“I’m sorry,” said Maud again.
“You mustn’t feel like that. How can I help you? That’s the point. What is it you want me to do?”
“But I can’t ask you now.”
“Of course you can. Why not?”
“Why—oh, I couldn’t!”
George managed to laugh. It was a laugh that did not sound convincing even to himself, but it served.
“That’s morbid,” he said. “Be sensible. You need help, and I may be able to give it. Surely a man isn’t barred for ever from doing you a service just because he happens to love you? Suppose you were drowning and Mr. Plummer was the only swimmer within call, wouldn’t you let him rescue you?”
“Mr. Plummer? What do you mean?”
“You’ve not forgotten that I was a reluctant ear-witness to his recent proposal of marriage?”
Maud uttered an exclamation.
“I never asked! How terrible of me. Were you much hurt?”
“Hurt?” George could not follow her.
“That night. When you were on the balcony, and—”
“Oh!” George understood. “Oh, no, hardly at all. A few scratches. I scraped my hands a little.”
“It was a wonderful thing to do,” said Maud, her admiration glowing for a man who could treat such a leap so lightly. She had always had a private theory that Lord Leonard, after performing the same feat, had bragged about it for the rest of his life.
“No, no, nothing,” said George, who had since wondered why he had ever made such a to-do about climbing up a perfectly stout sheet.
“It was splendid!”
George blushed.
“We are wandering from the main theme,” he said. “I want to help you. I came here at enormous expense to help you. How can I do it?”
Maud hesitated.
“I think you may be offended at my asking such a thing.”
“You needn’t.”
“You see, the whole trouble is that I can’t get in touch with Geoffrey. He’s in London, and I’m here. And any chance I might have of getting to London vanished that day I met you, when Percy saw me in Piccadilly.”
“How did your people find out it was you?”
“They asked me—straight out.”
“And you owned up?”
“I had to. I couldn’t tell them a direct lie.”
George thrilled. This was the girl he had had doubts of.
“So then it was worse then ever,” continued Maud. “I daren’t risk writing to Geoffrey and having the letter intercepted. I was wondering—I had the idea almost as soon as I found that you had come here—”
“You want me to take a letter from you and see that it reaches him. And then he can write back to my address, and I can smuggle the letter to you?”
“That’s exactly what I do want. But I almost didn’t like to ask.”
“Why not? I’ll be delighted to do it.”
“I’m so grateful.”
“Why, it’s nothing. I thought you were going to ask me to look in on your brother and smash another of his hats.”
Maud laughed delightedly. The whole tension of the situation had been eased for her. More and more she found herself liking George. Yet, deep down in her, she realized with a pang that for him there had been no easing of the situation. She was sad for George. The Plummers of this world she had consigned to what they declared would be perpetual sorrow with scarcely a twinge of regret. But George was different.
“Poor Percy!” she said. “I don’t suppose he’ll ever get over it. He will have other hats, but it won’t be the same.” She came back to the subject nearest her heart. “Mr. Bevan, I wonder if you would do just a little more for me?”
“If it isn’t criminal. Or, for that matter, if it is.”
“Could you go to Geoffrey, and see him, and tell him all about me and—and come back and tell me how he looks, and what he said and—and so on?”
“Certainly. What is his name, and where do I find him?”
“I never told you. How stupid of me. His name is Geoffrey Raymond, and he lives with his uncle, Mr. Wilbur Raymond, at 11a, Belgrave Square.”
“I’ll go to him tomorrow.”
“Thank you ever so much.”
George got up. The movement seemed to put him in touch with the outer world. He noticed that the rain had stopped, and that stars had climbed into the oblong of the doorway. He had an impression that he had been in the barn a very long time; and confirmed this with a glance at his watch, though the watch, he felt, understated the facts by the length of several centuries. He was abstaining from too close an examination of his emotions from a prudent feeling that he was going to suffer soon enough without assistance from himself.
“I think you had better be going back,” he said. “It’s rather late. They may be missing you.”
Maud laughed happily.
“I don’t mind now what they do. But I suppose dinners must be dressed for, whatever happens.” They moved together to the door. “What a lovely night after all! I never thought the rain would stop in this world. It’s like when you’re unhappy and think it’s going on for ever.”
“Yes,” said George.
Maud held out her hand.
“Good night, Mr. Bevan.”
“Good night.”
He wondered if there would be any allusion to the earlier passages of their interview. There was none. Maud was of the class whose education consists mainly of a training in the delicate ignoring of delicate situations.
“Then you will go and see Geoffrey?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Thank you ever so much.”
“Not at all.”
George admired her. The little touch of formality which she had contrived to impart to the conversation struck just the right note, created just the atmosphere which would enable them to part without weighing too heavily on the deeper aspect of that parting.
“You’re a real friend, Mr. Bevan.”
“Watch me prove it.”
“Well, I must rush, I suppose. Good night!”
“Good night!”
She moved off quickly across the field. Darkness covered her. The dog in the distance had begun to howl again. He had his troubles, too.
Chapter 20
Trouble sharpens the vision. In our moments of distress we can see clearly that what is wrong with this world of ours is the fact that Misery loves company and seldom gets it. Toothache is an unpleasant ailment; but, if toothache were a natural condition of life, if all mankind were afflicted with toothache at birth, we should not notice it. It is the freedom from aching teeth of all those with whom we come in contact that emphasizes the agony. And, as with toothache, so with trouble. Until our private affairs go wrong, we never realize how bubbling over with happiness the bulk of mankind seems to be. Our aching heart is apparently nothing but a desert island in an ocean of joy.
George, waking next morning with a heavy heart, made this discovery before the day was an hour old. The sun was shining, and birds sang merrily, but this did not disturb him. Nature is ever callous to human woes, laughing while we weep; and we grow to take her callousness for granted. What jarred upon George was the infernal cheerfulness of his fellow men. They seemed to be doing it on purpose—triumphing over him—glorying in the fact, that, however Fate might have shattered him, they were all right.
People were happy who had never been happy before. Mrs. Platt, for instance. A grey, depressed woman of middle age, she had seemed hitherto to have few pleasures beyond breaking dishes and relating the symptoms of sick neighbours who were not expected to live through the week. She now sang. George could hear her as she prepared his breakfast in the kitchen. At first he had had a hope that she was moaning with pain; but this was dispelled when he had finished his toilet and proceeded downstairs. The sounds she emitted suggested anguish, but the words, when he was able to distinguish them, told another story. Incredible as it might seem, on this particular morning Mrs. Platt had elected to be light-hearted. What she was singing sounded like a dirge, but actually it was “Stop your tickling, Jock!” And. later, when she brought George his coffee and eggs, she spent a full ten minutes prattling as he tried to read his paper, pointing out to him a number of merry murders and sprightly suicides which otherwise he might have missed. The woman went out of her way to show him that for her, if not for less fortunate people, God this morning was in His heaven and all was right in the world.