Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

"Urgent private affairs?" he asked lightly.

"Very urgent," returned Vane grimly.

"I should think it might be managed," he said. "Fire in an application and I'll put it up to-morrow."

"Thanks," said Vane briefly, "I will."

For a moment or two after he had left the room Vallance looked at the closed door. Then he picked the envelope out of the grate, and studied the handwriting.

"Confound these women," he muttered, and consigned it to the flames. He liked to think himself a misogynist, and, incidentally, thoughts of drafts were worrying him.

Up in his own room Vane was poking the fire. His face was stern, and with care and deliberation he pulled up the arm chair to the blaze. Then he took the letter out of this pocket, and proceeded to read it through once again.

Table of Content

MY DEAR,—It's just on midnight, but I feel in the mood for doing what I've been shirking for so long. Don't you know the feeling one gets sometimes when one has put off a thing again and again, and then there suddenly comes an awful spasm and one fairly spreads oneself? . . . Like putting one's bills away for months on end, and then one day becoming insane and paying the whole lot. I've been putting this off, Derek, for what I'm going to write will hurt you . . . almost as much as it hurts me. I'm not going to put in any of the usual cant about not thinking too hardly of me; I don't think somehow we are that sort. But I can't marry you. I meant to lead up to that gradually, but the pen sort of slipped—and, anyway you'd have known what was coming.

I can't marry you, old man—although I love you better than I ever thought I'd love anyone. You know the reasons why, so I won't labour them again. They may be right and they may be wrong; I don't know—I've given up trying to think. I suppose one's got to take this world as it is, and not as it might be if we had our own way. . . . And I can't buy my happiness with Blandford, Derek—I just can't.

I went down there the morning after Our Day—oh! my God! boy, how I loved that time—and I saw Father. He was just broken down with it all; he seemed an old, old man. And after luncheon in the study he told me all about it. I didn't try to follow all the facts and figures—what was the use? I just sat there looking out over Blandford—my home—and I realised that very soon it would be that no longer. I even saw the horrible man smoking his cigar with the band on it in Father's chair.

Derek, my dear—what could I do? I knew that I could save the situation if I wanted to; I knew that it was my happiness and yours, my dear, that would have to be sacrificed to do it. But when the old Dad put his arm round my waist and raised his face to mine—and his dear mouth was all working—I just couldn't bear it.

So I lied to him, Derek. I told him that Mr. Baxter loved me, and that I loved Mr. Baxter. Two lies—for that man merely wants me as a desirable addition to his furniture—and I, why sometimes I think I hate him. But, oh! my dear, if you'd seen my Father's face; seen the dawning of a wonderful hope. . . . I just couldn't think of anything except him—and so I went on lying, and I didn't falter. Gradually he straightened up; twenty years seemed to slip from him . . ..

"My dear," he said. "I wouldn't have you unhappy; I wouldn't have you marry any man you didn't love. But if you do love him, little Joan, if you do—why it just means everything. . . . Baxter's worth millions. . . ."

But it makes one laugh, my Derek, doesn't it? laugh a little bitterly. And then after a while I left him, and went down to the boat-house, and pulled over to our weeping willow. But I couldn't stop there. . . . I can't try myself too high. I guess I'm a bit weak where you're concerned, boy—a bit weak. And I've got to go through with this. It's my job, and one can't shirk one's job. . . . Only sometimes it seems that one gets saddled with funny jobs, doesn't one? Try to see my point of view, Derek; try to understand. If it was only me, why, then, my dear, you know what would be the result. I think it would kill me if you ever thought I was marrying Mr. Baxter for money for myself. . . .

And you'll forget me in time, dear lad—at least, I'm afraid you will. That's foolish, isn't it?—foolish and weak; but I couldn't bear you to forget me altogether. Just once or twice you'll think of me, and the Blue Bird that we kept for one day in the roses at Sonning. You'll go to She who must be obeyed and I hope to God I never meet her. . . . For I'll hate her, loathe her, detest her.

I'm engaged to Mr. Baxter. I've exacted my full price to the uttermost farthing. Blandford is saved, or will be on the day I marry him. We are neither of us under any illusions whatever; the whole thing is on an eminently business footing. . . . We are to be married almost at once.

And now, dear, I am going to ask you one of the big things. I don't want you to answer this letter; I don't want you to plead with me to change my mind. I daren't let you do it, my man, because, as I said, I'm so pitifully weak where you are concerned. And I don't know what would happen if you were to take me in your arms again. Why, the very thought of it drives me almost mad. . . . Don't make it harder for me, darling, than it is at present—please, please, don't.

Mr. Baxter is not here now, and I'm just vegetating with the Suttons until the sale takes place—my sale. They were talking about you at dinner to-night, and my heart started pounding until I thought they must have heard it. Do you wonder that I'm frightened of you? Do you wonder that I ask you not to write?

It's one o'clock, my Derek, and I'm cold—and tired, awful tired. I feel as if the soul had departed out of me; as if everything was utterly empty. It is so still and silent outside, and the strange, old-fashioned ideas—do you remember your story?—have been sitting wistfully beside me while I write. Maybe I'll hear them fluttering sadly away as I close down the envelope.

I love you, my darling, I love you. . . . I don't know why Fate should have decreed that we should have to suffer so, though perhaps you'll say it's my decree, not Fate's. And perhaps you're right; though to me it seems the same thing.

Later on, when I'm a bit more used to things, we might meet. . . . I can't think of life without ever seeing you again; and anyway, I suppose, we're bound to run across one another. Only just at the moment I can't think of any more exquisite torture than seeing you as another woman's husband. . . .

Good-night, my dear, dear Love, God bless and keep you.

Oh! Boy—what Hell it all is, what utter Hell!

The fire was burning low in the grate as Vane laid the letter down on the table beside him. Bolshevism, strikes, wars—of what account were they all combined, beside the eternal problem of a man and a woman? For a while he sat motionless staring at the dying embers, and then with a short, bitter laugh he rose to his feet.

"It's no go, my lady," he muttered to himself. "Thank Heaven I know the Suttons. . . ."

Table of Content

Vane stepped into the train at Victoria the following afternoon, and took his seat in the Pullman car. It was a non-stop to Lewes, and a ticket for that place reposed in his pocket. What he was going to do—what excuse he was going to make, he had not yet decided. Although he knew the Suttons very well, he felt that it would look a little strange if he suddenly walked into their house unannounced; and he had been afraid of wiring or telephoning from London in case he should alarm Joan. He felt vaguely that something would turn up which would give him the excuse he needed; but in the meantime his brain was in an incoherent condition. Only one thought rose dominantly above all the others, and it mocked him, and laughed at him, and made him twist and turn restlessly in his seat. Joan was going to marry Baxter. . . . Joan was going to marry Baxter. . . .