AT LAST.
He found Frank King in the little room in Cleveland Row, alone, sitting
before the fire, a shut book on the small table beside him.
'I've got bad news for you, King,' he said, bluntly. 'I wish it hadn't
been my sister. But you know what women are. It's better to have
nothing at all to do with them.'
'But what is it?' Frank King said, with some alarm on his face.
'Madge has bolted.'
'Madge has bolted?' the other repeated, staring at Mr. Tom in a
bewildered sort of way.
'Yes. Gone and married that fellow Hanbury. This morning. I'm very
sorry I have to come to you with a story like that about my own sister.'
Mr. Tom was very much surprised to find his friend jump up from the
chair and seize him by the arm.
'Do you know this, Beresford,' he said, in great excitement, 'you have
taken a millstone from my neck. I have been sitting wondering whether
I shouldn't cut my throat at once, or make off for Australia----'
'Oh, come, I say!' interposed Mr. Tom, with a quick flush.
'Oh, you needn't think I have anything to say against your sister,'
exclaimed his friend--on whose face there was a sudden and quite
radiant gladness. 'You don't understand it at all, Beresford. It will
take some explanation. But I assure you you could not have brought me
pleasanter news; and yet I have not a word to say against your sister.
I know that is a privilege you reserve for yourself; and quite right
too.'
It was manifestly clear that Captain King was not shamming
satisfaction; not for many a day had his face looked so bright.
'Well, I'm glad you take it that way,' said Mr. Tom. 'I thought you
would be cut up. Most fellows are; though they pretend not to be. I
really do believe you're rather glad that Madge has given you the slip.'
'Sit down, Beresford, and I will tell you all about it. I proposed to
your sister Anne years ago.'
'To Nan? Why wasn't I told?'
'These things are not generally preached from the house-tops. She
refused me point-blank; and I knew she was a girl who knew her own
mind. Then I rejoined my ship; and remained mostly abroad for a long
time. I fancied it would all blow over; but it didn't; I was harder
hit than I thought; and then, you know, sailors are driven to think of
bygone things. Well, you remember when I came home--when I met you in
the street. I thought I should like to have just another glimpse of
Nan--of Miss Anne, I mean--before she married the parson. Do you
remember my going into the drawing-room? Madge was there--the perfect
image of Nan! Indeed; I thought at first she was Nan herself. And
wasn't it natural I should imagine the two sisters must be alike in
disposition too? And then, as it was hopeless about Nan, I fancied--I
imagined--well, the truth is, I made a most confounded mistake,
Beresford; and the only thing I have been thinking of, day and night,
of late, was what was the proper and manly thing to do--whether to tell
Madge frankly--or whether to say nothing, with the hope that after
marriage it would all come right. And now you needn't wonder at my
being precious glad she has herself settled the affair; and there is
not a human being in the world more heartily wishes her lifelong
happiness than I do. And I wish to goodness I knew some way of letting
her know that too.'
Tom stretched out his legs--his hands were in his pockets--and said,
contemplatively,--
'So you thought Madge was the same as Nan. I could have told you
different, if you had asked me. You thought you could find another
girl like Nan. If you want to try, you'll have to step out. By the
time you've found her, the Wandering Jew 'll be a fool compared to you.
Girls like Nan don't grow on every blackberry bush.'
'I know that,' said Frank King, with a sigh.
Then Mr. Tom looked at his watch.
'I'm very hungry,' said he. 'Have you dined?'
'No, I have not. I was going to walk along to the club when you came
in.'
'Come with me to the Waterloo. You see, something must be done about
these two ninnies. He must get something to do; and set to work. The
Baby has never been accustomed to live up a tree. She must have a
proper house.'
Frank King got his coat and hat; and they both went out. He was
thinking of his own affairs mostly--and of this singular sense of
relief that seemed to permeate him; Mr. Tom, on the other hand, was
discussing the various aspects of the elopement, more particularly with
regard to the Court of Chancery. During dinner the two friends arrived
at the conclusion that people generally would look upon the affair as a
harmless, or even humorous, escapade; and that the Court, seeing that
the thing was done, would allow the young people to go their way, with
a suitable admonition.
This was not quite what happened, however. To begin with, there was a
clamour of contention and advice among guardians and friends; there
were anonymous appeals to the runaways in agony-columns; there were
futile attempts made to pacify the Court of Chancery. All the
Beresfords came up to town, except Nan, who remained to look after the
Brighton house. The chief difficulty of the moment was to discover the
whereabouts of Mr. John Hanbury. That gentleman was coy; and wanted to
find out something of what was likely to happen to him if he emerged
from his hiding-place. At last it was conveyed to him that he was only
making matters worse; then he wrote from certain furnished apartments
in a house on the south-west side of Regent's Park; finally, there was
a series of business interviews, and it was arranged that on a
particular day he should attend the Court and hear the decision of the
Vice-Chancellor.
On that fateful morning, poor Madge, her pretty eyes all bedimmed with
tears, and her lips tremulous, was with her sisters and mother in the
rooms in Bruton Street; the gentlemen only attended the Court. Jack
Hanbury was looking exceedingly nervous and pale. And indeed, when the
case came on, and the Vice-chancellor began to make certain
observations, even Mr. Tom, whose care for the future of his sister had
now quite overcome all his scorn for that fellow Hanbury, grew somewhat
alarmed. The Court did not all appear inclined to take the
free-and-easy view of the matter that had been anticipated. The
Vice-Chancellor's sentences, one after the other, seemed to become more
and more severe, as he described the gross conduct and contempt of
which this young man had been guilty. He deplored the condition of the
law in England, which allowed persons to get married on the strength of
false statements. He wound up his lecture, which had a conciseness and
pertinence about it not often found in lectures, by the brief
announcement that he should forthwith make an order committing Mr. John
Hanbury to Holloway Prison.
There was an ominous silence for a brief second or so. Then the Court
was addressed by Mr. Rupert--who was Mary Beresford's husband, and a
fairly well-known Q.C.--who made a very humble and touching little
appeal. He said he represented the relatives of the young lady; he was
himself a near relative; and they were all inclined to beg his Lordship
to take a merciful view of the case. They did not think the young man,
though he had acted most improperly, was inspired by mercenary motives.
He was now in Court; and was anxious to make the most profound apology.
If his Lordship----
But at this moment his Lordship, by the slightest of gestures, seemed
to intimate that Mr. Rupert was only wasting time; and the end of it
was that Mr. Jack Hanbury, after having heard a little more lecturing
on the heinousness of his conduct, found himself under the charge of
the tipstaff of the Court, with Holloway prison as his destination. It
was not to be considered as a humorous escapade after all.
'Madge will have a fit,' said Mr. Tom, when they were outside again.
'Some one must go and tell her. I shan't.'
'I knew he must be committed,' said Mr. Rupert to the young man's
father. 'There was no help for that; his contempt of Court was too
heinous. Now the proper thing to do is to let him have a little dose
of prison--the authority of the Court must be vindicated, naturally;
and then we must have a definite scheme for the establishment of the
young man in business before we beg the Court to reconsider the matter.
I mean, you must name a sum; and it must be ready. And then there must
be an understanding that Miss Beresford--I mean Mrs. Hanbury's--small
fortune shall be settled on herself.'
'My advice,' remarked Mr. Tom, 'is that Madge should go herself and see
the Vice-Chancellor. She might do the pathetic business--a wife and
not a widow, or whatever the poetry of the thing is. I think it's
deuced hard lines to lock up a fellow for merely humbugging an old
parson up in Kentish Town. Why shouldn't people get married when they
want to? Fancy having to live three weeks in Kentish Town! I wouldn't
live three weeks in Kentish Town to marry a Duchess.'
'I am afraid,' said Mr. Rupert, drily, 'that the Vice-chancellor is too
familiar with the sight of pretty damsels in distress. I think, Mr.
Hanbury, if you can produce a deed of partnership with your friends in
Southampton, that would be more likely to influence the Court. On our
side we agree. And of course there must be a humble apology from the
young man himself. We had better wait a week, or a fortnight, and then
renew the application. I will go myself and tell the young lady what
has happened.'
Madge did not go into a fit at all; but what she did do was to decline
positively to remain in Bruton Street. No; back she would go to the
rooms that her dear Jack had taken for her. They might come to see her
there if they liked; but that was her home; it was her place as a wife
to remain in the home that her husband had chosen for her. Madge did
not cry as much as had been expected; she was angry and indignant, and
she said hard things about the condition of the law in England; and she
had a vague belief that her brother Tom was a renegade and traitor and
coward because he did not challenge the Vice-Chancellor to a duel on
Calais sands.
Nevertheless, in her enforced widowhood, Madge found time to write the
enclosed letter--nay, she went first of all to the trouble of walking
down Baker Street until she came to a shop where she could get very
pretty and nicely scented notepaper for the purpose:--
'DEAR FRANK--Tom brought me yesterday your very manly and generous
letter, and I must write and thank you for your kind wishes for my
happiness. It's dreadful to think that persons should be shut up in
prison, when everybody is agreed it is needless--merely to satisfy a
form. You are very kind in what you say; you were always kind to
me--kinder than I deserved. But I didn't think you would mind very
much my running away; for I am sure you care far more for Nan than you
ever cared for me; and now Edith declares that Nan has been in love
with you all the time. I hear you have been doing everything in your
power towards getting poor Jack out of prison; and so I thought I would
do you a good turn also. You might take this letter to Nan, and ask
her if every word in it isn't true--unless you think you've had enough
of our family already. Dear Frank, I am so glad you forgive me; and
when I get out of my present deep distress I hope you will come and see
us and be like old friends.--Yours sincerely, MADGE HANBURY.'
At this present moment Captain King, as they still call him (for all
these things happened not so long ago), considers this letter the most
valuable he ever received. Not any message from home announcing to the
schoolboy that a hamper would speedily arrive; not any communication
from the Admiralty after he had arrived at man's estate; nay, not any
one of Nan's numerous love-letters--witty, and tender, and clever, as
these were--had for him anything like the gigantic importance of this
letter. It is needless to say that, very shortly after the receipt of
it, and without saying a word to anybody, he slipped down to Brighton,
and got a room at the Norfolk.
It was so strange to think that Nan was a little way along there; and
that there was still a chance that that same Nan--the wonder of the
world with whose going away from him the world had got quite altered
somehow--might still be his! It bewildered him as yet. To think of
Nan at Kingscourt!--her presence filling the house with sunlight;
charming everybody with her quiet, humorous ways, and her
self-possession, and her sweetness, and the faithfulness of her frank,
clear eyes! And all his thinking came back to the one point. This was
now Nan herself he had a chance of winning; not any imaginary Nan; not
any substitute; not any vision to be wavering this way and that; but
the very Nan herself. And if it was true--if the real Nan, after all,
was to go hand-in-hand through life with him--where, of all the places
in the world, should they first go to together? To that far-away inn
at Splugen, surely! Now it would be his own Nan who would sit at the
small table, and laugh with her shining, clear eyes. She would walk
with him up the steep Pass; the sunlight on her pink cheeks; he would
hear the chirp of her boots on the wet snow.
Amid all this wild whirl of hope and doubt and delightful assurance, it
was hard to have to wait for an opportunity of speaking to Nan alone.
He would not go to the house, lest there should be visitors, or some
one staying there; he would rather catch Nan on one of her pilgrimages
in the country or along the downs, with solitude and silence to aid him
in his prayer. But that chance seemed far off. He watched for Nan
incessantly; and his sharp sailor's eyes followed her keenly, while he
kept at a considerable distance. But Nan seemed to be very busy at
this time. Again and again he was tempted to speak to her as she came
out of this or that shop, or when he saw her carrying an armful of toys
into some small back street. But he was afraid. There was so much to
win; so much to lose. He guessed that sooner or later the vagrant
blood in Nan would drive her to seek the solitariness of the high
cliffs over the sea.
It turned out differently, however. One squally and stormy morning he
saw her leave the house, her ulster buttoned up, her hat well down over
her brows. He let her pass the hotel, and slipped out afterwards. By
and by she turned up into the town, and finally entered a stationer's
shop, where there was a public library. No doubt she had merely come
to order some books, he said to himself, downheartedly, and would go
straight back again.
However, on coming out, he noticed her glance up at the driven sky,
where the clouds were breaking here and there. Then she went down East
Street towards the sea. Then she passed the Aquarium by the lower
road. This he could not understand at all, as she generally kept to
the cliffs.
He soon discovered her intention. There was a heavy sea rolling in;
and she had always had a great delight in watching the big waves come
swinging past the head of the Chain Pier. That, indeed, turned out to
be her destination. When he had seen the slight, girlish-looking
figure well away out there, he also went on the Pier, and followed.
It is needless to say that there was not a human being out there at the
end. Tags and rags of flying clouds were sending showers of rain
spinning across; between them great bursts of sunlight flooded the sea;
and the vast green masses of water shone as they broke on the wooden
piles and thundered on below. When he reached the head of the Pier, he
found that Nan, who fancied herself entirely alone, was resting her two
elbows on the bar, and so holding on her hat, as she looked down on the
mighty volumes of water that broke and rushed roaring below.
He touched her on the shoulder; she jumped up with a start, and turned,
growing a little pale as she confronted him. He, also, had an
apprehensive look in his eyes--perhaps it was that that frightened her.
'Nothing has happened to Madge?' she said, quickly.
'No. But come over there to the shelter. I wish to show you a letter
she has written.'
A few steps brought them to a sudden silence; it was like stepping from
the outer air into a diving-bell.
'Nan, I want you to read this letter, and tell me if it is true.'
He gave it her; she read it; then slowly, very slowly, the one hand
holding the letter dropped, and she stood there silent, her eyes
downcast.
'Nan, I have loved you since the very first night I ever saw you. I
tried to make believe that Madge was you; Madge herself has saved us
from what might have happened through that desperate mistake. And you,
Nan--you are free now--there is no one in the way--is it true what
Edith says?'
'It isn't quite true,' said Nan, in a very low voice; and her fingers
were making sad work with Madge's letter. 'I mean--if she means--what
you can say--since the very first night that we met. But I think at
least--it is true--since'--and here Nan looked up at him with her
faithful eyes, and in them there was something that was neither
laughing nor crying, but was strangely near to both--'since--since ever
we parted at Como!'