CHAPTER IX: WHAT FOLLOWED

i

The Minerva slowly and gently rocked with the motion of the current. The stars grew brighter. The sounds diminished. Upon the face of the river lights continued to twinkle, catching and mottling the wavelets. The cold air played with the water, and flickered upon the Minerva’s deck; strong enough only to appear mischievous, too soft and wayward to make its presence known to those within. And in the Minerva’s cabin, set as it were in that softly rayed room of old gold and golden brown, Jenny was clinging to Keith, snatching once again at precarious happiness. Far off, in her aspirations, love was desired as synonymous with peace and contentment; but in her heart Jenny had no such pretence. She knew that it was otherwise. She knew that passive domestic enjoyment would not bring her nature peace, and that such was not the love she needed. Keith alone could give her true love. And she was in Keith’s arms, puzzled and lethargic with something that was only not despair because she could not fathom her own feelings.

“Keith,” she said, presently. “I’m sorry to be a fool.”

“You’re not a fool, old dear,” he assured her. “But I’m a beast.”

“Yes, I think you are,” Jenny acknowledged. There was a long pause. She tried to wipe her eyes, and at last permitted Keith to do that for her, flinching at contact with the handkerchief, but aware all the time of some secret joy. When she could speak more calmly, she went on: “Suppose we don’t talk any more about being...what we are...and forgiving, and all that. We don’t mean it. We only say it...”

“Well, I mean it—about being a beast,” Keith said humbly. “That’s because I made you cry.”

“Well,” said Jenny, agreeingly, “you can be a beast—I mean, think you are one. And if I’m miserable I shall think I’ve been a fool. But we’ll cut out about forgiving. Because I shall never really forgive you. I couldn’t. It’ll always be there, till I’m an old woman—”

“Only till you’re happy, dear,” Keith told her. “That’s all that means.”

“I can’t think like that. I feel it’s in my bones. But you’re going away. Where are you going? D’you know? Is it far?”

“We’re going back to the South. Otherwise it’s too cold for yachting. And Templecombe wants to keep out of England at the moment. He’s safe on the yacht. He can’t be got at. There’s some wretched predatory woman of title pursuing him....”

“Here ... here!” cried Jenny. “I can’t understand if you talk pidgin-English, Keith.”

“Well ... you know what ravenous means? Hungry. And a woman of title—you know what a lord is.... Well, and she’s chasing about, dropping little scented notes at every street corner for him.”

“Oh they are awful!” cried Jenny. “Countesses! Always in the divorce court, or something. Somebody ought to stop them. They don’t have countesses in America, do they? Why don’t we have a republic, and get rid of them all? If they’d got the floor to scrub they wouldn’t have time to do anything wrong.”

“True,” said Keith. “True. D’you like scrubbing floors?”

“No. But I do it. And keep my hands nice, too.” The hands were inspected and approved.

“But then you’re more free than most people,” Keith presently remarked, in a tone of envy.

“Free!” exclaimed Jenny. “Me! In the millinery! When I’ve got to be there every morning at nine sharp or get the sack, and often, busy times, stick at it till eight or later, for a few bob a week. And never have any time to myself except when I’m tired out! Who gets the fun? Why, it’s all work, for people like me; all work for somebody else. What d’you call being free? Aren’t they free?”

“Not one. They’re all tied up. Templecombe’s hawk couldn’t come on this yacht without a troop of friends. They can’t go anywhere they like unless it’s ‘the thing’ to be done. They do everything because it’s the right thing—because if they do something else people will think it’s odd—think they’re odd. And they can’t stand that!”

“Well, but Keith! Who is it that’s free?”

“Nobody,” he said.

“I thought perhaps it was only poor people ... just because they were poor.”

“Well, Jenny.... That’s so. But when people needn’t do what they’re told they invent a system that turns them into slaves. They have a religion, or they run like the Gadarine swine into a fine old lather and pretend that everybody’s got to do the same for some reason or other. They call it the herd instinct, and all sorts of names. But there’s nobody who’s really free. Most of them don’t want to be. If they were free they wouldn’t know what to do. If their chains were off they’d fall down and die. They wouldn’t be happy if there wasn’t a system grinding them as much like each other as it can.”

“But why not? What’s the good of being alive at all if you’ve got to do everything whether you want to do it or not? It’s not sense!”

“It’s fact, though. From the king to the miner—all a part of a big complicated machine that’s grinding us slowly to bits, making us all more and more wretched.”

“But who makes it like that, Keith?” cried Jenny. “Who says it’s to be so?”

Keith laughed grimly.

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” he urged. “No good talking about it. The only thing to do is to fight it—get out of the machine ...”

“But there’s nowhere to go, is there?” asked Jenny. “I was thinking about it this evening. ‘They’ve’ got every bit of the earth. Wherever you go ‘they’re’ there ... with laws and police and things all ready for you. You’ve got to give in.”

“I’m not going to,” said Keith. “I’ll tell you that, Jenny.”

“But Keith! Who is it that makes it so? There must be somebody to start it. Is it God?”

Keith laughed again, still more drily and grimly.

ii

Jenny was not yet satisfied. She still continued to revolve the matter in her mind.

“You said nobody was free, Keith. But then you said you were free—when you got married.”

“Till I got married. Then I wasn’t. I fell into the machine and got badly chawed then.”

“Don’t you want to get married?” Jenny asked. “Ever again?”

“Not that way.” Keith’s jaw was set. “I’ve been there; and to me that’s what hell is.”

How Jenny wished she could understand! She did not want to get married herself—that way. But she wanted to serve. She wanted Keith to be her husband; she wanted to make him happy, and to make his home comfortable. She felt that to work for the man she loved was the way to be truly happy. Did he not think that he could be happy in working for her? She couldn’t understand. It was all so hard that she sometimes felt that her brain was clamped with iron bolts and chains.

“What way d’you want to get married?” Jenny asked.

“I want to marry you. Any old way. And I want to take you to the other end of the world—where there aren’t any laws and neighbours and rates and duties and politicians and imitations of life.... And I want to set you down on virgin soil and make a real life for you. In Labrador or Alaska ...” He glowed with enthusiasm. Jenny glowed too, infected by his enthusiasm.

“Sounds fine!” she said. Keith exclaimed eagerly. He was alive with joy at her welcome.

“Would you come?” he cried. “Really?”

“To the end of the world?” Jenny said. “Rather!”

They kissed passionately, carried away by their excitement, brimming with joy at their agreement in feeling and desire. The cabin seemed to expand into the virgin forest and the open plain. A new vision of life was opened to Jenny. Exultingly she pictured the future, bright, active, occupied—away from all the old cramping things. It was the life she had dreamed, away from men, away from stuffy rooms and endless millinery, away from regular hours and tedious meals, away from all that now made up her daily dullness. It was splendid! Her quick mind was at work, seeing, arranging, imagining as warm as life the changed days that would come in such a terrestrial Paradise. And then Keith, watching with triumph the mounting joy in her expression, saw the joy subside, the brilliance fade, the eagerness give place to doubt and then to dismay.

“What is it?” he begged. “Jenny, dear!”

“It’s Pa!” Jenny said. “I couldn’t leave him ... not for anything!”

“Is that all? We’ll take him with us!” cried Keith. Jenny sorrowfully shook her head.

“No. He’s paralysed,” she explained, and sighed deeply at the faded vision.

iii

“Well, I’m not going to give up the idea for that,” Keith resumed, after a moment. Jenny shook her head, and a wry smile stole into her face, making it appear thinner than before.

“I didn’t expect you would,” she said quietly. “It’s me that has to give it up.”

“Jenny!” He was astonished by her tone. “D’you think I meant that? Never! We’ll manage something. Something can be done. When I come back ...”

“Ah, you’re going away!” Jenny cried in agony. “I shan’t see you. I shall have every day to think of ... day after day. And you won’t write. And I shan’t see you....” She held him to her, her breast against his, desperate with the dread of being separated from him. “It’s easy for you, at sea, with the wind and the sun; and something fresh to see, and something happening all the time. But me—in a dark room, poring over bits of straw and velvet to make hats for soppy women, and then going home to old Em and stew for dinner. There’s not much fun in it, Keith.... No, I didn’t mean to worry you by grizzling. It’s too bad of me! But seeing you, and hearing that plan, it’s made me remember how beastly I felt before your letter came this evening. I was nearly mad with it. I’d been mad before; but never as bad as this was. And then your letter came—and I wanted to come to you; and I came, and we’ve wasted such a lot of time not understanding each other. Even now, I can’t be sure you love me—not sure! I think you do; but you only say so. How’s anyone ever to be sure, unless they know it in their bones? And I’ve been thinking about you every minute since we met. Because I never met anybody like you, or loved anybody before...”

She broke off, her voice trembling, her face against his, breathless and exhausted.

iv

“Now listen, Jenny,” said Keith. “This is this. I love you, and you love me. That’s right, isn’t it? Well. I don’t care about marriage—I mean, a ceremony; but you do. So we’ll be married when I come back in three months. That’s all right, isn’t it? And when we’re married, we’ll either take your father with us, whatever his health’s like; or we’ll do something with him that’ll do as well. I should be ready to put him in somebody’s care; but you wouldn’t like that...”

“I love him,” Jenny said. “I couldn’t leave him to somebody else for ever.”

“Yes. Well, you see there’s nothing to be miserable about. It’s all straightforward now. Nothing—except that we’re going to be apart for three months. Now, Jen: don’t let’s waste any more time being miserable; but let’s sit down and be happy for a bit...How’s that?”

Jenny smiled, and allowed him to bring her once again to the settee and to begin once more to describe their future life.

“It’s cold there, Jenny. Not warm at all. Snow and ice. And you won’t see anybody for weeks and months—anybody but just me. And we shall have to do everything for ourselves—clothes, house-building, food catching and killing... Trim your own hats... Like the Swiss Family Robinson; only you won’t have everything growing outside as they did. And we’ll go out in canoes if we go on the water at all; and see Indians—‘Heap big man bacca’ sort of business—and perhaps hear wolves (I’m not quite sure of that); and go about on sledges... with dogs to draw them. But with all that we shall be free. There won’t be any bureaucrats to tyrannise over us; no fashions, no regulations, no homemade laws to make dull boys of us. Just fancy, Jenny: nobody to make us do anything. Nothing but our own needs and wishes...”

“I expect we shall tyrannise—as you call it—over each other,” Jenny said shrewdly. “It seems to me that’s what people do.”

“Little wretch!” cried Keith. “To interrupt with such a thing. When I was just getting busy and eloquent. I tell you: there’ll be inconveniences. You’ll find you’ll want somebody besides me to talk to and look after. But then perhaps you’ll have somebody!”

“Who?” asked Jenny, unsuspiciously. “Not Pa, I’m sure.”

Keith held her away from him, and looked into her eyes. Then he crushed her against him, laughing. It took Jenny quite a minute to understand what he meant.

“Very dull, aren’t you!” cried Keith. “Can’t see beyond the end of your nose.”

“I shouldn’t think it was hardly the sort of place for babies,” Jenny sighed. “From what you say.”

v

Keith roared with laughter, so that the Minerva seemed to shake in sympathy with his mirth.

“You’re priceless!” he said. “My bonny Jenny. I shouldn’t think there was ever anybody like you in the world!”

“Lots of girls,” Jenny reluctantly suggested, shaking a dolorous head at the ghost of a faded vanity. “I’m afraid.” She revived even as she spoke; and encouragingly added: “Perhaps not exactly like.”

“I don’t believe it! You’re unique. The one and only Jenny Redington!”

“Red—!” Jenny’s colour flamed. “Sounds nice,” she said; and was then silent.

“When we’re married,” went on Keith, watching her; “where shall we go for our honeymoon? I say!... how would you like it if I borrowed the yacht from Templecombe and ran you off somewhere in it? I expect he’d let me have the old Minerva. Not a bad idea, eh what!”

“When we’re married,” Jenny said breathlessly, very pale.

“What d’you mean?” Keith’s eyes were so close to her own that she was forced to lower her lids. “When I come back from this trip. Templecombe says three months. It may be less.”

“It may be more.” Jenny had hardly the will to murmur her warning—her distrust.

“Very unlikely; unless the weather’s bad. I’m reckoning on a mild winter. If it’s cold and stormy then of course yachting’s out of the question. But we’ll be back before the winter, any way. And then—darling Jenny—we’ll be married as soon as I can get the licence. There’s something for you to look forward to, my sweet. Will you like to look forward to it?”

Jenny could feel his breath upon her face; but she could not move or speak. Her breast was rising to quickened breathing; her eyes were burning; her mouth was dry. When she moistened her lips she seemed to hear a cracking in her mouth. It was as though fever were upon her, so moved was she by the expression in Keith’s eyes. She was neither happy nor unhappy; but she was watching his face as if fascinated. She could feel his arm so gently about her shoulder, and his breast against hers; and she loved him with all her heart. She had at this time no thought of home; only the thought that they loved each other and that Keith would be away for three months; facing dangers indeed, but all the time loving her. She thought of the future, of that time when they both would be free, when they should no longer be checked and bounded by the fear of not having enough food. That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor people in dread of the consequences of their own acts. And Jenny felt that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of life, they would be able to be happy. She thought that Keith would have no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service. Jenny thought these things very simply—impulsively—and not in a form to be intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which he returned. She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded thunderously in her ears. She could see Keith’s eyes, so easily to be read, showing out the impulses that crossed and possessed his mind. Love for her she was sure she read, love and kindness for her, and mystification, and curiosity, and the hot slumbering desire for her that made his breathing short and heavy. In a dream she thought of these things, and in a dream she felt her own love for Keith rising and stifling her, so that she could not speak, but could only rest there in his arms, watching that beloved face and storing her memory with its precious betrayals.

Keith gently kissed her, and Jenny trembled. A thousand temptations were whirling in her mind—thoughts of his absence, their marriage, memory, her love... With an effort she raised her lips again to his, kissing him in passion, so that when he as passionately responded it seemed as though she fainted in his arms and lost all consciousness but that of her love and confidence in him and the eager desire of her nature to yield itself where love was given.