ANOTHER ESCAPE.
“A gentleman, please, miss, as wants to see you.”
Such was the announcement, on the morning succeeding Honor’s instalment
in her new abode, of the fastidious Arthur Vavasour’s visit to that very
untempting “bower of beauty.”
It was nearly noon, an early hour for _him_ to be abroad; but to
Honor--who had passed a sleepless night, and who had been up and about
for ages, as it seemed to her--the day appeared to be already well-nigh
spent; while as regarded him, and her chance of seeing him in her
wretched home, she had begun almost to despair of any such blissful, and
now apparently improbable, event. When he _did_ appear therefore, when
her hand was clasped in his, and when his kind voice whispered softly,
“I could not come before, dear; and now I _am_ come, what a place I
find you in!” her heart went forth with grateful joy to meet him, for
she felt no longer unprotected and alone.
“And so they have been ill-using you, you poor little thing?” he went on
softly, her hand still in his, as they sat side by side on what Mrs.
Casey called the couch. “I guessed how it would be; I did not like the
way he looked when he took you away that night.”
“O, but it isn’t John--_indeed_ it isn’t!” Honor said eagerly, her sense
of justice roused to defend her husband; “it was his mother, as I told
you, who behaved so to me. It was she that made me go. I know it was
wrong; but what could I do?”
“What indeed?” stroking tenderly the little hand he held in his. “But,
Honor, it will never do for you to remain here. The place is not
respectable--I am certain it is not; and the woman looks like an ogress.
I think I can manage something better for you than this. There is an old
servant of my father’s--a Swiss--an excellent man, with one of the
cleanest and most cheerful of little wives; and if he happens to have
room in his house, I am sure he will be only too delighted to devote
himself to making you comfortable. Really, the nicest of old men. I
will go there this afternoon, and try to make arrangements for the
change.”
“Thank you--how good you are!” Honor said fervently; “they certainly do
not seem like nice people here; but I stopped at the first place where I
saw a bill up. I believe I was afraid to meet my father. What I fear
most now is his seeing me; for he would perhaps tell John--John would go
to him first, you know, and--”
“Your father! Why, Honor, haven’t you heard? But I don’t know how you
should. Your father is--has--” and then he stopped, feeling it scarcely
decent to disclose to Honor the facts that proclaimed her father to be a
villain.
But his companion, who was _quoad_ curiosity a true daughter of Eve,
refused on this occasion to allow her filial feelings to be spared. She
insisted (and as a natural consequence not only of that insistence, but
of the wronged man’s easily-to-be-comprehended satisfaction in giving at
least words to his sorrow) on hearing all that Arthur could tell her of
her father. In breathless silence she listened to a detail of his
villany; and deep indeed and painful was her regret at the injury which
had been done to the man who had so blindly trusted him.
As Arthur noted the quivering lip, the turbulent heaving of the pitying
breast, he could not but feel he was in one respect a gainer by his
loss; for Honor _could_ hardly be hard and distant to the friend who had
fallen a victim to the machinations of her father. Arthur felt that he
had claim on, an actual right to, her sympathy and kindness now, and
therefore did not hesitate to make the very most of the injuries, the
losses, and the embarrassments which the Colonel’s baseness had entailed
upon him.
“I am _so_ sorry--so very grieved. Is there nothing that I could do?
Perhaps if I were to see my father, I might--”
Arthur interrupted her with a laugh. “See him?” he said; “why, it would
require the best detective in London, I suspect, to find him out; and if
we did, there is nothing, not even _your_ persuasions, which would be
likely to work up such a man as Fred Norcott to his duty. But we have
wasted time enough over him, dear Honor: and as I am not my own master
just now--since Sophy’s confinement, I mean--”
“Since _that_? O, Mr. Vavasour, why _did_ you not tell me before? You
knew I should care so much to hear it! Think of your having a dear
little child!” and she sighed involuntarily, a faint but very mournful
sigh (which Arthur fancied in his folly that he comprehended), and then
added, with an attempt at playfulness, “Perhaps I may be thought clever
enough to teach your children some day; but I must learn a great deal
myself first. The Miss Vavasours will want all sorts of accomplishments
that a humble nursery governess knows nothing about; and that reminds
me--” speaking very quick, as she noted a crimson flush that mounted to
her companion’s brow, and a something in his eyes which her woman’s
instinct taught her was alarming--“that reminds me that I have no time
to lose in looking for the means of providing for myself. I have a good
deal of money” (there were exactly seven pounds in her portemonnaie),
“but still I want to begin. It will be no trouble to me to teach and
take care of children. I love them so dearly; and the little things
always take to me.”
“It would be strange, I think, if they did not,” Arthur ventured to say,
as he gazed with such passionate fondness on her face, that Honor was
forced to veil her eyes with their white lids for very shame.
“O no, it isn’t that,” she said hastily, and hardly knowing what words
were falling from her lips. “You see, I have been so used to them,
and--and I cannot bear to be idle. If I have nothing to do, I begin to
think--to think of poor John--”
Arthur, at this unexpected mention (a very _mal à propos_ one in his
opinion) of an absent husband’s name, rose abruptly from his place by
Honor’s side. He was very young, very little conversant in the ways and
means of defence of such women as Honor, or he would have seen through
this simple _ruse_. He would have understood that this beautiful and
defenceless creature, with an instinctive dread of her pursuer, had
thrown up this rampart against attack, and would have drawn, through
that very alarm, good augury for eventual success.
It was fortunate for Honor that no such ideas as these entered at that
moment the mind of the man who was gradually coming near enough to
be--there is no medium course, let women believe in its existence if
they will--either accepted or denied. It was well, too, that Arthur,
roused by his own movement from the dream of passion in which he had
been indulging, once more began to have some thought and memory for
outward things, and especially for the lapse of time since he had left
his home.
Looking hastily at his watch, he perceived to his dismay that it was
four o’clock, so swiftly had time passed--is it not ever so?--while he
had been occupied by talking about himself, and been busied with his own
sentimental interests.
“Four o’clock already!” he exclaimed, “and I have so much to do for
you, Honor! It is impossible for you to remain here. I could not answer
for the consequences. I only wish that I had met you at the Waterloo
station, and prevented your coming here at all. However, I am off now to
see about old Schmidt, and directly I have settled anything, I will
return. In the mean time, do not leave the house, and if you can, avoid
seeing the woman that it belongs to.”
“I can hardly help seeing her,” Honor said with a smile; for she was
both amused and flattered by his solicitude on her behalf. “She _will_
bring in the few things that I want herself, and--”
“Your poor little dinner solitary among the rest, I suppose?” said
Arthur pityingly. “O Honor!” he continued--and how at that moment he
longed for the hundredth time to take her in his arms and whisper to her
his love, the object of that love was happily never destined to know--“O
Honor!” he said, “my love, my darling! how unfitted you are to do battle
for yourself in this rough, wicked world! It is so hard to leave you, so
hard to think of you, in this sordid miserable place, alone,
unprotected, and--God help both you and me!--so very, very beautiful!”
He drew a long, almost a gasping breath, as the last passionate words
burst from his white quivering lips, and, almost before Honor could
even look her surprise at the utterly unexpected outburst, the door had
closed upon his retreating figure, and Honor once more found herself
alone.