The Roll-Call - Arnold Bennett (top ten books to read TXT) 📗

all," George continued, "he couldn't have been so desperately keen on--your stepmother. When he married her your mother hadn't been dead so very long, had she?"

"No. But he never cared for mother anything like so much as he cared for Mrs. Lobley--at least not as far back as I can remember. It was a different sort of thing altogether. I think he was perfectly mad about Mrs. Lobley. Oh! He stood mother's death much--much better than hers! You've no idea--"

"Oh yes, I have. We know all about that sort of thing," said George the man of the world impatiently.

Marguerite said tenderly:

"It's broken him."

"Nonsense!"

"It has, George." Her voice was very soft.

But George would not listen to the softness of her voice.

"Well," he objected firmly and strongly, "supposing it has! What then? We're sorry for him. What then? That affair has nothing to do with our affair. Is all that reason why I shouldn't see you in your own home? Or are we to depend on Agg--when she happens to be at her studio? Or are we always to see each other in the street, or in museums and things--or steamers--just as if you were a shop-girl? We may just as well look facts in the face, you know."

She flushed. Her features changed under emotion.

"Oh! George! I don't know what to do."

"Then you think he's determined not to have anything to do with me?"

She was silent.

"You think he's determined not to have anything to do with me, I say?"

"He may change," Marguerite murmured.

"'May change' be dashed! We've got to know where we stand."

He most surprisingly stood up, staring at her. She did not speak, but she lifted her eyes to his with timid courage. They were wet. George abruptly walked away along the deck. The steamer was passing the custom-house again. The tide had now almost slacked. Fresh and heavier clouds had overcast the sky. All the varied thoughts of the afternoon were active in George's head at once: architecture, architects, beauty, professional injustices, girls--his girl. Each affected the others, for they were deeply entangled. It is a fact that he could not put Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren out of his head; he wondered what had been their experiences with women, histories and textbooks of architecture did not treat of this surely important aspect of architecture! He glanced at Marguerite from the distance. He remembered what Agg had said to him about her; but what Agg had said did not appear to help him practically.... Why had he left Marguerite? Why was he standing thirty feet from her and observing her inimically? He walked back to her, sat down, and said calmly:

"Listen to me, darling. Suppose we arrange now, definitely, to get married in two years' time. How will that do for you?"

"But, George, can you be sure that you'll be able to marry in two years?"

He put his chin forward.

"You needn't worry about that," said he. "You needn't think because I've failed in an exam. I don't know what I'm about. You leave all that to me. In two years I shall be able enough to keep a wife--_and_ well! Now, shall we arrange to get married in two years' time?"

"It might be a fearful drag for you," she said. "Because, you know, I don't really earn very much."

"That's not the point. I don't care what you earn. I shan't want you to earn anything--so far as that goes. Any earning that's wanted I shall be prepared to do. I'll put it like this: Supposing I'm in a position to keep you, shall we arrange to get married in two years' time?" He found a fierce pleasure in reiterating the phrase. "So long as that's understood, I don't mind the rest. If we have to depend on Agg, or meet in the streets--never mind. It'll be an infernal nuisance, but I expect I can stand it as well as you can. Moreover, I quite see your difficulty--quite. And let's hope the old gentleman will begin to have a little sense."

"Oh, George! If he only would!"

He did not like her habit of "Oh, George! Oh! George!"

"Well?" He waited, ignoring her pious aspiration.

"I don't know what to say, George."

He restrained himself.

"We're engaged, aren't we?" She gave no answer, and he repeated: "We're engaged, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"That's all right. Well, will you give me your absolute promise to marry me in two years' time--if I'm in a position to keep you? It's quite simple. You say you don't know what to say. But you've got to know what to say." As he looked at her averted face, his calmness began to leave him.

"Oh, George! I can't promise that!" she burst out, showing at length her emotion. The observant skipper on the bridge noted that there were a boy and a girl forward having a bit of a tiff.

George trembled. All that Agg had said recurred to him once more. But what could he do to act on it? Anger was gaining, on him.

"Why not?" he menaced.

"It would have to depend on how father was. Surely you must see that!"

"Indeed I don't see it. I see quite the contrary. We're engaged. You've got the first call on me, and I've got the first call on you--not your father." The skin over his nose was tight, owing to the sudden swelling of two points, one on either side of the bone.

"George, I couldn't leave him--again. I think now I may have been wrong to leave him before. However, that's over. I couldn't leave him again. It would be very wrong. He'd be all alone."

"Well, then, let him be friends with me."

"I do wish he would."

"Yes. Well, wishing won't do much good. If there's any trouble it's entirely your father's fault. And what I want to know is--will you give me your absolute promise to marry me in two years' time?"

"I can't, George. It wouldn't be honest. I can't! I can't! How can you ask me to throw over my duty to father?"

He rose and walked away again. She was profoundly moved, but no sympathy for her mitigated his resentment. He considered that her attitude was utterly monstrous--monstrous! He could not find a word adequate for it. He was furious; his fury increased with each moment. He returned to the prow, but did not sit down.

"Don't you think, then, you ought to choose between your father and me?" he said in a low, hard voice, standing over her.

"What do you mean?" she faltered.

"What do I mean? It's plain enough what I mean, isn't it? Your father may live twenty years yet. Nobody knows. The older he gets the more obstinate he'll be. We may be kept hanging about for years and years and years. Indefinitely. What's the sense of it? You say you've got your duty, but what's the object of being engaged?"

"Do you want to break it off, George?"

"Now don't put it like that. You know I don't want to break it off. You know I want to marry you. Only you won't, and I'm not going to be made a fool of. I'm absolutely innocent."

"Of course you are!" she agreed eagerly.

"Well, I'm not going to be made a fool of by your father. If we're engaged, you know what it means. Marriage. If it doesn't mean that, then I say we've no right to be engaged."

Marguerite seemed to recoil at the last words, but she recovered herself. And then, heedless of being in a public place, she drew off her glove, and drew the engagement ring from her finger, and held it out to George. She could not speak. The gesture was her language. George was extremely staggered. He was stupefied for an instant. Then he took the ring, and under an uncontrollable savage impulse he threw it into the river. He did not move for a considerable time, staring at the river in front. Neither did she move. At length he said in a cold voice, without moving his head:

"Here's Chelsea Pier."

She got up and walked to the rail amidships. He followed. The steamer moored. A section of rail slid aside. The pier-keeper gave a hand to Marguerite, who jumped on to the pier. George hesitated. The pier-keeper challenged him testily:

"Now then, are ye coming ashore or aren't ye?"

George could not move. The pier-keeper banged the rail to close the gap, and cast off the ropes, and the steamer resumed her voyage.

A minute later George saw Marguerite slowly crossing the gangway from the pier to the embankment. There she went! She was about to be swallowed up in the waste of human dwellings, in the measureless and tragic expanse of the indifferent town.... She was gone. Curse her, with her reliability! She was too reliable. He knew that. Her father could rely on her. Curse her, with her outrageous, incredibly cruel, and unjust sense of duty! She had held him once. Once the sight of her had made him turn hot and cold. Once the prospect of life without her had seemed unbearable. He had loved her instinctively and intensely. He now judged and condemned her. Her beauty, her sweetness, her belief in him, her reliability--these qualities were neutralized by her sense of duty, awful, uncompromising, blind to fundamental justice. The affair was over. If he knew her, he knew also himself. The affair was over. He was in despair. His mind went round and round like a life-prisoner exercising in an enclosed yard. No escape! Till then, he had always believed in his luck. Infantile delusion! He was now aware that destiny had struck him a blow once for all. But of course he did not perceive that he was too young, not ripe, for such a blow. The mark of destiny was on his features, and it was out of place there.... He had lost Marguerite. And what had he lost? What was there in her? She was not brilliant; she had no position; she had neither learning nor wit. He could remember nothing remarkable that they had ever said to each other. Indeed, their conversations had generally been rather banal. But he could remember how they had felt, how he had felt, in their hours together.... The sensation communicated to him by her hand when he had drawn off her glove in the tremendous silence of the hansom! Marvellous, exquisite, magical sensation that no words of his could render! And there had been others as rare. These scenes were love; they were Marguerite; they were what he had lost.... Strange, that he should throw the ring into the river! Nevertheless it was a right gesture. She deserved it. She was absolutely wrong; he was absolutely right--she had admitted it. Towards him she had no excuse. Logically her attitude was absurd. Yet no argument would change it. Stupid--that was what she was! Stupid! And ruthless! She would be capable of martyrizing the whole world to her sense of duty, her damnable, insane sense of duty.... She was gone. He was ruined; she had ruined him. But he respected her. He hated to respect her, but he respected her.

A thought leapt up in his mind--and who could have guessed it? It was the thought that the secrecy of the engagement would save him from a great deal of public humiliation. He would have loathed saying: "We've broken it off."


CHAPTER VIII