when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live?—ezekiel.
the prison gates shut. silence fell. the troubled waters settled into calm. tom went back to queenstown; mr. gardiner to woodlands—and to bed, with a couple of nurses in attendance. denis was presumably at dent-de-lion, working for the aero show. mrs. trent had gone no one knew whither. and lettice, her duty done, had escaped unmolested to her attic in pimlico, where she settled back into her groove, with that sort of capillary attraction towards the inconspicuous and the ordinary, which marked her conduct always except when she was making one of her gravely calculated excursions into the extraordinary.
why had she held her tongue? her friends did not need to be told. "it's lettice all over!" said gardiner himself, half fond, half laughing. she had had two main motives (or rather springs of action; for "motive" implies conscious volition, whereas lettice did simply without thinking what came natural)—the one a principle, the other a prejudice. first, she would never, if she could possibly avoid it, interfere in other people's affairs—that was the principle; and second, with every taste and instinct she hated to be made conspicuous—that was the prejudice, and a tough one.
with these reasons against speaking, moreover, she saw none for. it never entered her head that some people might say she had treated gardiner unfairly, in letting him tell his tale while keeping her own knowledge in reserve. what[pg 182] difference could it possibly make? why should she have spoken? it would only have made him very uncomfortable, and denis would simply have hated it. all this, of course, rested on the assumption of her own detachment, insulation, negligibility: in which lettice was so rooted and grounded that she was quite surprised to find other people surprised by what to her came natural as breathing.
her explanation, given in court, ran something as follows:—"i didn't speak before the inquest because i know there were two other witnesses, and i didn't see i was wanted; and after it, by the time i heard what had happened, it was too late. there would have been no sense in disturbing things again. it would have been bad for everybody all round, and worst for mrs. trent. but now—now things were different. i had to speak now. it was time for the truth to come out."
full time. best for dorothea, as well as for her victim. she had been screened, and in the darkness evil things had grown up. down with all screens now. in the light of truth, the whole jumble resolved itself into order. honor to whom honor was due; judgment to whom judgment. even gardiner's sentence fell into place. it might be too heavy for the particular offense; but no one knew better than himself that it was the just penalty for his months of cowardice.
february passed into march, a sweet, mild march: blue skies, brown buds, thrushes singing, daisies on every lawn, violets round every bush, white and golden daffodils ruffling under the trees, flood-water glistening like frosted silver among tender blades of grass. towards the end of the month the prisoner saw his first visitor. mr. gardiner, being still too weak to go himself, sent tom. tom's impressions were recorded in a duty letter to miss smith: "i saw my brother for a few minutes yesterday in the presence of a warder. he seems very fairly cheerful and fit. his work is in the printing room. he asked me to let you know he is going strong." dry crumbs! lettice's consolation was that mr. gardiner would be no better satisfied than herself, and[pg 183] that next month he would send denis. denis had at least a tongue in his head. that is to say, he used to have—unless—
a few days later she received another letter, this time from her cousin. he inclosed tickets for the aero show. "i know these things aren't much in your line, but you can give them away to somebody or other. as a matter of fact, we've not much worth seeing on our stand this year. the seaplane didn't get done after all. yes, i may be in town for the week-end, but i'm afraid i shan't be able to look you up. better luck next time, perhaps." and overleaf, a hastily scribbled postscript: "i suppose you've heard nothing from westby? i've just had a line from mr. gardiner: he says harry's been in a row—insubordination and assaulting a warder—and all letters and visits are stopped off for the next two months. no particulars, only that. i was to have gone down there next month, you know, but of course that's off now. bad job, isn't it?"
lettice laid down the letter with an unaccustomed sinking of the heart. of the postscript she utterly refused to let herself think; it was bad enough without that. it was not the first time she had felt uneasy about her cousin. how often had she seen him since westby? not once; yet formerly they had met, as a matter of course, whenever he came to town. formerly, too, he had written to her regularly every week—by an unexpected trait, denis was a graphic writer, just as with his friends he was a garrulous talker; in that came out his irish blood. now she might think herself lucky if she heard once a month; and what things his letters were, when they came! the last had been an essay on the uses of the deck or cable plane. this present one—well, this was the climax. over and over again, whenever he mentioned the show (and it had been his staple conversation for months), she had been given to understand that she was to be taken to olympia, and dragged round the exhibits, and stuffed with information whether she liked it or not; and that her guide was to be no other than himself.
[pg 184]
lettice faced the conclusion that there was something wrong.
by this and by that, by what she had seen herself and by what gardiner had said at westby, she had gathered how things stood between denis and dorothea. what would be the effect of such a shock? lettice found herself unable to guess. up to a certain point, denis was transparent; for years she had read him like a book, and had been able to predict not merely what he would do or say, but the very gesture and accent with which he would do or say it. dear denis, tried friend, good as good bread, in gardiner's expressive idiom, pig-headed ulsterman with those dark blue southern irish eyes, truculent fighter answering to the lightest touch of her silken rein!—lettice was a good lover, and she had given him of her best. but now—now, like gardiner, she found herself up against a door that had no key. what was going on inside? what was denis doing there, to heal him of his deadly wound? she did not know—she could not guess. but one thing was certain: he would accept no help. gardiner in his weakness had cried out to her and rested on her strength; but denis was neither weak nor dependent. whatever went on behind the closed door was between him and his god.
lettice picked up the tickets again. "he's sent me these things because he felt he must, but he doesn't mean me to use them," ran her slow thoughts. "i expect that means he's going to be there himself. up for the week-end; then he'll probably go on the saturday—"
lettice rarely framed a definite resolution, but after long brooding her thoughts would settle into a sediment of purpose. the outcome of that hiatus was that on saturday she put on her best things and went to olympia to see for herself.
the whole floor space of the exhibition hall was cut up into a chess-board of stands, each one carpeted with red felt and inclosed in a white railing. within these crimson plots might be seen every variety of a?roplane. pusher, tractor, hydroplane, bat-boat, super-marine, the names[pg 185] sounded very imposing, but to the uninstructed (videlicet to lettice) they all looked as much alike as a crowd of chinamen. visitors might wander about at will, stooping under huge pale arching wings, or mounting steps to inspect the fittings of the pilot's cockpit. lettice had expected to be bored, but she was not. at that time, before it became mechanically perfect and virtually fool-proof, while its imperfections had still to be pieced out with human skill and daring, the aeroplane was no machine but an individual. denis and his fellows talked of particular planes as a man talks of particular hunters in his stable.
after wandering round the stands, and duly gazing at the smith monoplane, lettice retired to the tea-room where she established herself in a corner behind a group of palms. be it understood that she had come strictly to see, not to speak to her cousin; she knew she could dodge his short-sighted eyes. this being the last day of the show, the hall was full. all the flying world seemed to be there. celebrities were thick as blackberries in the woods above frahan; here a young mechanic who had become famous in a day, there a hereditary legislator who had ended his last race (luckily the incident hadn't got into the papers) head downwards in a ditch. many of the men belonged to a certain well-defined physical type, lean, wiry, and small-made. other things being equal, the light-weight pilot has an advantage. the women, on the other hand, rar? nantes in gurgite vasto, were mostly hothouse flowers. lettice, of course, knew no one; she would have been quite at a loss but for her neighbor at the next table, a big man rather like a mastiff, with an incongruous soft voice, who was obligingly giving the carte du pays to his companion.
"see that old cock with the iron-gray hair? that's arthur sturt, the ironmaster; he's running the derby flying school, and making pots of money. able chap; there aren't many men of sixty who have receptivity enough to believe in the aeroplane. what? oh, certainly, sir, the compliment applies to you." he laughed, pausing to light a cigar. "the youngster eating strawberries with the flapper in a [pg 186]pigtail—got him? that's tommy wyatt. riviera cup, you know. a perfect young devil. you ought to have been at hendon last saturday; he was putting up some wonderful stunts—simply playing cup-and-ball with his bus. oh, i'm quite a back number these days. soon be sixty myself, what?"
"i dare say you'll find you're good for a year or so yet," said his companion dryly. he was a lean, elderly clergyman with an adventurous eye. "by the by, is your partner here?"
the younger man shook his head. "not he! hasn't been near the place. i don't know what's taken him—that's to say i do, and wish i didn't. he's not done a stroke of work this year. let me down rather badly over the seaplane; i particularly wanted to show it. i told you about that nasty affair he was mixed up in, didn't i? for a straight-laced, fastidious fellow like him it must have been the deuce of a jolt, and of course one makes every allowance; but it's a nuisance, all the same. i'm personally sorry, too," he added. "it's a bad job when a chap of that type runs off the rails. what? oh, no, no mistake about it, i'm afraid; she's making a perfect fool of herself. byrne will get his divorce this time, as sure as eggs. hullo! by george—"
"that's not he?"
"yes, it is, though," said wandesforde, craning forward. "good lord! fancy evey byrne letting herself be dragged to the aero show! she must have got it badly!"
mrs. byrne was a very pretty woman, and even more charming than she was pretty. she had a husband who was impossible to live with and whom she could not divorce because she was a catholic. he had no such scruples, however; he had dragged her through the court on trumped-up evidence, and she had emerged, like susannah, without a stain on her character. it was felt that she had been hardly used. in the circumstances, and as she knew how to give a good dinner and was popular with women as well as men, she was allowed a good deal of license. she needed it all.[pg 187] she was very sweet, and very innocent, and hopelessly indiscreet, with an irish aptitude for tumbling into scrapes. she could no more help using her lovely eyes than a violet can help smelling; and men buzzed round her always like wasps round a peach. the latest of her captives, having led her to a seat, now stood beside her with bent head to receive her instructions, while she drew the gloves off her lovely hands and arms. what denis felt it was impossible to say; his attitude bespoke admiration, but nothing more.
she finished her directions, he nodded assent, and threaded his way through the crowd towards the buffet. turning to retrace his steps with a nicely balanced load of tea and strawberries, he came face to face with another pair who had just come in. the encounter might have been foreseen, and indeed lettice had given the chance a thought; for dorothea's eyes were not, like denis's, easy to dodge. here she was, then, she too with a cavalier in attendance, to judge from his expression a devoted cavalier. and no wonder; dorothea, in a long cloak of violet velvet, and a big velvet hat with sweeping plume, made an enchanting figure. her face, which had lost its childish softness, was less pretty, but far more alluring. april was unfolding to the bloom of may.
seeing denis, she stopped dead; then her face broke into sunshine, she colored like a damask rose, and moved forward impulsively with outstretched hands. denis continued on his way. the violet velvet was actually brushing his sleeve. "i beg your pardon!" he said with unmoved politeness, drawing back from contact. he rejoined his companion and sat down at her table.
for the first time in her life lettice found herself enjoying the sight of pain.
