Notwithstanding by Mary Cholmondeley

Author:Mary Cholmondeley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620125618
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter XXV

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"We sometimes think we might have loved more in kinder circumstances, if some one had not died, or if some one else had not turned away from us. Vain self-deception! The love we have given is all we had to give. If we had had more in us it would have come out. The circumstances of life always give scope for love if they give scope for nothing else. There is no stony desert in which it will not grow, no climate however bleak in which its marvellous flowers will not open to perfection."—M. N.

Two days later, when Janey was pacing in the lime walk of the Hulver gardens, Mr. Stirling joined her. She had known him slightly ever since he had become her mother's tenant and their neighbour at Noyes, but her acquaintance with him had never gone beyond the thinnest conventional civility. The possibility that Mr. Stirling might have been an acquisition in a preposterously dull neighbourhood had not occurred to Janey and Roger. They did not find Riff dull, and they were vaguely afraid of him as "clever." The result had been that they seldom met, and he was quickly aware of Janey's surprise at seeing him.

He explained that he had been to call on her at the Dower House, and the servant said she had gone up to the gardens, and finding the gate unlocked he had ventured to follow her. She saw that he had come for some grave reason, and they sat down on the green wooden seat which followed the semicircle in the yew hedge. Far off at the other end of the lime walk was another semicircular seat. There had been wind in the night, and the rough grass, that had once been a smooth-shaven lawn, and the long paved walk were strewn with curled amber leaves as if it were autumn already.

Mr. Stirling looked with compassion at Janey's strained face and sleepless eyes.

"I have come to see you," he said, "because I know you are a friend of Miss Georges."

He saw her wince.

"I am not sure I am," she said hoarsely, involuntarily.

"I am quite sure," he said.

There was a moment's silence.

"I came to tell you that my nephew has started for Japan, and that he has promised me upon his oath that he will never speak again of what he gabbled so foolishly. He meant no harm. But stupid people generally manage to do a good deal. The worst of Geoff's stupidity was that it was the truth which he blurted out."

"I knew it," said Janey below her breath. "I was sure of it."

"So was I," said Mr. Stirling sadly. "One can't tell why one believes certain things and disbelieves others. But Geoff's voice had that mysterious thing the ring of truth in it. I knew at once you recognized that. That is why I am here."

Janey looked straight in front of her.

"Of course I hoped, you and I both hoped," he continued, "that Geoff might have been mistaken. But he was not.

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