Part 43 (1/2)
”Not from her point of view, Aunt Jenny.”
”And what other point of view, in keeping with honour and religion, exists?”
”As to religion, I'm without it and so much the freer. I don't want to pretend anything I don't feel. I shall always be very sorry, indeed, for what I did; but I'm not going to wreck my life by marrying Sabina.”
”What about her life?”
”If she will trust her life to me, I shall do all in my power to make it a happy and easy life. I want the child to be a success. I know it will grow up a reproach to me and all that sort of thing in the opinion of many people; but that won't trouble me half as much as my own regrets.
I've not done anything that puts me beyond the, pale of humanity--nor has Sabina; and if she can keep her nerve and go on with her life, it ought to be all right for her, presently.”
”A very cynical att.i.tude and I wish I could change it, Raymond. You've lost your self-respect and you know you've done a wrong thing. Can't you see that you'll always suffer it if you take no steps to right it? You are a man of feeling, and power can't lessen your feeling. Every time you see that child, you will know that you have brought a living soul into the world cruelly handicapped by your deliberate will.”
”That's not a fair argument,” he answered. ”If our rotten laws handicap the baby, it will be my object to nullify the handicap to the best of my ability. The laws won't come between me and my child, any more than they came between me and my pa.s.sion. I'm not the sort to hide behind the mean English law of the natural child. But I'm not going to let that law bully me into marriage with Sabina. I've got to think of myself as well as other people. I won't say, what's true--that if Sabina married me she wouldn't be happy in the long run; but I will say that I know I shouldn't be, and I'm not prepared to pay any penalty whatever for what I did, beyond the penalty of my own regrets.”
”If you rule religion out and think you can escape and keep your honour, I don't know what to say,” she answered. ”For my part I believe Sabina would make you a very good and loving wife. And don't fancy, if you refuse her what faithfully you promised her, she will be content with less.”
”That's her look out. You won't be wise, Aunt Jenny, to influence her against a fair and generous offer. I want her to live a good life, and I don't want our past love-making to ruin that life, or our child to ruin that life. If she's going to pose as a martyr, I can't help it. That's the side of her that wrecked the show, as a matter of fact, and made it very clear to me that we shouldn't be a happy married couple.”
”Self-preservation is a law of nature. She only did what any girl would have done in trying to find friends to save her from threatened disaster.”
”Well, I dare say it was natural to her to take that line, and it was equally natural to me to resent it. At any rate we know where we stand now. Tell me if there's anything else.”
”I only warn you that she will accept no benefits of any kind from you, Raymond. And who shall blame her?”
”That's entirely her affair, of course. I can't do more than admit my responsibilities and declare my interest in her future.”
”She will throw your interest back in your face and teach her child to despise you, as she does.”
”How d'you know that, Aunt Jenny?”
”Because she's a proud woman. And because she would lose the friends.h.i.+p of all proud women and clean thinking men if she condoned what you intend to do. It's horrible to see you turned from a simple, stupid, but honourable boy, into a hard, selfish, irreligious man--and all the result of being rich. I should never have thought it could have made such a dreadful difference so quickly. But I have not changed, Raymond.
And I tell you this: if you don't marry Sabina; if you don't see that only so can you hold up your head as an honest man and a respectable member of society, worthy of your cla.s.s and your family, then, I, for one, can have no more to do with you. I mean it.”
”I'm sorry you say that. You've been my guardian angel in a way and I've a million things to thank you for from my childhood. It would be a great grief to me, Aunt Jenny, if you allowed a difference of opinion to make you take such a line. I hope you'll think differently.”
”I shall not,” she said. ”I have not told you this on the spur of the moment, or before I had thought it out very fully and very painfully.
But if you do this outrageous thing, I will never be your aunt any more, Raymond, and never wish to see you again as long as I live. You know me; I'm not hysterical, or silly, or even sentimental; but I'm jealous for your father's name--and your brother's. You know where duty and honour and solemn obligation point. There is no reason whatever why you should s.h.i.+rk your duty, or sully your honour; but if you do, I decline to have any further dealings with you.”
He rose to go.
”That's definite and clear. Good-bye, Aunt Jenny.”
”Good-bye,” she said. ”And may G.o.d guide you to recall that 'good-bye,'
nephew.”
Then he went back to 'The Seven Stars,' and wondered as he walked, how the new outlook had shrunk up this old woman too, and made one, who bulked so largely in his life of old, now appear as of no account whatever. He was heartily sorry she should have taken so unreasonable a course; but he grieved more for her sake than his own. She was growing old. She would lack his company in the time to come, and her heart was too warm to endure this alienation without much pain.