HOW CHALLIS AND JUDITH MET AGAIN AT TROUT BEND, AND TALKED IT OVER. HOW SHE CRIED OFF, FEELING SECURE. AND OF THE ARRANGEMENT THEY MADE. OF A CENTENARIAN WHO GOT HALF-A-SOVEREIGN

It was early morning at Trout Bend, and the man who sat on the moss-grown beechen root this story told of—more than a year ago now—was turning over in his heart all that had come about in that short time, and trying to say to himself point-blank that it was no fault of his own. He succeeded in saying it—said it aloud in words, that there should be no doubt at all about it. He said it twice, in fact, and seemed in the end dissatisfied.

Every little incident of the day's life seemed to throw doubt on the point. The discordant jay that shrieked in the thicket as good as cried out "Liar!" and fluttered away disgusted. The squirrel that paused half-way up the beech-trunk had an air of shocked reproach in his very large and startled eye, and when he moved again seemed to want to get out of the way as soon as possible, and to mix with sincere Society again. The fish that leaped in the pool had come to the surface this time, clearly, to say to Challis: "We have met before, and my life has not changed. Yours has, and you have only yourself to thank for it! Why need you leave your native waters uncompelled?"

Challis denied the suggestion his own mind had made. He had had to share in what followed; his exodus from those waters had been compulsory. Or, rather, was it not true that the waters had drained away from him, and left him to find another pool downstream, or die unnourished on the dry sands? But it was a metaphor that rang false, and he dismissed it impatiently; the more so that some mental distortion, akin to the one he invented the strange name for, must needs intrude an unwarranted image of an angler with rod and line, and rouse him to an indignant denial of that angler's identity. Whose fault soever it was, it was none of Judith's.

And as he thought this, there she was herself, crossing the little plank bridge where the convict dropped the ring, and found it again so many years too late. He was on his feet in a moment, and on his way to meet her. He had a double-barrelled kiss ready on his lips, supposing the coast clear at the moment of their meeting. Saladin, who was present, was in confidence, and didn't count. Botheration take that old woman gathering sticks!—did she matter?

Judith thought so, evidently, and payment had to wait. "Company!" said she. She was looking as beautiful as ever—more so! "She's a hundred and two, I believe," she added. "But one has to lay down a rule in these matters, and stick to it." She was referring to the old woman, who most likely neither saw nor heard, or if she did, only harked back to eighty years ago, and thought, "Why not?"

All Challis's cloud of doubt and self-reproach vanished as her consolatory hand lay in his arm. Something of her masterful nature was in the touch of it, communicable through nerve-currents. It reassured him, and he could respond to its pressure, old woman or no!

It was an arranged meeting: much taken for granted. Conversation to go on presently where our last meeting left it. Meanwhile, short recognitions of current event.

"When did you come?"

"The day before yesterday."

"The voice of gossip cannot say you followed me down here. Not that it would matter!"

"I fancy we are pretty transparent." Challis dismissed the matter as a slight interest only. "Are we peaceful at the Hall?"

"Oh—well! One short row—a very small one! It's rather unfortunate that some people who were expected have cried off. And another gang had just gone. So my dear parents ... to whom I am really devoted; and they are so good and upright and that sort of thing ... what was I saying about them?—oh yes!—my dear parents and I were alone. It was unlucky." Challis threw up his eyebrows very slightly, and made a barely audible note of interrogation through closed lips. She replied to it: "Yes—the usual sort of thing." And they walked on slowly arm in arm, not speaking.

Presently the lady resumed, seeming always the more talkative of the two: "Compulsory truce this evening, I suppose. Most likely Sibyl and Frank, who, I understand, is ridiculous about Sib. Besides, Mr. What's-his-name is coming ... what is his name?"...

"Tell me who he is, and I'll see if I know."

"Oh dear!—man that talks metaphysics...." "Brownrigg?"

"Of course! Brownrigg. Well!—he's coming this afternoon, so we've only time for a very short allowance of Family Life. I suspect Brownrigg of having an Attraction down here, but I can't for the life of me find out who it is!"

"Attractions are feminine?"

"Always."

"Otherwise I should have thought it might be the Rector."

"The Reverend Athelstan—dear good man! Oh no—it's a lady! It always is. But did the Reverend speak of Broadribb—Brownrigg?"

"I've got an impression that he has been at the Rectory more than once—considerably more. Couldn't exactly say why?"

"There's nothing feminine there—at the Rectory."

Challis was beginning, "Oh yes!—there's ..." when Judith's outburst of laughter cut him short.

"Dear Aunt Bessy! She's forty.... Oh yes, I know she's worthy!" She laughed more than need was; then recovered her gravity, and said, as though she feared her laughter might have grated on her companion: "Not to laugh at the good lady?—is that it? Very well." Judith's mockery for once seemed just short of charming to her lover, to whom it was usually one of her happiest contrasts to Marianne's unsympathetic reverence for so many things her husband's derision classed as beadledom. This time he would have preferred that the time-honoured practice of making game of old maidenhood should have been touched with a lighter hand. There was suggestion of a consciousness of this in Judith's next words: "It was your fault, you know, Titus, for hinting at Brownrigg. It was quite too funny."

Her fascination reasserted itself; indeed, its wavering had been of the slightest, and had not lasted long enough for acknowledgment. "I admit it was a laughable notion," said Challis. "However, I don't think an enchantress is necessary in this case. Athelstan Taylor would account for anything, and you know he is liberality itself towards all new ideas. He told me yesterday he thought Graubosch a most interesting personality."

"Did you—you say you had come yesterday?"

"No—the night before."

"You and the great Yorick—isn't that what his friend Miss Foster calls him?—haven't been talking of Graubosch all that time?"

"Fossett. Oh dear no! We have been talking chiefly of...." A pause. "... Well!—of our affairs." "Meaning yours and mine. Eh bien!—and what says Sir Oracle?... No, no!—no irreverence, indeed!... oh no!—you said nothing. But you have such a mobile countenance." A shade of protest had been detectable, presumably, in Challis's face, and he had disclaimed it.

"Meaning your affairs and mine," said he, with only a pooh-pooh smile for the sub-colloquy. "Sir Oracle is in opposition."

"I knew he would be—dear good man! You'll tell me I'm sneering, I know—but I'm not—if I say...."

"What?"

"That his is such a beautiful unworldly character. I can tell you exactly what he said to you."

"Then, dearest, I needn't tell you. Fire away!"

"He said we must on no account take an irrevocable step in a hurry; and must trust to Providence to keep His eye on the Lords when the division comes, and make sure of a majority against the Bill."

"He said something not very unlike it. A good shot! But he never suggested that Providence was disposed to consider our interests. I must admit that I don't see why Providence should. My own attitude has hardly been conciliatory." Challis then went on to give a fairer version of what the Rector had said. As he spoke, a touch of scorn came on the beautiful face beside him, and grew and grew. And he fancied the pressure of the hand on his sleeve lightened.

"A thorough business man's view!" said Judith, when he stopped. "Scarcely so unworldly on the whole as our good Yorick generally is! I don't know, though, whether I ought to say that. Beautiful unworldly characters manage their affairs unselfishly only because...."

"Because they think Providence will act as their agent? Is that what you were going to say?"

"Well!—they always boast that it pays best in the long run. Anyhow, this clearly was the business view. To the business mind, with its faith in Law and Order and Representative Government and things, nothing can be clearer. You and Marianne have cried off a compact Law and Order condemned, while you still had a right to do so. Is it creditable that the New Act will tie you together again, willy-nilly?"

"Dearest!—try to see my difficulty. Don't think me cowardly or politic; only believe that it is a difficulty to me, and a serious one. Suppose us wedded—to-morrow—before the passing of the Act, anyhow! Suppose that when it comes it legitimates retrospectively every marriage that was not acknowledged void by both parties while it was still an unlawful one!"

Judith withdrew her hand and looked away. "Have you not acknowledged the illegitimacy of yours?" she said coldly.

"In a sense I have." Challis was evidently flinching under his consciousness of his position.

"I do not like 'in a sense,' Titus. Is Marianne your wife or not?"

"Listen to me, dearest!" He would have replaced her hand in his arm, but she withstood his doing so, partly qualifying her resistance by a pretence of finding Saladin's whistle. He continued pleadingly: "Think what it would be for me if at some future time my two little girls were to suffer from a reproach their brother does not share, and charge me with giving my boy a better hold on the world than they could lay claim to...."

"It was their reproach from the beginning...."

"Yes—yes! But suppose this Act would, but for me, have conferred legitimacy retrospectively...."

"How 'but for you'?"

"Why—clearly! It might include in its retrospective action only such marriages as were held valid by one or other party at the date of the passing of the Bill. Mumps and Chobbles might be legitimate or no, according to my attitude towards their mother about our separation. It seems to me that my having refused to acknowledge it might make all the difference...." Challis paused awkwardly. For he had suddenly become aware that he was adducing reasons in plenty why he should not marry Judith at all. He had not meant his argument to go that length. He was only showing one form the Nemesis of Repentance might take in the event of the immediate passing of the Act. He was losing sight of the fact that if the Bill was thrown out, all his reasonings would apply just as much to a more leisurely union during the twelvemonth of respite.

The fact is he wanted to eat his cake and have it too—to get the advantage of the Act for his children and to avoid the guillotine himself. If he and Judith were not married in time, either their project would be made impossible, or at best the problem of justice or injustice to the children would stand over sine die, with all its present difficulties unsolved. If, on the other hand, they got married, the Act could only benefit his children by affirming his marriage with their mother a lawful one, and declaring Judith the second wife of a bigamist. Unless, indeed, a dexterous special clause in it gave his rupture with Marianne the validity of a divorce. Not a very likely provision of legal ingenuity!

How little idea the old lady gathering sticks must have had of what the gentleman was talking—talking—talking about to the lady, whose undisturbed beauty seemed to make no response, or barely a word now and then! Her centenarian mind probably thought it was only the usual thing—the use of eighty odd years agone, when she first knew of it; and so till now, except folk were changed since then.

But the gentleman would have done well to say less. None of his earnestness, none of his perturbation—none of his Law, none of his Logic—made matters a bit better. In one way they made it worse. A sense of a painful contingency crept in that had hardly had sufficient consideration. How if in the labyrinth of possibilities that sheer Legalism can construct over the grave of Fair Play there was really hidden a possible indictment for bigamy? If Challis married Judith, his first wife being still alive, with the reservation that the latter wasn't his wife at all, how then? Could he even obtain a Special Licence at Doctors' Commons? He would have to declare that no legal impediment existed, and to satisfy the Archbishop of Canterbury that his reasons for wanting it were sound. Perhaps his Grace would be crusty, and refuse it, to spite him for marrying his Deceased Wife's Sister. However, the idea of a piqued Prelate hitting below the belt in this way relieved a growing tension, and brought a smile into the matter.

Challis was glad to shift away from a perplexity. After a pause of silence he said: "Do you remember how we walked here—more than a year ago—and you told me you had given up the idea of Estrild?"

Judith replaced the hand she had taken away. "Oh, so well!" said she. "I was so sorry. But it seems to me that if my dearly-beloved family are going to quarrel with me about my marriage, I deserve to play Estrild as a set-off. I shall think about it."

They came to the coppice-wood, and the half-shade of its light and shadow-chequered path was grateful; for the sun was mounting, and his heat beginning to tell. Saladin brushed roughly past them, to see—at a guess—that all the tree-stems were in order. Judith leaned a little more on the arm she held.

"Do you remember," said she, "how I called you Scroop, and how funny it made you look? Oh dear, how strange it does all seem!"

"I remember. And how I couldn't well call you Judith back. Would you have been offended?" "Should I ever have been offended at anything you did, dear love?" Her hand was pressed between his arm and the other hand, that had come across to caress it.

The two of them had the little secluded path well to themselves; certainly Saladin didn't count. Now was the time for those kisses that had waited, and others, if need were. Challis, as he took Judith Arkroyd to his heart, felt his own past grow insignificant and dim. This was Life!

A phantasmagoric presentment of Great Coram Street and Wimbledon ran rapidly across the background of his mind. It was wonderful how many images he could feel the dimness of at once. Even so, the man who fell off the Monument marvelled at the incredible grasp of his powers of recollection, stung to a paroxysm of self-assertion. Why need so many things appeal to be forgotten; each one a bygone to itself; a faint spark, surely, but craving a separate extinction? He could feel—oh yes!—he could feel—that the nourishments of his life in those days were the merest refreshments. This was a banquet! He had attained to a satiety of Love. But why need those all-but-forgotten satisfactions of an unpretentious past thrust in their claims for recollection, each with its ill-timed reproach—"You did not despise us then!"?

There was no need for him to forget Kate. She was little more now than a bad misadventure of his early life. But there was many a little memory of Marianne in the earlier days that he would have to oust from the future unless his every hour was to be cross-textured with a weft of self-reproach. One little paltry thing went near to madden him with its importunity. Could he never touch the damask cheek of his enchantress of to-day without an intrusion into his mind of—Marianne's mole? Too ridiculous!—many will say. But there it was—the mole—back in this man's inner vision, to plague him with a reminder of that long-ago when he rallied its proprietor—Marianne was eighteen then—on its possession, but congratulated himself at the same time that it was not in the best place.

The story knows Challis too well to attempt to make the oddities of his mind plausible; it can only vouch for them. About minds it cannot vouch for, only speculation is open to it. It makes no pretence to know the inner heart of the beautiful woman whom he conceives to be so entirely his own. Whether what followed was, on her part, schemed to make all wavering on his impossible, and to bind that skein of his life fast in hers, or whether it was really what it seemed, she alone could tell. The story has no blame for her, mind, if it was the former! She was within her rights—every woman's rights.

"Oh, Scroop—dear Titus—dear love! Let's have done with it and forget it all—all! It can never be, and we both know it." He had released her waist at some sound of footsteps approaching them as they stood in the pathway, but had kept her hands in his. Whoever it was was not in sight yet.

"'Odsbodikins, dearest, why—why—why? Why this of a sudden, out of the blue?"

"No—dearest—no!—it is truth. I am in earnest, indeed. It cannot be!" He would have taken her in his arms again, but her outstretched hand on his breast repelled him. "It must come to an end, and we know it.... No—do not!..."

"Then tell me, darling, quietly; why not—why now!"

"Listen, Scroop! I see it all so clearly. Yorick is right—good, clear-sighted man! If we get married in a mad hurry, under pressure, just to avoid this legislative Bill business...."

"Cutting the ground from under our feet? Yes!"

"We may, as he says, live to repent it. After all, we are human!" The footsteps drew nearer—became a passing boy—caused a pause, and died away, leaving Judith to continue: "Suppose that all goes ill, and our fruits turn out Dead Sea apples, and so on! Suppose that you are disappointed in me!..."

"Never!"

"Foolish man, how can you tell?... However, this you can see: that if we fell out, you and I, anyhow, it would be a bitter thought to you that you had sacrificed your girls for my sake, as you would have done! You said so yourself, and I see it."

"The blame would not be mine." Challis got it said, but only just. He knew at least that he was dishonest in shirking his share of the blame. He went on to excuse, and, of course, accuse, himself. "What right had Marianne to imagine infidelities for me?... Yes!—I grant you 'infidelity' is a long word. But see what I mean, and think of it Marianne had not a particle of evidence that ... that you were to me ... anything that any other lady is not. She was just as wrong in building false constructions on no grounds at all...."

"On no grounds at all? Be fair to Marianne!"

"Well—on very little!... She was just as unjust in using what she did know to condemn me as if the things she did not know had never happened. The accident of the postscript might have happened a thousand times with any stranger. As to anything else that had passed between you and me, Marianne chose to take action without a particle of proof, and she is to blame for the consequence. Yes, Judith; if Marianne hadn't acted as she did, I should have locked you out of my heart, and gone my way in silence."

"Would you?" asked Judith. It might have been reproach; but, then, it might have been mere questioning of his words. Challis gave himself the benefit of the doubt, and let Judith go on. "And if you had, do you think Marianne wouldn't have found you out? Oh, Scroop, Scroop, do you think women have no eyes?" She had a half-laugh for what she ended with: "You and your proofs and particles of evidence!"

He gave up the point. "Then let us whitewash Marianne," said he, "and make it all my fault. How much nearer are we—how much nearer to plain sailing? It seems to me I have to choose between a chance—only a chance, mind you!—of a legal sanction for the babies ... and, really, dearest, it's not a thing I have ever fretted much about...."

"But you ought to have. What's the other choice?"

"... Between a chance of legitimacy for them and a certainty of not losing you. Can you wonder that I, thinking as I do of these legalities, should choose the last?"

"Listen, Scroop, and don't puzzle me with any more arguments. You make my head spin. I can only see the thing as I believe any woman would see it. This Parliamentary business may cut us asunder for ever; because you know if the Bill passes you won't be able to divorce Marianne. If I am to give you up, I want to do it here and now—to get it done and part at once, for good...."

"I cannot give you up...."

"And we cannot linger on through a life of miserable uncertainty. Fancy it!—next year the whole question over again—the same doubts—the same arguments! No—let us part and have done with it!"

"You do not mean what you say."

"Perhaps not. Perhaps I am only flinching like a coward from a life that might be unendurable. I would rather have my tooth out altogether than have it ache for a twelvemonth. So what can I say now? I am ready, if it can be arranged—that I don't know about...."

He interrupted her. "And I am ready—more than ready!" And this time she did not repel him as he took her in his arms.

"But mind, dearest," said she, "if it were a certainty about the little girls, I should still say we ought to hesitate. But...."

"But it isn't certainty—even if the Bill passes ever so!" He sealed the compact on her lips—on her cheeks. It was a fait accompli.

But nothing could keep all those memories of the past quite, quite in the background. They were all in evidence—dim evidence; yes!—even that confounded mole on Marianne's cheek.

The day had become quite hot when the centenarian faggot-binder saw the lady and the great dog say adieu to the gentleman in the light summer suit, and noted with some satisfaction that the adieu was a loving one. The gentleman seemed to watch the vanishing sunshade, in such request against the heat, across the little bridge and out of sight, to the last; then lit a cigar, and, passing near her, said "Good-morning," and unprovokedly gave her what she thought a welcome sixpence. That old lady and her great-great-grandchild called at the Hall next day to say the gentleman had given her half-a-sovereign by mistake, and, inquiry connecting the gentleman with Miss Arkroyd, procured the opinion of the latter that of course the gentleman meant old Mrs. Inderwick to have it. Who thereupon consigned it to a Georgian purse, and departed with benedictions.

But before Challis and Judith parted they had planned their campaign. And it only just came short of a prompt marriage by special licence. Concession was made on two points; one was regarded as almost out of court—namely, the chance that such a union could be regarded as bigamous. For was it conceivable that a law that quashed his paternity of his own children could indict him for his marriage with their mother? It seemed grotesque; but was worth a word, in view of the pranks of Themis.

The other point was this: So great a certainty might exist among political informants that the Bill would be thrown out in the Lords as to make the proposed step a ridiculously strained precaution, and needless under the circumstances. Unanimity of one or two strong Parliamentary authorities would be practical certainty, if they held to their opinions up to the brink of the division. If the political sky changed, causing them to waver, prompt action might be necessary.

In any case Challis was to procure a special licence, to be used or otherwise, at discretion, the date chosen being as late as he should think safe under the circumstances. Several minor difficulties had to be disposed of, but the only point necessary to the story is that Judith was to hold herself in readiness to become a bride at a short notice, and that Challis was to be answerable for time and place and the making of all the necessary arrangements. Trousseaux, travelling gear, and the like, did not need consideration at present. For, in fact, both parties distinctly understood this marriage to be a mere precautionary measure, legally irrevocable, but otherwise nil. The bride would return to her paternal hearth, and might even make no allusion to the little event of the morning. The birds would not nest, but their names would be entered as man and wife on some parish register.

Challis said nothing to Athelstan Taylor of this scheme. He did not wish to put his friend to the necessity of either concealing it and assenting to it, or declaring it and fighting it. It seemed to him that the Rector would be compelled to an attitude of protest by his position, and that the most prudent as well as the fairest course for himself would be to hold his tongue.

So he finished his visit at the Rectory, and said farewell.