I don't know how I got her off him and on to Antigone. I may have
asked her point-blank to what extent Antigone was her father's
daughter. The luminous and expansive lady under the sunshade was a
little less luminous and expansive when we came to Angelette, as she
called her; but I gathered then, and later, that Antigone was a
dedicated child, a child set apart and consecrated to the service
of her father. It was not, of course, to be expected that she should
inherit any of his genius; Mrs. Wrackham seemed to think it
sufficiently wonderful that she should have developed the
intelligence that fitted her to be his secretary. I was not to
suppose it was because he couldn't afford a secretary (the lady
laughed as she said this; for you see how absurd it was, the idea of
Charles Wrackham not being able to afford anything). It was because
they both felt that Antigone ought not to be, as she put it,
"overshadowed" by him; he wished that she should be associated,
intimately associated, with his work; that the child should have her
little part in his glory. It was not only her share of life which he
took and so to speak put in the bank for her, but an investment for
Antigone in the big business of his immortality. There she was,
there she always would be, associated with Charles Wrackham and his
work.
She sighed under the sunshade. "That child," she said, "can do more
for him, Mr. Simpson, than I can."
I could see that, though the poor lady didn't know it, she suffered
a subtle sorrow and temptation. If she hadn't been so amiable, if
she hadn't been so good, she would have been jealous of Antigone.
She assured us that only his wife and daughter knew what he really
was.
We wondered, did Antigone know? She made no sign of distance or
dissent, but somehow she didn't seem to belong to him. There was
something remote and irrelevant about her; she didn't fit into the
advertisement. And in her remoteness and irrelevance she remained
inscrutable. She gave no clue to what she really thought of him.
When "They" went for him she soothed him. She spread her warm
angel's wing, and wrapped him from the howling blast. But, as far
as we could make out, she never committed herself to an opinion. All
her consolations went to the tune of "They say. What say they? Let
them say." Which might have applied to anybody. We couldn't tell
whether, like her mother, she believed implicitly or whether she saw
through him.
She certainly saw beyond him, or she couldn't have said the things
she did--you remember?--at Ford Lankester's funeral. But she had
been overwrought then, and that clear note had been wrung from her
by the poignancy of the situation. She never gave us anything like
that again.
And she was devoted to him--devoted with passion. There couldn't be
any sort of doubt about it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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