FROM LIVELY TO SEVERE.
On the whole it was a relief to Arthur that _les convenances_, according
to old Dub’s view of the matter, stood in the way of his being an
eyewitness of Rough Diamond’s capabilities on the Derby-day. His first
feeling on hearing that Sophy’s trial was over, and that he had a
paternal interest in the small pink-faced fraction of humanity which the
nurse introduced to him as his son, had been one of unmixed
satisfaction. As he silently kissed the pale but wondrously contented
face of the young mother lying so still and motionless on the pillow,
Arthur’s heart was full for the moment of the purest happiness that it
had ever known; but the past--the inexorable and ever-pursuing
past--treading on the heels of the present, embittered his transient
joy, and destroyed, or at least darkened, all his prospects for the
future. Almost before he had left the bedside of his trusting and
silently rejoicing wife, the thought of the evil which a few short
hours might bring about struck through him with an icy chill, while
conscience with her probing pricks told him that he was unworthy of
life’s choicest blessings. For even then--even at the instant when his
mind and heart should have been wholly occupied with the fair young
mother of his child--a vision of his Irish love--of Honor’s sweet
caressing smile, and the exquisitely-moulded shoulders that had been,
but one short hour before, so dangerously near to his caressing
hand--rose up before him, and caused the bonds which united both him and
her to objects unbeloved to be hateful in his sight. On the following
morning old Mr. Duberly, in radiant spirits, and rejoicing over his
grandson with a delight which struck Arthur as almost puerile in its
character, gave his son-in-law plainly to understand that his place, for
that day at least, was one within call of his marital duties. To watch
by Sophy, to be ready if she should perchance express a wish to press
his hand, or gaze lovingly on his face, were privileges which the
affectionate old man would have found it hard to believe that Arthur
might prize less highly than he did himself. The circumstance of that
especial Wednesday being the Derby-day escaped his recollection
altogether. Being himself totally uninterested in sporting matters, the
idea that Arthur would by any possibility place the result of the great
race side by side as an affair of note with the all-important event of
the previous day, namely, the birth of his son and heir, would have
struck “old Dub” as simply ridiculous, and he was therefore quite
prepared for Arthur’s ready acquiescence in his views. The real truth
was, as we already know, that Vavasour’s interests were far indeed from
being centred on Epsom Downs. To gain _the_ race by means of his own
good horse, Rough Diamond, was certainly to him an affair of vital
importance; but, unaware of the fact that Honor had been taken from
Colonel Norcott’s house, and was already safe under her husband’s
protection, the desire to see her once again, by stealth or otherwise,
was stronger than any other feeling, and to remain in the neighbourhood
of the woman he adored was the dearest wish of his unregenerate heart.
Meanwhile, what was the reality regarding Honor Beacham’s whereabouts,
what her feelings, and how had her husband’s sudden exertion of marital
power affected her conduct?
The night-train by which she and John travelled homewards was due about
midnight at Leigh, at which town it stopped for a few hurried minutes
only, and then proceeded at express speed on its course south-westward.
Happily for Honor, they were not _tête-à-tête_ in their compartment.
Childlike, she caught at any delay, any postponement of the explanation
which was the inevitable consequence of her folly and--in some sort--her
falsehood. To keep back the truth--not to tell that “whole,” when on
that “whole” depends the _spirit_ of the facts left half undisclosed and
to be guessed at--is, disguise it, mystify ourselves with what sophistry
we may, _to lie unto our neighbour_, and to deceive the one who trusts
us. It was the consciousness that she had so lied and deceived, together
with a certain amount of uninvestigated self-reproach as regarded the
delight which Arthur Vavasour’s society had afforded her, that caused
Honor to shrink with nervous trepidation not only from her husband’s
questionings, but from the very sight of the keen-witted and
sharp-tongued old woman who already, as Honor had every reason to
believe, looked on her with no favourable eyes. Under these
circumstances, the presence in the carriage which they occupied of a
sleepy old gentleman and a wideawake young girl, who was in all
probability his daughter, was a relief not only to Honor but to John;
for he too, with all an honest, strong-nerved Englishman’s dislike to
tears and domestic tragedies, recoiled from the duty of saying harsh
words to the young wife, whose worst offence he felt inclined to
believe had been a love of hitherto undreamt-of gaieties, the
consequence of which very natural tastes was the sin--one of omission
rather than commission--of giving a false colouring to the state of
affairs in Stanwick-street.
Already, so kindly was the man’s nature, and so strong was his dislike
to being what he called “ill friends” with those about him,--already had
his displeasure begun to subside, and already had he begun to accuse
himself of harshness in thus summarily dealing out hard measures against
his wife. As she sat there silently by his side, the outline of her
perfect profile just visible under the scarlet hood of her opera-cloak,
and her pale lips quivering with the effort to conceal her emotion and
check the tears that from moment to moment were on the point of escaping
from their “briny bed,” it would have required but little to persuade
the strong man near her that in his dealings with that frail but fairest
flower he had been little better than a brute.
They were within a mile or two only of Leigh before the silence that
reigned between them was broken, and then it was John’s clear and rather
loud voice that awoke the elderly sleeper, and startled Honor from a
very perplexing and wretched train of thought.
“Twelve o’clock, all but two minutes,” Mr. Beacham said, replacing a
solid silver watch in his waistcoat-pocket. “We shall be at Leigh
directly, and if there doesn’t happen to be a fly there,” he added,
addressing himself more particularly to his wife, “we shall have to put
up at the Dragon. The old lady expects _me_, and Simmons will be there,
of course, with the trap; but you’d catch your death o’ cold without
wraps, and--”
“O, I don’t mind! What _does_ it signify?” Honor said impatiently, and
even, as it seemed to John, a trifle crossly: whereas the hasty-sounding
words were simply the result of the broken reverie, the seriousness of
which made the question of a covering more or less upon her shoulders
appear in the light of a very trivial affair indeed. Before, however, he
could make any rejoinder to her impetuously-spoken reply the speed began
to slacken, and a loud deafening “whistle” proclaimed the fact that
their journey’s end was reached, and that unless something like a
miracle were wrought in her favour, a very short period of time must in
the common course of things elapse before poor Honor would find herself
once more in the dreaded presence of her exacting and unloving
mother-in-law.
“Now, then, my dear,” John said _kindly_, as Honor thought and hoped,
when he returned to the train after a rapid investigation of the
waiting carriages; “now, then, come along! look sharp; there is a
fly--the one from the Dragon--so bundle in. It wouldn’t have done,” he
went on, after they were seated, and the windows closed to shut out the
night air, “to have kept mother up while I sent for this old rattletrap
from the inn. Mother’s put out enough as it is, and I don’t know--upon
my soul, I don’t--how she’ll take our coming in upon her like this. I
tell you what it is, Honor, my dear, you must try--indeed you must--to
pull better with the old lady. I thought you would at first; but somehow
everything seems to have gone wrong; and then this business--this
staying in London--and--”
He stopped abruptly at this crisis in his discourse,--stopped because,
his momentary passion being over, the old feeling of inferiority to his
wife, the undefinable consciousness of her refinement, her delicacy, her
“good blood,” her _ladyhood_, as opposed to his roughness and plebeian
birth, gained ground again, and checked the well-deserved reproaches
that were hovering on his lips. Had Honor been at that moment clad in
her customary dress of neatly-made linsey, had there been no blue
flowers in her rippling hair, and had there been no “jewelled cross”
glittering on her “snow-white breast,” John would have been twice the
man he was--twice the man, that is, in his power to speak out to his
young giddy wife the truth which it was good for her to know. But this
simple-minded rustic felt, as we all of us more or less have probably
done, the influence of show, of adornment, of superior dress, above all
of a soft, gentle _retenue_ of manner which puts to shame and utterly
condemns the violence of the more impulsive and the outspoken. Angry,
justly angry as he had so lately felt with Honor, John’s courage failed
him when he commenced to reason with her on her shortcomings, and he
paused, not knowing how to pursue a subject which could not fail to be
displeasing to the youthful beauty whom he had so lately seen the
admired of all beholders in the London playhouse. John little
guessed--well would it have been for all parties had it been
otherwise--what a very coward was at that moment the woman who, all
unconsciously to herself, was making a poltroon of him. Trembling,
shivering inwardly at the thought of the dreaded interview with her
stern and relentless judge, Honor would have given much at that moment
to have been certain of a friend and ally in her husband. It was her
ignorance on this point, and not, as John suspected, the increased
“fine-ladyism” which, unknown to herself, was evident in her air and
tone, that kept her silent, even from mild words of apology and
self-justification. Ashamed, frightened, and thoroughly detesting the
companionship to which her husband was about to condemn her, it was
little to be wondered at that John Beacham, believing her to have taken
refuge in a “fit of the sulks,” relapsed into a silence which lasted
till the wheels of the lumbering, misnamed vehicle, after grating for a
few seconds along the well-known gravel, came to a stand before the
ivy-covered porch of Pear-tree House.
If Hannah had seen that often-talked-of object of her awe and curiosity,
an actual ghost, she could hardly have been frightened into a more
violent start than that which jerked her stoutly-built person at the
sight of her young mistress.
“My good gracious me! Who ever would have thought it?” she exclaimed, as
she followed Honor’s lagging footsteps into the little parlour. “Why
missus never expected you, mum, not for a moment--and everything going
on so quiet! Dear, dear! it was only this very day as missus was a
saying--”
“O, I don’t want to know, Hannah,” said Honor wearily, as she threw
herself on a sofa, a degree harder (if possible) and more comfortless
than the one appertaining to the first-floor front in deeply-regretted
Stanwick-street. “Please not to tell me what Mrs. Beacham said. And
make me a cup of tea, will you? I am very tired, and I shiver so!”
She shuddered as she spoke, but that she did so was more from inward
cold than from the effects of the outer atmosphere. There was certainly
something terribly chilling to this young and impressionable creature in
the dingy, half-lighted room, with its dusky curtains, its faded carpet,
and, above all, the work-a-day table covered, as was its wont, with
evidences of the old lady’s unflagging industry--with piles of
house-linen, placed there in readiness for the morrow’s inspection, for
darning, marking, or the like; and with batches of John’s strong gray
socks--articles of toilet far more useful than ornamental. On these
uninteresting evidences of an active as well as a frugal mind a solitary
tallow-candle shed its feeble light; and Honor, from whose vivid
imagination the picture of the brilliant theatre with its dazzling
footlights and bright array of meretricious beauty had not altogether
faded away, gazed around with feelings nearly akin to loathing and
disgust.
A momentary gaze almost it was, for before she had time _quite_ to
realise the melancholy truth that she was at home, John had settled
accounts with the Leigh charioteer, and was once more by her side, and
speaking in subdued tones to Hannah, who, after the manner of her kind,
was bustling about, and making as much noise in the doing so as
possible.
“Don’t make more row than you can help, there’s a good woman,” John
whispered anxiously; “there’s no use in waking up the missus. Bring a
cup of tea, hot and strong, as quick as you can, and then take yourself
off to bed.”
Hannah made no reply to this exhortation, save by throwing a knowing
glance at Honor, which that bewildered young person did not even attempt
to comprehend. The mystery, however, did not take long to solve, for ere
another minute had elapsed there was the sound of a creaking step upon
the stairs, and Mrs. Beacham’s chronic cough (a cough which the doctors
said she would never lose but in her grave) heralded the approach of
Honor’s enemy.
Instinctively the young wife, as the gaunt figure of the old woman, clad
in the sternest of nightcaps and the most uncompromising of flannel
gowns, made its appearance in the doorway, turned an appealing face to
her husband, thus mutely claiming his protection and support.
Unfortunately, however, for this weak vessel, whose conscience was
assisting to render her a coward, the language of _looks_ was an unknown
one to single-eyed John Beacham. In addition also to this ignorance, it
would have been hard to make him understand that it was against his own
mother that Honor, in that piteous glance of hers, entreated that he
would array himself. He was experiencing at that moment one of the
effects of a long habit of filial obedience and respect, and that effect
was a real regret that his aged parent should have her rest disturbed,
and her mind harassed by his wife’s--to say the least of it--thoughtless
conduct. John’s affection for his mother was too deeply rooted to be
easily shaken; and though he had, for a passing moment, been softened,
quelled, subdued by his tenderness for his wife--though he had for a
short while forgotten that Honor had, in more ways than one, braved,
disobeyed, and utterly deceived him--yet, with the presence of the
respectable and unimpeachably virtuous woman who had first opened his
unwilling eyes to the culprit’s errors, the remembrance of those errors
crowded once more thick and fast upon him; so thick and fast that his
very face grew darker and more serious, whilst Mrs. Beacham, happily
unconscious that her appearance was not precisely a dignified one,
advanced slowly, candle in hand, into the room.