THE CONFESSION.
It was a terrible shock to her--so sudden and so unexpected that for
some time she could not believe it to be true. She did not care for
the dead man, far from it. For the last twelve hours she had been
regarding the fact of his having met her in Haltham as the greatest
misfortune that could have occurred to her. But, though always bluff
and outspoken, he had been her friend and her protector in the bygone
days; and even if he had been her enemy, it was frightful to think he
should have been cut off so suddenly and by such a terrible death. She
read mechanically how the accident had occurred--how the unfortunate
passengers had been crushed and mutilated and scalded and burned--how
they had shrieked and groaned, and how the survivors had wept and
fainted, until her heart grew sick within her. But still her eyes kept
turning from the detailed horrors that make the fortune of a penny
paper to the name at the head of the list of killed, ‘Seth Brunt,
mariner.’
Seth Brunt _dead_! Seth Brunt, who had sat at that very table, and
drank tea with her only the night before, and talked so certainly of
his own prospects--dead, dumb, silent for ever more--never able to
follow her to Deepdale again, and worry her about changing a resolution
which had been firmly and unalterably made so long ago. As she realised
the truth, Paula’s first feeling was one of relief--her next of
shame that she could feel anything but sorrow to hear of an honest,
well-meaning life cut off in its prime. And with her self-reproach came
her tears, first quietly stealing one after the other from beneath
her downcast eyelids, until they coursed rapidly down her cheeks, and
she laid her head on the table and cried bitterly--not only for Seth
Brunt’s death, but for all the recollections it brought in its train,
and the misery which his ill-timed visit had caused her. For Paula
could not help recognising that the poor man’s unfortunate demise would
not help her in the least with the vicar or the churchwardens. It left
her in the same perplexity. To reveal his name, and the accident which
had removed him from her path, was to put them on the track of her past
life, and she might as well make a clean breast of it at once. For
there was _that other_--the friend of the dead man--still living, and
whilst he lived she could never feel safe. Her sad thoughts so occupied
her mind, and her violent grief so dulled her senses, that someone
lifted the latch of the outer door and stood beside the table before
she was aware of his presence.
‘Paula!’ he exclaimed in a voice of concern, ‘what _is_ the matter?’
She started then, and lifted up her blurred and tear-stained face to
encounter the anxious gaze of Hal Rushton.
‘Oh, Mr Rushton,’ she said, springing up, ‘I had no idea that I was not
alone. How foolish you must think me!’ And she began to violently wipe
her wet face with her handkerchief, while she wondered what she should
say if he questioned her. ‘I must look a nice fright,’ she remarked,
with a nervous laugh, as, having given a final resolute dab to her
eyes, she sat down again and began to rattle the crockery on the tea
tray.
‘Never mind what you look like,’ replied the young man, ‘but tell me
what has occasioned your distress. Surely Mr Gribble has not dared to
annoy you again. If he has, he shall answer to me for it.’
‘No, Mr Gribble has not visited the schoolhouse,’ said Paula, with a
sob in her throat, ‘but I have seen him all the same. I was summoned
to the parsonage this afternoon, Mr Rushton, at the suggestion of Mr
Gribble and Mr Axworthy, and--and--’
‘Well?’ demanded Hal anxiously.
‘They have given me the option of telling them everything I know
concerning my visitor of last night, or giving up my situation.’
‘And you will tell them, of course?’
‘No, I shall relinquish my situation,’ returned Paula, with a sigh.
‘But why, Paula, why? I acknowledge it is a piece of gross impertinence
and tyranny on the part of the churchwardens to demand such an
explanation, but there can be nothing that you need mind their knowing,
and sooner than lose your position--sooner than leave Deepdale--surely
you will make the concession?’
‘I think not. I am a proud woman, and they have wounded my
pride--deeply. Mr Measures would be quite satisfied with my assurance
that the man came here on purely private business, and that he will
never come here again--for he _will_ never come here again, Hal,’ said
Paula, relapsing into tears--‘but the churchwardens refused to accept
my word, and I am determined to satisfy them no further. They declare
that they and their friends will remove their children from school, and
wanted Mr Measures to give me my notice at once. But it is all the
same. I consider it is given, and so does the vicar, and another month
will see me out of Deepdale.’
‘It is infamous, it is scandalous!’ exclaimed Hal Rushton as he rose
and commenced to pace up and down the little room. ‘Paula, where will
you go to?’
‘Oh, that will be easily settled. I have my mother, you know. I shall
go to her.’
‘But to be deprived of your means of living, and for no fault of
your own. It is shameful! It may be months before you obtain another
appointment, Paula.’
‘That is very likely, particularly with the character I shall carry
away from here. But Mr and Mrs Measures are very kind, Hal, and I think
they will do their best to help me.’
‘And you will leave us--you will go, perhaps, to the other end of
England, where I may never see you again,’ cried the young farmer in
despair.
‘I don’t want to go. I would stay if I could. I am very, _very_
unhappy,’ said Paula, weeping.
Her evident regret raised a hope in Rushton’s breast. He ceased his
pacing, and came and sat down close beside her.
‘Paula,’ he whispered, bending over her, ‘why do you go? You know you
can stay if you choose. When I spoke to you yesterday, darling, about
being my friend, and calling me by my Christian name, you must have
guessed what I was leading to--that I did not say more only because I
feared to startle you--and that, had I shown you all that was in my
heart, I should have said, not “Paula, be my friend,” but, “be _my
wife_.”’
Her face was hidden from him, bent down on her two hands, but as he
spoke he saw that she was stirred.
‘Your wife,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, dear, my wife, and my friend, for the terms should be synonymous.
I am so much alone. You would be _everything_ to me. I told you
something of my means and prospects, but it is due now that you should
know more. I am not a poor man, Paula. I am (what the country people
call) “well-to-do.” Highbridge Farm is my own property, and that, with
some houses I have in Haltham, bring me in over eight hundred a year.
By-and-by I hope to double it. So you see that I shall be able to keep
you in comfort. Then--don’t suppose that I shall let you be worried by
my stepmother and her son. Other provision shall be made for them. Only
say that you will not leave Deepdale--that you will stay here as the
mistress of Highbridge Farm.’
He waited a few seconds for an answer, but none came.
‘Why don’t you answer me, darling?’ the young man pleaded. ‘You knew
I was going to say this some day, surely. You must have seen it was
coming.’
Paula raised her head and confronted him. There was no agitation in her
face--only a deep melancholy--perhaps, in spite of her joy, a little
regret.
‘Yes, Hal,’ she said, ‘I have guessed it for some time past. Only, I
was not sure if I ought to let you say it--whether it would not be
happier for both of us if it were left unsaid.’
‘But that is impossible, dearest. What happiness could equal that of
belonging to each other for life, at least from my point of view. And
what is yours, Paula? Has the prospect no pleasure for you?’
‘Has the prospect no pleasure for me?’ she repeated. ‘Ask the starving
dog if a meal has no pleasure for him--the drowning man if he cares for
a helping hand--the outcast if he would like to enter Paradise. Oh,
Hal, if you only knew how desolate, how unsatisfied, how hopeless my
life has been.’
‘And you can _love_ me, Paula?’ he asked quickly.
‘I can--I _do_, Hal. You worked your way into my heart long ago, and
reign there as no other man has ever done. Only--’
‘I will hear of no “_onlies_,”’ exclaimed Hal Rushton gaily. ‘I have
won the woman of my heart, and no one shall forbid the banns. Oh,
Paula, if you knew the difference your coming home to Highbridge Farm
will make to me. How often I have looked longingly at your lighted
window, as I walked past it in the evenings, and wondered if I should
ever have the courage to woo its inmate to take me and all my
belongings under her care. For I am no fit companion for you, Paula. I
am only a rough farmer, who wouldn’t learn when he had the opportunity,
and you are so clever, and well-educated and refined. How will you bear
with me? Sha’n’t I seem very bearish and uncouth to you when we live
side by side?’
‘I don’t judge you as you do yourself, Hal. I think much more of your
manliness, and upright dealing, and warm, generous heart than of a
college education. And if you knew how I have come to detest what Mr
Gribble calls “learning,” since I have been forced to teach, I think,
if I am ever freed from the necessity,’ said Paula, with a contented
laugh, ‘that I shall never open a book again.’
‘You shall never do anything but what you feel inclined to do,’ replied
her lover, ‘once you have consented to gladden my lonely life. Oh,
Paula, what a long vista of happiness lies before us. This is no sudden
passion on my part, darling, born of your sweet face and sweeter ways.
It is an affection of the growth of months, founded on a real esteem
for your character. How I have admired the patience and steadiness and
solid worth with which you have lived a very difficult life here, and
surmounted all its unpleasantnesses. But this is the very last you
shall be subjected to, Paula. In a month--at the very time when that
little brute Gribble hopes to see you turned out upon the world without
a situation--you will become my wife, and take a higher position in
Deepdale than either he or any of your persecutors can attain to.
Promise to marry me in a month, Paula.’
But at that she looked troubled.
‘_A month_, Hal. Oh! that will be too soon. I cannot give up my
engagement under a month, and then I must go home to see my mother,
and--and--to consult her.’
‘Why can’t you consult her by letter, Paula? Surely you will not defer
that for a month. And then--it is not as if you were a very young girl,
who had never lived by herself, but you have been knocking about the
world, according to your own account, for some years, so why shouldn’t
we be married first, and go and visit your mother together, eh? It
would make a charming wedding trip. What do you say to it?’
And he put his arm fondly round her waist as he spoke. But Paula shrunk
from him.
‘My mother would not like it,’ she said awkwardly, ‘and I should have
some arrangements to make first. Besides, Hal, are you sure we know
enough of one another yet to enter on so serious an engagement? If
I were away a month, there are so many things that I could write to
you--things that would make you understand me better, perhaps, and--’
‘Nonsense!’ He interrupted her with a kiss. ‘I don’t want to understand
you better, Paula; there will be plenty of time for that afterwards.
It would be stupid to start in life with nothing left to do--no little
discoveries to make, no little surprises to find out. It is these
things that will keep us fresh to our dying day. But how solemn, you
look over it, darling. If _I_ am satisfied, surely you might be!’
‘But am I, then,’ said Paula, with tremulous lips, ‘am I, then, to
prepare myself for finding out a lot of things about _you_, Hal?’
He laughed heartily.
‘I hope not. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything very dreadful, or
that I should mind your knowing; but you will be welcome to the whole
history, if it interests you. I shall never keep anything from you,
Paula. That seems the sweetest and the most real part of marriage, in
my eyes. One heart and one mind as well as one body. I hope you think
so too.’
‘It cannot be a true nor a complete marriage without,’ she answered;
‘only--’
‘Well, out with it. No secrets, my sweetest, between us now.’
‘Have you ever loved anybody before me, Hal?’
‘_Never!_’ he said emphatically. ‘Have _you_?’
‘No--at least, not as I love you. Once I may have thought I loved, but
now I know that I have never felt one tithe of the passion. Oh! you are
too good to me. I am not worthy of such trust and confidence as you
have placed in me. I might have been anybody--anything.’
‘Yes, you _might_, but you _are not_, you see. Therein lies the
difference.’
‘But if I had been,’ she persisted, ‘would you have loved me all the
same?’
He looked grave as he answered,--
‘I don’t think I should have been able to help loving you, whatever you
were, you seem so very much to have been made for me. But I confess
that if I heard you had been engaged before, or very much in love
before, it would take off a considerable amount of charm from our
present position. I must have you all to myself, Paula--past, present,
and future--something to call my very own for Time and for Eternity.
But you have given yourself to me, and I am satisfied. Well, darling,
I suppose I must be going now, or we shall have a council of morality
sitting on our doings to-morrow morning.’
He stood up and folded her closely in his arms.
‘Good-night, my Paula, and God bless you, I won’t worry you any more
this evening, but think over what I have said, and see if you can’t
manage to make me happy in a month from to-day. Not but what I am the
happiest man in Deepdale now,’ he added, with a bright smile at the
door, ‘only--I want _you--you--you_--and you only and for ever in my
arms.’
He had scarcely closed it and turned his back upon the schoolhouse
before he heard an agitated voice pronounce his name.
‘Hal, Hal, come back.’ He turned at once and re-entered the porch where
Paula, with scared eyes and a generally wild appearance, was awaiting
him. ‘Don’t go yet,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Stop a minute. I must
speak to you.’
She almost dragged him over the threshold, and closing the door, stood
up against it like a hunted animal defying its pursuers. Hal Rushton
became alarmed.
‘What have I said or done to make you look at me like this?’ he asked.
‘Nothing--nothing. You are only too kind, too good, too trusting,’ she
answered, ‘but you must not go till I have told you something. You
shall not hold yourself engaged to me till you have heard that--that
I’m not what I seem. I am not called Miss Stafford. My name is--is--’
‘You are not called “Miss Stafford”?’ he reiterated in his surprise.
‘Have you been passing amongst us, then, under a false name?’
‘Yes. That is, the situation demanded a single woman, and I thought it
best--I thought--’
‘You are _not_, then, single?’ he said sternly.
‘Oh, yes, I am free (what would you have thought of me else?), but I
_have_ been married, Hal. My real name is Madame Bjornsën, and--and--I
am a mother.’
She dropped her eyes as she made the confession, feeling that it might
hurt his vanity, but she was little prepared for the storm it evoked.
Hal Rushton bounded towards her as though he would have overwhelmed her.
‘You have been married!’ he exclaimed in a voice of repugnance. ‘You
are not a maiden! You are a widow, and a mother! How _dared_ you come
here to deceive us all!’
‘Oh, Hal, be merciful. It was in order to earn my bread. How could I
tell that anyone would be injured by it?’ she cried, cowering before
his angry eyes.
‘How could you tell?’ he echoed sarcastically. ‘How can you tell when
you put your foot down upon a hapless beetle that its life will be
crushed out beneath your heel? You came here amongst us as an innocent,
artless girl--something to be wooed and won as a man’s first love, to
be worn as _his only_, pure, sacred and unpolluted. I could have sworn
that your looks and words were virginal. How basely you have deceived
us. And you saw my love was settling itself on you (you have confessed
as much), and not only mine, but that of half-a-dozen other fools in
Deepdale, who were attracted by the simple, girlish charms of _Miss
Stafford_, little thinking they were letting their affections drift
upon a married woman.’
‘I _am not_ married!’ exclaimed Paula hotly. ‘I told you that I _had
been_, but it was all over long ago, and, were it not for the little
child, I need not have told you at all. Oh, Hal, don’t look at me like
that! Had I been _sure_ that you would have spoken to me as you have
done to-day, I would have told you of it from the beginning. I speak
the truth in saying I did not think my reticence would injure anyone. I
took my mother’s counsel in acting as I did. If you will only listen to
me--’
‘I do not want to listen to you. I am too deeply hurt and disappointed.
Consider everything I have said to you to-night unsaid. My words were
meant for Paula Stafford--not for the widow of Monsieur Bjornsën (or
whatever the fellow’s name may have been).’
Paula drew herself up proudly.
‘That is for your own decision,’ she replied, ‘and you will never find
me try to make you alter it. But, in justice to myself, you shall not
leave me until you have heard the truth. My father died many years ago,
leaving my mother in necessitous circumstances, and when I was eighteen
she was glad to marry me to Carl Bjornsën, a Swedish gentleman, and
master of a trading vessel, the _Lily of Christiansand_. I married
him with my own consent. He was good-looking, and apparently fond of
me, and after a certain fashion I liked him. That my marriage turned
out a very unfortunate one, and made me a miserable woman, will have
no interest for you, perhaps, but it may account for my wish--when I
returned to my mother’s protection, with my poor baby on my hands--to
cast all remembrance of the past behind me. My husband was a drunkard
and an evil liver, and I was unprovided for. It was necessary I should
work to support myself and my child, and I came to Deepdale in order to
do so. That is all of my history that concerns you or anyone; but it is
due to myself that you should learn why I changed my name, and led you
into the unfortunate mistake of believing me to be a single woman.’
She abandoned her position at the door as she concluded, and walked
wearily to the table. Perhaps she thought that Hal Rushton would follow
her, and retract his words. But he did not. His feelings had been too
much outraged by her confession. He pounced upon the handle as soon as
it was free, and turned it eagerly, as though all his desire was to
escape from her presence.
‘I am sorry for your troubles, Madame Bjornsën,’ he replied coldly,
‘and I trust you may find a way out of them, but it would have been
better for all parties if your fit of honesty had come on sooner. As
it is, your reticence has ruined my life as completely as your own.
Good-bye!’
And clapping his felt hat on his head, Hal Rushton, with his heart all
afire, turned out of the schoolhouse and commenced to walk rapidly
towards Highbridge Farm.
Paula sat where he had left her--stunned and hopeless. Everything
seemed over now. She felt as if the world had receded from her like
a great ocean, and she was standing on a rock, isolated and alone,
watching the waves go further and further away. Her situation was gone,
and her lover, and both from the same reason--the horrible influence
which her marriage with Carl Bjornsën had left behind it. It was
useless to curse her past folly or her present ill-fortune. She had
done that so often that she was sick of it. All that remained was to
take up the burden again where she had dropt it, and toil on anew.
After all, there was Paul--poor, stricken little Paul--to think of and
work for, and her mother, thank Heaven, however poor, was always glad
to see her face again. And so Paula Bjornsën, on retiring to rest,
tried determinately to blot out the handsome, wrathful face of Hal
Rushton from her imagination, and to think only of those two who were
legitimately her own, and whom she was destined so soon to see again.