CHAPTER IX

NOT TO DECEIVE HER

I

Let Essie decide! That is the decision to which he comes, with which he stills his scruples. He desires her. The more he reflects upon possession of her--his to amuse him, to run his house that he will take for her, to make him laugh, not to interfere with him, requiring nothing from him but what he shall choose to give her--the more he visions this prospect, the more ardently it attracts him. There he sees that vacant place in his life filled up; there he sees sufficiently attained the secret of happiness that he has missed; there, belonging to him, he sees her--jolly little Essie--filling, hiding, forgetting him his endless quest, his hopeless hopelessness, his old-time miserable misery. He cannot marry her. He does not love her. He could not be mated--for life!--to such as she in all her funny little phrases reveals herself to be. He only wants her. Then come the scruples. Well, let Essie decide! She shall know his every intention, his every feeling. He will not even so far delude her as to tell her he loves her. If she who loves him is willing to go with him, what need matter Mr. and Mrs. Bickers with their devotion to our Essie? What are they to him? Why should they interfere with his life? What are they to Essie if he--as he will be--is everything to her? And then, with "Let Essie decide," he finally crushes under foot all of scruples, all of conscience, that remain after this review of his resolve: finally, for this is his last and comforting and confident resolve--that if Essie is shocked and frightened and will not, he will immediately accept it: whatever the temptation will nothing deceive or trick her, not by so much as a look pretend he loves her, immediately leave her and immediately return to the old hopelessness, the old quest, the old emptiness of all his former years.

Decided! His scruples stilled! Himself assured, absolved! Let Essie decide it. Now to act.

II

This is Thursday. He has carried that letter nearly a week unposted in his pocket. To-morrow the Tower House School breaks up. On Saturday Mrs. Bickers and Essie are going for a three weeks' summer holiday to Whitecliffe Sands, which is an hour away on the Norfolk coast, and it has been decided a month before that he is to accompany them for their first week as Mrs. Bickers' guest. The kindly invitation had been made, and he had gratefully accepted it, in the period before this sudden thought of filling with Essie that vacant corner in the room of his life: in the period when he had been content dispassionately to drift along until the holidays should terminate his engagement--dispassionately to leave till then conjecture upon what he next should do.

This summer visit to Whitecliffe Sands was, as he then learned, an annual excursion. Mr. Bickers stays with the shop, but closes it and comes down to mother and Essie every Saturday until Monday. When only that month remained before the holiday came, discussion of the subject became Essie's chief topic of conversation at supper every evening; all aglitter it made her with reminiscences of Whitecliffe's past delights and with anticipations of its fond excitements now to be renewed: the pier that has been opened since last summer, the concert party that will reopen its season there just before they arrive, the progress she has made and means to make in swimming, the white shoes she is going to buy, the new coat and skirt that she and mother are making because "My goodness, you don't have to look half smart on the parade, evenings!"

In the midst of this had come one evening Mrs. Bickers' "What about Arthur?" and then, to his rather rueful smile and announcement that he had no plans as yet beyond the end of the term, her kindly proposal, evidently arranged beforehand with Mr. Bickers: "Well, I tell you what would be very nice, Arthur dear, that is, if you haven't got another job of work immediately by then. Me and Mr. Bickers have had a talk about it. We'd like you to come with Essie an' me jus' till Mr. Bickers comes down after our first week. There's his nice room you could have in our lodgings, and you'd be just our guest like. A nice blow by the sea would do you a world of good, an' nice for our Essie to have a companion."

Essie had clapped her hands in immense delight: he had accepted with marks in his eyes and voice of a return of that sense of being overwhelmed by this household's kindness that in the early days here often overwhelmed him. Now he set his teeth against consideration of that aspect. Let Essie decide! He might take her away to-morrow or on Saturday morning: it might be easier to wait and slip off one day from Whitecliffe. Let Essie decide!

That evening he asked her.

III

The night was fine for a stroll after supper. They passed together up the main street of the town towards the Gardens--Essie desperately excited with the immediate nearness of Whitecliffe and attracted by all the shops in case there was something she had not yet bought for the holiday: himself revolving in his mind how best to open his proposal. He wished to do it at once. He found it very difficult to begin.

"Oh, those parasols!" cried Essie, stopping before a brightly-illuminated window. "Do stop, Arthur. That sort of blue one with lace! Did you ever! Wouldn't I like that for Whitecliffe though! Can you see the ticket? Nine-an'-eleven-three! Oh, talk about dear!"

"That's not really expensive, Essie."

"My goodness, it is for me, though. Ten shillings, Arthur!"

"Essie, would you like to be rich?"

"Oo, wouldn't I just!"

"What would you say if I was rich, Essie?"

Essie turned away from the coveted sunshade and laughed delightedly at him. "Goodness, wouldn't it be funny! I'd say what ho! What _ho_!"

"Essie, I want to tell you something. I am rich. I'm what you'd call very rich."

"Picked up a shilling, have you?" cried Essie, gleefully entering into the game. "Let's go into the bank and invest it!"

"No, we'll go in here," said Mr. Wriford, the contents of a bookseller's window they had reached giving him a sudden idea. "We'll go in here. I'll show you something."

She caught his arm as he stepped towards the door. "Whatever do you mean?"

He answered her very intensely, "Essie, be serious. I've a lot to tell you to-night. First of all, I'm rich, I've only been pretending all the time I've been down here. My name's not Arthur at all. It's Philip--"

Essie made a laughing grimace. "Ur! Philip's like skim milk."

Unheeding her, he went on. "Philip Wriford. I'm an author--

"Oh, if you aren't a caution!" cried Essie.

"You don't believe it?"

Essie assumed a very ingenuous air. "Your mistake, pardon me. I wasn't born jus' before supper, you know."

"Will you believe it if I go in here and ask to see some of my books?"

"Oh, wouldn't I like to see you dare!"

"Come along," and he stepped inside the porch of the shop and opened the door.

Essie, half-laughing, half-frightened at this boldness, clutched at his arm. He caught her hand and led her within. "Oh, if you aren't a caution to-night!" Essie whispered. "Don't, Arthur! Arthur, don't be so bold!"

"You've got to believe."

A counter at the end of the shop displayed above it the words "Lending Library." Essie, most terribly red in the face, followed him while he stalked to it, and then stood confounded with his boldness and striving immensely to restrain her laughter while Mr. Wriford addressed the young woman who came towards them.

"Have you got any of Philip Wriford's books in the library?" Mr. Wriford asked her.

"We've got several copies," he was told. "But they're all out. There's a great demand for them."

His eye caught the top volume of a pile of books on the counter, from each of which a ticket was displayed, and he motioned towards it.

"Yes, that's his last," the young woman said, "but it's ordered. It's going out to-morrow."

"I can look at it?"

"Oh, you can look at it. If you like to take out a subscription by the week or longer, you can put your name down for it. There's other copies out," and she moved away.

Mr. Wriford took up the book with something of a thrill--the first actively stirring thought of his work since he had fled from it. It was the book he had delivered to his agent shortly before that night of his escape, and had seen ecstatically reviewed in the paper at Pendra. He had never seen it in print. He opened it at the title page. "Twelfth Edition," he read aloud to Essie. "You know what that means. It was only published in the autumn."

"How do you know?" said Essie.

"I tell you I wrote it. I tell you I'm Philip Wriford."

The young woman's departure permitted Essie to relieve her laughter. "Oh, Arthur, do not!" she cried.

"I tell you it's true." He turned to the opening chapter and began with very strange sensations to read what he had written in days separated from the present by illimitable gulfs of new identity. The cunning of his own hand, thus separated from the identity that now read the words, was abundantly apparent to him. There was a nervous and arresting force in the first paragraph, a play of wit above a searching philosophy, that called up and strongly attracted his literary appreciation, dormant beneath the stresses of his past months.

Occupied, for the moment he forgot Essie standing by his side. Her voice recalled her to him. She was reading over his shoulder, and reaching the end of the paragraph, spoke her opinion.

"Isn't it silly, though!" said Essie.

He closed the book and put it down and turned to her and looked at her. "Do you think so?" he said.

"Well, don't you?" cried Essie. "I never read such ridiculous nonsense. I'm sure if you were an author, Arthur, you couldn't write such silly stuff as that."

He laughed a trifle vexedly. "Come along," he said, and laughed again, this time to himself and with better humour, as they came into the street and turned towards the Gardens. He could appreciate the blow at his conceit: further, this little scene was illuminating demonstration of the gulf social and intellectual between himself and Essie, and somehow that approved him in his intentions towards her: what vexed him now was only the failure of this sudden plan to inform Essie of his position in life and so to give him opening for the proposal he intended.

The bookseller's was the last shop in the High Street. They had entered the Gardens before Essie, consumed with laughter, could find words for comment. Then she said: "Oh, Arthur, if you weren't a fair caution! I'd never have thought it of you!"

"You don't believe it?"

"Why, of course I don't!"

"Well, you've got to believe somehow that I've got a lot of money."

"Daresay I can believe the moon is made of green cheese if I try hard enough. I say, though, serious, whatever for have I got to believe you're rich?"

It was the desired opening. He slipped his hand beneath her arm. "Because I want to spend it on you, Essie. I want to make you happy with me."

He felt and heard her sharply catch her breath. He looked down at her and saw her eyes dim and her face suffuse in sudden rush of colour.

"Oh, Arthur!" Essie said and caught her breath again.

"Let's go up to our seat, Essie."

IV

In silence up to their seat, and on their seat a little space in silence. She first to speak. She, while he sat determining how best to tell her, turned to him eyes starry as the stars that lit them, in which still and deeper yet he saw the moisture that had dimmed them a moment before, and still, and cloudier yet, her face all cloudy red.

She said very softly: "What, have you proposed to me, Arthur, dear?"

He was prepared for anything but that. He was reassuring himself, while they waited in that silence, upon his resolution not to deceive her, not even to pretend he loved her as she understood love, upon his determination, for his honour and for hers (so he convinced himself), straitly, without deception, without temptation, to throw all the burden of decision upon her love for him. This "What, have you proposed to me?" took him unawares. It caught him so unexpectedly that, of its very unexpectedness, it threw out of him its own response where, had he first imagined such a question, to fashion answers to it had filled him with confusion, nay, with dismay.

Its own response! It came to him as a question so ludicrously odd, so blundering, so inept, ah, so characteristic of jolly little Essie's funny little ways, that he gave a little laugh, and put his arm about her shoulders, and playfully squeezed her to him and laughed again and exclaimed "Essie!"

The softness left her voice, the dimness her eyes. "Oh, aren't I glad!" cried Essie and snuggled against him and said: "Oh, hasn't it come all of a sudden, though!"

Her funny little ways! Close she was against him--jolly to hold her thus: his arm about her, her face close beneath his own, his other hand that held her hand caressing her soft warm cheek--his dear, his jolly little Essie. But not to deceive her! Let him hold to that. Let her be told in her own opportunity that which he has to tell. Let him lead her towards it.

He asked her--avoiding her question, not confirming her exclamation--"Do you love me, Essie?"

She wriggled herself closer up to him, and laughed at him with those soft expressive lips and with those eyes of hers, and said "Oh, love you!" as though love were too ridiculously poor a word.

"Put up with me, Essie--always? You know what I am sometimes."

"Put up with you!" cried Essie, and again the wriggle and again the laugh, and then said "What a way to talk!" and by a movement of her face towards his own made as if to kiss such talk away.

He kept himself from that. Not to deceive her! "Suppose I made you miserable, Essie?"

"However could you?"

"Suppose I did? You know how I get sometimes."

"Mean when you're quiet?" said Essie, snuggling. "Of course you're quiet sometimes, aren't you? My goodness, I don't mind. I'd just have a jolly laugh by myself."

Her funny little ways! He was fighting against them. They urged him that they were in themselves just what attracted him--always to have them to turn to in his moodiness. Ah, not to deceive her! He said heavily: "I don't mean that, Essie. Suppose--suppose I made you more miserable than that? Suppose I told you something that made you think I couldn't be fond of you?"

She asked him quickly: "What, been engaged before, have you?"

"I've been lots of things. I'm going to tell you."

He felt her stiffen. "I only want to hear this one. Why didn't you marry her?"

"I think because she wouldn't marry me."

"Oh, dear!" cried Essie, and wriggled. "Isn't this awful! Oh, don't I hate her, though! Whyever wouldn't she?"

Here was a way to tell her. What if it meant to lose her? Here was the opportunity. Let him hold to his vow! He said deeply: "Essie, because she knew me too well. She knew some of what you've got to know, Essie. She'd tell you."

"Like her to try!" said Essie and sat up with a jerk.

He could face her now. There she was, his jolly little Essie, looking so fierce, breathing so quickly. Tell her and lose her? Clasp her and kiss away that angry little frown? Not to deceive her! Hold, hold to that! He began: "She'd tell you--what I've got to tell you. She'd tell you--listen to me, Essie. What would you do if she told you I'd make you--or anybody--unhappy? That I'm all--all wrong, all moods, all utterly impossible? Essie, that I can't love anybody really--not even you? That I'm not to be trusted? That I can't trust myself? That I'd marry and then--then pretty well go mad to think I was married and do anything to get out of it? That all I want, that what I want, Essie, is--is not exactly to marry? Essie, do you understand? That so long as I felt free, perhaps--perhaps--I'd be all right--perhaps be kind?"

He stopped. She was sitting bolt upright, staring straight before her into the night, her pretty lips compressed, and he could hear her breathing--short and quick and sharp.

He said: "Essie, what would you do--what would you do if she told you that?"

She turned sharply towards him. "Do?" cried Essie. He could see how she quivered. "I tell you what I'd do! I'd take my hand and I'd give her such a slap in the face as she wouldn't forget in a hurry, I know!"

He laughed despite himself. But he cried: "If it was true, Essie? If it was true?"

"Give her another!" said Essie. "Such a one!"

Her funny little ways! He gave an exclamation and caught her to him. She was rigid in her indignant heat. He clasped her and turned her face to his. "Oo-oo!" cried Essie, "Oo-oo!" and relaxed, and snuggled, and put her mouth to his. He laughed freely--bitterly--recklessly. How treat her as others than her class should be treated? Why treat her so? He cried: "Essie, you're impossible!" and squeezed her in reproof of her and in helpless desire of her, and cried: "Essie! Essie! Essie!"

She laughed and clung to him; laughed and kissed him kiss for kiss. She said presently, only murmuring, so close their lips: "Wouldn't I just though! Hard as I could I'd fetch her such a couple of slaps! Oo-oo! Oh, I say, Arthur! Why, I never heard such things! I never heard such a caution as she must have been! Jus' because you're quiet, dear--that's what it was. One of that fast lot. That's what she was. Don't I know them, though!"

He was just holding her, kissing her, laughing at her. Why not? He'd not wrong her till she understood--that was his new assurance. At Whitecliffe he'd take her, and tell her there so that not possibly she'd misunderstand him. Not to deceive her--he'd not deceived her yet.

Swiftly deception came.

"Won't we be happy though!"

"Won't we!" he answered her.

"Won't I take care of you just!"

"That's what I want, Essie! That's what I want!"

"Quiet as you like, dear. I shan't mind.".

"Essie, I'll make you happy--happy."

"Just think of Mother and Dad when we tell them! They aren't half fond of you, Mother and Dad."

The beginning of it. "We won't tell them--yet," he said.

"What, have a secret?"

"Just for a day or two--just till Whitecliffe."

"Oh, isn't that fine, though, to have it a secret by ourselves!"

"Fine, Essie."

"Not long though. I couldn't keep it above a week!"

"Just a week, Essie."

She was silent a moment, her lips on his. And very silent he.

She said: "You're not really rich, dear?"

"Yes, I am."

"Perhaps you only said it--just because. I know how things pop out. That doesn't matter. Look, I shouldn't be half surprised if Dad'll give you a job of work in his shop when he knows we're engaged."

"It's true, Essie. Rich as rich."

"You've never got as much as fifty pounds?"

"Heaps more than that."

"Oh, if ever! We'll never have a jolly little house of our own?"

"We will, though. A jolly one."

Silent again. She was smiling, dreaming. And silent he. He was thinking, thinking. A striking clock disturbed her. "Eleven! Oh, would you believe it! If we don't hurry, we'll have to tell them--to explain."

"We'll hurry," he said; and he added: "We must keep our secret, Essie."

She was out of his arms in her surprise at the hour. Something in his voice made her look at him quickly. "There, you're quiet now--like you are sometimes," she said.

He told her "I'm thinking--of you."

At that she suddenly was in his arms again, her hands about his neck. "There's one thing," she whispered and drew down his face. "Oh, there's one thing!"

He asked her "What?"

"Jus' tell me how you love me. You've not said it."

Not to deceive her! "As if I need, Essie?"

"But I want you to. Jus' say it so I can remember it."

Not to deceive her! He stroked her face. "As if I need, Essie! Why should you want me to?"

She told him: "Well, but of course you need. Of course I want you to. Oh, isn't that jus' what a girl wants to hear, Arthur? Why, haven't I laid awake at night, loving you over and over, and thought how it would be to hear you say it! Do jus' say it to me, dear."

Not to deceive her!--not even to pretend he loved her as she understood love! Ah, here at the stake was his vow--caught, brought at last to the burning. Evasions had saved it, hidden it, preserved it to him unbroken: here it was dragged to the open. As he had nerved himself to try to tell her, so now he strengthened himself to hold to his resolution. Ah, as at enticement of her funny little ways he could not resist her, so now, by sudden yearning in her cry, fear to lose her overcame him. She suddenly had change of her fresh young voice; she suddenly, as he waited, and she felt his arms relax, most passionately was pressed against him, and suddenly, with a break, in a cry, entreatingly besought him: "Ah, do jus' put your arms around me, dear, and hold me close and say you love me. Do!"

Why not? How not? Thrice fool, thrice fool to hesitate! These that she asked were only words, and all his plans and all his happiness at stake upon them. This not the deeper step--nothing irrevocable here. Who, with such as Essie, would scruple as he scrupled? Who such a fool? Who had suffered of life as he had suffered? Who, in his case, would hold away relief as he was holding it? She should decide. He'd hold to that. By God, by God, he'd seal her to him first!

He said: "I love you, Essie."

Holding her, he could feel the sigh she gave run through her as though all her spirit trembled in her ecstasy. She whispered: "Put your face down on mine."

He put his cheek to hers. Her cheek was wet.

"Are you crying, Essie?"

She pressed closer to him.

"Why are you crying?"

She murmured: "Well, haven't I wanted this! Isn't it what I've always wanted! Say it again, dear. With your face on mine and with your arms around me say it."

"I love you, Essie."

Only words--no harm in that. Only words! At Whitecliffe he'd tell her, and she, as he'd sworn, should decide. Only words--only words, but he'd not lose her now!

As they walked home, he posted his letter.