YOU ARE A GOOD MAN
Within a week every debt was paid absolutely and in full. Even the
landlord was abundantly satisfied. Jane Mullins lost her look of care,
and became cheerful and fat and good-tempered once more. The boarders,
who had been merry enough and careless enough all through, suspecting
nothing, of course, seemed now to be beside themselves with merriment.
The weather was so fine and the house was so pleasant. Jane Mullins
quite came out of her shell. She told stories of her early life, and
made those boarders who sat near her at dinner quite roar with
laughter, and Captain and Mrs. Furlong also came out of their shells,
and were most agreeable and kind and chatty; and mother came down to
dinner as usual, and sat in the drawing-room as usual, and in the
evenings there was music, and I sang my songs and played my pieces and
wore my very prettiest dresses, and Albert Fanning looked at me, and
looked at me, and Mrs. Fanning nodded approval at me.
Mrs. Armstrong, too, became strangely mysterious, wreathing her face
in smiles now and then, and now and then looking strangely sour and
disappointed, and Marion Armstrong began to flirt with a young German
who had arrived. We never did want to have foreigners in the
establishment, but he offered to pay a big sum for a certain room, and
Jane said it would be the worst policy to leave him out. He satisfied
Marion Armstrong too, which was another thing to be considered, for
Marion and her mother were the sort of boarders who are always more or
less the backbone of a house like ours. They stay on and on; they pay
their money weekly. They speak of their aristocratic neighbours, and
are mostly advertisements themselves.
Now that the German, Herr Tiegel, had come, there was certainly very
little chance of Mrs. and Miss Armstrong taking their departure until
the end of the season.
Jane used to go and have long talks with mother, and spoke about the
future, and the extensions we should make, and Albert and his mother
too talked about possible extensions. Mrs. Fanning whispered darkly to
me that Albert had large ideas now with regard to the boarding-house.
"It's wonderful, my love, the interest he takes in it," she said; "I
never saw anything like it in the whole course of my life, and for a
publisher too! But his idea is no less than this: When the lease of
the next house falls in, we take it too, and break open doors, and
have the two houses instead of one. He says the two houses will pay,
whereas the one don't, and never could. The boarders, poor things!
think that they are doing us a splendid good turn, but this house
ain't paying, and it never will, my love."
To these sort of remarks I never made any answer. I was quite
cheerful; I had to be cheerful for mother's sake, and it was only at
night I let myself go. Even then I tried hard to sleep well and to
shut away the future.
Albert Fanning and I, by tacit consent, hardly ever met alone, and
that future life which we were to lead together, when a year had
expired, was not spoken of between us. A fortnight, however, after all
the debts had been paid, and the house had been put upon a very sure
and very firm foundation once more, Mrs. Fanning came softly to me
where I was sitting in the drawing-room.
"Do you mind going into the little room for a moment," she said.
The little room was on the same floor, it was the room where I had
seen Althorp on that dreadful day when I had bound myself in a bondage
in many ways worse than death.
"Why?" I asked, looking at her with frightened eyes. She took my hand
and patted it softly.
"You are a very good girl and a very brave one," she said, "and
there's nothing Albert and I wouldn't do for you. Albert wants to have
a chat with you, he's waiting in the other room; you go along, dear.
Oh, after the first blush you won't mind a bit; go, dear, go."
I looked at mother, who was talking with Mrs. Furlong. The whole room
was peaceful and quiet, a good many of the boarders were out, for it
was now the height of the season and almost midsummer. The windows
were wide open. I caught mother's eye for an instant; mother smiled at
me. Of late she used to wear a very far away look. There was often an
expression in her eyes which seemed to say that she and father were
holding converse. I caught that glance now, and it steadied my own
nerves, and stilled the rebellion at my heart. I got up steadily. Had
my stepping down--oh, had my stepping down led to this? It was a
bitter thought, and yet when I looked at mother, and felt that I had
saved her from intolerable anguish and perhaps sudden death, I felt
that it was worth while. I went into the next room.
Albert Fanning, before our engagement--(oh yes, of course, we were
engaged, I must use the hated word)--Albert before our engagement had
thought little or nothing of his dress, but now he was extremely
particular. An evening suit had been made to fit his tall ungainly
person by one of the best tailors in the West End. He was wearing it
now, and his light flaxen hair was standing up straighter than ever,
and he had a kind of nervous smile round his lips. When he saw me
enter he came forward and held out his hand.
"Well," he said, "and how is Westenra? Sit down, won't you?"
I did sit down; I sat where some of the summer breeze coming in from
across the Square garden could fan my hot cheeks. I sat down
trembling. He stood perfectly still an inch or two away from me. He
did not attempt to take my hand again. After a pause, being surprised
at his stillness, I looked up at him; I saw his blue eyes fixed on my
face, with a very hungry expression. I sighed heavily.
"Oh," I said, "you have been so very good, and I have never even
thanked you."
"You never have after, just the first day," he said; "but I did not
expect thanks. Thanks were not in the bond, _you_ were in the bond,
you know. That is all I want."
He sat down then near me, and we both must have felt the same summer
breeze blowing on our faces.
"I am picturing the time when the year is out," he said slowly, "when
you and I are away together in the country. I never cared much for the
country, nor for nature, nor for anything of that sort, but I think I
should like those things if you were with me. You embody a great deal
to me, you make poetry for me. I never knew what poetry was before. I
never cared for anything but nonsense rhymes and matters of that sort,
until I met you, but you make poetry and beauty for me and all the
best things of life. There is nothing I won't promise to do for you
when you come to me, and in the meantime----"
"Yes," I said, "in the meantime."
"If you are certain sure, Westenra, that you are going to keep your
bond, why, I--I won't worry you more than I can help just at present."
"Certain sure that I am going to keep my bond? Yes, I am sure," I
said. "Would I take your money and, and deceive you? Would I have
asked you to save us and deceive you? No, no; you think I am good. I
am not specially good, but I am not so low as that."
"Dear child," he said, and now he took my hand and stroked it softly.
He did not squeeze it, or draw it near to him, but he laid it on one
of his own huge palms and kept on stroking it.
"The very prettiest little paw I ever saw in my life," he said then;
"it's wonderful how slim it is, and how long, and how white, and what
little taper fingers; it's wonderful. I never saw anything like it.
You are a poem to me, that's just what you are, Westenra, you are a
poem to me, and you will make a new man of me, and you will keep the
bond, won't you, dear?"
"I will," I said.
"I have put down the date," he said; "I put it down in my note-book; I
am going to keep it _always_ by me; it is writ in my heart too. I
declare I am getting poetical myself when I look at you. It's writ in
my heart in gold letters. It was the 18th of May when you promised
yourself to me, dear. May is not a lucky month to marry in, so we will
marry on the first of June of next year. You'll promise me that, won't
you?"
"Yes," I said.
"And in the meantime very likely you would rather not have it known."
"It has been most kind and generous of you and Mrs. Fanning not to
speak of it," I answered.
"Just as you like about that; but I can see that, with the care of
your mother and one thing or another you find me rather in the way, so
I thought I would tell you that I am going off, I am going to Germany
to begin with for a fortnight, and then I shall take lodgings in town.
Oh, the house at Highgate won't hold me until it holds my little wife
as well, but I won't live in this house to be a worry to you morning,
noon, and night. And when I am not always there perhaps you'll think
of me, and how faithful I am to you, and how truly, truly I love you;
and you will think, too, of what you are to me, a poem, yes, that's
the right word, a beautiful poem, something holy, something that makes
a new man of me, the most lovely bit of a thing I ever saw. Sèvres
china is nothing to you. I have seen dainty bits of art sold at
Christy's before now, but there never was anything daintier than you
before in the world, and I love you, there! I have said it. It means a
good deal when a man gives all his love to a woman, and I give it all
to you; and when everything is said and done, Westenra, bonny as you
are, and lovely, and dainty as you are, you are only a woman and I am
only a man."
"I think," I said suddenly, and I found the tears coming into my eyes
and stealing down my cheeks, "that you are one of the best men I ever
met. I did not think it. I will tell you frankly that I used to regard
you as commonplace, and--as vulgar. I saw nothing but the commonplace
and the vulgar in you, but now I do see something else, something
which is high, and generous, and even beautiful. I know that you are a
good man, a very good man. I don't love you yet, but I will try; I
will try at least to like you, and on the first of June next year I
will be your wife."
"Thank you, dear," he replied, "you could not have spoken clearer and
plainer and more straight if you were to study the matter for ever and
ever. Now I know where I am, and I am contented. With your sweet
little self to take pattern by, I have not the slightest doubt that
I'll win that golden heart of yours yet. I mean to have a right good
try for it anyhow. The mater will be so pleased when I tell her how
nicely you spoke to me to-night. I am off to Germany first thing in
the morning; you won't see me for a fortnight, and I won't write to
you, Westenra; you'd be worried by my letters, and I cannot express
what I feel except when you are there. I won't even kiss you now, for
I know you would rather not, but perhaps I may kiss your hand."
He raised my hand to his lips; I did not look at him, I slowly left
the room. He was very good, and I was very fortunate. Oh yes, although
my heart kept bleeding.