The Weavers: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING

His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby watched
Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road. Here,
instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and then
passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the
graveyard. It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full
bloom, and the may and the hawthorn were alive with colour. The path she
had taken led through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and greenery.
By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a detour, she
could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading past a now
disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill above.

As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby's watched her. From
his laboratory--the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
he had lost his life--Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure. He
watched it till it moved into the wooded path. Then he left his garden,
and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her. Walking
swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.

She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
her belt. Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed, into
which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
radiance. It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was round
him. It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by
a sense of wrong to herself or others.

She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and the
waterfall. She came here often. The scene quieted her in moods of
restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
that half her life's work had been suddenly taken from her. When David
went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as
he had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had
felt a sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her. Then
suitors had come--the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood
Manor, and others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though she
was alive to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited from her
Uncle Benn had served to warm the air about her into a wider circle. Yet
it was neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer, nor surgeon
that the new sense stirring in her was due. The spring was too far
beneath to be found by them.

When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
looking at her with a half-smile. She did not start, but her face turned
white, and a mist came before her eyes.

Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could trouble
her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.

He came near to her and held out his hand. "It has been a long six months
since we met here," he said.

She made no motion to take his hand. "I find days grow shorter as I grow
older," she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand,
making ready to put on her bonnet.

"Ah, do not put it on," he urged quickly, with a gesture. "It becomes you
so--on your arm."

She had regained her self-possession. Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
the best tonic, came to her resource. "Thee loves to please thee at any
cost," she replied. She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.

"Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?"

"It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
to myself."

"A moment ago," he rejoined laughing, "it was your pleasure to have it on
your arm."

"Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington? Is he to have the only
patent of change?"

"Do I change?" He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
that seemed to say, "I have lifted the veil of this woman's heart; I am
the master of the situation."

She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:

"Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see. Thee and
thy family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now.
Yet they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel."

"There is force in what you say," he replied. "I have an inquiring mind;
I am ever open to reason. Confucius said: 'It is only the supremely wise
or the deeply ignorant who never alter.'"

"Thee has changed politics. Thee made a 'sensation, but that was not
enough. Thee that was a rebel became a deserter."

He laughed. "Ah, I was open to conviction! I took my life in my hands,
defied consequences." He laughed again.

"It brought office."

"I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," he murmured complacently.

"Change is a policy with thee, I think. It has paid thee well, so it
would seem."

"Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks I've
taken," he answered with an amused look.

"I do not think that interest will increase. Thee has climbed quickly,
but fast climbing is not always safe climbing."

His mood changed. His voice quickened, his face lowered. "You think I
will fail? You wish me to fail?"

"In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well. But if, out of
office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
can thee be just and faithful in office? Subtlety will not always avail.
The strong man takes the straight course. Subtlety is not intellect."

He flushed. She had gone to the weakest point in his defences. His vanity
was being hurt. She had an advantage now.

"You are wrong," he protested. "You do not understand public life, here
in a silly Quaker village."

"Does thee think that all that happens in 'public life' is of
consequence? That is not sensible. Thee is in the midst of a thousand
immaterial things, though they have importance for the moment. But the
chief things that matter to all, does thee not know that a 'silly Quaker
village' may realise them to the full--more fully because we see them
apart from the thousand little things that do not matter? I remember a
thing in political life that mattered. It was at Heddington after the
massacre at Damascus. Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke
without principle then, and only to draw notice?"

"You would make me into a demagogue," he said irritably.

"Thee is a demagogue," she answered candidly.

"Why did you never say all this to me long ago? Years have passed since
then, and since then you and I have--have been friends. You have--"

He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
eyes. Her voice got colder. "Thee made me believe--ah, how many times did
we speak together? Six times it was, not more. Thee made me believe that
what I thought or said helped thee to see things better. Thee said I saw
things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman. Thee remembers
that?"

"It was so," he put in hastily.

"No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
that it was. Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me listen
to thee. Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could help
thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
honest?"

"Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?"

"Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving
and a getting. Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little
value save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing
of what was given thee."

"It is not so, it is not so," he urged eagerly, nervously. "I gave, and I
still give."

"In those old days, I did not understand," she went on, "what it was thee
wanted. I know now. It was to know the heart and mind of a woman--of a
woman older than thee. So that thee should have such sort of experience,
though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment. They say thee has a
gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee experiments no more
wisely in the laboratory than with me, thee will not reach distinction."

"Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
and you are now hating and disbelieving me."

"I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing
for one moment there was truth in thee. But no, no, I think I never
believed it. I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed
least."

"You doubt that? You doubt all I said to you?" he urged softly, coming
close to her.

She drew aside slightly. She had steeled herself for this inevitable
interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great
sadness came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was
added, after a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from him,
the safety in which she stood.

"I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that they
seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened. I did
not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any of thy
name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my father
all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in much it
must ever be right."

"And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun even
when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?"

She straightened herself. "Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to forget
to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well on in
years"--he smiled--"and thee has no friendship or kinship for warrant. If
my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was willing to take
thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my father, against the
desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he gauged thee at first
glance."

"You have become a philosopher and a statesman," he said ironically. "Has
your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions in
high politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the Quakers?"

"Thee will leave his name apart," she answered with dignity. "I have
studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did not
speak the truth. And now I will say that I do not respect thee. No matter
how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee will
ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and every
woman for selfish ends. Thee cannot be true-not even to that which by
nature is greatest in thee.".

He withered under her words.

"And what is greatest in me?" he asked abruptly, his coolness and
self-possession striving to hold their own.

"That which will ruin thee in the end." Her eyes looked beyond his into
the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of his
presence. "That which will bring thee down--thy hungry spirit of
discovery. It will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl. But
thee it will lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness."

"Deborah!" he answered, with a rasping laugh. "Continuez! Forewarned is
forearmed."

"No, do not think I shall be glad," she answered, still like one in a
dream. "I shall lament it as I lament--as I lament now. All else fades
away into the end which I see for thee. Thee will live alone without a
near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
friend. Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly man
or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee truly,
or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days."

"Then," he broke in sharply, querulously, "then, I will stand alone. I
shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune,
to men or to the Almighty."

"That I believe. Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be
like water in the end. Oh, my lord," she added, with a sudden change in
her voice and manner, "if thee could only be true--thee who never has
been true to any one!"

"Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?"

A robin hopped upon the path before her. She watched it for a moment
intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through the
wood to her. She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards
evening. She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on
slowly past the mill and towards the Meeting-house. He stepped on beside
her. She kept her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his
presence.

"You shall hear me speak. You shall listen to what I have to say, though
it is for the last time," he urged stubbornly. "You think ill of me. Are
you sure you are not pharisaical?"

"I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying. I do not
forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
came and there was good news from Egypt."

"I said," he rejoined boldly, "that I was happier with you than with any
one else alive. I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
always say it."

The old look of pity came into her face. "I am older than thee by two
years," she answered quaintly, "and I know more of real life, though I
have lived always here. I have made the most of the little I have seen;
thee has made little of the much that thee has seen. Thee does not know
the truth concerning thee. Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have
me believe in thee? If thee was happier with me than with any one alive,
why then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was
speaking to me as no man shall ever speak again? Nothing can explain so
base a fact. No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others, and
will say again without shame. But--but see, I will forgive; yes, I will
follow thee with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David, whom
thee has ever disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do now.
Will thee offer this one proof, in spite of all else that disproves, that
thee spoke any words of truth to me in the Cloistered House, in the
garden by my father's house, by yonder mill, and hard by the
Meeting-house yonder-near to my sister's grave by the willow-tree? Will
thee do that for me?"

He was about to reply, when there appeared in the path before them Luke
Claridge. His back was upon them, but he heard their footsteps and swung
round. As though turned to stone, he waited for them. As they approached,
his lips, dry and pale, essayed to speak, but no sound came. A fire was
in his eyes which boded no good. Amazement, horror, deadly anger, were
all there, but, after a moment, the will behind the tumult commanded it,
the wild light died away, and he stood calm and still awaiting them.
Faith was as pale as when she had met Eglington. As she came nearer, Luke
Claridge said, in a low voice:

"How do I find thee in this company, Faith?" There was reproach
unutterable in his voice, in his face. He seemed humiliated and shamed,
though all the while a violent spirit in him was struggling for the
mastery.

"As I came this way to visit my sister's grave I met my lord by the mill.
He spoke to me, and, as I wished a favour of him, I walked with him
thither--but a little way. I was going to visit my sister's grave."

"Thy sister's grave!" The fire flamed up again, but the masterful will
chilled it down, and he answered: "What secret business can thee have
with any of that name which I have cast out of knowledge or notice?"

Ignorant as he was of the old man's cause for quarrel or dislike,
Eglington felt himself aggrieved, and, therefore, with an advantage.

"You had differences with my father, sir," he said. "I do not know what
they were, but they lasted his lifetime, and all my life you have treated
me with aversion. I am not a pestilence. I have never wronged you. I have
lived your peaceful neighbour under great provocation, for your treatment
would have done me harm if my place were less secure. I think I have
cause for complaint."

"I have never acted in haste concerning thee, or those who went before
thee. What business had thee with him, Faith?" he asked again. His voice
was dry and hard.

Her impulse was to tell the truth, and so for ever have her conscience
clear, for there would never be any more need for secrecy. The wheel of
understanding between Eglington and herself had come full circle, and
there was an end. But to tell the truth would be to wound her father, to
vex him against Eglington even as he had never yet been vexed. Besides,
it was hard, while Eglington was there, to tell what, after all, was the
sole affair of her own life. In one literal sense, Eglington was not
guilty of deceit. Never in so many words had he said to her: "I love
you;" never had he made any promise to her or exacted one; he had done no
more than lure her to feel one thing, and then to call it another thing.
Also there was no direct and vital injury, for she had never loved him;
though how far she had travelled towards that land of light and trial she
could never now declare. These thoughts flashed through her mind as she
stood looking at her father. Her tongue seemed imprisoned, yet her soft
and candid eyes conquered the austerity in the old man's gaze.

Eglington spoke for her.

"Permit me to answer, neighbour," he said. "I wished to speak with your
daughter, because I am to be married soon, and my wife will, at
intervals, come here to live. I wished that she should not be shunned by
you and yours as I have been. She would not understand, as I do not.
Yours is a constant call to war, while all your religion is an appeal for
peace. I wished to ask your daughter to influence you to make it possible
for me and mine to live in friendship among you. My wife will have some
claims upon you. Her mother was an American, of a Quaker family from
Derbyshire. She has done nothing to merit your aversion."

Faith listened astonished and baffled. Nothing of this had he said to
her. Had he meant to say it to her? Had it been in his mind? Or was it
only a swift adaptation to circumstances, an adroit means of working upon
the sympathies of her father, who, she could see, was in a quandary?
Eglington had indeed touched the old man as he had not been touched in
thirty years and more by one of his name. For a moment the insinuating
quality of the appeal submerged the fixed idea in a mind to which the
name of Eglington was anathema.

Eglington saw his advantage. He had felt his way carefully, and he
pursued it quickly. "For the rest, your daughter asked what I was ready
to offer--such help as, in my new official position, I can give to
Claridge Pasha in Egypt. As a neighbour, as Minister in the Government, I
will do what I can to aid him."

Silent and embarrassed, the old man tried to find his way. Presently he
said tentatively: "David Claridge has a title to the esteem of all
civilised people." Eglington was quick with his reply. "If he succeeds,
his title will become a concrete fact. There is no honour the Crown would
not confer for such remarkable service."

The other's face darkened. "I did not speak, I did not think, of handles
to his name. I find no good in them, but only means for deceiving and
deluding the world. Such honours as might make him baronet, or duke,
would add not a cubit to his stature. If he had such a thing by
right"--his voice hardened, his eyes grew angry once again--"I would wish
it sunk into the sea."

"You are hard on us, sir, who did not give ourselves our titles, but took
them with our birth as a matter of course. There was nothing inspiring in
them. We became at once distinguished and respectable by patent."

He laughed good-humouredly. Then suddenly he changed, and his eyes took
on a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David, but
in David's more intense and meaning, and so different. With what deftness
and diplomacy had he worked upon her father! He had crossed a stream
which seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy.

She saw that it was time to go, while yet Eglington's disparagement of
rank and aristocracy was ringing in the old man's ears; though she knew
there was nothing in Eglington's equipment he valued more than his title
and the place it gave him. Grateful, however, for his successful
intervention, Faith now held out her hand.

"I must take my father away, or it will be sunset before we reach the
Meeting-house," she said. "Goodbye-friend," she added gently.

For an instant Luke Claridge stared at her, scarce comprehending that his
movements were being directed by any one save himself. Truth was, Faith
had come to her cross-roads in life. For the first time in her memory she
had seen her father speak to an Eglington without harshness; and, as he
weakened for a moment, she moved to take command of that weakness, though
she meant it to seem like leading. While loving her and David profoundly,
her father had ever been quietly imperious. If she could but gain
ascendency even in a little, it might lead to a more open book of life
for them both.

Eglington held out his hand to the old man. "I have kept you too long,
sir. Good-bye--if you will."

The offered hand was not taken, but Faith slid hers into the old man's
palm, and pressed it, and he said quietly to Eglington:

"Good evening, friend."

"And when I bring my wife, sir?" Eglington added, with a smile.

"When thee brings the lady, there will be occasion to consider--there
will be occasion then."

Eglington raised his hat, and turned back upon the path he and Faith had
travelled.

The old man stood watching him until he was out of view. Then he seemed
more himself. Still holding Faith's hand, he walked with her on the
gorse-covered hill towards the graveyard.

"Was it his heart spoke or his tongue--is there any truth in him?" he
asked at last.

Faith pressed his hand. "If he help Davy, father--"

"If he help Davy; ay, if he help Davy! Nay, I cannot go to the graveyard,
Faith. Take me home," he said with emotion.

His hand remained in hers. She had conquered. She was set upon a new path
of influence. Her hand was upon the door of his heart.

"Thee is good to me, Faith," he said, as they entered the door of the Red
Mansion.

She glanced over towards the Cloistered House. Smoke was coming from the
little chimney of the laboratory.

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