Part 45 (2/2)
”No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no.”
”Because I love honesty. Don't pretend your marriage has been a happy one. You and she can have nothing in common.”
He did not deny it, but said shyly: ”I suppose that's pretty obvious; but Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When things went wrong, or I heard things, I used to think it was her fault, but, looking back, it's more mine. I needn't have married her, but as I have I must stick to her and keep her.”
”How long have you been married?”
”Nearly three years.”
”What did your people say?”
”They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of family council when they heard I was married, and cut us off altogether.”
Helen began to pace up and down the room. ”My good boy, what a mess!”
she said gently. ”Who are your people?”
He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in trade; his sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother was a lay-reader.
”And your grandparents?”
Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now. ”They were just nothing at all,” he said ”agricultural labourers and that sort.”
”So! From which part?”
”Lincolns.h.i.+re mostly, but my mother's father--he, oddly enough, came from these parts round here.”
”From this very Shrops.h.i.+re. Yes, that is odd. My mother's people were Lancas.h.i.+re. But why do your brother and your sisters object to Mrs.
Bast?”
”Oh, I don't know.”
”Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you tell me, and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help. Have they heard anything against her?”
He was silent.
”I think I have guessed now,” said Helen very gravely.
”I don't think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not.”
”We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least difference to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I blame, not your wife for these things, but men.”
Leonard left it at that--so long as she did not guess the man. She stood at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The hotel looked over a dark square. The mists had begun. When she turned back to him her eyes were s.h.i.+ning. ”Don't you worry,” he pleaded. ”I can't bear that. We shall be all right if I get work. If I could only get work--something regular to do. Then it wouldn't be so bad again. I don't trouble after books as I used. I can imagine that with regular work we should settle down again. It stops one thinking.”
”Settle down to what?”
”Oh, just settle down.”
<script>