Section 6
Old Stuart was pitiful.
I found him still inert in the greenhouse where I had first seen
him. He did not move as I drew near him; he glanced at me, and then
stared hard again at the flowerpots before him.
"Eh, Willie," he said, "this is a black day for all of us."
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
"The missus takes on so," he said. "I came out here."
"What do you mean to do?"
"What IS a man to do in such a case?"
"Do!" I cried, "why-- Do!"
"He ought to marry her," he said.
"By God, yes!" I cried. "He must do that anyhow."
"He ought to. It's--it's cruel. But what am I to do? Suppose he
won't? Likely he won't. What then?"
He drooped with an intensified despair.
"Here's this cottage," he said, pursuing some contracted argument.
"We've lived here all our lives, you might say. . . . Clear out.
At my age. . . . One can't die in a slum."
I stood before him for a space, speculating what thoughts might
fill the gaps between these broken words. I found his lethargy, and
the dimly shaped mental attitudes his words indicated, abominable.
I said abruptly, "You have her letter?"
He dived into his breast-pocket, became motionless for ten seconds,
then woke up again and produced her letter. He drew it clumsily
from its envelope, and handed it to me silently.
"Why!" he cried, looking at me for the first time, "What's come to
your chin, Willie?"
"It's nothing," I said. "It's a bruise;" and I opened the letter.
It was written on greenish tinted fancy note-paper, and with all
and more than Nettie's usual triteness and inadequacy of expression.
Her handwriting bore no traces of emotion; it was round and upright
and clear as though it had been done in a writing lesson. Always
her letters were like masks upon her image; they fell like curtains
before the changing charm of her face; one altogether forgot the
sound of her light clear voice, confronted by a perplexing stereotyped
thing that had mysteriously got a hold upon one's heart and pride.
How did that letter run?--
"MY DEAR MOTHER,
"Do not be distressed at my going away. I have gone somewhere safe,
and with some one who cares for me very much. I am sorry for your
sakes, but it seems that it had to be. Love is a very difficult
thing, and takes hold of one in ways one does not expect. Do not
think I am ashamed about this, I glory in my love, and you must not
trouble too much about me. I am very, very happy (deeply underlined).
"Fondest love to Father and Puss. "Your loving "Nettie."
That queer little document! I can see it now for the childish simple
thing it was, but at the time I read it in a suppressed anguish of
rage. It plunged me into a pit of hopeless shame; there seemed to
remain no pride for me in life until I had revenge. I stood staring
at those rounded upstanding letters, not trusting myself to speak
or move. At last I stole a glance at Stuart.
He held the envelope in his hand, and stared down at the postmark
between his horny thumbnails.
"You can't even tell where she is," he said, turning the thing
round in a hopeless manner, and then desisting. "It's hard on us,
Willie. Here she is; she hadn't anything to complain of; a sort of
pet for all of us. Not even made to do her share of the 'ousework.
And she goes off and leaves us like a bird that's learnt to fly.
Can't TRUST us, that's what takes me. Puts 'erself-- But there!
What's to happen to her?"
"What's to happen to him?"
He shook his head to show that problem was beyond him.
"You'll go after her," I said in an even voice; "you'll make him
marry her?"
"Where am I to go?" he asked helplessly, and held out the envelope
with a gesture; "and what could I do? Even if I knew-- How could
I leave the gardens?"
"Great God!" I cried, "not leave these gardens! It's your Honor,
man! If she was my daughter--if she was my daughter--I'd tear the
world to pieces!" . . I choked. "You mean to stand it?"
"What can I do?"
"Make him marry her! Horsewhip him! Horsewhip him, I say!--I'd
strangle him!"
He scratched slowly at his hairy cheek, opened his mouth, and
shook his head. Then, with an intolerable note of sluggish gentle
wisdom, he said, "People of our sort, Willie, can't do things like
that."
I came near to raving. I had a wild impulse to strike him in the
face. Once in my boyhood I happened upon a bird terribly mangled
by some cat, and killed it in a frenzy of horror and pity. I had
a gust of that same emotion now, as this shameful mutilated soul
fluttered in the dust, before me. Then, you know, I dismissed him
from the case.
"May I look?" I asked.
He held out the envelope reluctantly.
"There it is," he said, and pointing with his garden-rough forefinger.
"I.A.P.A.M.P. What can you make of that?"
I took the thing in my hands. The adhesive stamp customary in those
days was defaced by a circular postmark, which bore the name of
the office of departure and the date. The impact in this particular
case had been light or made without sufficient ink, and half the
letters of the name had left no impression. I could distinguish--
I A P A M P
and very faintly below D.S.O.
I guessed the name in an instant flash of intuition. It was
Shaphambury. The very gaps shaped that to my mind. Perhaps in a
sort of semi-visibility other letters were there, at least hinting
themselves. It was a place somewhere on the east coast, I knew,
either in Norfolk or Suffolk.
"Why!" cried I--and stopped.
What was the good of telling him?
Old Stuart had glanced up sharply, I am inclined to think almost
fearfully, into my face. "You--you haven't got it?" he said.
Shaphambury--I should remember that.
"You don't think you got it?" he said.
I handed the envelope back to him.
"For a moment I thought it might be Hampton," I said.
"Hampton," he repeated. "Hampton. How could you make Hampton?" He
turned the envelope about. "H.A.M.--why, Willie, you're a worse
hand at the job than me!"
He replaced the letter in the envelope and stood erect to put this
back in his breast pocket.
I did not mean to take any risks in this affair. I drew a stump
of pencil from my waistcoat pocket, turned a little away from him
and wrote "Shaphambury" very quickly on my frayed and rather grimy
shirt cuff.
"Well," said I, with an air of having done nothing remarkable.
I turned to him with some unimportant observation --I have forgotten
what.
I never finished whatever vague remark I commenced.
I looked up to see a third person waiting at the greenhouse door.
