The night being fair, Piers set out to walk a part of the way home. It
was only by thoroughly tiring himself with bodily exercise that he
could get sound and long oblivion. Hours of sleeplessness were his
dread. However soon he awoke after daybreak, he rose at once and drove
his mind to some sort of occupation. To escape from himself was all he
lived for in these days. An ascetic of old times, subduing his flesh in
cell or cave, battled no harder than this idealist of London City
tortured by his solitude.
On the pavement of Piccadilly he saw some yards before him, a man
seemingly of the common lounging sort, tall-hatted and frock-coated,
who was engaged in the cautious pursuit of a female figure, just in
advance. A light and springy and half-stalking step; head jutting a
little forward; the cane mechanically swung--a typical woman-hunter, in
some doubt as to his quarry. On an impulse of instinct or calculation,
the man all at once took a few rapid strides, bringing himself within
sideview of the woman's face. Evidently he spoke a word; he received an
obviously curt reply; he fell back, paced slowly, turned and Piers
became aware of a countenance he knew--that of his brother Daniel.
It was a disagreeable moment. Daniel's lean, sallow visage had no
aptitude for the expression of shame, but his eyes grew very round, and
his teeth showed in a hard grin.
"Why, Piers, my boy! Again we meet in a London street--which is rhyme,
and sounds like Browning, doesn't it? _Comment ca va-t-il_?"
Piers shook hands very coldly, without pretence of a smile.
"I am walking on," he said. "Yours is the other way, I think."
"What! You wish to cut me? Pray, your exquisite reason?"
"Well, then, I think you have behaved meanly and dishonourably to me. I
don't wish to discuss the matter, only to make myself understood."
His ability to use this language, and to command himself as he did so,
was a surprise to Piers. Nothing he disliked more than personal
altercation; he shrank from it at almost any cost. But the sight of
Daniel, the sound of his artificial voice, moved him deeply with
indignation, and for the first time in his life he spoke out. Having
done so, he had a pleasurable sensation; he felt his assured manhood.
Daniel was astonished, disconcerted, but showed no disposition to close
the interview; turning, he walked along by his brother.
"I suppose I know what you refer to. But let me explain. I think my
explanation will interest you."
"No, I'm afraid it will not," replied Piers quietly.
"In any case, lend me your ears. You are offended by my failure to pay
that debt. Well, my nature is frankness, and I will plead guilty to a
certain procrastination. I meant to send you the money; I fully meant
to do so. But in the first place, it took much longer than I expected
to realise the good old man's estate, and when at length the money came
into my hands, I delayed and delayed--just as one does, you know; let
us admit these human weaknesses. And I procrastinated till I was really
ashamed--you follow the psychology of the thing? Then I said to myself:
Now it is pretty certain Piers is not in actual want of this sum, or he
would have pressed for it. On the other hand, a day may come when he
will really be glad to remember that I am his banker for a hundred and
fifty pounds. Yes--I said--I will wait till that moment comes; I will
save the money for him, as becomes his elder brother. Piers is a good
fellow, and will understand. _Voila_!"
Piers kept silence.
"Tell me, my dear boy," pursued the other. "Alexander of course paid
that little sum he owed you?"
"He too has preferred to remain my banker."
"Now I call that very shameful!" burst out Daniel. "No, that's too bad!"
"How did you know he owed me money?" inquired Piers.
"How? Why, he told me himself, down at Hawes, after you went. We were
talking of you, of your admirable qualities, and in his bluff, genial
way he threw out how generously you had behaved to him, at a moment
when he was hard up. He wanted to repay you immediately, and asked me
to lend him the money for that purpose; unfortunately, I hadn't it to
lend. And to think that, after all, he never paid you! A mere fifty
pounds! Why, the thing is unpardonable! In my case the sum was
substantial enough to justify me in retaining it for your future
benefit. But to owe fifty pounds, and shirk payment--no, I call that
really disgraceful. If ever I meet Alexander----!"
Piers was coldly amused. When Daniel sought to draw him into general
conversation, with inquiries as to his mode of life, and where he
dwelt, the younger brother again spoke with decision. They were not
likely, he said, to see more of each other, and he felt as little
disposed to give familiar information as to ask it; whereupon Daniel
drew himself up with an air of dignified offence, and saying, "I wish
you better manners," turned on his heel.
Piers walked on at a rapid pace. Noticing again a well-dressed prowler
of the pavement, whose approaches this time were welcomed, a feeling of
nausea came upon him. He hailed a passing cab, and drove home.
A week later, he heard from Mrs. Hannaford that she and Olga were
established in their own home; she begged him to come and see them
soon, mentioning an evening when they would be glad if he could dine
with them. And Piers willingly accepted.
The house was at Campden Hill; a house of the kind known to agents as
"desirable," larger than the two ladies needed for their comfort, and,
as one saw on entering the hall, furnished with tasteful care. The work
had been supervised by Dr. Derwent, who thought that his sister and his
niece might thus be tempted to live the orderly life so desirable in
their unfortunate circumstances. When Piers entered, Mrs. Hannaford sat
alone in the drawing room; she still had the look of an invalid, but
wore a gown which showed to advantage the lines of her figure. Otway
had been told not to dress, and it caused him some surprise to see his
hostess adorned as if for an occasion of ceremony. Her hair was done in
a new way, which changed the wonted character of her face, so that she
looked younger. A bunch of pale flowers rested against her bosom, and
breathed delicate perfume about her.
"It was discussed," she said, in a low, intimate voice, "whether we
should settle in London or abroad. But we didn't like to go away. Our
only real friends are in England, and we must hope to make more. Olga
is so good, now that she sees that I really need her. She has been so
kind and sweet during my illness."
Whilst they were talking, Miss Hannaford silently made her entrance.
Piers turned his head, and felt a shock of surprise. Not till now had
he seen Olga at her best; he had never imagined her so handsome; it was
a wonderful illustration of the effect of apparel. She, too, had
reformed the fashion of her hair, and its tawny abundance was much more
effective than in the old careless style. She looked taller; she
stepped with a more graceful assurance, and in offering her hand,
betrayed consciousness of Otway's admiration in a little flush that
well became her.
She had subdued her voice, chastened her expressions. The touch of
masculinity on which she had prided herself in her later "Bohemian"
days, was quite gone. Wondering as they conversed, Piers had a
difficulty in meeting her look; his eyes dropped to the little silk
shoe which peeped from beneath her skirt. His senses were gratified; he
forgot for the moment his sorrow and unrest.
The talk at dinner was rather formal. Piers, with his indifferent
appetite, could do but scanty justice to the dainties offered him, and
the sense of luxury added a strangeness to his new relations with Mrs.
Hannaford and her daughter. Olga spoke of a Russian novel she had been
reading in a French translation, and was anxious to know whether it
represented life as Otway knew it in Russia. She evinced a wider
interest in several directions, emphasised--perhaps a little too
much--her inclination for earnest thought: was altogether a more
serious person than hitherto.
Afterwards, when they grouped themselves in the drawing-room, this
constraint fell away. Mrs. Hannaford dropped a remark which awakened
memories of their life together at Geneva, and Piers turned to her with
a bright look.
"You used to play in those days," he said, "and I've never heard you
touch a piano since."
There was one in the room. Olga glanced at it, and then smilingly at
her mother.
"My playing was so very primitive," said Mrs. Hannaford, with a laugh.
"I liked it."
"Because you were a boy then."
"Let me try to be a boy again. Play something you used to. One of those
bits from 'Tell,' which take me back to the lakes and the mountains
whenever I hear them."
Mrs. Hannaford rose, laughing as if ashamed; Olga lit the candles on
the piano.
"I shall have to play from memory--and a nice mess I shall make of it."
But memory served her for the passages of melody which Piers wished to
hear. He listened with deep pleasure, living again in the years when
everything he desired seemed a certainty of the future, depending only
on the flight of time, on his becoming "a man." He remembered his vivid
joy in the pleasures of the moment, the natural happiness now, and for
years, unknown to him. So long ago, it seemed; yet Mrs. Hannaford,
sitting at the piano, looked younger to him than in those days. And
Olga, whom as a girl of fourteen he had not much liked, thinking her
both conceited and dull, now was a very different person to him, a
woman who seemed to have only just revealed herself, asserting a power
of attraction he had never suspected in her. He found himself trying to
catch glimpses of her face at different angles, as she sat listening
abstractedly to the music.
When it was time to go, he took leave with reluctance. The talk had
grown very pleasantly familiar. Mrs. Hannaford said she hoped they
would often see him, and the hope had an echo in his own thoughts. This
house might offer him the refuge he sought when loneliness weighed too
heavily. It was true, he could not accept the idea with a whole heart;
some vague warning troubled his imagination; but on the way home he
thought persistently of the pleasure he had experienced, and promised
himself that it should be soon repeated.
A melody was singing in his mind; becoming conscious of it, he
remembered that it was the air to which his friend Moncharmont had set
the little song of Alfred de Musset. At Odessa he had been wont to sing
it--in a voice which Moncharmont declared to have the quality of a very
fair tenor, and only to need training.
"Quand on perd, par triste occurrence,
Son esperance
Et sa gaité,
Le remède au mélancolique
C'est la musique
Et la beauté.
Plus oblige et peut davantage
Un beau visage
Qu'un homme armé,
Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre
Air doux et tendre
Jadis aimé!"
It haunted him after he had gone to rest, and for once he did not mind
wakefulness.
A week passed. On Friday, Piers said to himself that to-morrow he would
go in the afternoon to Campden Hill, on the chance of finding his
friends at home. On Saturday morning the post brought him a letter
which he saw to be from Mrs. Hannaford, and he opened it with pleasant
anticipation; but instead of the friendly lines he expected he found a
note of agitated appeal. The writer entreated him to come and see her
exactly at three o'clock; she was in very grave trouble, had the most
urgent need of him. Three o'clock; neither sooner or later; if he could
possibly find time. If he could not come, would he telegraph an
appointment for her at his office?
With perfect punctuality, he arrived at the house, and in the
drawing-room found Mrs. Hannaford awaiting him. She came forward with
both her hands held out; in her eyes a look almost of terror. Her
voice, at first, was in choking whispers, and the words so confusedly
hurried as to be barely intelligible.
"I have sent Olga away--I daren't let her know--she will be away for
several hours, so we can talk--oh, you will help me--you will do your
best----"
Perplexed and alarmed, Piers held her hand as he tried to calm her. She
seemed incapable of telling him what had happened, but kept her eyes
fixed upon him in a wild entreaty, and uttered broken phrases which
conveyed nothing to him; he gathered at length that she was in fear of
some person.
"Sit down and let me hear all about it," he urged.
"Yes, yes--but I'm so ashamed to speak to you about such things. I
don't know whether you'll believe me. Oh, the shame--the dreadful
shame! It's only because there seems just this hope. How shall I bring
myself to tell you?"
"Dear Mrs. Hannaford, we have been friends so long. Trust me to
understand you. Of course, of course I shall believe what you say!"
"A dreadful, a shameful thing has happened. How shall I tell you?" Her
haggard face flushed scarlet. "My husband has given me notice that he
is going to sue for a divorce. He brings a charge against me--a false,
cruel charge! It came yesterday. I went to the solicitor whose name was
given, and learnt all I could. I have had to hide it from Olga, and oh!
what it cost me! At once I thought of you; then it seemed impossible to
speak to you; then I felt I must, I must. If only you can believe me!
It is--your brother."
Piers was overcome with amazement. He sat looking into the eyes which
stared at him with their agony of shame.
"You mean Daniel?" he faltered.
"Yes--Daniel Otway. It is false--it is false! I am not guilty of this!
It seems to me like a hateful plot--if one could believe anyone so
wicked. I saw him last night. Oh, I must tell you all, else you'll
never believe me--I saw him last night. How can anyone behave so to a
helpless woman? I never did him anything but kindness. He has me in his
power, and he is merciless."
A passion of disgust and hatred took hold on Piers as he remembered the
meeting in Piccadilly.
"You mean to say you have put yourself into that fellow's power?" he
exclaimed.
"Not willingly! Oh, not willingly! I meant only kindness to him. Yes, I
have been weak, I know, and so foolish! It has gone on so long.--You
remember when I first saw him, at Ewell? I liked him, just as a friend.
Of course I behaved foolishly. It was my miserable life--you know what
my life was. But nothing happened--I mean, I never thought of him for a
moment as anything but an ordinary friend--until I had my legacy."
The look on the listener's face checked her.
"I begin to understand," said Piers, with bitterness.
"No, no! Don't say that--don't speak like that!"
"It's not you I am thinking of, Mrs. Hannaford. As soon as money comes
in--. But tell me plainly. I have perfect confidence in what you say,
indeed I have."
"It does me good to hear you say that! I can tell you all, now that I
have begun. It is true, he _did_ ask me to go away with him, again and
again. But he had no right to do that--I was foolish in showing that I
liked him. Again and again I forbade him ever to see me; I tried so
hard to break off! It was no use. He always wrote, wherever I was,
sending his letters to Dr. Derwent to be forwarded. He made me meet him
at all sorts of places--using threats at last. Oh, what I have gone
through!"
"No doubt," said Piers gently, "you have lent him money?"
She reddened again; her head sank.
"Yes--I have lent him money, when he was in need. Just before the death
of your father."
"Once only?"
"Once--or twice----"
"To be sure. Lately, too, I daresay?"
"Yes----"
"Then you quite understand his character?"
"I do now," Mrs. Hannaford replied wretchedly. "But I must tell you
more. If it were only a suspicion of my husband's I should hardly care
at all. But someone must have betrayed me to him, and have told
deliberate falsehoods. I am accused--it was when I was at the seaside
once--and he came to the same hotel--Oh, the shame, the shame!"
She covered her face with her hands, and turned away.
"Why," cried Piers, in wrath, "that fellow is quite capable of having
betrayed you himself. I mean, of lying about you for his own purposes."
"You think he could be so wicked?"
"I don't doubt it for a moment. He has done his best to persuade you to
ruin yourself for him, and he thinks, no doubt, that if you are
divorced, nothing will stand between him and you--in other words, your
money."
"He said, when I saw him yesterday, that now it had come to this, I had
better take that step at once. And when I spoke of my innocence, he
asked who would believe it? He seemed sorry; really he did. Perhaps he
is not so bad as one fears?"
"Where did you see him yesterday?" asked Otway.
"At his lodgings. I was _obliged_ to go and see him as soon as
possible. I have never been there before. He behaved very kindly. He
said of course he should declare my innocence----"
"And in the same breath assured you no one would believe it? And
advised you to go off with him at once?"
"I know how bad it seems," said Mrs. Hannaford. "And yet, it is all my
own fault--my own long folly. Oh, you must wonder why I have brought
you here to tell you this! It's because there is no one else I could
speak to, as a friend, and I felt I should go mad if I couldn't ask
someone's advice. Of course I could go to a lawyer--but I mean someone
who would sympathise with me. I am not very strong; you know I have
been ill: this blow seems almost more than I can bear; I thought I
would ask you if you could suggest anything--if you would see him, and
try to arrange something." She looked at Piers distractedly. "Perhaps
money would help. My husband has been having money from me; perhaps if
we offered him more? Ought I to see him, myself? But there is
ill-feeling between us; and I fear he would be glad to injure me, glad!"
"I will see Daniel," said Piers, trying to see hope where reason told
him there was none. "With him, at all events, money can do much."
"You will? You think you may be able to help me? I am in such terror
when I think of my brother hearing of this. And Irene! Think, if it
becomes public--everyone talking about the disgrace--what will Irene
do? Just at the time of her marriage!" She held out her hands,
pleadingly. "You would be glad to save Irene from such a shame?"
Piers had not yet seen the scandal from this point of view. It came
upon him with a shock, and he stood speechless.
"My husband hates them," pursued Mrs. Hannaford, "and you don't know
what _his_ hatred means. Just for that alone, he will do his worst
against me--hoping to throw disgrace on the Derwents."
"I doubt very much," said Piers, who had been thinking hard, "whether,
in any event, this would affect the Derwents in people's opinion."
"You don't think so? But do you know Arnold Jacks? I feel sure he is
the kind of man who would resent bitterly such a thing as this. He is
very proud--proud in just that kind of way--do you understand? Oh, I
know it would make trouble between him and Irene."
"In that case," Piers began vehemently, and at once checked himself.
"What were you going to say?"
"Nothing that could help us."
When he raised his eyes again, Mrs. Hannaford was gazing at him with
pitiful entreaty.
"For _her_ sake," she said, in a low, shaken voice, "you will try to do
something?"
"If only I can!"
"Yes! I know you! You are good and generous--It ought surely to be
possible to stop this before it gets talked about? If I were guilty, it
would be different. But I have done no wrong; I have only been weak and
foolish. I thought of going straight to my brother, but there is the
dreadful thought that he might not believe me. It is so hard for a
woman accused in this way to seem innocent; men always see the dark
side. He has no very good opinion of me, as it is, I know he hasn't. I
turned so naturally to you; I felt you would do your utmost for me in
my misery.--If only my husband can be brought to see that I am not
guilty, that he wouldn't win the suit, then perhaps he would cease from
it. I will give all the money I can--all I have!"
Piers stood reflecting.
"Tell me all the details you have learnt," he said. "What evidence do
they rely on?"
Her head bowed, her voice broken, she told of place and time and the
assertions of so-called witnesses.
"Why has this plot against you been a year in ripening?" asked Otway.
"Perhaps we are wrong in thinking it a plot. My husband may only just
have discovered what he thinks my guilt in some chance way. If so,
there is hope."
They sat mute for a minute or two.
"If only I can hide this from Olga," said Mrs. Hannaford. "Think how
dreadful it is for me, with her! We were going to ask you to spend
another evening with us--but how is it possible? If I send you the
invitation, will you make an answer excusing yourself--saying you are
too busy? To prevent Olga from wondering. How hard, how cruel it is!
Just when we had made ourselves a home here, and might have been happy!"
Piers stood up, and tried to speak words of encouragement. The charge
being utterly false, at worst a capable solicitor might succeed in
refuting it. He was about to take his leave, when he remembered that he
did not know Daniel's address: Mrs. Hannaford gave it.
"I am sorry you went there," he said.
And as he left the room, he saw the woman's eyes follow him with that
look of woe which signals a tottering mind.