact, was Essie Bickers. He knew, thinking upon it, what had been in pretty little Essie's heart when she said softly: "What, are you fond of me, Arthur?" He knew it was that she loved him. He knew what had been in her heart when, having said it, she drew away from him, and he knew why as she drew away he had seen tears in her eyes. He knew it was because, having made her confession of love, she had seen no response of love in his eyes that only were bemused with sudden thought upon his sudden plan. He knew he had only to tell her that she was wrong, that indeed he loved her. Yet scruples came.

IV

He set about his plans. On the morning when but a week remained to the end of the term--the date he had fixed in his mind--he wrote before he came down to breakfast a letter to his agent in London.

"DEAR LESSINGHAM,

"I'm still alive! I've been wandering--getting back my health. I was rather run down. Now, very soon, I hope to get to work again. Keep it to yourself that you've heard of me again. I'll be seeing you soon. Meanwhile, you've got a pile of money for me, haven't you? I want you, please, to send me at once £200 in £10 notes to this address. I'm going abroad for a bit.

"Yours ever, "PHILIP WRIFORD."

Funny to be in touch with that world again! He put the letter in his pocket. He would post it on his way to school. Imagine Essie's eyes when she saw all that wealth! He could hear her cry--he imagined himself showing it to her in a first-class carriage bound for London--"Oh, Arthur! Did you ever, though!"

Smiling upon that thought, he went down-stairs to the parlour; and it was thus, at the very moment as it were of first putting out his hand to take Essie, that scruples came.

He found Mrs. Bickers seated alone. There were sounds of Essie gaily humming as she prepared breakfast in the kitchen. Mrs. Bickers, busily sewing, looked up and smiled at him. "Good morning, Arthur. I declare I do like to see you come down of a morning smiling like that. Busy, aren't I? So early, too!" and she held up what looked to be a blouse that she was making, and told him: "That's for our Essie!"

The smile went from his face and from his thoughts. "Our Essie!" Only now that phrase, and what it meant, entered his calculations on his purpose; and with it the thought of his smiles which Mrs. Bickers had been so glad to see--and what they meant.

He desired to turn the conversation; yet even as he made answer he knew his words were leading him deeper into it. "Why, you're not surprised to see me smiling, are you, Mrs. Bickers?" he said. "This is what I call a very smiling house, you know."

Mrs. Bickers set down her work on her lap and smiled anew. "Well, that's good news," she said. "Ah, and it's not always been either, Arthur."

"Hasn't it, Mrs. Bickers?"

"Oh, dear, it hasn't! Why, Mr. Bickers and me we had a heap of trouble one time."

"But you're very happy now?"

"I've been happy," said Mrs. Bickers, smiling again, "eighteen years and three--four--eighteen years and four months."

"That means ever since something?"

"Ever since our Essie came," said Mrs. Bickers softly.

Our Essie! Ah! He said dully: "Yes, you must be fond of Essie?"

"Fond!" Mrs. Bickers echoed him. "Why, Arthur, she's all the world to Mr. Bickers an' me, our Essie. She's such a bright one! Our Essie came to us very late in life, and you know I reckon we've never had a minute's trouble since. Looking back on what we'd had before, that's why we say, Mr. Bickers an' me, that we reckon she was a gift sent straight out of heaven. We're sure of it. Brought up with old folk like us, she'd grow up quiet and odd like some children are, wouldn't you think? Or likely enough discontented, finding it dull? But you've only got to look at our Essie to feel happy. There's not many can say that of a daughter, not for every bit of eighteen years, Arthur. We reckon we're uncommon blessed, Mr. Bickers an' me."

In comes Essie with a steaming dish: "Oh, these sausages, Mother! Jus' look at them sizzling! Oh, aren't they funny, though!"

He does not post his letter on the way to school. He does not post it on the way back from school. He carries it up-stairs again in his pocket when he goes to bed. Scruples!

Scruples--he lies awake and reasons the scruples; he tosses restlessly and damns the scruples. Scruples! In the morning he has settled them. He rises very early before the house is astir. He comes down to post his letter and goes at once through the back yard which offers nearer way to the letter-box.

"Hulloa, Arthur! Why, you're up early!"

This time it is Mr. Bickers, hailing him through the open door of his workshop where he is busily occupied with blow-flame and soldering-irons.

"Well, not so early as you, Mr. Bickers. I thought I was first for once."

The cert. plumber laughs, evidently well-pleased. "Come along in an' give a hand. Soldering, this is. Me! I'm never abed after five o'clock summer-times."

"I often think you're wonderfully young for your years, Mr. Bickers."

Another laugh of satisfaction. "I'm younger than I was a score years back; and that's a fact, Arthur."

"What's the secret of it?"

"Why," says Mr. Bickers, "there is a secret to it, sure enough. It's this way, Arthur. Now you put the solder-pot on the lamp again. There's matches. This way--I was fifty-two years growing old, and I've been close on nineteen years growing young. Ever since-- Hullo! careful with it!"

"Ever since--?" says Mr. Wriford, his head averted, fumbling with the lamp, fumbling with his thoughts.

"Ever since our Essie came to us."

"Yes," says Mr. Wriford, and adds "Yes, that's much what Mrs. Bickers was telling me only yesterday."

"Why, it's the same with both of us," says Mr. Bickers; and then changes his voice to the voice that Mr. Wriford recognises for that in which he reads the scriptural portions at night. "You mark this from me, Arthur," Mr. Bickers continues. "You're a young man. You mark what I tell you--"

Necessary to face Mr. Bickers while he tells--to face that serene old countenance, those steady eyes, that earnest voice. "Prayers aren't always answered the way you expect, Arthur. You'll find that. There's man's way of reckoning how a thing ought to be done, and there's God's way. We'd had uncommon trouble, Mrs. Bickers an' me, a score years back, and we prayed our ways for to ease it. Essie came. God's way. Our Essie come to us a blessing straight out of heaven."

Necessary to face him, necessary to hear in his voice, to see in his eyes, to watch in the radiation that fills up the careworn lines about his mouth and on his brow--necessary to hear and to see there what "Our Essie" means to him.

Necessary to say something.... To say what? Mr. Wriford can only find the words he said yesterday to Mrs. Bickers. He says: "Yes, you must be fond of Essie."

"Fond!" says Mr. Bickers. "I'll tell you this to it, Arthur. I'll tell you just what our Essie is to us. There's a verse we say night and morning, Mrs. Bickers an' me, when we're returning thanks for our blessing: 'Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.' That's our Essie."

The dayspring from on high! Irreverent, in Mr. Wriford's dim recollection of the text, in its application to Essie. He tries to laugh at it. How laugh at it? Dayspring--ah, that is she! She is that in her perpetual vitality, in her bubbling, ceaseless, bottomless well of spirits. She is that to him, and therefore he requires her, requires her. Ah, she is that to them! Scruples--scruples--infernal scruples--ridiculous scruples. He means no harm to her. God knows he means nothing but happiness to her. Yet the day passes. He defers his intention to post his letter till after breakfast. He goes to school and defers it till the luncheon hour. He goes then for a walk and defers it till he is coming home. He comes home and brings his letter with him.

Scruples--damn them! Scruples--damn himself for entertaining them!