BEN’S REWARD.
When Ben received Mrs. Tracy’s letter his mind was in a condition which
it would be very difficult to describe. He had taken, as he thought, a
step which would decide his whole life. And even in the moment of taking
it he had been put to the severest test which a man can meet;--his love
had been suddenly arrested in its high tide, and the woman he loved
placed, as it were, at the bar before his better judgment, his finer
taste. The shock had been so great that Ben’s mind for the moment had
reeled under it. He had felt equal to nothing but wild and sudden
action, it did not matter much of what kind. He had rushed out and had
done what we have already recorded, and now for two or three hours he
had been sitting with no pretence at doing anything, waiting to see what
was to come of it. Wild visions of being called to her,--of being made
to forget in the charm and intoxication of her presence all the
tinglings of shame and disquietude which against his will had come upon
him,--possessed him at first. He sat for long, expecting that every
movement he heard was towards him,--expecting to hear her voice, or her
mother’s voice, calling him. He could not go out to his club for dinner
as he generally did; he could not have eaten anything; he did not even
recollect that it was his duty to go and dine. Such a madness to have
taken possession of Ben Renton, a practised man of the world! But so it
was. He sat and listened, thinking he heard her on the stair, thinking
he heard soft taps at the door, saying sometimes, ‘Come in!’ in his
foolishness, to the ghost of his own fancy. But nobody came near him.
One would have thought that this want of any response after the great
sacrifice he had made for her, would have acted upon him like a shrill
gust of reality blowing away the mists. But, in fact, it was not so.
Instead of opening his eyes it but dimmed them more with a feverish haze
of suspense. How could he judge her when he was watching with breathless
anxiety for her call, for her answer, for some message from her? The
footsteps above him were treading lightly, cruelly on his heart; but the
very continuance of their sound rapt him so that he could think of
nothing else. What were they doing? What meaning had they towards
himself, these women who seemed to hold his life in their hands? Every
lingering moment in which the true state of affairs should have become
visible to him, in which he should have come to see, however unwilling,
something of the real character of the creature that had bewitched him,
encircled Ben with but another coil of her magic. Not now!--not now!
After he knew what she was going to do he might then be able to judge.
At present he could but listen, breathless,--watch, wait, wonder, and
catch with a quickened ear the meaning of every movement. Any rational
observer would have concluded that Ben Renton was out of his wits
before, but the climax of his madness was reached that night. He had
stripped himself of everything he had in the world,--at the moment,--for
Millicent; he would have spent his life for her if she had but made him
a sign; not in the way of self-murder, which nobody could have required
of him, but of that more total suicide which consists in the sacrifice
of all the prospects, and hopes, and possibilities of life. His love was
not a selfish, complacent impulse, but a passion which mastered him.
Thus the moments which passed so lightly overhead in that argument about
the black grenadine were ages of sickening uncertainty to Ben.
This was brought to an end by Mrs. Tracy’s letter. Such a plunge into
dead fact after the wild heat of his excitement was enough to have
brought any man to his wits. He read it over and over in his
consternation. At first there shot across him a pang of disappointment,
a sinking of heart, such as comes inevitably to those who are thrown
back upon themselves out of a roused state of expectation. And then he
re-read it till the words lost their meaning. But there was something
else which could not fail of expressiveness, and that was the silence
which had succeeded so much movement and commotion up-stairs. For
half-an-hour he refused to believe, even with the sudden stillness above
and the letter in his hand to prove it, that all possibility of further
intercourse was over for the night. He could not believe it. They were
only stiller than usual. The note should have come to him earlier. There
was still time to call him to them. He took out his watch and placed it
on the table before him. Eleven o’clock, and every thing so quiet. Then
he went out and listened in the dingy little hall, where a faint lamp
was burning; then, half mad, opened the outer door, and rushed into the
street to make sure. There, indeed, he was convinced of the fact which
had been evident to all his faculties before. The dining-room was quite
dark, evidently vacant, and above, in the higher storey, was the glimmer
of Mrs. Tracy’s candles. She was going to bed, respectable, virtuous
woman that she was, with the hundred pounds accepted as a loan under her
pillow, too virtuous to think of rewarding the giver even by a smile
from Millicent’s lips, which would have cost nothing. The poor young
fellow came in with his heart bleeding and palpitating, one knows how,
and then seized his hat and went out again for a long, agitated walk in
the dark, not caring nor knowing where he went. Yes; this was how it
was to be. They had accepted his offering, but they had not a word to
give him, nor a look, nor a smile; nothing but the formal acknowledgment
of his ‘kindness,’ and Mrs. Tracy’s I. O. U.,--which was worth so much!
Ben walked on and on through the dreary, half-lighted streets, thinking,
he supposed; but he was not in the least thinking. He was but going over
and over the fact that there was nothing for him that night, that all
hope was over, that the exquisite moment he had been expecting,--and it
was only now that he knew how he had been expecting it,--was not to be.
When some long-desired and promised meeting has failed to take place,
and the watcher, obstinately believing to the last, has to confess that
the day is over, the possibility gone, that the hour is never to be won
out of the hands of time,--then he or she knows how Ben felt. And most
of us have had some experience of such feelings. Thrills came over him,
as he walked, of wild suggestion,--how she might, after all, have stolen
down-stairs to say the fault was not hers; how she might have tapped at
his door after he was gone. Ah! no, never that! Millicent would never
have done that. And it was over for to-night, absolutely over! A hot dew
of mortification and disappointment forced itself into his eyes as he
marched along, nobody seeing him. Those dark London streets, wet
pavements, gleams of dreary lamplight, miserable creatures here and
there huddled up at corners, here and there loud in miserable gaiety,
danced before his eyes, a kind of grey phantasmagoria. What had he done?
what was he doing? What would life be with all its inconceivable chances
missed, and the golden moments gone away into darkness like this? For
the moment Ben was ready to have recognised the claim of fellowship with
the most pitiable wreck upon that stony strand. Like every real pang of
the heart, his sudden ache went beyond its momentary cause. It struck
out from that small misery,--as anybody in their senses would have
thought it,--into the wide ocean of suffering beyond. The thrill that
shook his being cast off echoes into the awful depths around him, of
which he was but vaguely conscious. Such fooling,--because a young man
had been disappointed of an hour’s talk with his love! But these
fantastic pangs are not the least sharp that humanity has to bear,
though even the sufferer may get to smile at them afterwards; and any
pain, if it is keen enough, brings the sufferer into the comprehension
of pain; just as nature, it is said, makes the whole world kin. He
walked for hours, forgetful of the poor maid-of-all-work in No. 10,
Guildford Street, who was nodding with her head against the wall, and
her arms wrapped up in her apron, waiting up for his return; and yet
during all this time not one rational thought about the real position of
Millicent Tracy and her mother, not one sensible reflection about his
lost money, presented themselves to the young man’s mind. He had not
seen her, could not see her now till the morning of another day,--most
probably was going to lose her altogether. Such were the vain things
that occupied his thoughts.
Next morning, however, Ben was desperate. The day went on till past its
height and no further notice was taken of him,--perhaps intentionally,
perhaps only because the ladies were packing, and had no time for
visitors. When he could stand it no longer he went boldly up-stairs, and
knocked at their door. To tell the truth, they had forgotten him,--even
Millicent had forgotten him, having given him but too much of her
thoughts the night before, and exhausted the subject. They were in full
discussion of the black grenadine when he went to the door, and bade him
‘Come in,’ calmly, expecting the maid, or the landlady, or some other
unimportant visitor. ‘I must have something decent for evenings,’
Millicent was saying, with quiet decision, absorbed in her subject, and
not thinking it worth while to raise her eyes; and then, suddenly
feeling a presence of some sort in the room, she started and looked up,
and gave a little scream. ‘Oh! it is Mr. Renton, mamma!’ she said, with
sudden bewilderment. She had thought he could be kept off,--kept at
arm’s-length,--and she had forgotten the important part he played in all
this preparation, and the new start which was coming. She dropped her
work, and her hands trembled a little. ‘Mr. Renton!’ There was
dissatisfaction, annoyance, surprise, in every inflection of her tone.
‘How glad I am to see you so early!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with the ‘tact’
which distinguished her, rising and coming up to him with outstretched
hands. She gave her daughter a reproving glance, which was not lost upon
poor Ben. ‘Do come in. We had hoped to see you this evening; but this is
quite an unlooked-for pleasure. You gentlemen are generally so much
engaged in the day.’
‘I have not much to engage me,’ said Ben; and then he stopped short,
with his heart aching, and gave a piteous look at Millicent, who was not
paying the least attention to him. ‘If I have come too soon,’ he said,
‘let me return in the evening. I did not mean to disturb you.’
‘You could not disturb us,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with her most gracious
smile. ‘If Millicent is too busy to talk, she shall go away and look
after her chiffons, and come back to us when her mind is at rest. As we
are going so soon, I shall be very glad of a little talk with our
kindest friend.’
‘Oh, very well, mamma,’ said Millicent; and she got up, with no
softening of her looks. She was vexed that he had come; yet vexed to go
away and leave him with her mother,--vexed to see him, with a feeling of
doing him wrong, with which Mrs. Tracy’s obtuse faculties were not
troubled. She swept out of the room without so much as looking at him,
and then stood outside with a thousand minds to go back. She was not
callous, nor cruel, nor without heart, though she had been brought up to
one debasing trade. If she had never seen him after, it would have made
the whole matter practicable; but to know all he had done, and why he
had done it; to see the love,--such love!--in his eyes; and to be
obliged to be polite and grateful, and no more! Nature rebelled to such
an extent in the young woman’s mind that it woke her to sudden alarm!
Could she be falling in love with Ben? as her mother said. When that
absurd idea entered her thoughts she turned quickly away, and ran
up-stairs to her room, and went to her packing, leaving her mother to
deal with him. No, not quite;--not so ridiculous as that!
‘Have I offended her?’ said Ben. ‘Is she angry with me for
my--presumption? What have I done to make her go away?’
‘Nothing, my dear friend,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking his hand, and
pressing it; ‘nothing but the kindest, the noblest action. Oh, Mr.
Renton, you must not be hard upon my poor child! She feels your
generosity so much, and she feels our miserable position so much,--and,
in short, it is a conflict of pride and gratitude----’
‘Gratitude!’ said Ben, sadly. ‘Ah, how ill you judge me;--as if I wanted
gratitude! I wish I had wealth to pour at her feet. I wish I could give
her---- But that is folly. Has she not a word to say to me, after all?’
What he meant by ‘after all,’ was, after the opening of his
heart,--after the pouring forth of his love. But to Mrs. Tracy it meant
after the hundred pounds; and here was a way of making an end of him
very ready to her hands.
‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with an assumption of dignity which sat very
well, and looked natural enough, ‘it was my doing, accepting it,--it was
not Millicent’s doing. I thought it was offered out of kindness and
friendship. Any one, almost, would pity two women left alone as we were;
and I accepted it, as I thought, in the spirit it was offered; but if I
had thought it was a price for my child’s affections----’
Ben turned away, sickening at her, as she spoke to him. ‘Bah!’ he said,
half aloud in his disgust. He would not condescend to explain. He turned
half round to the door, and gazed at it in an uncertain pause. Millicent
might come back. When he thought of it, mothers were,--or books were
liars,--all miserable, bargaining creatures like this. He would not take
the trouble to discuss it with her. If he had not been so weary and
worn-out and sick at heart he would not have been thus incivil. But he
said to himself that he could not help it, and turned impatiently away.
‘Ah, I thought it was not so,--I felt sure it was not so!’ cried Mrs.
Tracy, recovering herself as her mistake became apparent. ‘Dear Mr.
Renton, sit down, and let us talk it over. Forgive a mother’s jealous
care. But let me thank you first----’
‘I don’t want any thanks,’ said Ben, with a certain sullenness, as he
sat down at her bidding on the nearest chair.
‘For my life,’ said Mrs. Tracy, looking him calmly in the face. ‘Yes, it
was as serious as that. Not that I care much for my life, except for
Millicent’s sake. It has no more charms nor hopes for me, Mr. Renton!
But I could not die until I see her in better hands than mine. Don’t be
angry with me. You asked her,--you offered her---- What was it, in
reality, that passed between you yesterday? My darling child was too
much agitated to know.’
‘I had nothing to offer,’ said Ben, with sullen disgust. To pour out his
heart to Millicent, and to make his confession thus to her mother, were
two very different things. ‘I am penniless, and disinherited. I had to
tell her so. Nothing but what I might be able to make as a day-labourer,
perhaps,’ he went on, with angry vehemence. ‘Whatever folly said, she
has apparently no answer to give.’
‘In such a case, Mr. Renton,’ said Mrs. Tracy, facing him, ‘it is not my
daughter who has to be consulted, but me.’ He had given her an advantage
by his ill-breeding, and now he had to rouse himself, and turn round to
her and mutter some prayer for pardon. He was in the wrong. As this
flashed upon him his colour rose. Had he spoken as he now said he had it
would have been an insult. It was an insult, the way in which he was
addressing her mother now. ‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, ‘I have put myself
into a false position by taking your money; and what is life itself in
comparison with one’s true character? I cannot let you despise
Millicent’s mother. Here it is; you shall have it back.’
‘Mrs. Tracy, forgive me, for heaven’s sake! I did not know what I was
saying,’ cried Ben.
‘There it is,’ said his opponent, laying the pocket-book on the table
between them. ‘Now I can speak. Millicent is an innocent girl, Mr.
Renton. She is not one of the kind who fall in love without being asked.
Probably, now that she knows you love her, she might learn to love you
if you were thrown together. But after the honourable way in which you
have told me what your position is, I cannot permit that. I will speak
to you frankly. If things had been different I should have been on your
side; but I cannot let my child marry a man with nothing. She is too
sensitive, too finely organised, too---- I cannot suffer it, Mr. Renton.
That is the honest truth. We are going away, and you may not meet again,
perhaps.’
‘That is impossible,’ said Ben, with a firmness of resolution which made
her pause in her speech. He spoke so low that it might have been to
himself, but she heard it, and it startled her much.
‘I will not let her marry a poor man,’ cried Mrs. Tracy with the
violence of alarm, ‘whatever comes of it. She is not a girl who may
marry anybody! She must make a good marriage. She must have comfort. She
must have what she has been used to,’ the woman cried in agitation, with
a certain gloomy irony. She was afraid of him, not knowing that he might
not put his hand across the table, and clutch his money back.
‘Good; I will work for that,’ said Ben. ‘She shall have it. It is only a
question of time. What more? What do you want more?’
‘What do I want?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Is that how you speak to a lady,
Mr. Renton? I want a good deal more. I want position and respect for my
Millicent, and civility, at least, for myself.’
Ben got up and went and made a gloomy survey of the room, round and
round, after the fashion of men, and then he came back to the point he
had started from. ‘I did not mean to be rude,’ he said; ‘I beg your
pardon. I have spoken to you like an ass. I feel I have; but it is you
who have the better of me. Put away that rubbish, for heaven’s sake, if
you would not drive me mad! I don’t suppose she cares for me,--how
should she? I’ll go to work and take myself out of the way to-morrow.
Only promise me to wait,--wait till you see how I get on. You can’t
tell what progress I may make. If I do well you have nothing against me.
You said so this minute. Wait and see.’
‘And let my child sacrifice her youth,--for what?’ cried Mrs. Tracy.
‘Oh, my dear Mr. Renton, things are harder than you think! You don’t
know what you say.’
‘Perhaps I don’t,’ said Ben; ‘perhaps I do. Neither of us know. Give me
your word to this, at least,--that nothing shall be done without telling
me; nothing shall happen before I know.’
‘Oh, what am I to do?’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘How can I make such an
engagement? As if I should be sure to know even before--anything
happened! I will do what I can. You know I wish you well.’
‘You will promise to let me know before--you bind her to any other,’ Ben
repeated, bending over the little table which stood between them, to
look into her face. She thought it was to take up the famous pocket-book
upon which everything depended, and uttered a little scream.
‘I will do whatever I can,’ she said. ‘I will plead your cause all I
can. I will promise,--oh, yes! Mr. Renton, I promise,’ she cried,
eagerly. He had even, as he stooped towards her, touched the price,--as
she thought,--of the promise with his sleeve.
And then, utterly to Mrs. Tracy’s bewilderment, Ben dropped into his
chair, and covered his face with his hands, and sighed. The sigh was so
deep, and heavy, and full of care that it startled her. Had he not just
got what he had been struggling for? She had given him her promise,--a
reluctant, and perhaps not very certain bond,--and yet he gave but a
sigh over it,--the sigh of a man ruined and broken. She looked at his
bowed head, at the curious strain of the hands into which his face was
bent. What a strange, unsatisfactory, ungracious way of receiving a
favour! What a highflown, exaggerated sort of a young man! She was
thinking so, gazing across the table at him, sometimes letting her eye
stray a little anxiously to the pocket-book, with a pucker on her
forehead and a cold dread in her heart, when the unaccountable fellow as
suddenly unveiled his cloudy countenance and looked straight up into her
face. Probably he caught her glance retreating from the pocket-book, for
he laughed, and all at once, to her amaze and consternation, took that
up.
‘You must take care of your health,’ he said,--and whether he was
speaking in mockery or in kindness Mrs. Tracy could not make out,--‘and
when this is done let me know,’ he added, dropping it softly without any
warning into her lap. ‘I may be rich by that time; and when I am rich,
you know, you are to be on my side.’
‘Oh my dear, I am on your side now!’ she cried with a half-sob, and
stretched out to take his hand, and would have kissed it, in the relief
of getting what she wanted. She did not understand the glow of shame
that came over Ben’s face, the stern clasp he gave to her hand, almost
hurting her, resisting her soft attempt to draw it to her. And he held
her thus, as in a vice, and looked down upon her stormily, keenly, as if
asking himself whether he could believe her or not. ‘And I will see her,
too, before you go,’ he said, with an abruptness she had never seen in
him before; and then suddenly left her, without another word, closing
the door behind him, and audibly, with heavy, rude footsteps, descending
the stairs.
Mrs. Tracy sat motionless, with her fingers all white and crumpled
together, and the pocket-book lying in her lap, and heard the
street-door shut behind him, and his steps echo along the street. Then
only did she draw breath. It had been a tough moment, but she could
flatter herself she had won the victory. And yet she had a cry to
herself, as she sat alone awaking out of her stupefaction. What a brute
he was! Her fingers were crushed, her nerves quite shaken. But then she
had the hundred pounds in her lap, and had given only the vaguest
general promise by way of paying for it,--a promise which might be
forgotten or not as it should happen when there were a thousand miles of
land and water between the two.
‘Of course I shall see him,’ Millicent said, when she came down-stairs
and heard a kind of report of the interview,--a very partial report
given to suit the exigencies of the moment. ‘I would not be so
ungrateful,’ she said; and there was a little flutter of colour and
light about her, which looked like excitement, the anxious mother
thought. Could she be such a fool as to have fallen in love with him?
was the painful idea which flashed again across Mrs. Tracy’s mind.
Surely, surely, not anything so ridiculous as that. And the best thing
in the circumstances was to fall back upon the black grenadine, which
indeed was a matter of the first importance. It was not quite so pretty
as tulle, nor so light: but then it would be cheaper and wear better,
and at those summer dinners in daylight, which are always so trying,
would probably look even better than tulle. ‘It must be put in hand at
once,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘for we have no time to lose.’ And it was a
great relief to her when Millicent settled down quietly to try a new
trimming, which she thought would be pretty for the sleeve. After all,
she was a very good girl, with no nonsense about her; and her mother’s
blessing, could it have secured her the best reward a good girl can
have,--the conventional reward for all exemplary young women,--fell upon
Millicent on the spot. A good husband, a rich husband,--a very rich,
very grand, very noble mate; if that were but attained what more could
the round world give? Mrs. Tracy went and locked up her pocket-book, and
got through an endless amount of arrangements that very afternoon. She
had been in haste before, but now she was in a hurry. It occurred to
her even that it would be better to get the black grenadine in Paris,
though it might be a little dearer. Anything rather than another such
interview! On that point her mind was made up.