Josephine made no mention of Gabriel’s marriage during the next weeks. She went through her days in outward calm, holding at bay the danger that seemed too great. The only change to be seen was a general increase of kindliness, an instinctive laying of the foundations of a different life. Gabriel spent his time with Ruth between her hours of work, and in his intercourse with Josephine, showed himself affectionate and filial, as though forbearing to feelings he could not explain. One day he and Ruth came to her study together.
“Josephine, we have another demand to make. Ruth has lost her zeal for professional life, and requests you to release her at the end of the term.”
“Well, she can request me then, can’t she?” said Josephine, looking up from her work, and resting her eyes on their locked hands. “I am not an ogress.”
“Well, you are rather. That is why I feel it my duty to come between the two of you.”
“And what are you doing, I should like to know, coming between me and a member of my staff? That is a duty rather off any known line. Now let Ruth—Miss Giffard you ought to call her in this capacity—speak for herself.”140
“I don’t feel it is honest to go on, Mrs. Napier. My heart is not in my work. I find that I can only live in my future with Gabriel.”
“Now, that is a nice confession for a mistress of mine to make! How long have you been feeling like that, I should like to ask, you travesty of a professional woman! And will I release you? Indeed, and with all my heart. And glad I am, that I have not had to ask you to release yourself, you awkward daughter of my old friend! And at once, if you please, and no mention of the rest of the term, if you love me, from someone who openly confesses that her heart is not in her work!”
“It is better to be open about what is inevitable, Josephine.”
“I should rather prefer a decent veil to be drawn over it, myself.”
“You do understand, Mrs. Napier? You don’t think that things are going on, except as they are? Mother would be so distressed, if we gave you a wrong impression.”
“What, my dear?” said Josephine, in an absent manner, bringing her hands alternately down on her desk.
“You don’t think that either of us is deceiving you?”
“No, I do not,” said Josephine, turning roundly on her, “think you are deceiving me, when you boldly state that your mind has not been on your duties! I do not think you are deceiving me at all. I half wish you had deceived me. You give me a sense of compunction for my school, the feeling of all others, that I desire to avoid.”
“I wish that so much of yourself had not been given to the school,” said Gabriel; “and that there was something over for other purposes.”
“Oh, do you?” said Josephine, with suddenly flashing eyes. “Then you wish that I had not sent you to Oxford, do you, and that I would put you now to some grinding toil and moil, instead of leaving you to meander and philander through your days, while 141I give so much of myself, as you put it, to the school? It is a nice, unselfish wish, but it is rather late.”
“I shall soon be working now,” said Gabriel.
“And how long would you have been working, if I could go back and take you at your first word? Soon be working? Soon! It is an amusing phrase. Still in the future, is it? Well, well, well!”
Josephine made no comment on this scene, and maintained her silence until the morning when there lay on the breakfast table Elizabeth’s invitations to her daughter’s wedding. Elizabeth had taken rooms for the occasion in the town, and despatched the invitations without a word to Josephine, taking advantage of her position as mother of the bride.
Josephine sorted the letters for the household herself, and added thereby to her knowledge of it; though she would have scorned to open the letters, and depended upon as accurate as possible a deduction of their contents. Gabriel saw her recoil before the significant envelopes, and brought himself to words.
“You have the invitations to the wedding, have you? They bring home the fact that I have no wedding garment.”
“Invitations? No, I have no invitations, dear. A letter from my cousin, whom you have never seen; a line from my lawyer, that you would not understand, and the usual missives, reasoning and otherwise, from parents, with which I will not bore you. That is the sum total of my favours this morning.”
“I mean the invitations for the other people in the house. Mrs. Giffard would hardly send one to you. It is assumed, of course, that you will be there.”
“The invitations for your wedding and Ruth’s?” said Josephine, saying the words clearly and fully. “For her friends in the house, I suppose? The envelopes with the oblong shape? I took them for a set of appeals for charity. Though I should not have escaped one 142myself, in that case, I suppose. I should be the first person to be approached. I believe I am approached, on some such grounds, in some of the others.” She laid her hand on some envelopes.
“They are in a sense a set of appeals for your charity.”
“Why did they come through the post? What a needless complication, to send letters to the post from their eventual goal!”
“But by no means a crime.”
“Oh, no, dear. Nothing worse than the outcome of a lack of training.”
“It was to let you know of the wedding.”
“Well, then it had a reason. But why could you not tell me of it?”
“You know very well why, Josephine.”
“Well, it seems that you too had your reason. But, my dear, when you have not courage to speak of a thing, examine into your own heart. What is the reason why it should not be spoken of? What is there against that thing?”
“Nothing in this case,” said Gabriel.
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” said Josephine. “By the way, what arrangement are you making about Miss Giffard for the future?”
“She refuses to allow me to support her. I can only hope that she will do so in time.”
“You did not insist upon it?” said Josephine, just raising her brows.
“I had not enough to offer, to warrant that. Josephine, you will come to my wedding, won’t you?”
“I suppose I naturally shall. Nothing else would be practicable, would it?”
“I meant that you had not much time in these pressed days.”
“Why, it won’t take long, will it? You can tell me when it is time to start, for the matter of that.”143
“You will get to care so much for my wife, Josephine. You will come to think of me the unworthy member of the partnership.”
“My dear, I have many people to care for. Miss Giffard came to me as a member of my school, the school that you have such a dislike to hear mentioned, and that happened to be the solution of her life. For, for home life as you know, or will know, she is not fitted. It was in that capacity that I saw to it, that I indeed cared for her. I did not undertake a relation with her in any other, or put any other at her disposal.”
“Well, you will do your best?” said Gabriel.
“I will, indeed,” said Josephine in a cordial tone, that did not hold any confidence of result. “What is that other letter you keep staring at?”
“A letter it is natural to stare at. It is from Fane, in his capacity of lawyer, and states that a client, who must remain anonymous, will pay me two hundred a year through Fane’s office, on the condition that I make no attempt to discover the donor! A client! The donor! No clue of any kind! Neither he nor she! I suppose it is Father; unless it is you, Josephine? Of course that question is breaking the condition of acceptance; and I confess my inclination to accept.”
“No, my dear, it is not my way to do things anonymously. I should frankly say it, if I were to offer you an allowance. And that reminds me that I was about to offer you one; of lesser munificence; a hundred and fifty a year; openly tendered from myself. Would it be of any good to you? It would have even more point, combined with the other. Yes, no doubt that is from your father, and given anonymously, lest you should fear that he could not spare it. But he must know his own affairs. I think you would be right simply to accept both offers.”144
“My breath is leaving me at the rosiness of my future. I was wondering how I should manage on a salary not meant for a married man. And now my way is not only smooth but paved with gold. It is very generous of both of you.”
“I was wondering how you would manage, too. But why is it generous of me? Of your father it is much more generous. Money and the material things of life are not what I have had traffic in. My truck has been in different commodities.”
“It is I who am having to do with material things,” said Gabriel, hastening his words, as Josephine rose and came towards him.
“My son, is it too much to ask, that for your own sake and mine you should give this first fancy a chance to prove itself? That you should spare a few years out of your many, to help the few that are mine?”
“Josephine, you know you ought not to ask it.”
“Well, may I ask if you definitely accept my allowance?” said Josephine, moving away. “That is the sort of thing I ought to ask, is it? Would the hundred and fifty a year be of any use?”
“You know it would: I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, you don’t say it is not the sort of thing to talk about, anyhow. You don’t give vent to that particularly unhappy little saying. It is all right to make mention of it, I gather. Or ought it to have been anonymous like the other? Oh, never mind, my dear. I have taught you to be as you are. It is more blessed to give than to receive, is it? That is your motto in disposing of me?”
“You make things more than difficult for me, Josephine.”
“Make things difficult! ‘Make them easy’ is the phrase I should use. A hundred and fifty a year is a lubricating kind of obstacle, in my opinion.”
“I see how magnanimous it is of you, in the face of this unforeseen help, and of your disapproval of the marriage.”
145“I can’t see that those things make any difference,” said Josephine, with a faint irritation, as if at obtuseness. “The unforeseen help makes it more worth while for me to add my quota; and it is your comfort that we are considering, not the means by which you have endangered it. It won’t look after itself, because it has a less experienced person to look after it. It is because of my disapproval of the marriage, that I am trying to arrange that things should not be worse than they must be. I don’t want hardship for you; I should not have looked after you as I have, for all these years, if I had wanted that. I believe you think me capable of a sort of revenge. I hope you are not like that, yourself, my dear? They say that we judge other people by ourselves. I certainly am not, because I wanted a little support in the days of my loneliness.” Her voice shook and then rose on an easy note. “Now take these piles of letters, and put them including the invitations, on the post table. And then leave me in peace to deal with my own. When I have breakfast without you, I shall have disposed of them by this time.”
“I am humiliated to think of your finding letters a substitute for my companionship.”
“No, you are not, my dear. It is what you are deliberately planning. It is the thing you ask of life, as far as I can gather. It is I who am humiliated by it. I don’t make any secret of that. I have not made a secret of it on purpose. It is well that people should know what they are doing, that they should not go blindfolded through their lives.”