Chapter XXI

It was almost a relief to Jim to find himself facing his second ordeal.

The fire was burning brightly in Mr. Bligh’s study; there was a sense of comfort and immunity in the thick-carpeted book-lined room; the very smell of tobacco and leather had something vaguely coarse and kind about it.

Mr. Bligh’s hair was more on end than ever; his collar was pulled crooked, and he was attempting to smoke his pipe upside down, appalled by the clash of his sympathies and his obligations. Mrs. Bligh had explained to him carefully that they were quite different things, but Mr. Bligh always found it difficult to keep his obligations and his sympathies separate.

He was sorriest for Emily; all his chivalry was roused for her; in a sense she was more in his charge than Jim—he had not thought of this behind the scullery door, but he had thought of it when he helped Emily into the high dog-cart which was to take her to the penitentiary, and implored the cook—quite unnecessarily—to be kind to her.

Emily was young and very pretty, and in a trouble which Mr. Bligh was shocked to think she had received in his house; and here was Jim, not only one of his boys, but a real, genuine son of the soil, the happy result of a social experiment upon which Mr. Bligh had set his heart—acting with dreadful precocity and callousness; and yet somehow Mr. Bligh was sorry for Jim as well. He was sorry for Jim as if something had fallen on him out of the sky—something that had nothing to do with Emily. Mr. Bligh knew that things did fall out of the sky—unconnected, disastrous things, which seemed to wind up with Emilies, and which one did not seem able always to foresee or to prevent.

‘You know this is quite dreadful,’ he said with a nervous anxiety to take his bull by the horns; ‘any way you look at it. From a perfectly fair-minded, modern point of view its inadmissible—the laws of the state, you know—I quite grant that they are incomplete and they haven’t gone into the subject yet thoroughly enough, but there _is_ marriage, you know—in a sense provided, and everything arranged for it, a trifling fee—though I think it ought to be waived myself—and no one can get any harm by it . . . especially not if it’s made more elastic afterwards.

‘And a girl—unprotected—somehow or other, girls always _are_ unprotected—in a friend’s house! I don’t say the position is menial—I hope no servant of mine has ever felt menial for a moment. I lend them all Sir Walter Scott’s novels, and a gramophone when we go out on Sunday afternoons. But still it’s a position which, when you come to think of it, really oughtn’t to be taken advantage of—you know what I mean, don’t you?’

Jim sat down in the leather arm-chair opposite Mr. Bligh and looked at him with indulgent eyes.

He did not blame Mr. Bligh for not believing him innocent. He saw that Mr. Bligh was feeling most upset and didn’t know how to express himself, and Jim thought that perhaps it was a better thing to feel upset and not know how to express yourself, than to express yourself with perfect clearness and not to know how to feel upset.

‘Well,’ he agreed, ‘things seem to have come to pieces somehow, sir’—a flicker of ironic laughter shone in his eyes—‘but I couldn’t quite say how.’

‘No! No! Of course not! I don’t ask it!’ Mr. Bligh intervened hurriedly. ‘One can’t, you know, always say how. And a fine-looking strap—— I mean, if one looked at it from the poor girl’s point of view now.

‘I was most distressed when I saw her drive off to that Sisterhood this morning. Of course, she couldn’t be in better hands, I admit that; but somehow it all seemed rather cheerless, you know—laundry work, they say—soap suds and perpetual chapel—and I couldn’t help wondering if marriage now wouldn’t have been better all round? Though I know you’re very young.’

Jim shook his head and repeated his formula with some amusement.

‘She doesn’t want it,’ he said firmly, ‘and I don’t want it.’

‘Well, now, really,’ said Mr. Bligh with a puzzled air. ‘That seems very curious, doesn’t it—and rather awkward when you come to think of it? Of course I know that, financially, you’re not justified. Still, if a loan of twenty pounds——’

Mr. Bligh gave a cowed and guilty glance at the door. Married men with families should not offer twenty pounds to misbehaving pupils. He knew this, but the twenty pounds had sprung from his lips as lightly and irresistibly as Venus from the seas. Jim, watching him with critical eyes, felt a perverse desire to accept the money; to see if Mr. Bligh’s generosity would have grit enough in it to pass into action. He had a vindictive moment when it seemed to him that he should like to pay them both out to the extent of twenty pounds. Then Mr. Bligh’s nervous eyes recalled Jim to his deeper feeling of indulgence.

It is a cruel thing to tie a weak man down to his generosities.

‘It isn’t money,’ Jim explained, ‘thank you, sir, all the same. I’m afraid the whole thing’s not what you call downright serious.’

Mr. Bligh shook his head regretfully, and tried unsuccessfully to look extremely stern.

‘But the consequences,’ he said, ‘the consequences are very serious, you know, Jim, for her—and in a sense for you.’

‘She’s been squared as far as I can square her,’ said Jim. ‘What about me?’

‘Your career, you know,’ said Mr. Bligh limply. ‘You’ve done so extraordinarily well. I wrote to Arthur the other day—I said you had proved my theory—grit and brain. You had achieved a miracle. And on the top of it I have planted the culture—quite enough, you know, for Cambridge—our time was drawing to an end.’

Mr. Bligh coughed and plunged his head despairingly into his hands.

‘But it must come, you see,’ he pleaded, ‘to an end quicker! Example, you know—and poor Emily—one has to think of the others. They’ve all been sportsmen about it. They had to be told something. I spoke to them, man to man, you know. Wivvle was upset—he took it to heart—a high-minded, sensitive lad—but they were all nice about you, Jim—that part of the plan _has_ succeeded.

‘But you see you couldn’t stay on here, could you? Even if I admitted the most advanced views on the sex subject—and I don’t know that I’m quite prepared to admit them. I’m enlightened, but I’m not extreme; not on sex questions, you know. There is so much to be said on both sides, and it doesn’t do much good saying it, _does_ it? But I think one must draw a line somewhere in the house, I do really.

‘And there’s my wife’s religion, you know. I told you I always considered that?

‘By-the-by, Jim, what’s happened to your religion? I’ve always doubted the power of medieval superstitions to stand against nature—women, of course, are different. They’re more medieval, when you come to think of it, and perhaps less natural. But you don’t seem to have found it much of a help?’

‘I don’t know quite what I’ve found it yet,’ said Jim dryly. ‘I’ve got to find out, I suppose; but religion doesn’t come to an end with the first lost sheep, does it?’

‘No, no; of course, not in a sense,’ Mr. Bligh agreed. ‘Still, there are the ninety-and-nine just persons, you know, and they rather weigh down the scale inside the church. The vicar, for instance; he takes a very gloomy view of anything at all marked. I think probably you’d _better_ leave us to-morrow.’

Mr. Bligh’s eyes fixed themselves desperately upon Jim’s. His whole heart was against this dismissal, but there were stronger forces at play than Mr. Bligh’s heart.

‘I’ll go to-day,’ said Jim kindly. ‘I’ll walk over to Mr. Atkinson’s this afternoon.’

‘Walk—my dear boy——’ exclaimed Mr. Bligh; ‘it’s twenty miles, and I believe it’s going to snow.’

‘Yes,’ said Jim; ‘but I think I’d like to walk twenty miles.’

‘But doesn’t that seem a little extreme?’ Mr. Bligh urged. ‘You’ve not had lunch yet.’

‘I don’t want lunch,’ said Jim, ‘and if I’m to get in before night I’d better be going.’

He paused for a moment, then he lifted his eyes to Mr. Bligh’s and said a little grimly,—

‘I’ve seen Mrs. Bligh.’

Mr. Bligh blinked rapidly.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said sympathetically; ‘of course—I suppose you had to. A perfectly good woman, you know—immaculate, I always call her. Nothing ever happens to good women quite, does it? I mean they can’t be expected to feel for a man when he’s down, can they? It’s quite natural. You see, they think he oughtn’t to be down.

‘I’m all for the feminist movement, you know—economic independence and a kind of _rapprochement_ between the sexes. But not with the older type of woman; it can’t be done. They stand on a pedestal, you know, and would rather stay there. It’s the beauty of holiness, and after all you can’t have it both ways, can you? If you like the beauty of holiness it’s safer up there, out of the way, where it can’t get trodden on, isn’t it?’

‘I’d like to see holiness without a pedestal,’ said Jim obstinately. ‘It ought to be able to look after itself and us too.’

‘Well, but in a sense it does,’ Mr. Bligh protested, a little wistfully. ‘If you live up to it, you know—it is most inspiring. I assure you it can be done.’

Mr. Bligh glanced down for a moment and sighed. He looked a little strained and sad for one who is living successfully upon inspiration.

‘I admit it takes some doing,’ he added after a pause. ‘But life would be nothing without its ideals, would it? Now, my dear fellow—I needn’t say that, however we look at this very trying incident of your life—we won’t use harsher words—I hope you’ll still consider me your friend?’

‘Yes,’ said Jim, ‘I will.’

He shook hands with Mr. Bligh and went upstairs to pack. He made no other farewells. Something happened when he reached the hall which put them out of his head.

Denis rushed in; he was full of the joy of making a snow man. His cheeks and eyes were on fire; his whole buoyant figure tense with excitement; but, as his eyes rested on Jim, a curious change took place in him. All his joy faded. He did not spring forward as usual to claim Jim’s absorption into his adventure. His small, erect figure held itself back; his eyes miserably wavered; an anguish of reproach and pain swept across his face.

Without a word he turned and stumbled away from the sight of his friend. All his ardour was struck down into the chill of memory. His mother had told him that this beloved friend had done a cruel and an evil thing. She had made the thought of Jim hideous in her child’s eyes, and, as he turned obediently from the presence of the evil-doer, he heard her warning to him audibly justified, for Jim stood still in the hall and cursed bitterly.