MARADICK TELLS THE FAMILY, HAS BREAKFAST WITH HIS WIFE, AND SAYS GOOD-BYE TO SOME FRIENDS
 
But he did not sleep.
Perhaps it was because his fatigue lay upon him like a heavy burden, so that to close his eyes was as though he allowed a great weight to fall upon him and crush him. His fatigue hung above him like a dark ominous cloud; it seemed indeed so ominous that he was afraid of it. At the moment when sleep seemed to come to him he would pull himself back with a jerk, he was afraid of his dreams.
Towards about four o’clock in the morning he fell into confused slumber. Shapes, people—Tony, Morelli, Mrs. Lester, his wife, Epsom, London—it was all vague, misty, and, in some incoherent way, terrifying. He wanted to wake, he tried to force himself to wake, but his eyes refused to open, they seemed to be glued together. The main impression that he got was of saying farewell to some one, or rather to a great many people. It was as though he were going away to a distant land, somewhere from which he felt that he would never return. But when he approached these figures to say good-bye they would disappear or melt into some one else.
About half-past six he awoke and lay tranquilly watching the light fill the windows and creep slowly, mysteriously, across the floor. His dreams had left him, but in spite of his weariness when he had gone to bed and the poor sleep that he had had he was not tired. He had a sensation of relief, of having completed something and, which was of more importance, of having got rid of it. A definite period in his life seemed to be ended, marked off. He had something of the feeling that Christian had when his pack left him. All the emotions, the struggles, the confusions of the last weeks were over, finished. He didn’t regret them; he welcomed them because of the things that they had taught him, but he did not want them back again. It was almost like coming through an illness.
He knew that it was going to be a difficult day. There were all sorts of explanations, all kinds of “settling up.” But he regarded it all very peacefully. It did not really matter; the questions had all been answered, the difficulties all resolved.
At half-past seven he got up quietly, had his bath and dressed. When he came back into the bedroom he found that his wife was still asleep. He watched her, with her head resting on her hand and her hair lying in a dark cloud on the pillow. As he stood above her a great feeling of tenderness swept over him. That was quite new; he had never thought of her tenderly before. Emmy Maradick wasn’t the sort of person that you did think of tenderly. Probably no one had ever thought of her in that way before.
But now—things had all changed so in these last weeks. There were two Emmy Maradicks. That was his great discovery, just of course as there were two James Maradicks.
He hadn’t any illusion about it. He didn’t in the least expect that the old Emmy Maradick would suddenly disappear and never come out again. That, of course, was absurd, things didn’t happen so quickly. But now that he knew that the other one, the recent mysterious one that he had seen the shadow of ever so faintly, was there, everything would be different. And it would grow, it would grow, just as this new soul of his own was going to grow.
Whilst he looked at her she awoke, looked at him for a moment without realisation, and then gave a little cry: “Oh! Is it late?”
“No, dear, just eight. I’ll be back for breakfast at quarter to nine.”
In her eyes was again that wondering pathetic little question. As an answer he bent down and kissed her tenderly. He had not kissed her like that for hundreds of years. As he bent down to her her hands suddenly closed furiously about him. For a moment she held him, then she let him go. As he left the room his heart was beating tumultuously.
And so he went downstairs to face the music, as he told himself.
He knocked on the Gales’ sitting-room door and some one said “Come in.” He drew a deep breath of relief when he saw that Lady Gale was in there alone.
“Ah! that’s good!”
She was sitting by the window with her head towards him. She seemed to him—it was partly the grey silk dress that she wore and partly her wonderful crown of white hair—unsubstantial, as though she might fade away out of the window at any moment.
He had even a feeling that he ought to clutch at her, hold her, to prevent her from disappearing. Then he saw the dark lines under her eyes and her lack of colour; she was looking terribly tired.
“Ah, I am ashamed; I ought to have told you last night.”
She gave him her hand and smiled.
“No, it’s all right; it’s probably better as it is. I won’t deny that I was anxious, of course, that was natural. But I was hoping that you would come in now, before my husband comes in. I nearly sent a note up to you to ask you to come down.”
Her charming kindness to him moved him strangely. Oh! she was a wonderful person.
“Dear Lady,” he said, “that’s like you. Not to be furious with me, I mean. But of course that’s what I’m here for now, to face things. I expect it and I deserve it; I was left for that.”
“Left?” she said, looking at him. He saw that her hand moved ever so quickly across her lap and then back again.
“Yes. Of course Tony’s gone. He was married yesterday afternoon at two o’clock at the little church out on the hill. The girl’s name is Janet Morelli. She is nineteen. They are now in Paris; but he gave me this letter for you.”
He handed her the letter that Tony had given to him on the way up to the station.
She did not say anything to him, but took the letter quickly and tore it open. She read it twice and then handed it to him and waited for him to read it. It ran:—
Dearest and most wonderful of Mothers,
By the time that you get this I shall be in Paris and Janet will be my wife. Janet Morelli is her name, and you will simply love her when you see her. Do you remember telling me once that whatever happened I was to marry the right person? Well, suddenly I saw her one night like Juliet looking out of a window, and there was never any question again; isn’t it wonderful? But, of course, you know if I had told you the governor would have had to know, and then there would simply have been the dickens of a rumpus and I’d have got kicked out or something, and no one would have been a bit the better and it would have been most awfully difficult for you. And so I kept it dark and told Maradick to. Of course the governor will be sick at first, but as you didn’t know anything about it he can’t say anything to you, and that’s all that matters. Because, of course, Maradick can look after himself, and doesn’t, as a matter of fact, ever mind in the least what anyone says to him. We’ll go to Paris directly afterwards, and then come back and live in Chelsea, I expect. I’m going to write like anything; but in any case, you know, it won’t matter, because I’ve got that four hundred a year and we can manage easily on that. The governor will soon get over it, and I know that he’ll simply love Janet really. Nobody could help it.
And oh! mother dear, I’m so happy. I didn’t know one could be so happy; and that’s what you wanted, didn’t you? And I love you all the more because of it, you and Janet. Send me just a line to the H?tel Lincoln, Rue de Montagne, Paris, to say that you forgive me. Janet sends her love. Please send her yours.
Ever your loving son,
Tony.
PS.—Maradick has been simply ripping. He’s the most splendid man that ever lived. I simply don’t know what we’d have done without him.
There was silence for a minute or two. Then she said softly, “Dear old Tony. Tell me about the girl.”
“She’s splendid. There’s no question at all about her being the right thing. I’ve seen a lot of her, and there’s really no question at all. She’s seen nothing of the world and has lived down here all her life. She’s simply devoted to Tony.”
“And her people?”
“There is only her father. He’s a queer man. She’s well away from him. I don’t think he cares a bit about her, really. They’re a good old family, I believe. Italians originally, of course. The father has a good deal of the foreigner in him, but the girl’s absolutely English.”
There was another pause, and then she looked up and took his hand.
“I can’t thank you enough. You’ve done absolutely the right thing. There was nothing else but to carry it through with a boy of Tony’s temperament. I’m glad, gladder than I can tell you. But of course my husband will take it rather unpleasantly at first. He had ideas about Tony’s marrying, and he would have done anything he could to have prevented its happening like this. But now that it has happened, now that there’s nothing to be done but to accept it, I think it will soon be all right. But perhaps you had better tell him now at once, and get it over. He will be here in a minute.”
At that instant they came in—Sir Richard, Rupert, Alice Du Cane, and Mrs. Lester.
It was obvious at once that Sir Richard was angry. Rupert was amused and a little bored. Alice was excited, and Mrs. Lester tired and white under the eyes.
“What’s this?” said Sir Richard, coming forward. “They tell me that Tony hasn’t been in all night. That he’s gone or something.”
Then he caught sight of Maradick.
“Ha! Maradick—Morning! Do you happen to know where the boy is?”
Maradick thought that he could discern through the old man’s anger a very real anxiety, but it was a difficult moment.
Lady Gale spoke. “Mr. Maradick has just been telling me——” she began.
“Perhaps Alice and I——” said Mrs. Lester, and moved back to the door. Then Maradick took hold of things.
“No, please don’t go. There’s nothing that anyone needn’t know, nothing. I have just been telling Lady Gale, Sir Richard, that your son was married yesterday at two o’clock at the little church outside the town, to a Miss Janet Morelli. They are now in Paris.”
There was silence. No one spoke or moved. The situation hung entirely between Sir Richard and Maradick. Lady Gale’s eyes were all for her husband; the way that he took it would make a difference to the rest of their married lives.
Sir Richard breathed heavily. His face went suddenly very white. Then in a low voice he said—
“Married? Yesterday?” He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, trying to keep down the ungovernable passion that in a moment would overwhelm him. For a moment he swallowed it. Holding himself very straight he looked Maradick in the face.
“And why has my dutiful son left the burden of this message to you?”
“Because I have, from the beginning, been concerned in the affair. I have known about it from the first. I was witness of their marriage yesterday, and I saw them off at the station.”
Sir Richard began to breathe heavily. The colour came back in a flood to his cheeks. His eyes were red. He stepped forward with his fist uplifted, but Rupert put a hand on his arm and his fist fell to his side. He could not speak coherently.
“You—you—you”; and then “You dared? What the devil have you to do with my boy? With us? With our affairs? What the devil is it to do with you? You—you—damn you, sir—my boy—married to anybody, and because a——”
Rupert again put his hand on his father’s arm and his words lingered in mid-air.
Then he turned to his wife.
“You—did you know about this—did you know that this was going on?”
Then Maradick saw how wise she had been in her decision to keep the whole affair away from her. It was a turning-point.
If she had been privy to it, Maradick saw, Sir Richard would never forgive her. It would have remained always as a hopeless, impassable barrier between them. It would have hit at the man’s tenderest, softest place, his conceit. He might forgive her anything but that.
And so it was a tremendous clearing of the air when she raised her eyes to her husband’s and said, without hesitation, “No, Richard. Of course not. I knew nothing until just now when Mr. Maradick told me.”
Sir Richard turned back from her to Maradick.
“And so, sir, you see fit, do you, sir, to interfere in matters in which you have no concern. You come between son and father, do you? You——”
But again he stopped. Maradick said nothing. There was nothing at all to say. It was obvious that the actual affair, Tony’s elopement, had not, as yet, penetrated to Sir Richard’s brain. The only thing that he could grasp at present was that some one—anyone—had dared to step in and meddle with the Gales. Some one had had the dastardly impertinence to think that he was on a level with the Gales, some one had dared to put his plebeian and rude fingers into a Gale pie. Such a thing had never happened before.
Words couldn’t deal with it.
He looked as though in another moment he would have a fit. He was trembling, quivering in every limb. Then, in a voice that could scarcely be heard, he said, “My God, I’ll have the law of you for this.”
He turned round and, without looking at anyone, left the room.
There was silence.
Rupert said “My word!” and whistled. No one else said anything.
And, in this interval of silence, Maradick almost, to his own rather curious surprise, entirely outside the whole affair, was amused rather than bothered by the way they all took it, although “they,” as a matter of strict accuracy, almost immediately resolved itself down to Mrs. Lester. Lady Gale had shown him, long ago, her point of view; Sir Richard and Rupert could have only, with their limited conventions, one possible opinion; Alice Du Cane would probably be glad for Tony’s sake and so be indirectly grateful; but Mrs. Lester! why, it would be, he saw in a flash, the most splendid bolstering up of the way that she was already beginning to look on last night’s affair. He could see her, in a day or two, making his interference with the “Gale pie” on all fours with his own brutal attack on her immaculate virtues. It would be all of a piece in a short time, with the perverted imagination that she would set to play on their own “little” situation. It would be a kind of rose-coloured veil that she might fling over the whole proceeding. “The man who can behave in that kind of way to the Gales is just the kind of man who would, so horribly and brutally, insult a defenceless woman.”
He saw in her eyes already the beginning of the picture. In a few days the painting would be complete. But this was all as a side issue. His business, as far as these people were concerned, was over.
Without looking at anyone, he too left the room.
It had been difficult, but after he had had Lady Gale’s assurance the rest didn’t matter. Of course the old man was bound to take it like that, but he would probably soon see it differently. And at any rate, as far as he, Maradick, was concerned, that—Sir Richard’s attitude to him personally—didn’t matter in the very least.
But all that affair seemed, indeed, now of secondary importance. The first and only vital matter now was his relations with his wife. Everything must turn to that. Her clasp of his hand had touched him infinitely, profoundly. For the first time in their married lives she wanted him. Sir Richard, Mrs. Lester, even Tony, seemed small, insignificant in comparison with that.
But he must tell her everything—he saw that. All about Mrs. Lester, everything—otherwise they would never start clear.
She was just finishing her dressing when he came into her room. She turned quickly from her dressing-table towards him.
“I’m just ready,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” he answered her. “Before we go in to the girls there’s something, several things, that I want to say.”
His great clumsy body moved across the floor, and he sat down hastily in a chair by the dressing-table.
She watched him anxiously with her sharp little eyes. “Yes,” she said, “only hurry up. I’m hungry.”
“Well, there are two things really,” he answered slowly. “Things you’ve got to know.”
She noticed one point, that he didn’t apologise in advance as he would have done three weeks ago. There were no apologies now, only a stolid determination to get through with it.
“First, it’s about young Tony Gale. I’ve just been telling his family. He married a girl yesterday and ran off to Paris with her. You can bet the family are pleased.”
Mrs. Maradick was excited. “Not really! Really eloped? That Gale boy! How splendid! A real elopement! Of course one could see that something was up. His being out so much, and so on; I knew. But just fancy! Really doing it! Won’t old Sir Richard——!”
Her eyes were sparkling. The romance of it had obviously touched her, it was very nearly as though one had eloped oneself, knowing the boy and everything!
Then he added, “I had to tell them. You see, I’ve known about it all the time, been in it, so to speak. Helped them to arrange it and so on, and Sir Richard had a word or two to say to me just now about it.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing all this time. That’s your secret!” She was just as pleased as she could be. “That’s what’s changed you. Of course! One might have gue............