Chapter Twenty One.
Mr Jones was spared the necessity of describing the conditions under which he had met Prudence by Prudence’s own frank confession immediately on her arrival at the house. She was either too proud to appeal to Mr Jones’ generosity, or she did not credit him with the possession of this quality. He had quite expected an appeal from her, urging him to secrecy in the matter, and was a little uncertain as to the attitude he should adopt. But he was fully determined to improve the occasion with spiritual advice and a little brotherly reproof; also he intended that she should thoroughly appreciate his magnanimity in shielding her from the consequences of her very indiscreet behaviour. And she spoilt his pleasing rôle by refusing to give him the cue. This annoyed him, and showed him plainly that his first duty was to his father-in-law, who had every right to be informed of his daughter’s indiscretions. He followed Prudence into the drawing-room, the sense of responsibility sitting heavily upon him, and was received by Mr Graynor and by his sisters-in-law with marked cordiality.
“You should have arrived earlier,” Agatha said. “The tea is cold. Where is Matilda?”
“I didn’t come from home,” he answered. “I’ve just cycled in from Hatchett. I’ve had tea, thanks.”
And then Prudence’s bombshell was delivered.
“So have I,” she said. “I met Major Stotford, and we had tea at a Cyclists’ Rest.”
“You did what?”
On any other occasion the scandalised horror in Agatha’s voice would have roused Prudence to a defiant retort; but the afternoon’s experience had subdued her spirit; she felt too crushed and miserable to resent her sister’s amazed anger, or to heed the exchange of significant glances between the others. She was dimly aware that her father rose and approached her, but the pained displeasure of his look left her unmoved. It did not seem to her to matter particularly what happened, or what they thought of her; she was past caring about such things.
“I thought I had given you quite clearly to understand that I did not wish you to pursue the acquaintance with Major Stotford,” Mr Graynor said. Prudence’s eyes fell. “I believed I could trust you,” he added reproachfully; “and you don’t even respect my wishes.”
“I will in future,” she answered with unusual meekness. “It seemed ungracious to refuse after his kindness.”
“More particularly when it was against your own inclination,” broke in Agatha.
Mr Graynor raised a protesting hand.
“Not now,” he said. “We will speak of this later.”
And with a word of apology to Mr Jones, he left the room. Prudence followed him into the hall.
“Daddy, I’m sorry,” she said, and caught at his sleeve; but, for the first time within her memory, he repulsed her.
“I don’t want to hear any more,” he said. “You have annoyed me exceedingly.”
He went on, leaving Prudence to realise the enormity of her conduct, and the hopelessness of expecting forgiveness in this quarter. She had offended him deeply. She ran upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom and sought relief from tears.
The exasperating part of the affair lay in the wholly unnecessary attitude of inflexible veto adopted by her family. Prudence was not likely to repeat her mistake. Experience teaches its own lessons, and her experience had been sufficiently humiliating without any additional disgrace. She bore for a time with this state of affairs: when the general hostility became insupportable she set her mind to work to discover a remedy. As a result of this mental activity, Mr Edward Morgan received one morning the letter for which he had so long and so patiently waited.
Mr Morgan read the letter in the privacy of his office, smiled, re-read it, examined it from all angles, and promptly proceeded to answer it, a light of satisfaction illumining his features as he wrote.
And yet there was in the briefly worded note not much that a man could have twisted into any meaning conveying particular encouragement; nevertheless, the invitation for which he had waited had come at last; that sufficed for Mr Morgan.
“It is so dull,” Prudence had written. “When are you coming to pay your promised visit?”
His answer read:
“My dear Miss Prudence,—
“I was delighted to get your letter. It would be selfish on my part to say that I am rejoiced to know you feel dull; but at least I cannot express sincere regret since the admission is followed by what I have been hoping for ever since we parted—your permission to visit you again. I am coming immediately. I was only waiting for just this dear little letter.
“Yours very truly,—
“Edward Morgan.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Prudence when she read this letter, and bit her lip in vexation, her face aflame at the thought that she had taken the irrevocable step, and brought very close the moment for the great decision of her life.
She knew that he would ask her to marry him, that he would take her consent for granted; and, although in sending the letter she had decided upon taking this step, now that the thing was upon her she felt reluctant and afraid.
“You’ve done it now,” she told herself, for the purpose of stiffening her resolution. “You ought to have realised your doubts sooner. It is impossible to draw back.”
Impossible to draw back! The finality of the phrase gripped her imagination with the startled sensation of a lost cause. She had burnt her boats. The prospect ahead was not entirely lacking in fascination; but she wished none the less that some kind of raft might discover itself on which she could retreat conveniently if the alternative proved very distasteful. The thought of being kissed by Mr Morgan, as Major Stotford had kissed her, the idea of giving any man the right to so kiss her, filled her with sick apprehension. The whole process of love-making thrilled her with disgust.
She leaned from her window and looked out upon the glistening darkness of the wet November night, and her thoughts became detached from present complexities, and attuned themselves to memories that were becoming old. They were nearly two years old, but they wore the stark vividness of very recent things. She allowed her fancy to riot unchecked around these bitter-sweet memories of a romance which had started from slumber only to fall back again into sleep, a sleep no longer sound and reposeful but disturbed by haunting dreams, dreams that were elusive and disconnected, and which belonged to the might-have-been. There was no shrinking from these dreams; they floated before her mind arrayed in the gracious beauty of simple and sincere emotions. The thought of love, of passion even, in this connection, had no qualm of revulsion in it. To be held in strong arms a willing captive, to be kissed by lips to which her own responded, that was a different matter. There would be no sense of shame in that, only a great wonder and a vast content.
“Dreams! dreams!” Prudence murmured, and listened to the falling of the rain without—wet darkness everywhere, the dismal darkness of a winter world sodden with the sky’s incessant weeping.
She clenched her hands upon the wet sill, and felt the rain drops on her hair.
“He is out there in the sunshine,” she thought; “and I’m here in the dark and the rain alone. It is easy to forget when the sun shines always.”
Abruptly she drew back and closed the window and turned up the lights in the room.
“I wish he wasn’t coming quite so soon,” she said, crouching down by the dying fire, a shivering, shrinking figure, with rain-wet hair, and eyes which were wet also, but not with rain.
The memories were shut out with the rain-washed night. She was back in the present again, with the disturbing reflection that the morrow, the last day of sad November, would see the arrival of Edward Morgan and the end of her girlish dreams.