Part 70 (1/2)

x.x.xVIII

While the motor cars were whirling about Addington and observers were in an ecstasy over Madame Beattie's electioneering, Reardon was the more explicitly settling his affairs and changing his sailing from week to week as it intermittently seemed possible to stay. He was in an irritation of unrest when Esther did not summon him, and a panic of fear at the prospect of her doing it. He was beginning dimly to understand that Esther, even if the bills were to be paid, proposed to do nothing herself about getting decently free. Reardon thought he could interpret that, in a way that enhanced her divinity. She was too womanly, he determined. How could a creature like her give even the necessary evidence? If any one at that time believed sincerely in Esther's clarity of soul, it was Reardon who had not thought much about souls until he met her. Esther had been a wonderful influence in his life, trans.m.u.ting everyday motives until he actually stopped now to think a little over the high emotions he was not by nature accustomed even to imagine. There was something pathetic in his desire to better himself even in spiritual ways. No man in Addington had attained a higher proficiency in the practical arts of correct and comfortable living, and it was owing to the power of Esther's fastidious reserves that he had begun to think all women were not alike, after all. There must be something in cla.s.s, something real and uncomprehended, or such a creature as she could not be born with a difference. When she came nearer him, when she of her own act surrendered and he had drawn the exquisite sum of her into his arms, he still believed in her moral perfection to an extent that made her act most terribly moving to him. The act grew colossal, for it meant so matchless a creature must love him unquestioningly or she could not step outside her fine decorum. Every thought of her drew him toward her.

Every manly and also every ambitious impulse of his entire life--the ambition that bade him tread as near as possible to Addington's upper cla.s.s--forbade his seeking her until he had a right to. And if she would not free herself, the right would never be his.

One day, standing by his window at dusk moodily looking out while the invisible filaments that drew him to her tightened unbearably, he saw Jeff go past. At once Reardon knew Jeff was going to her, and he found it monstrous that the husband whose existence meant everything to him should be seeking her unhindered. He got his hat and coat and hurried out into the street in time to see Jeff turn in at her gate. He strode along that way, and then halted and walked back again. It seemed to him he must know at least when Jeff came out.

Jeff had been summoned, and Esther met him with no pretence at an artifice of coolness. She did not ask him to sit down. They stood there together in the library looking at each other like two people who have urgent things to say and limited time to say them in.

”Jeff,” she began, ”you're all I've got in the world. Aunt Patrica's going away.”

Jeff clutched upon his reason and hoped it would serve him while something more merciful kept him kind.

”Good!” said he. ”That's a relief for you.”

”In a way,” said Esther. ”But it leaves me alone, with grandmother. It's like being with a dead woman. I'm afraid of her. Jeff, if you'd only thought of it yourself! but I have to say it. Won't you come here to live?”

”If he had only thought of it himself!” his heart ironically repeated.

Had he not in the first years of absence from her dreamed what it would be to come back to a hearth she was keeping warm?

”Esther,” he said, ”only a little while ago you said you were afraid of me.”

Esther had no answer to make. Yet she could take refuge in a perfect humility, and this she did.

”I ask you, Jeff,” she said. ”I ask you to come back.”

The world itself seemed to close about him, straiter than the walls of the room. Had he, in taking vows on him when he truly loved her, built a prison he must dwell in to the end of his life or hers? Did moral law demand it of him? did the decencies of Addington?

”I ask you to forgive me,” said Esther. ”Are you going to punish me for what I did?”

”No,” said Jeff, in a dull disclaimer. ”I don't want to punish you.”

But he did not want to come back. This her heart told her, while it cautioned her not to own she knew.

”I shouldn't be a burden on you,” she said. ”I should be of use, social use, Jeff. You need all the pull you can get, and I could help you there, tremendously.”

The same bribe Madame Beattie had held out to him, he remembered, with a sorry smile. Esther, Madame Beattie had cheerfully determined, was to help him placate the little G.o.ds. Now Esther herself was offering her own abetment in almost the same terms. He saw no way even vaguely to resolve upon what he felt able to do, except by indirection. They must consider it together.

”Esther,” he said, ”sit down. Let me, too, so we can get hold of ourselves, find out what we really think.”

They sat, and she clasped her hands in a way prayerfully suggestive and looked at him as if she hung on the known value of his words. Jeff groped about in his mind for their common language. What had it been?--laughter, kisses, the feverish commendation of the pageant of life. He sat there frowning, and when his brow cleared it was because he decided the only way possible was to open the door of his own mind and let her in. If she found herself lonesome, afraid even in its furnis.h.i.+ngs as they inevitably were now, that would tell them something.

She need never come again.

”Esther,” he said, ”the only thing I've found out about myself is that I haven't found out anything. I don't know whether I'm a decent fellow, just because I want to be decent, or whether I'm stunted, calloused, all the things they say happen to criminals.”

”Don't,” said Esther sharply. ”Don't talk of criminals.”

”I've got to. You let me wander on a minute. Maybe it'll get us somewhere.” He debated whether he should tell her he wanted to save Addington. No, she wouldn't understand. Could he tell her that at that minute he loved Addington better than anything but Lydia? and Lydia he must still keep hidden in the back of his mind under the green leaves of secrecy. ”Esther,” said he, ”Esther, poor child, I don't want you to be a prisoner to me. And I don't want to be a prisoner to you. It would be a shocking wrong to you to be condemned to live with me all your life just because an old woman has scared you. What a penalty to pay for being afraid of Madame Beattie--to live with a husband you had stopped thinking about at all.”