CHAPTER I—THE HOME-COMING

Leaving the hansom at the foot of Pope Lane and carrying my bags, I walked up the avenue of limes. The wantonness of spring was in the air and its melancholy. Above the high walls the golden hurry of the sunset quivered. A breeze tore past me down the passage, twisting and turning like a madcap ballet-dancer. Overhead in the young greenness of the trees a host of sparrows fluttered, impudently publishing their love-making.

At Plymouth on landing I had been met by letters from my lawyers and from Uncle Obad. They were addressed to Sir Dante Cardover. It was rather pleasant to be addressed as Sir Dante; until then I had not realized my luck. The memory of that last night at Sheba had numbed my faculties and taken my future from me. But now, with the thought of Woadley, life began to weave itself into a new pattern.

On the run up to London, as the quiet of English landscapes and the greenness of English meadows drifted by, I lost my bitter sense of isolation: I belonged to this; it was part of me. At the same time, the impassive wholesomeness of English faces awoke me in a strange way to the enormity of what I had done. It was odd how far I had wandered from old traditions and old landmarks in the delirium of the past two years. Even I was a little scandalized by some of my recollections.

Next day I purposed to go down to Woadley; to-night I would spend with my father at Pope Lane. There were explanations to be made; explanations where my father was concerned, were never comfortable. I walked with a pebble in my shoe till I had got them over. I had sure proof that he was annoyed, for none of my letters, written to him since my recovery, had been answered.

Thrusting my hand into the creeper, I found the knob. Far away at the back of the house the bell tinkled; after an interval footsteps shuffled down the path. The door opened cautiously; in the slit it made I saw the face of Hetty. There was something in-its expression that warned me.

“Father at home?” I asked cheerfully, pushing forward.

“Master Dante, or Sir Dante as I should say, don’t you go for to see ’im.”

“Why not?”

“’E’s bitter against you.”

“What nonsense! Here, take one of these bags. Why should he be bitter against me?”

She crumpled her apron nervously. “‘Cause of ’er—the woman in Ameriky. I don’t know the rights of it, but ’e’s ’ardly spoke your name since.”

“But I’ve come to see him. I’ve only just landed.”

She stared at me gloomily, barring the entrance. Across her shoulder I could see the path winding round the house and down to the garden where everything was familiar. Once I had longed to leave it! How much I would now give to get back! The leaves shivered, making patches of sunlight move like gold checkers, pushed forward and backward on the lawn. My mind keenly visualized all the details that lay out of sight. I knew just how my father must look sitting writing at his study-window. I ought to have told him; he might have understood. But the barrier of reticence had always divided us.

“If I was you, Sir Dante, I’d go away and write ’im. I’ll see that ’e reads it this time. Yes I will, if I loses my plaice.”

“This time?”

Her cheeks went crimson. “’E didn’t read the letters you sent after ’ers. ’E tossed ’em aside.”

“But the Snow Lady and Ruthie, they’ll see me.”

She looked furtively over her shoulder at the house, then she slipped out into the lane beside me, almost closing the door.

“There ain’t no Miss Ruthie now,” she said sadly. Then, in a voice which betrayed pride, “She’s Lady Halloway. ’Is Lordship, ’e were a wery ’ot lover, ’e were—wouldn’t take no for an answer and suchlike. After you’d gone away angry and no one knew where you’d gone, Miss Ruthie felt kind o’ flat; but she kept on sayin’ no to ‘is Lordship, though she was always cryin’. Then that letter came from Americky. It kind o’ took us by surprise; Miss Ruthie especially. We felt—well, you know, sir—disrespectable. So she gave way like, and now she’s Lady Halloway. And there you are. We’ve ’ad a ’eap of trouble.”

Little Ruthie the wife of that man! I had made them unrespectable, so she had rectified my mistake by marrying the father of Lottie’s child!

“You’d better write.”

She had edged herself into the garden and held the door at closing-point. I could see the house no longer. Her head looked out through the slit as though it had no body. I was sick and angry—angry because of Ruthita. Anger restored my determination. They should not condemn me without a hearing; their morality was stucco-fronted—a cheap imitation of righteousness.

I pushed roughly past Hetty like an insolent peddler, and left her bleating protests behind. In the hall I dropped my bags and entered my father’s study unannounced.

He glanced up from under the hand with which his eyes were shaded. His mouth straightened. He went on with his writing, feigning that he had not heard me enter. I remembered the trick well—as a boy it had made punishment the more impressive. It was done for that purpose now; he had never accustomed himself to think of me as a grown man.

I watched him. How lean, and threadbare, and overworked he looked! How he tyrannized over himself! The hair had grown thin about the temples; his eyes were weak, his forehead lined. He had disciplined joy out of his life. But there was something big about him—a stern forcefulness of character which came of long years of iron purpose. He had failed, but he would not acknowledge his failure. All these years his daily routine of drudgery had remained unchanged. Outside the spring was stirring, just as it had stirred in his children’s lives. But his windows were shut against the spring because he had to earn his daily bread. The anger I had felt turned to pity. He was so lonely in his strength. Had he been weaker, he would have been happier.

“You did not want to see me?”

He blotted his page carefully and laid aside his pen. “I had good reason.” His voice was cold and tired.

“You can’t judge of that; you haven’t heard.”

“I can conjecture.”

“But I have at least the right to explain. You can’t conjecture the details that led up to it.”

“These things are usually led up to by the same details. All I know is that any meeting between us now can only cause pain, and I cannot afford to be upset. You have your standards of honor; I have mine. Evidently they are divergent. You didn’t give me your confidence before you sailed; I don’t invite it now.”

He had allowed me to remain standing, making me feel my intrusion on his privacy. I had always felt that in talking to him I was keeping him from his work. My mind went back to the fear with which I had entered his study in the old days. And this was the end of it.

“You can never have cared much for me,” I threw out bitterly, “if you can break with me so lightly.”

His pale face flushed; his distant manner broke down. “How should you know how much I cared?”

“How should I know! All my life you’ve been silent and there were times——”

He interrupted. “It is because I cared so much. I was so anxious for you and wanted you to do so well. I’m not demonstrative. I always hoped that we might be friends. But you never came to me with your troubles from a little chap, anyone was better than your father—-servants, your Uncle Spreckles, Ruthita, anybody. With me you were dumb.”

“You never encouraged my confidence and now you condemn me unheard. Silence between us has become a habit.”

He stabbed the blotting-paper with his pen. His emotions were stirred; he was afraid he might betray them. So he spoke hurriedly. “It’s too late to cover old ground. We’ve drifted apart, that’s certain—and now this has happened... this disgrace... this adultery of thoughts... this lust for a married woman.”

I walked across to the window and drummed upon the panes. Across the garden a soft gray dusk was falling. Along those paths Ruthita and I had played; the garden was empty and very lonely. Scene after scene came back, made kindly by distance. I turned. “Father, I’m not going to let you turn me out until you know all about it. For the first time you’ve told me frankly that you wanted me. I was always frightened as a little chap.”

Instead of taking me up angrily as I expected, he spoke gently. “Why shouldn’t I want you? I thought you’d understand by the way I worked. Sit down, boy; why are you standing? How... how did it happen?”

The Snow Lady rapped on the door and almost entered. My father signed to her to go away, saying that we would come to her later. Then I told him. And while I told him I kept thinking how strange it was that until now, when we had quarreled, we should never have found one another, but, like two people eager to meet, had walked always at the same pace, in the same direction, out of sight, round and round on opposite sides of the same house.

It was dark when I finished. He leant out and laid his hand on my arm. “And now that it’s all ended, we can make a new start together.”

“It may not be all ended.”

“But it is. You’re not going to tell me that you’re still hankering after a married woman?”

“I am.”

The kindness went from his voice. He rang the bell, waited in silence till Hetty brought the lamp, and took it from her at the door to prevent her entering.

“You say it isn’t ended, this criminal folly. I can’t conceive what you mean by it. One of these days you’ll drag my name through the dirt. There are other people to consider besides yourself. There’s Ruthita—her husband’s sensitive already. In fact, he doesn’t want to meet you, and he doesn’t want you to meet her. What it comes to is this: we can’t be friends unless you give this woman up absolutely.”

“It’s not possible. Randall threatened to divorce her. If he does, it will be that I may marry her. I shall have to marry her, and I shall be jolly glad to marry her. What has happened since I left I can’t tell. Until I know, I hold myself prepared. So I can’t promise anything.”

“The choice is between her and your family.”

“I choose her.”

“Then until you’ve come to your senses, there can be no communication between us.”

He sat down noisily at his desk. “You’ll excuse me; there’s nothing more to be said.”

When I still waited, he took up his pen. “I have an article here that I must get finished.”

I walked slowly down the lane. The door swung to behind me. I felt that I was seeing this for the last time. All the old, trivial, sweet associations came thronging back: the dying affections, the lost innocence which had seemed so permanent, stretched out hands to restrain me. Even Hetty had condemned; it was written in her face. Long ago Hetty and I had viewed the world from the same angle, we had criticised and schemed against our tyrants together. The chapter of home life was ended. Whatever happened as regards Vi, there could be no going back.