Back Aa

Notwithstanding

<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> <blockquote>"Happiness is inextricably interwoven with loyalty, love, unselfishness, the charity that never fails. In early life we believe that it is just these qualities in those we love that make our happiness, just the lack of them that entail our misery. But later on we find that it is not so. Later on we find that it is our own loyalty, our own love and charity in which our happiness abides, as the soul abides in the body. So we discover at last that happiness is within the reach of all of us, the inalienable birthright of all of us, and that if by misadventure we have mislaid it in our youth we know where to seek it in after years. For happiness is mislaid, but never lost."—M. N. </blockquote> Janey had the doubtful advantage over other women that men (by men I mean Roger) always knew where to find her. She was as immovable as the church or the Rieben. It was absolutely certain that unless Lady Louisa was worse, Janey would come down to the library at nine o'clock, and work there beside the lamp for an hour before going to bed. The element of surprise or uncertainty did not exist as far as Janey was concerned. And perhaps those who are always accessible, tranquil, disengaged, ready to lend a patient and sympathetic ear, know instinctively that they will be sought out in sorrow and anxiety rather than in joy. We do not engage a trained nurse for picnic parties, or ask her to grace the box seat when[Pg 324] we are driving our four-in-hands. Annette is singled out at once as appropriate to these festive occasions. If anyone thought of Janey in connection with them, it was only to remark that she would not care about them. How many innocent pleasures she had silently wished for in her time which she had been informed by her mother, by Dick, even by Roger, were not in her line. To-night, Janey deviated by a hairbreadth from her usual routine. She came down, seated herself, and instead of her work took up a book with the marker half-way through it, and was at once absorbed in it. She was reading The Magnet for the second time. Since her conversation with Mr. Stirling in the Hulver garden, Janey had read The Magnet, and her indifference had been replaced by a riveted attention. She saw now what other people saw in his work, and it seemed to her, as indeed it seemed to all Mr. Stirling's readers, that his books were addressed to her and her alone. It did not occur to her that he had lived for several years in her neighbourhood without her detecting or even attempting to discern what he was. It did not occur to her that he might have been a great asset in her narrow life. She was quite content with being slightly acquainted with every one except Roger, and her new friend Annette. She tacitly distrusted intimacy, as did Roger, and though circumstances had brought about a certain intimacy with[Pg 325] Annette, the only girl within five miles, she had always mental reservations even with her, boundaries which were not to be passed. Janey had been inclined to take shelter behind these mental reservations, to raise still higher the boundary walls between them, since she had known what she called "the truth about Annette." She had shrunk from further intercourse with her, but Annette had sought her out, deliberately, persistently, with an unshaken confidence in Janey's affection which the latter had not the heart to repel. And in the end Janey had reached a kind of forlorn gratitude towards Annette. Her life had become absolutely empty: the future stretched in front of her like some flat dusty high road, along which she must toil with aching feet till she dropped. She instinctively turned to Annette, and then shrank from her. She would have shrunk from her altogether if she had known that it was by Roger's suggestion that Annette made so many little opportunities of meeting. Annette had been to see her the day before she went to Noyes, and had found her reading The Magnet, and they had had a long conversation about it. And now in Janey's second reading, not skipping one word, and going over the more difficult passages twice, she came again upon the sentence which they had discussed. She read it slowly. "The publican and the harlot will go into the Kingdom before us, because it is easier for them[Pg 326] to flee with loathing from the sins of the flesh, and to press through the strait gate of humility, than it is for us to loathe and flee the sins of the spirit, egotism, pride, resentment, cruelty, insincerity." Janey laid down the book. When Annette had read that sentence aloud to her, Janey had said, "I don't understand that. I think he's wrong. Pride and the other things and insincerity aren't nearly as bad as—as immorality." "He doesn't say one is worse than the others," Annette had replied, and her quiet eyes had met Janey's bent searchingly upon her. "He only says egotism and the other things make it harder to squeeze through the little gate. You see, they make it impossible for us even to see it—the strait gate." "He writes as if egotism were worse than immorality, as if immorality doesn't matter," said Janey stubbornly. How could Annette speak so coolly, so impersonally, as if she had never deviated from the rigid code of morals in which Janey had been brought up! She felt impelled to show her that she at any rate held sterner views. Annette cogitated. "Perhaps, Janey; he has learnt that nothing makes getting near the gate so difficult as egotism. He says somewhere else that egotism makes false, mean, dreadful things ready to pounce on us. He's right in the order he puts them in, isn't he? Selfishness first, and then[Pg 327] pride. Our pride gets wounded, and then resentment follows. And resentment always wants to inflict pain. That is why he puts cruelty next." "How do you know all this?" said Janey incredulously. "I know about pride and resentment," said Annette, "because I gave way to them once. I think I never shall again." "I don't see why he puts insincerity last." "Perhaps he thinks that is the worst thing that can happen to us." "To be insincere?" said Janey, amazed. "Yes. I certainly never have met a selfish person who was sincere, have you? They have to be giving noble reasons for their selfish actions, so as to keep their self-respect and make us think well of them. I knew a man once—he was a great musician—who was like that. He wanted admiration dreadfully, he craved for it, and yet he didn't want to take any trouble to be the things that make one admire people. It ended in——" "What did it end in?" "Where insincere people always do end, I think, in a kind of treachery. Perhaps that is why Mr. Stirling puts insincerity last, because insincere people do such dreadful things without knowing they are dreadful. Now, the harlots and the publicans do know. They have the pull of us there." Janey's clear, retentive mind recalled every[Pg 328] word of that conversation, the last she had had with Annette, which had left an impression on her mind that Annette had belittled the frailties of the flesh. Why had she done that? Because she had not been guiltless of them herself. In such manner do some of us reason, and find confirmation of that which we suspect. Not that Janey suspected her of stepping aside. She was convinced that she had done so. The evidence had been conclusive. At least, she did not doubt it when Annette was absent. When she was present with her she knew not how to believe it. It was incredible. Yet it was so. She always came back to that. But why did she and Mr. Stirling both put insincerity as the worst of the spiritual sins? Janey was an inexorable reader, now that she had begun. She ruminated with her small hands folded on the open page. And her honest mind showed her that once—not long ago—she had nearly been insincere herself: when she had told herself with vehemence that it was her bounden duty to Roger to warn him against Annette. What an ugly act of treachery she had almost committed, would have committed if Mr. Stirling had not come to her aid. She shuddered. Yes, he was right. Insincerity was the place where all meannesses and disloyalties and treacheries lurked and had their dens like evil beasts, ready to pounce out and destroy the wayfaring spirit wandering on forbidden ground. [Pg 329] And she thought of Nurse's treachery for the sake of a livelihood with a new compassion. It was less culpable than what she had nearly been guilty of herself. And she thought yet again of Annette. She might have done wrong, but you could not look at her and think she could be mean, take refuge in subterfuge or deceit. "She would never lie about it, to herself or others," Janey said to herself. And she who had lied to herself, though only for a moment, was humbled.   She was half expecting Roger, in spite of their conference of this morning, for she knew that he was to see the lawyer about probate that afternoon, and the lawyer might have given an opinion as to the legality of Harry's marriage. Presently she heard his step in the hall, and he came in. She had known Roger all her life, but his whole aspect was unfamiliar to her. As she looked at him bewildered, she realized that she had never seen him strongly moved before, never in all these years until now. There is something almost terrifying in the emotion of unemotional people. The momentary confidence of the morning, the one tear wrung out of him by perceiving his hope of marriage suddenly wiped out, was as nothing to this. He sat down opposite to her with chalk-white face and reddened, unseeing eyes, and without any preamble recounted to her the story that Annette had told him a few hours before. "She wished you to know it," he said. [Pg 330] An immense thankfulness flooded Janey's heart as she listened. It was as if some tense nerve in her brain relaxed. He did know at last, and she, Janey, had not told him. He had heard no word from her. Annette had confessed to him herself, as Mr. Stirling had said she would. She had done what was right—right but how difficult. A secret grudge against Annette, which had long lurked at the back of Janey's mind, was exorcised, and she gave a sigh of relief. At last he was silent. "I have known for a long time that Annette was the woman who was with Dick at Fontainebleau," she said, her hands still folded on the open book. "You might have told me, Janey." "I thought it ought to come from her." "You might have told me when you saw—Janey, you must have seen for some time past—how it was with me." "I did see, but I hoped against hope that she would tell you herself, as she has done." "And if she hadn't, would you have let me marry her, not knowing?" Janey reflected. "I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you see, it did not happen so. She has told you. I am thankful she has, Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that[Pg 331] you know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I had begun to think she would never say." "She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have thought possible——" He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at each other. "Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding how anyone like Annette could have done it." Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which had led to the disaster. "She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight from his house in the dawn. "She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, Roger. Annette has been sinned against." "I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering. There was a long silence. "But I don't feel that I can marry her," he said, with a groan. "Dick and her!—it sticks in my throat,—the very thought seems to choke me. I don't feel that I could marry her, even if she would still have me. She said I must forget her, and put her out of my life. She feels everything is over between us. It's[Pg 332] all very well," savagely, "to talk of forgetting anyone—like Annette," and he beat his foot against the floor. Janey looked at him in a great compassion. "He will come back to me," she said to herself, "not for a long time, but he will come back. Broken and disillusioned and aged, and with only a bit of a heart to give me. He will never care much about me, but I shall be all he has left in the world. And I will take him, whatever he is." She put out her hand for her work and busied herself with it, knowing instinctively that the occupation of her hands and eyes upon it would fret him less than if she sat idle and looked at him. She had nothing to learn about how to deal with Roger. She worked for some time in silence, and hope dead and buried rose out of his deep grave in her heart, and came towards her once more. Was it indeed hope that stirred in its grave, this pallid figure with the shroud still enfolding it, or was it but its ghost? She knew not. At last Roger raised a tortured face out of his hands. "Of course, she says she is innocent," he said, looking hopelessly at Janey. Janey started violently. Her work fell from her hands. "Annette—says—she—is—innocent," she repeated after him, a flame of colour rushing to her face. [Pg 333] "Yes. Mary Deane said the same. They always say it." Janey shook as in an ague. She saw suddenly in front of her a gulf of infamy unspeakable, ready to swallow her if she agreed with him—she who always agreed with him. He would implicitly believe her. The little gleam of hope which had fallen on her aching, mutilated life went out. She was alone in the dark. For a moment she could neither see nor hear. "If Annette says she is innocent, it's true," she said hoarsely, putting her hand to her throat. The room and the lamp became visible again, and Roger's eyes fixed on her, like the eyes of a drowning man, wide, dilated, seen through deep water. "If Annette says so, it's true," she repeated. "She may have done wrong. She says she has. But she does not tell lies. You know that." "She says Dick did not try to entrap her, that she went with him of her own accord." "But don't you see that Dick did take advantage of her, all the same, a mean advantage, when she was stunned by despair? I don't suppose you have ever known what it is to feel despair, Roger. But I know what it is. I know what Annette felt when her lover failed her." "She told me she meant to drown herself. She said she did not care what became of her." "You don't know what it means to feel like that." [Pg 334] Roger heard again the thud and beat of the distant train in the sod against his ear. "Yes, I do," he said, looking at her under his heavy brows. "I don't believe you. If you had, you would understand Annette's momentary madness. She need not have told you that. She need not have blackened herself in your eyes, but she did. Can't you see, Roger, will you never, never understand that you have had the whole truth from Annette?—the most difficult truth in the world to tell. And why do you need me to hammer it into you that she was speaking the truth to you? Can't you see for yourself that Annette is upright, as upright as yourself? What is the good of you, if you can't even see that? What is the good of loving her—if you do love her—if you can't see that she doesn't tell lies? I'm not in love with her,—there have been times when I've come very near to hating her, and I had reason to believe she had done a wicked action,—but I knew one thing, and that was that she would never lie about it. She is not that kind. And if she told you that in a moment of despair she had agreed to do it, but that she had not done it, then she spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Roger could only stare at Janey, dumfounded. She who in his long experience of her had always listened, had spoken so little beyond comment or agreement, now thrust at him with a sword of determined, sharp-edged speech. The only two[Pg 335] women he thought he knew were becoming absolute strangers to him. "If I had been in Annette's place, I would have died sooner than own that I agreed to do wrong. I should have put the blame on Dick. But Annette is humbler than I am, more loyal than I am, more compassionate. She took the blame herself which belongs to Dick. She would not speak ill of him. If I had been in her place, I should have hesitated a long time before I told you about the will. It will ruin her good name. I should have thought of that. But she didn't. She thought only of you, only of getting your inheritance for you. Just as when Dick was ill, she only thought of helping him. Go and get your inheritance, Roger. It's yours, and I'm glad it is. You deserve it. But there's one thing you don't deserve, and that is to marry Annette. You're not good enough for her." Janey had risen to her feet. She stood before him, a small terrible creature with blazing eyes. Then she passed him and left the room, the astounded Roger gaping after her. He waited a long time for her to return, but she did not come back. <hr /> [Pg 336] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.