During the days that followed she was shut up in the cottage alone; and
no one entered save Jane Mitchell, who came in the morning to light the
fire while the remnant of coal lasted, and then was sent away.
“I shall not require you any more,” she said to Lucas, when he came to
ask if she wanted the pony. She was covered with shame, and could never
drive along the roads again.
“No, I do not need any provisions,” she said to Jane Mitchell, who
offered to do some shopping for her; “I have sufficient in the house,
and I will not trouble you to come again, Jane, until this day
week”—and, having securely fastened the outer doors, she went to the
drawing-room.
“I shall be dead by then,” she thought, “and Jane will find me.”
She was terribly ill, but she did not know it. The cold and the damp of
that long day in London and afterwards had laid hold on her. She
coughed, and knew that swift pains went through her, and a load was on
her chest, but she had no time to notice these things. She had had no
food for days. Save a little milk in a cup, and some bread, there was
nothing left when Jane Mitchell took her departure. She was being slowly
starved; she knew it, and did not care. The awful shame, the misery, the
agony, that had overtaken her, stifled all other feelings, and were
killing her; she knew that, too, and waited for death. Everything had
gone out of her life; there was nothing to come into it more. She had
been proud of her memories, her unsullied past, her own
spotlessness—“Now it is all gone,” she said to herself. Every memory
was a reproach or was hideous. She sat on one of the chairs before the
drawing-room fireplace, and thought and thought and thought, till she
could bear it no longer. It seemed as if pain were stamping the life out
of her, as if she must be dying; she could feel that she was dying; but
life remained by a little, and grew keen, and tortured her again. The
key was turned in the lock of Alfred Wimple’s room, but his touch was on
everything in the house; and a shrinking from it was her strongest
feeling concerning him. Even the sight of a cup from which he had drunk
made her shudder more than the bitter cold. “The place is contaminated,”
she said to herself; “it is poisoned.” Sometimes for a few minutes a
little tenderness would try to push its way into her heart again, but
she shrank from that most of all, and with horror and loathing of
herself. She was bowed down with disgrace. She felt as if by even living
she was committing an offence against the whole world. There was no one
she was fit to see; she had no right of any sort left, no business to be
in the light; and there was no place in which she could hide. The nights
were worst of all, they were so long and still; and when she had used
the two candles left in the dining-room she had no means of shortening
them even by an hour. Then, quaking, she lay on the hard sofa in the
drawing-room, while the darkness gathered round, and the cold fastened
its sharpest fangs into her. In those long hours she suffered not only
her own reproaches, but the reproaches of the dead—of the dear ones she
had loved in bygone years. From every corner they seemed to
come—through the closed door and in at the curtained windows; troops of
them—till she could bear it no longer, and dared not see the darkness
that seemed to be growing white with their faces. But when she closed
her eyes it was no better: they came a little closer and touched her
with their hands, as if they would push her a little farther into space;
she was not fit to be among them. The friends of her girlhood, with whom
she had played and shared her little secrets, came from the strange
world into which they had carried the memory of their own blameless
lives. They looked at her reproachfully, and went away; she would never
be one of them now, even in eternity. And there was one more; she could
see him coming softly through the shadows. He stood beside her, and she
cowered and hid her face. Then she knew that he was sorry and understood
that, in some grotesque manner, it had been done half for love of him.
It comforted her a little to think this, while she turned her face down
to the cushion, and sobbed, “Forgive me, I am so ashamed—so ashamed.”
At last, perhaps, she would ache with fever and cold, and the sharp
pains went through her again. She welcomed these almost lovingly,
thinking that perhaps they meant the coming of the end; and gradually,
as the morning broke, she would doze off into a weary sleep.
Sometimes a ghastly fear would seize her that Alfred Wimple was coming
back. She could hear his footsteps going round the house; she fancied he
was creeping beneath the verandah, that he was trying the window. He
wanted to come in and strangle her. She could feel his long hands
closing round her throat, and put up her own to draw them, finger by
finger, away. It was not the killing she would mind, but the pollution
of his touch.
Through the day she wandered from room to room—now looking at the table
at which he had sat the last night of all; or seeing him, with his back
to the buttery-hatch, eating the sole and the chicken she had brought
from London; or standing in the doorway, when he came afterwards and
asked her for the evening paper. She went to the window and looked at
the garden, and the pathway down to the dip; but this was more than she
could bear, and she would turn away and sit down by the empty fireplace
again. She grew hungry once; a terrible craving for food came over her.
She gathered some sticks together, and made a fire, all the time seeing
strange visions and grinning fiends that mocked her. She took them to be
the punishment of her sin—for sin she counted all that she had
done—but in reality they were but signs of the illness and starvation
that were contending for the mastery of her. She put a little water on
to boil over the blazing sticks, and watched it greedily. She made some
tea, with trembling eagerness, and found a new excitement in the
strength it gave her; but when the fire had died away, and an hour had
passed, she was prostrate again. Gradually she became so ill that she
could scarcely drag herself from the drawing-room to the kitchen; the
sense of being unfit to stay in the world grew upon her—a dread of
seeing people, a haunting fear of some one coming to the door. But no
one came through all those terrible days except, once or twice, Jane
Mitchell, only to be told that “her services were not required.”
She thought of Walter and Florence sometimes, and was afraid of their
coming back. She could never look them in the face again, or dare to
speak to them, or see the children. Just as before she had exaggerated
her own importance in the world and her own virtue, now she exaggerated
her own disgrace. She knew what the women she had once despised felt
like—“I was never lenient,” she said to herself. “I was very harsh, as
if they had gone out of their way to do wrong. I ought to have shown
them more clemency”—and as she said this, there came before her the
face of Mrs. North. She sat and looked at it. “She was young, and there
was excuse for her; and I am old, yet could not forgive her. I will make
atonement now. I will write and tell her.” Her fingers were so weak she
could hardly hold the pen, but she managed to put down a little entreaty
for forgiveness. “I ought to have been more gentle to you,” she wrote.
“I know that now, for I have been as frail”—she stopped and gave a sad
little wink at the word—“as you. I know what your sufferings have been
by my own, and can pity your humiliation.” The letter remained on the
table—she almost forgot it; fever and blackness filled her life—she
could scarcely walk across the room.
The morning brought the postman, with a letter from Walter and Florence.
“Would you put a postage-stamp on this for me?” she said, giving him the
one for Mrs. North. “I will repay you the next time you come; I have no
change for the moment.”
She put the letter with the Monte Carlo postmark on the mantelpiece, and
stood looking at the familiar handwriting, and imagining them together
beneath the blue sky, Walter in high spirits, and Florence with her
pretty hair plaited round her head. “Dear children,” she said. “He is
growing more and more like his father.” She closed her eyes for a
moment; her limbs swayed and gave way beneath her; and she fell from
sheer weakness, and could make no effort to rise. Presently she pulled
the cushion down, and lay on the rug again as she had on the night of
Alfred Wimple’s departure. She did not know how the day passed—probably
most of it went in forgetfulness. The next afternoon came, and she had
not noticed the hours.
The click of the gate, and footsteps coming towards the house—Aunt Anne
struggled up, panting, and listened—a quick knock at the door. She
hesitated, raised herself to her feet by the armchair, and went out, but
could not gather courage to undo the lock.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Let me in,” cried a voice that was familiar enough, though she could
not identify it. She bowed her head—she was about to be looked at in
all her humiliation—and, with trembling hands, opened the door.
Mrs. North walked in, with a happy laugh. She was perfectly dressed, as
usual, and carried a white basket.
“My dear old lady,” she said, “what is the matter? Your letter
frightened me out of my senses. I came off the moment it arrived. You
poor old darling, what is the matter? Why, you can’t stand—I must carry
you.” She supported the old lady back into the drawing-room—cheerless
and cold enough it looked; that was the first impression Mrs. North had
of it—and sat down beside her on the sofa.
“My love,” the old lady said, “I wrote to ask your forgiveness; it was
due to you that I should, for I am worse than you. If I was harsh to you
once, you may be harsh to me now.”
Mrs. North pressed her hand.
“But you are ill, dear Mrs. Wimple,” she said.
Aunt Anne looked up, with a start of horror.
“I must ask you never to call me by that name again; it is not mine. It
is the symbol of my disgrace. It is my greatest punishment to remember
that I ever for a single moment bore it.” And then she broke down, and,
dropping her head on Mrs. North’s shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would
break.
“You dear—you poor old dear,” Mrs. North said, stroking the scanty gray
hair; “I can’t bear to see you cry—you mustn’t do it; you are ill. Who
is here with you?”
“There is no one here. I am not fit to have any one with me. I am all
alone.”
“All alone!”
“Yes”—and she shook her head.
“Then I shall stay and take care of you, and nurse you, and make you
quite well again. You know I always cared for you, dear old lady”—and
Mrs. North kissed her tenderly.
“And I treated you with so much severity,” Aunt Anne said ruefully.
“It was very good for me. And now,” Mrs. North said, in her sweet,
coaxing voice, “put your feet up on the sofa; you are trembling and
shaking with cold. Why, you have no fire; let us go into another room
where there is one.”
“There is no fire in the house,” Aunt Anne answered. “The weather is
very mild; moreover, the coal-cellar needs replenishing. I have not been
sufficiently well to do it.”
“No fire!—and you evidently suffering from bronchitis. Oh, you do
indeed need to be looked after. Have you no servant here?” Mrs. North
was rapidly taking in the whole situation.
“No, my dear. I wished to be alone.”
“But this is terrible. We must set everything to rights. You appear to
be killing yourself. I don’t believe you have anything to eat and drink
in the house.”
“No. I have been too ill to require nourishment; I regret that I cannot
ask you to stay——”
“Oh, but I am going to stay——”
“No, my love, I cannot allow it——” Aunt Anne began tremblingly.
Mrs. North looked at her, almost in despair. Then she took off her hat
and gloves, and stood for a moment, a lovely picture in the middle of
the dreary room, before she knelt down by Aunt Anne.
“Let me stay with you,” she pleaded, taking the two thin hands in hers;
“you were always so good to me. I know that something terrible has
happened to you; you shall tell me what it is by-and-by, when you are
better. Now I want to take care of you; and you will let me, won’t you?”
“You shall do anything you like, my dear,” Aunt Anne gasped, too weak to
offer resistance.
Then Mrs. North went out to the fly, which was still waiting at the
gate, and found Jane Mitchell, who, attracted by the unusual sight, was
talking to the driver.
“I want some coals sent at once, and a servant.”
“I was the servant, if you please, ma’am; only Mrs. Wimple said she
didn’t want me,” remarked Jane.
“Then go in immediately and make a fire,” answered Mrs. North,
imperiously; “and if there are no coals get some, from a shop or your
mother’s cottage or anywhere else. There must be shops in the village.
Order tea and sugar, and everything else you can think of. I will send
to London for my maid and cook, to come and help you. Make haste and
light a fire in the drawing-room. Where is my shawl? Here, driver, take
this telegram; and order these things from the village, and say they are
wanted instantly”—she had written the list on the leaf of a note-book;
“and this is for your trouble,” she added.
“Now, you dear old lady,” she said, going back to her, “let me put this
shawl over your feet first, for we must make you warm. Consider that I
have adopted you.” In a moment she ran upstairs, and searched for a soft
pillow to put under Aunt Anne’s head, and then produced some grapes and
jelly from the basket which, with a certain foresight, she had brought
with her. Aunt Anne sucked in a little of the jelly almost eagerly, and
as she did so Mrs. North realized that she had only just come in time.
“We must send for a doctor,” she thought; “but I am afraid that
everything is too late.”
In twenty-four hours the cottage looked like another place. Mrs. North’s
cook had taken possession of the kitchen; a comfortable-looking,
middle-aged maid went up and down the stairs; the windows were open,
though there were fires burning in all the grates. There were good
things in the larder, and an atmosphere of home was everywhere. Aunt
Anne was bewildered, but Mrs. North looked quite happy.
“I have taken possession of you,” she explained, the second morning
after she came. “You ought to have sent for me sooner. In fact, you
ought never to have left me. You only got into mischief, and so did I.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Aunt Anne, feebly, “we both did.”
Mrs. North’s lips quivered for a moment.
“It shows that we ought to have stayed together,” she said, half crying.
“Perhaps I should have been better if you had not gone. Oh, I shall
never forget all you told me this morning.”
For Aunt Anne, in sheer desperation, as well as in penitent love and
gratitude, had poured out the whole history of her life since she left
Cornwall Gardens, and Mrs. North’s keen perception and quick sympathy
had filled in any outlines that had been left a little vague.
“We know each other so well now, I don’t think I ought to call you Mrs.
Baines any longer. I want to call you something else.”
“Let it be anything you like, my dear.”
“What does the Madon—Mrs. Hibbert, call you? But I know; she calls you
‘Aunt Anne.’ Let me do the same?”
“Yes, dear, you shall call me Aunt Anne.”
“Oh, I am so glad to be with you,” Mrs. North went on. “I have longed
sometimes to put down my head on your lap and cry. I have been just as
miserable as you have—more, a thousand times more; for my shame”—she
liked indulging Aunt Anne in her estimate of her own conduct—“has been
all my own wicked doing, but yours was only a sad mistake. I don’t think
we ought to be separated any more, Aunt Anne; we ought to live together,
and take care of each other.”
“My dear,” said the old lady, still lying on the sofa, “there will be no
living for me; I am going to die.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. North answered, with a little gasp, “you are going to live
and be taken care of, and loved properly. I wish the doctor would come
again. Then I should speak on medical authority. Go to sleep a little
while; I will sit by you.”
An hour passed. Aunt Anne opened her eyes.
“Could you put me by the fire, my dear? I am very cold.”
“Yes, of course I can; but wait a moment. Clarke will come and help me.
Clarke,” she called, “I want you to come and help me to move Mrs.
Baines.
“Now you look more comfortable,” she said, when it was done. “There is a
footstool for your feet, and the peacock beside you to keep you
company.”
Aunt Anne sat still for a moment, looking at the fire.
“My dear,” she said presently, “I have been thinking of what you said;
we have both suffered very much; we ought to be together. Only now you
have the hope of a new life before you. But we have both suffered,” she
repeated.
Mrs. North knelt down beside her with a long sigh. “Suffered,” she said.
“Oh, dear old lady, if you only knew what I have suffered; the
loneliness of my girlhood, the misery of my marriage, the perpetual
hunger for happiness, the struggle to get it. And oh! the longing to be
loved, and the madness when love came, and then—then—but you know,”
she whispered, passionately—“I need not go over it; the shame, and the
publicity, and the relief I dared not to acknowledge even to myself,
when I was set free. And then the awful dread that even he, the man for
whom I did it all, would perhaps despise me as the rest of the world
did. I am not wicked naturally, I am not, indeed; I don’t think any
woman on this green earth has loved beautiful things and longed to do
righteous things, more than I have, or felt the misery of failure more
bitterly.”
“It will come right now, my love,” Aunt Anne said gently. “You are
young; it will all come right. You said you had a telegram, and that he
was coming back?”
“Yes, he is coming back,” Mrs. North answered, in a low voice; “but I do
not want him to set it right because I did the wrong for him, or just to
make reparation from a sense of honour. I do not want to spoil his life;
for some people will cut him if he marries me; it is only—only—if he
loves me still, and more than all the world, as I do him—that is the
only chance of it all coming right. It is time I had a letter. But here
is your beef-tea. Let us try and forget all our troubles, and get a
little peace together.” She looked up with an April-day smile, took the
beef-tea from Clarke, and, holding it before Aunt Anne, watched with
satisfaction every mouthful she took.
“I fear I give you a great deal of trouble,” the old lady said
gratefully.
“It isn’t trouble”—and the tears came to her eyes; “it is blessedness.
I never had any one before to serve and wait on whom I loved; even my
hands are sensible of the happiness of everything they do for you. It is
new life. But now we have talked too much, and you must go to sleep.”
“Yes, my love,” and Aunt Anne put her head back on the pillow; “I will
do as you desire, but you are very autocratic.”
“Of course.” Mrs. North laughed at hearing the familiar word, and then
went to the dining-room for a little spell of quietness.
“Clarke,” she said to the maid who had been waiting there, “go in and
watch by Mrs. Baines; she must not be left alone.”
Mrs. North sat down on the chair that Aunt Anne had pulled out for
Alfred Wimple after her return from London.
“Oh, I wonder if it will come right?” she said to herself. “If it
does—if it does—if it does! But I ought to have had a letter by this
time; it is long enough since the telegram from Bombay. Something tells
me that it will come right; I think that is the meaning of the happiness
that has forced itself upon me lately. It is no use trying to be
miserable any longer. Happiness seems to be coming near and nearer. I
have a sense of forgiveness in my heart; surely I know what it means?
Perhaps, as Aunt Anne says, all I have suffered has been an atonement
for the wrong. One little letter, and I shall be content. The dear old
lady shall never go away from me; she shall just be made as happy as
possible.” She got up and went to the window, and leaned out towards the
garden. “Those trees at the end,” she said to herself, “surely must hide
the way down to the dip, where she listened. It is very lovely
to-day”—and she looked up at the sky; “but I wish the doctor would
come, I should feel more satisfied.” There was a footstep. “Yes, Clarke;
is anything the matter? Why have you come? You look quite pale.”
“Mrs. Baines is going to die, ma’am; I am certain of it.”
“Going to die?” Mrs. North’s face turned white, and she went towards the
door.
“I don’t mean this minute, ma’am; but just now she opened her eyes and
looked round as if she didn’t see, and then she picked at her dress as
dying people do at the sheet—it’s a sure sign. Besides, she is black
round the mouth. I don’t believe she will live three days.”
Mrs. North clasped her hands, with fear.
“I wish she would stay in bed; the doctor said she ought to do so
yesterday; but she seemed better, and begged so hard to come down this
morning that I gave way.”
“It’s another sign,” said the maid; “they always want to get up towards
the last.”
“The doctor promised he would be here by twelve, and now it is nearly
two.”
He came an hour later. “She must be taken upstairs at once,” he said; so
they carried her up, Clarke and the doctor between them, while Mrs.
North followed anxiously; and all of them knew that Aunt Anne would
never walk down the stairs again.
Then a telegram was sent to Florence and Walter at Monte Carlo.
But she was a little better in the evening, and Mrs. North brightened up
as she saw it. Perhaps Clarke was a foolish croaker, and signs were
foolish things to trouble one’s self about. The old lady might live,
after all, and there would be some happiness yet.
“No, Aunt Anne, you are not going to get up yet,” she said next morning,
in answer to an inquiring look; “you must wait until the doctor has
been; remember it is my turn to be autocratic.”
“Yes, my love,” and she dozed off. Half her time was spent in sleep.
Since Mrs. North’s arrival there had stolen over her a gradual
contentment, as if a crisis had occurred, and the blackness of the past
grown dim. Perhaps it was giving place to all that was in her heart, or
to the sound of Mrs. North’s fresh young voice, and the loving touch of
her hand. Be it what it might, Alfred Wimple and the misery that he had
caused seemed to have gone farther and farther away, while peacefulness
was stealing over her. “It is like being with my dear Florence and
Walter,” she said to Mrs. North once—“only perhaps you understand even
better than they could, for you have gone through the pain.”
“Yes, dear Aunt Anne, I have gone through the pain”—and Mrs. North sat
waiting for the doctor again, not that she was very uneasy to-day, for
the old lady was a little better, and hope grows up quickly when youth
passes by.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]