'It would be well for you. You don't like me, perhaps?'
'Yes I do--very much. But not in that sort of way--quite. Still, I might
have got to love you in time, if--'
'Well, then, try,' he said warmly. 'Your mother did!'
No sooner had the words slipped out than Pierston would have recalled
them. He had felt in a moment that they jeopardized his cause.
'Mother loved you?' said Avice, incredulously gazing at him.
'Yes,' he murmured.
'You were not her false young man, surely? That one who--'
'Yes, yes! Say no more about it.'
'Who ran away from her?'
'Almost.'
'Then I can NEVER, NEVER like you again! I didn't know it was a
gentleman--I--I thought--'
'It wasn't a gentleman, then.'
'O, sir, please go away! I can't bear the sight of 'ee at this moment!
Perhaps I shall get to--to like you as I did; but--'
'No; I'm d----d if I'll go away!' said Pierston, thoroughly irritated.
'I have been candid with you; you ought to be the same with me!'
'What do you want me to tell?'
'Enough to make it clear to me why you don't accept this offer.
Everything you have said yet is a reason for the reverse. Now, my dear,
I am not angry.'
'Yes you are.'
'No I'm not. Now what is your reason?'
'The name of it is Isaac Pierston, down home.'
'How?'
'I mean he courted me, and led me on to island custom, and then I went
to chapel one morning and married him in secret, because mother didn't
care about him; and I didn't either by that time. And then he quarrelled
with me; and just before you and I came to London he went away to
Guernsey. Then I saw a soldier; I never knew his name, but I fell in
love with him because I am so quick at that! Still, as it was wrong, I
tried not to think of him, and wouldn't look at him when he passed. But
it made me cry very much that I mustn't. I was then very miserable, and
you asked me to come to London. I didn't care what I did with myself,
and I came.'
'Heaven above us!' said Pierston, his pale and distressed face showing
with what a shock this announcement had come. 'Why have you done such
extraordinary things? Or, rather, why didn't you tell me of this
before? Then, at the present moment you are the wife of a man who is in
Guernsey, whom you do not love at all; but instead of him love a soldier
whom you have never spoken to; while I have nearly brought scandal
upon us both by your letting me love you. Really, you are a very wicked
woman!'
'No, I am not!' she pouted.
Still, Avice looked pale and rather frightened, and did not lift her
eyes from the floor. 'I said it was nonsense in you to want to have me!'
she went on, 'and, even if I hadn't been married to that horrid Isaac
Pierston, I couldn't have married you after you told me that you was the
man who ran away from my mother.'
'I have paid the penalty!' he said sadly. 'Men of my sort always get
the worst of it somehow. Though I never did your mother any harm. Now,
Avice--I'll call you dear Avice for your mother's sake and not for your
own--I must see what I can do to help you out of the difficulty that
unquestionably you are in. Why can't you love your husband now you have
married him?'
Avice looked aside at the statuary as if the subtleties of her
organization were not very easy to define.
'Was he that black-bearded typical local character I saw you walking
with one Sunday? The same surname as mine; though, of course, you don't
notice that in a place where there are only half-a-dozen surnames?'
'Yes, that was Ike. It was that evening we disagreed. He scolded me, and
I answered him (you must have heard us); and the next day he went away.'
'Well, as I say, I must consider what it will be best to do for you
in this. The first thing, it seems to me, will be to get your husband
home.'