Court Royal/Chapter LII
CHAPTER LII.
ON THE PIER.
When Mrs. Yellowleaf was ready to leave, she intimated her intention somewhat curtly to Joanna. Charles Cheek at once flew to assist her to her cab and muffle her in wraps. Mrs. Yellowleaf’s carriage was first packed and driven off. Then Charles said, ‘Are you by yourself? That must not be. Allow me to accompany you to the Barbican, and see you safely home.’ Ho waited for no reply, but stepped into the carriage beside Joanna.
‘Oh, Joe!’ he said, ‘you have made mortal enemies. Your mots have been passed round the room, and those whom you stabbed will never forgive you. How did you know anything about Sir William Hawkins taking his wife’s name, and being knighted in it, because he was—well, without a name of his own? And that affair of Captain Gathercole and Miss Fanshawe, and Mrs. Duncombe—whose husband never turns up—and the rest?’
‘I know everything about people in Plymouth—it is part of the business.’
‘You will never, never be forgiven.’
‘I am not likely to meet these people again.’
‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘For a while—and then I did not care for the ball any more.’
‘Why not?’
She did not answer.
The cab was dismissed at the Barbican, and Charles paid the driver.
‘Joe,’ said he, ‘come on to the pier, and let us look at the water rippling in the moon. It will be dawn directly.’
She hesitated a moment, and then said, ‘Very well; I want to tell you something.’
He gave her his arm, ‘You are not likely to catch cold, I hope!’
She shook her head.
‘The more I see of you,’ said he, ‘the more I wonder at you. You are a person of infinite resource. Joe! tell me you are not cross with me for what I confided to you.’
‘Not a bit,’ she answered. ‘I told you to aim at position, and you have followed my advice.’
‘It was my father’s doing.’
‘Do you not love and admire her? You must—you must do that! Why, I do! I love her still.’
‘Of course I admire Lady Grace. Never can fail to do that. I love her also—well—in about the same fashion as a Catholic loves and adores the Virgin.’
‘Are you satisfied with what you have done?’
‘I will empty my whole heart before you,’ he said. ‘I know you are capable of advising me—of encouraging me.’ He sighed. ‘I daren’t say all I think!’
She laughed. ‘In the same breath hot and cold. You will and you won’t. You can and you can’t.’
‘Do not sneer at me. I am in a difficulty. I assure you I have been mortally weary of the life at Court Royal Lodge. Old Worthivale, the steward, is a sort of cousin of mine, and infinitely tedious. Beavis, his son, is too occupied with the family failure to give me much of his company, and he has not that in him to afford me entertainment. I have hunted twice a week, but now the hunting is over. Five days a week I am consumed with ennui. I go to the club in Kingsbridge, and try to find some fellows with whom to play billiards, but sometimes no one is there: the day is fine, and they want to boat; or the day is wet, and they want to read novels at home over the fire. Then they all talk shop—local shop. They seem to me like a cage of animals bred in confinement, who can only think and feel interest and talk of the world within the bars of their cage. If I had not passed my word to my father, I would have run long ago.’
‘Is there no attraction, then?’
‘I allow there is Lady Grace. She is beautiful, sweet as an angel. She is kind to me, but never affectionate, and I cannot conceive it possible that we shall ever stand nearer to each other than we do at present. Of course we can be married, but that will not fuse my soul into hers and hers into mine, because we have so little in common. We have different specific gravities. When we are together, and I see her gentle face and hear her soft tones I am under a charm which holds me—at a distance. The charm draws and repels at once. Can you understand? I feel that I love her, but I feel also that she is unapproachable by such as me. If we do get married, we shall be like a two-volumed book, of which the volumes belong to different editions, and are in different type and of different sizes. We shall belong to each other so far that we shall bear the same label, but she will belong to an édition de luxe, and I to the cheap and popular issue.’
‘Then why did you propose to Lady Grace? Was it merely to obtain position?’
‘No, Joe. My father wished it, urged it, badgered me into it. I liked her, I cannot do other than like her. I pity the family. And then—the Worthivales put me on my metal.’
‘How so?’
‘They scouted the possibility of my winning her. They seemed to regard me as the dirt of the street aspiring to the sun.’
‘Do you think you will not be happy with her?’
‘I shall go to church with her and never get out of it again. We shall carry the church with its solemnity and oppressiveness and mustiness into our married life. Our tendencies are diverse as those of a balloon and a diving-bell. We shall have as little intellectual sympathy as John Bright and a “Blackwood,” which he was cutting and trying to read. I belong too much to Bohemia, with the city of Prague as my Jerusalem.’
‘If that be so, you are in a false position, and must leave it.’
‘I cannot,’ answered Charles. ‘I cannot do so without cruelty. The family are in straits for money. My father has undertaken to pay off the most pressing mortgages and debts. If the marriage does not come off they will be utterly ruined. Do you know I stopped the sale of their pictures, plate, and jewels? All were being packed to send to London; when I got Lady Grace’s promise, I galloped to town on the back of an engine, and got my father to advance the necessary money to stop the sale.’
‘Does Lady Grace marry you to save her family?’
‘I do not know that she is aware of the compact—but—I suppose she must,’ he added humbly. ‘She never would take me for myself. The brazen pot and the earthen pot are going to float down the stream together, and we shall have to keep our distance for fear of jars.’
Joanna stood on the pier looking out at the promontory of Mount Batten that seemed to landlock the harbour. The moon was behind the citadel, steeping the Barbican in night, but the water beyond flashed like quicksilver. She folded her arms under her wraps. Charles tried to read her face, but there was no moonlight on it, and the pier-lantern was high above, casting a shadow over her.
‘Well, Joe, what do you think?’
‘Give me time to consider.’
‘I am in this position. If I marry her I shall gain that which you have bidden me aim for, and shall have pleased my father, and saved a worthy family from utter destruction. On the other hand, I shall have sacrificed my independence and cut myself off from the rollicking life that suits me. I shall live in a social strait-waistcoat, and I hate restraint. If I do not go through with the matter I shall make the governor furious; he will never forgive me, and the Duke will go to pieces. Is it honourable and fair for me to back out?’
‘No, Mr. Cheek, it is not. Go on,’ said Joanna, and sighed.
‘I thought you would say so,’ observed Charles, also with a sigh, ‘but I hoped that your advice would be contrary.’
Then neither spoke for some time. Far away, behind the hills to the east, the sky was beginning to whiten, but the moon shone so brightly that the tokens of coming day were hardly perceptible.
‘We are old friends, are we not?’ said Charles sadly.
‘Yes—we have known each other since last fifth of November.’
‘What a time it seems since then! So much has happened that it is an age to me.’
‘Also to me. To me it has been the change from childhood to womanhood, from outward hardship to inward suffering. It cannot be other. Mr. Cheek, we must part. We shall see each other no more.’
‘No more!’ he echoed. ‘Nonsense, I intend to see a great deal of you when allowed to return from exile.’
She shook her head. ‘It cannot be.’
‘Why not? The Golden Balls is here, and the door open. If I choose to enter with a pair of silver spoons, who is to thrust me out? And if there be no customers in the shop, I suppose I may perch on the counter and enjoy a pleasant chat?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘never again. You told me yourself you were going into social stays. You are changing your nationality, and about to forget Bohemia.’
‘Not yet,—no—no! I will enjoy my freedom for a while longer.’
‘There is a further reason why I cannot allow it,’ she said, and looked before her into the dark water, and beyond it to the glittering sheet of wavering silver. ‘I am going to be married.’
‘Married! you—Joanna!’
Both stood silent, so silent that nothing was audible but the lapping of the water on the steps of the pier.
‘Joanna! I will not believe it. To whom?’
‘To Lazarus.’
‘Joanna!’ There was mingled pain and horror in his tone. She said nothing more, but shivered, though wrapped up well in shawls.
‘Come hither,’ said Charles, almost roughly. ‘The first time I saw you, I took you to the light to see your face; and the face I then saw has haunted me ever since. Come here, and let me see your face again. I will see if this be cursed earnest or cruel joke.’ He drew her within the radiance of the lamp, and turned the head up. She offered no resistance, but looked firmly at him.
There was no mischief lurking in the dimples at the corners of her mouth, no devilry in her eyes. There were dark lines in her face, gloom in her deep great irises, and set determination in her mouth. She felt that the hand that raised her chin to expose her face was trembling and cold. She was glad when he withdrew it, and her face relapsed into shadow. Perhaps she could not have maintained composure much longer under the scrutiny of his eyes.
‘I cannot help myself,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Judge for yourself if I can. Lazarus has resolved that I shall be his wife. I suppose he is afraid of losing me unless he ties me fast. But what can I do? I have no home, no father. I must wait here till my mother returns. I am number 617. I have been 617 in the shop for seven years. Everything else in the shop has changed, but I have remained. Old goods have gone, and new come in, and the same numbers have represented scores of new objects; only 617 has not changed. Some of the articles have been redeemed, but I have not. Some have lapsed, and I am lapsing. Some have been sold, and I am about to be sold. I remain uncancelled in the books, 617, and nothing can cancel me but the return of my mother or the expiration of my time. Here I must remain. I am not free. I dare not go. What would my mother say were I to run away? She would be ashamed of her child. What if she were to return, and I were gone—should we ever meet again? Lazarus would never tell her where I was if I had left him—even if he knew, just out of spite to her and me. But it is not that, not that,’ she said sadly; ‘I daresay you can’t understand me, but I feel it here.’ She touched her heart. ‘It would not be right. I cannot go. You have a Christian conscience because you have been brought up as a Christian. I have a pawnbroking conscience because I have been brought up as a pawnbroker. There are different denominations and different consciences belonging to them. What is right to one is wrong to another. All that I know of right and wrong Lazarus has taught me, or it has grown up unsown, like the grass and weeds in my back yard, that shoot between the stones. It stands written in fire on my heart that I cannot go without the duplicate, and that if Lazarus chooses to make me his wife I cannot help myself. If I go against that writing, all light will go black before my eyes, and I shall be blind.’
‘Oh, Joe! Joe! it must not be!’ Charles spoke in pain.
‘How can I escape?’
‘The thought is too terrible; that hateful, loathsome Jew—and you—you!’ He caught her arm, and drew it through his and paced the pier. ‘It maddens me; I must work off my fever. You do not mean it. You say it out of frolic to torture me, and when you have driven me to desperation, you will burst forth into one of your fresh laughs. Is it not so?’
‘No, it is true.’
‘But you cannot like him.’
‘I respect him as a master. I hate him as a lover.’
‘Joe, it must not be. Run away. Go into service; if you want money, I will give you all I have; sell the very clothes off my back to support you. Trust me, try me; I will work the flesh off my fingers to save you from so hateful a fate. I am in earnest; you will not believe me. You have known me only as an idler and a good-for-naught. I have had no one to care for, nothing to work for. Promise me, promise me you will not’ His voice gave way. He could not finish his sentence.
‘My friend,’ she said quietly, ‘I cannot run away. I have told you so already. It would be wrong according to my pawnbroking conscience. I cannot receive your money, that would be wrong according to my womanly conscience. I cannot remain with Lazarus, except as his wife, now that he has asked me to be that. That also, according to my womanly conscience, would be wrong. If he had not asked me, I could have remained, and I would have remained, as hitherto, working, starving, bargaining, begging, lying for him. As that cannot be, there remains a single door of escape.’
‘Then escape by it,’ said Charles.
‘You wish it?’ she asked quietly, looking him full in the face.
‘Certainly, anything rather than But what is it?’
She shook her head and drew a long deep sigh.
‘Let me go!’ she said; for he was still holding her wrist.
‘No, tell me.’
She suddenly extricated herself from his grasp.
The white light was spreading in the eastern sky, and the moon, struck with paralysis, failed and became dim.
‘Joe!’ he said, and covered his eyes. ‘Now only, when about to lose you, do I begin to realise what you are to me.’
He looked up, looked around, she was gone.