LOVE IN FETTERS.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 50

LOVE IN FETTERS.

By Henry James.

[A selected reading from " The Spoils of Poynton,' r by Henry James. Owen Gereth, the youug master of Poynton, a country seat famed for its rare collection of art treasures, has engaged himself to a very beautiful but uncultivated young woman, lion a Brigbtock, who has already alienated hia affections by her attitude towards his mother and himself concerning the disposition of some of these same treasures which c institute the " spoils of Poynton." Mrs Gereth, on retiring to the dowerhouse, as is the English custom when preparations for an eldest son's marriage are under way, has taken with^her the bulk of .these treasures, in the collection of which her life and her husband's had been tpenfc; aud Mona Brigstock; who values them only because she has been told of their value, refuses to let the marriage go on until they are restored. Matters are at a standstill when Owen finds that he really loves the fr'tenS and companion of his mother, >leda. Vetch, for whose sake Mrs Gereth, who al! the time wished them to marry, would have given up willingly the spoils of Poyn. , ton, but to Mona Brig tock, never I fleda, loving Oiven, but considering him in honour bound to another, returns to London, where Owen follows •her, and has just declared himself when Mrs Brigstock, the prospective mother-in-law, calls upon Fleda, and rinding Owen there carries him oft. Fleda at once leaves London for her sister's in the country, whither Owen traces her, sending an imperative message thai he must see her on the day following.] . ' This .communication' arrived in the; morning,. but Fieda. would .still .have had time to wire a protest. She debated on' that alternative? . Then she- read" the note over, and found in one phrase an exact statement of her duty. Owen's simplicity had expressed it, and her -nubtlety bad: nothing to answer. Sbe owed him something for her obvious failure, and what she owed him was to receive him. If, indeed, she had known he would make this attempt, she might have been held to have -gained nothing by her flight. Well, she had gained what she had gamed — she had gained the interval. She had no compuoction for the greater trouble she should give the young man. It was now doubtless right that he should have as much trouble as possible. Maggie, who thought she was in her confidence, but was immensely not, had reproached her ior having left Mrs. Geretb, and Maggie was just in this proportion gratified to -hear of the visitor with whom, early in the afternoon, she would have to be asked to be left alone. Maggie liked to see far, and now Bbc could sit upstairs and rake the whole future. She had known that, as she familiarly said, there was something trie matter with Fleda, and the value of that knowledge was augmented by the fact that there was apparently also something the matter with Mr Gereth. Fleda, downstairs, learned soon, enough what this was. It was simply that, as he 'announced the moment he stood before her, be was now all rrght-. Wnen she asked him what he meant by that state' he replied that he meant- he could practically regard himself henceforth as a free- mac, that he had had at West KensicgtoD, as soon as they got into "the street, 'ouch' p, horrid scene with Mrs 'Brigstock. • , ' "I. knew what she wanted to; say to me'} that's why I was determined to get her off. I knew I shouldn't' like it, bat I was perfectly prepare" 3 ," said O&en. = " She. brought it out as soon as we got around the corner. She a*ked""me. point-blank if I was in love " with you." ' . ' " And what did you say to that 1 " " That it was none of her business."

•• Ab," said Fieda, "I'm not eo'sute."

"Well, I am, and lin the person mosb concerned. Of course, I didn't use jast those Words. I was perfectly civil— quite as civil as she. Bat I told her I dida'c consider she had a right to put me any such question. I said I wasn't sure that even Mona had, with the extraordinary line, you know, thufc Mona has taken. At any rate, the whole thing, the way X.pnt it, was between Mpnft and me"; and between Mona and me, if she dida'c mind, it would jast have to remain.*" Fleda was silent a little. " All that didn't answer her question." "Then you think I ought to have" told her?"

Again our yoimg lady reflected. " I tbink I'm' rather glad yon didn't." "I knew what I was about," said Owen. ," It didn't strike me that she bad the least right to come down on as that way and ask for explanations." Fieda looked very grave, weighing the ■whole matter. " I dare say that when she started, -when she arrived, she didn't mean to come '.down.'" -. . - " What, then, did she mean to do ? " "What she salcf to me just before she went— she, meant to Stead with-me."

VQh, I heard her," said Owen.* 1 But plead, with' you for what 1 "' ' ~\ / Z ." For yoQ, of course"— -to' entreat me to give you up. She thinks me awfully designing-^-that I've taken some sort of possession of you." Owen started. "You haven't lifted a finger. li/s I who have taken possession of you."

". Very true ; you've done it all yourself." Fleda spoke gravely and gently, without a breath of ccquetry. " But those are shades between whioh she's probably not obliged to distinguish. It's enough for her that we're singularly intimate."

11 1 am, but you're not ! " Owen exclaimed.

Fleda gave a dim smile. " You make me at least feel that I'm learning to know you very well when I hear you say such a thing as that. Mrs Brigstock came to get round me — to supplicate me," she went on ; " but to find you there, looking so much ab home, paying me a friendly call, and shoving the tea-things about — that was too much for her patience. She doesn't know, you see, that I'm after all a decent girl. She simply made up her mind on the spot that I'm a very bad case."

•• I couldn't sfand the way she treated you, and that was what I had to say to her," Oweri returned.

"Sjze'n simple and slow, but jjb.es not a fool. I think she's treated me, on the whole, pretty well."' FlecJa remembered how Mrs Gereth .had, treated Mon^ when the Brigstocks came down to Poynton.

Owen evidently thought her. painfully perverse. "It was you who carried it off. You behaved like a brick. And co did I, I consider. If you.only knew the difficulty I had 1 I told her you were the noblest and straighteet of women." M That can hardly hay© removed her im-

pression that there are things I put you up fo."

"It didn't," Owen replied with candour. " She said our relation, yours and mine, isn't innocent."

•' What did she mean by that 1 "

"As you may suppose, I particularly inquired. Do you know what she haS the cbeek to tell me 7 " Owen asked. " She didn't better it much. She said that she meant it's excessively unnatural."

Fleda considered afresh. « ' Well, it is I " she brought out at last.

" Then upon my honour it's only you who make it so I " Her perversity was distinctly too much for him. " I mean you make it so by the way you keep me off." < <

" Have I kept you off to-day ? " Fleda sadly shook her head, raising her arms a little and dropping them.

Her gesture of resignation gave him a pretext for c itching at her hand, bat before he could take it she had put it behind her. They had been seated together on Maggie's single sofa, and her movement brought her to her feet, while Owen, looking at her reproachfully, leaned back in discouragement. 11 What good does it do ma to be here when I find you only a stone ? " "' '■ - She met his eyes with all the tenderness she had not yet uttered, and she had not known till this moment how great was the accumulation, "perhaps, after all," eh* risked, there may be even inn stone still arime little help, for you." > ;. Owen sat there a minute staring at her.' " Ah, you're beautiful, more bcautif ol than anyone," he broke out, " but I'll be hanged if I can ever understand you I On Tuesday, at your father's, you were beautiful — as beautiful just before I left as "you "are at this instant. Bat the next day, when I went back, I found it had apparently meant nothing ; and now, again, that you let me come here and you shine at me like an angel, it doesn't bring you an inch nearer Co saying what I want you" to say." He remained a moment longer in the same position, then he jerked, himself up. " What I want you to say, is that you pity me." He sprang up and came to her. " What I want you to cay is that 'il save me."/ '

y Meda hesitated. " Why do you need saving, when you announced to me just now that you're a free man ? "

. He, too, hesitated, but he wax not checked, " It'ti just for the reason that I'm free. Don't you know what I mean, Mies Vetch 1 I want you to marry me."

- Fleda at this put oat her hand in charity. She held his own, which quickly grasped it, a moment, and if he had described her as shining' at him it may be assumed that she shone all the more in her deep, still smile. "Let me hear a little more about your' freedom first," she said. " I gather that Mrs Brigstock was not wholly satisfied with the way you disposed of her question." " I dare say she wasn't. Bat the less she's satisfied the mor'eTm free "

" Wliafc bearing have Mr feelings, pray I Fieda asked

"Why,' Mona's ; eroch wbrse "than 'her mother.- She warits much more to .give me up." ' " ' " Then wbyTdoesn't she do it 1 " ■ t ■ "She will, as soon as her mother gets home and' tells her." . • " Tells her. what ? " Fleda iuquired. " Why, that I'm in love' with you 1 " " * Fl4aa debated. " Are you so very Bare she will ? "

." Certainly, I'm sure, with all the -evidence I already have. That will fioieh her!" Owen declared. ' This made bis companion thoughtful again. " Can .you take such pleasure in her being 'flnißhea' — a poor "girl you've once loved f"

(Daren waited lorig enough to taka in the question ; then with a Berenity startling even to her knowledge of his natare : "I, don't think I can have rtally loved her, yau know," he replied.

Fieda broke into a laugh which gave him a surprise as visible as the emotion it testified to. "Then how am Ito know that you • really ' love — anybody else 1 "

" On, I'll show you tha{," said Owen.

" I must take it on trust," the girl pursued. "And what if Mona doesn't give you up?" she added.

Owen was baffled but a few seconds ; he had thought o£ eveiy thing. , " Why, ' that's just where you come in." '" To save you ? I ccc. You mean I must get rid . of her far you." His blankness showed for a, little that he felt, the chill of her cold logic ; but as ehe waited for his rejoinder Bhe.,k,new towhich of them it ;COBt most. HSigaspsd'a minute,, and thab gave her' time to .say, " You see,- Mr' Owen, 'how impossible it;,. is to. talk, of such things yet 1" '' "•■ Like lightning ;he had grasped her arm. •" Yoa mean yo4 tvilLtelk of. them 1 ", Then as he began to take the flood of assent from her eyes, " You will listen to me ! Oh, you dear, you dear — when, when 1 " "An, when it isn't mere misery!" The words had broken from her in a sudden loud cry, and what next happened was- that the very sound of her pain upset her. She heard her own note ; she turned short away from him; in" a .moment she had burst into sobs ; in another his arms were round her; the next she had let heraelf go bo far that even Mrs Gereth might have seen it. He clasped her, and she gave herself — she poured out her tears on his breast ; something prisoned and pent throbbed and gashed ; something deep and sweet surged vp — something that' came from, far within and far off, that, had begun with the Bight of him in his indifference, and" had never had rest since then. Tbe surrender was short, but the relief was ioDg.' She felt h!s lips upon her face, and his amis tightened with his full divination. What she did, what she had done, she scarcely knew ;• she only was aware, as she broke from him again, of . what, had taken place in his own quick breast. W,hat had taken, place ;v?a,s cthatj with ' tbe click of a spring,- .he caw.he had cleared. the liigh wall at a Joound ; they were together vrifcnout a wall, She had not a shred -of a secret- left; It was as if a whirlwind had come and gone, laying low the great- fake front that she had built - up, stone by stone— The strangest" thing of all was* the momentary sense 61 desolation.

" Ab, all the while yon cared ? " Owen read the truth with a wonder so great that it was visibly almost a sadness, a terror caused by bio. sadden perception of where the im-

possibility was not. That made it, all, per* bap?, elsewhere.' " I cared, I cared, I cared I " Flftda moaned it as defiantly as if she were confessing a misdeed. " How couldn't I care 1 Bat you mustn't, you must. never, never as.k. It isn't for us to talk about," she insisted. " Don't speak of it, don't speak."

It was easy, indeed, not to speak when the difficulty was to find words. He clasped his hands before her as he might- hays clasped them at an altar. His pressed palms shook together while he held his breath, and while she stilled herself in the effort to come round again to the real and the right. He helped this effort, soothing her into a seat with a touch as light as if she had really been something sacred. ' She sank into a chair, and he dropped before her on his knees. She fell,b"ack with closed «yep, and he buried hia face in her lap. There was no way to thank her but this act of ■ prostration, which lasted, in silence, till she laid consenting hands on him, touched his head and stroked it, held id in her tenderness till he acknowledged his long, density. He made the avowal seem only his — made her, when she rose again, raise him at last, softly, as if from the abasement of- shame. If in «ach other's eyes now. however, they paw the truth, this, truth, to Fieda, looked harder even than before— all the harder when, at ' the very moment she -repognißed, ifci he inapmured to her, ecstatically, in.fresh posseSaiitfpf hef hands, which be drew t ,op to hishteasti holding them . tighfthere witti Both own—" Im iaveoV l'm saved- 1 am. I'm ready for anything. I have your word. Come I" he cried, as if from the sight of a response slower than he needed, and in the tone he so often had of a great boy at a great game.

She had once more disengaged herself, with the private , vow that he shouldn't yet touch her again. It was all too horribly soon — lier sense of this was rapidly surging JSsck. "We mustn't, talk— we mustn't .talk ; "we must wait ! " she' intensely insisted.- " I don't know what you mean by. your freedom. I don't see it. I don't feel it. Where is it yet — where, your freedom,? , IE it's real there's plenty of time, and If ft isn't there's more than' enough. I hate* myself," she protested, "for-'bavirjg anything to eay-about her. It's like waiting for dead men's shoes. Wbat business is it of mine- what she does 1 She has her own trouble and her own plan. It's too hideous to watch her and count on her." \

Oven's face, afc t this, showed a revivingdread, the fear of some darksome process of her mind. "If you speak for yourself, I can understand, but why is it hideous' for me?"

" Ob, I mean for mytelf," Fleda said Impatiently.' ' '"" "/watch her. Zoonnt on hen How can Ido anything else ? If I count on her to lot me defioiiely .- know how v we fitacd, Ido nothing in life bat what she bereelfhas- led straight np to. I never thought 'of asking yon' to ♦ get rid of her ' for me, and I never would have spoken to yon if I harlot held that I amrid of her,- thafc'sb'e has hacked oat:' ' of the whole thing. " Didn'c- she do so from the' moment she began to pot it off 7 I L had already applied for- <be license. The Very invitations were half addressed.; Who' bat she, all of a- Bidden, demanded- an unnatural wait T It was none of my doi> g.- 1 had never dreamed of anything bnt comiog up to the scratch." Owen grew more and more Iricid, and more confident of 1 Che effect of hi»" laoidity.- " She called it.' taking a stand,' to ses wbali mother would do. I told her mother would do what I would m,ake her do, and to that she replied that she would like to see me make i her first. I said, that I would arrange that everything should be all right, and'she said 'she' really preferred, to arrange it herself.' It was a flat refusal to,£rust mo in the smallest degree. Why, then, had she pretended so tremendously to care for me 1 And of- course at present," said Owen, " she trusts me,, if possible, still less." Fleda paid this statement the homage of a minute's muteness. " A<i to that, naturally she has reason "

"Why on earth has she reason?" Then,' as his companion, moving away, simply threw up her bauds, " I never looked at you — not to call looking — till she had regularly driven me to it," he went on. " I know what I'm about. I do assure you I'm all right."

" You re . not all right — you're all wrong, Fleda cried in despair. " You -mustn't stay here — you mustn't!" she repeated, with clear decision.- ''You make; me say dreadful thing* , and I feel as if I made youl say them." But before he could reply Bfae took itap in another tone. " Why in . the world, if .every thing had changed, didn't- yon break off ?"

" 1 1 " The inquiry seemed to hava-moved him to stupefaction. •" Can- yon ask me $hafc question when I only wanted- to: please yoa 1 Didn't yoa seem to show me, in your wonderful way, that that was exactly how ? I didn't break off, jast on purpose to leave.it to her. I didn't break off, so that there shouldn't be a thing to be said against me.'.' The instant after her challenge Fleda.had faced him again in self-reproof. "There isn't a thing to be said against yoa, and I don't know what nonsense you make me talk. You have pleased me, and you've been right and good, and It's the only comfort, and yoa mast go. Everything must come from Mona, and if it doesn't come, we've aaid entirely too much. You must leave ma alone — forever." ; , _ •

" For ever 1 " Owen gasped. ' , "I mean unless everything is different." " Everything is different— when I 7cnom." Fleda winced at what he mew. She made a wild gesture, which seemed to whirl it out of the room. The mere alhision was -like another embrace. " You know nothing— and yon must go and wait."

— Not so Rosy. — " Won't it be delightful when we all have flying machines ! " — "Idon'fc - know about that; of course oat, creditors will all. have, them} top/ ' , __

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