The Dead and the Living One
243
A New Year�s Eve in War Time
246
�I met a man�
248
�I looked up from my writing�
250
Finale�
The Coming of the End
255
Afterwards
257
A LAODICEAN: A STORY OF TO-DAY By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
PREFACE. BOOK THE FIRST. GEORGE SOMERSET. BOOK THE SECOND. DARE AND
HAVILL. BOOK THE THIRD. DE STANCY. BOOK THE FOURTH. SOMERSET, DARE
AND DE STANCY. BOOK THE FIFTH. DE STANCY AND PAULA. BOOK THE SIXTH.
PAULA.
THE WELL-BELOVED A SKETCH OF A TEMPERAMENT By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART FIRST � A YOUNG MAN OF TWENTY.
1. I. A SUPPOSITITIOUS PRESENTMENT OF HER
1. II. THE INCARNATION IS ASSUMED TO BE TRUE
1. III. THE APPOINTMENT
1. IV. A LONELY PEDESTRIAN
1. V. A CHARGE
1. VI. ON THE BRINK
1. VII. HER EARLIER INCARNATIONS
1. VIII. 'TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING�
1. IX. FAMILIAR PHENOMENA IN THE DISTANCE
PART SECOND � A YOUNG MAN OF FORTY
2. I. THE OLD PHANTOM BECOMES DISTINCT
2. II. SHE DRAWS CLOSE AND SATISFIES
2. III. SHE BECOMES AN INACCESSIBLE GHOST
2. IV. SHE THREATENS TO RESUME CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE
2. V. THE RESUMPTION TAKES PLACE
2. VI. THE PAST SHINES IN THE PRESENT
2. VII. THE NEW BECOMES ESTABLISHED
2. VIII. HIS OWN SOUL CONFRONTS HIM
2. IX. JUXTAPOSITIONS
2. X. SHE FAILS TO VANISH STILL
2. XI. THE IMAGE PERSISTS
2. XII. A GRILLE DESCENDS BETWEEN
2. XIII. SHE IS ENSHROUDED FROM SIGHT
PART THIRD � A YOUNG MAN OF SIXTY
3. I. SHE RETURNS FOR THE NEW SEASON
3. II. MISGIVINGS ON THE RE-EMBODIMENT
3. III. THE RENEWED IMAGE BURNS ITSELF IN
3. IV. A DASH FOR THE LAST INCARNATION
3. V. ON THE VERGE OF POSSESSION
3. VI. THE WELL-BELOVED IS�WHERE?
3. VII. AN OLD TABERNACLE IN A NEW ASPECT
3. VIII. 'ALAS FOR THIS GREY SHADOW, ONCE A MAN!�
LATE LYRICS AND EARLIER WITH MANY OTHER VERSES By Thomas Hardy CONTENTS
PAGE
Apology
v
Weathers
1
The maid of Keinton Mandeville
3
Summer Schemes
5
Epeisodia
6
Faintheart in a Railway Train
8
At Moonrise and Onwards
9
The Garden Seat
11
Barth�l�mon at Vauxhall
12
�I sometimes think�
14
Jezreel
15
A Jog-trot Pair
17
�The Curtains now are drawn�
19
�According to the Mighty Working�
21
�I was not He�
22
The West-of-Wessex Girl
23
Welcome Home
25
Going and Staying
26
Read by Moonlight
27
At a house in Hampstead
28
A Woman�s Fancy
30
p. xxHer Song
33
A Wet August
35
The Dissemblers
36
To a Lady playing and singing in the Morning
37
�A Man was drawing near to me�
38
The Strange House
40
�As �twere To-night�
42
The Contretemps
43
A Gentleman�s Epitaph on Himself and a Lady
46
The Old Gown
48
A Night in November
50
A Duettist to her Pianoforte
51
�Where Three Roads joined�
53
�And There was a Great Calm�
55
Haunting Fingers
59
The Woman I Met
63
�If it�s ever Spring again�
67
The Two Houses
68
On Stinsford Hill at Midnight
72
The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House
74
The Selfsame Song
75
The Wanderer
76
A Wife comes back
78
A Young Man�s Exhortation
81
At Lulworth Cove a Century Back
83
A Bygone Occasion
85
Two Serenades
86
p. xxiThe Wedding Morning
89
End of the Year 1912
90
The Chimes play �Life�s a Bumper!�
91
�I worked no Wile to meet You�
93
At the Railway Station, Upway
95
Side by Side
96
Dream of the City Shopwoman
98
A Maiden�s Pledge
100
The Child and the Sage
101
Mismet
103
An Autumn Rain-scene
105
Meditations on a Holiday
107
An Experience
111
The Beauty
113
The Collector cleans his Picture
114
The Wood Fire
117
Saying Good-bye
119
On the Tune called The Old-hundred-and-fourth
121
The Opportunity
123
Evelyn G. of Christminster
124
The Rift
126
Voices from Things growing
127
On the Way
130
�She did not turn�
132
Growth in May
133
The Children and Sir Nameless
134
At the Royal Academy
136
Her Temple
138
p. xxiiA Two-years� Idyll
139
By Henstridge Cross at the Year�s End
141
Penance
143
�I look in her Face�
145
After the War
146
�If you had known�
148
The Chapel-Organist
150
Fetching Her
157
�Could I but will�
159
She revisits alone the Church of her Marriage
161
At the Entering of the New Year
163
They would not come
165
After a Romantic Day
167
The Two Wives
168
�I knew a Lady�
170
A House with a History
171
A Procession of Dead Days
173
He follows Himself
176
The Singing Woman
178
Without, not within Her
179
�O I won�t lead a Homely Life�
180
In the Small Hours
181
The Little Old Table
183
Vagg Hollow
184
The Dream is�which?
186
The Country Wedding
187
First or Last
190
Lonely Days
191
p. xxiii�What did it mean?�
194
At the Dinner-table
196
The Marble Tablet
198
The Master and the Leaves
199
Last Words to a Dumb Friend
201
A Drizzling Easter morning
204
On One who lived and died where He was born
205
The Second Night
207
She who saw not
210
The Old Workman
212
The Sailor�s Mother
214
Outside the Casement
216
The Passer-by
218
�I was the Midmost�
220
A Sound in the Night
221
On a Discovered Curl of Hair
226
An Old Likeness
227
Her Apotheosis
229
�Sacred to the Memory�
230
To a Well-named Dwelling
231
The Whipper-in
232
A Military Appointment
234
The Milestone by the Rabbit-burrow
236
The Lament of the Looking-glass
237
Cross-currents
238
The Old Neighbour and the New
240
The Chosen
241
The Inscription
244
p. xxivThe Marble-streeted Town
251
A Woman driving
252
A Woman�s Trust
254
Best Times
256
The Casual Acquaintance
258
Intra Sepulchrum
260
The Whitewashed Wall
262
Just the Same
264
The Last Time
265
The Seven Times
266
The Sun�s Last Look on the Country Girl
269
In a London Flat
270
Drawing Details in an Old Church
272
Rake-hell muses
273
The Colour
277
Murmurs in the Gloom
279
Epitaph
281
An Ancient to Ancients
282
After reading psalms xxxix., xl.
285
Surview
287
LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES And a set of tales with some colloquial sketches
entitled: A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
THE SON'S VETO
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
A TRAGEDY OF TWO AMBITIONS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
TO PLEASE HIS WIFE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
THE MELANCHOLY HUSSAR OF THE GERMAN LEGION
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
THE FIDDLER OF THE REELS
A TRADITION OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR
A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS
TONY KYTES, THE ARCH-DECEIVER
THE HISTORY OF THE HARDCOMES
THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN'S STORY
ANDREY SATCHEL AND THE PARSON AND CLERK
OLD ANDREY'S EXPERIENCE AS A MUSICIAN
ABSENT-MINDEDNESS IN A PARISH CHOIR
THE WINTERS AND THE PALMLEYS
INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MR. GEORGE CROOKHILL
NETTY SARGENT'S COPYHOLD
A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES
That is to say: The First Countess Of Wessex; Barbara Of The Hose Of
Grebe; The Marchioness Of Stonehenge; Lady Mottifont Squire Petrick's
Lady; The Lady Icenway Anna, Lady Baxby; The Lady Penelope; The Duchess
Of Hamptonshire; And The Honourable Laura
'. . . Store of Ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence.'-L'Allegro.
With a map of wessex By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
PREFACE
DAME THE FIRST-THE FIRST COUNTESS OF WESSEX
DAME THE SECOND-BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE
DAME THE THIRD-THE MARCHIONESS OF STONEHENGE
DAME THE FOURTH-LADY MOTTISFONT
DAME THE FIFTH-THE LADY ICENWAY
DAME THE SIXTH-SQUIRE PETRICK'S LADY
DAME THE SEVENTH-ANNA, LADY BAXBY
DAME THE EIGHTH-THE LADY PENELOPE
DAME THE NINTH-THE DUCHESS OF HAMPTONSHIRE
DAME THE TENTH-THE HONOURABLE LAURA
WESSEX TALES
By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
PREFACE
AN IMAGINATIVE WOMAN
THE THREE STRANGERS
THE WITHERED ARM
CHAPTER I-A LORN MILKMAID
CHAPTER II-THE YOUNG WIFE
CHAPTER III-A VISION
CHAPTER IV-A SUGGESTION
CHAPTER V-CONJUROR TRENDLE
CHAPTER VI-A SECOND ATTEMPT
CHAPTER VII-A RIDE
VIII-A WATER-SIDE HERMIT
IX-A RENCOUNTER
FELLOW-TOWNSMEN
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
INTERLOPERS AT THE KNAP
I
II
III
IV
V
THE DISTRACTED PREACHER
I-HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED
II-HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN
III-THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT
IV-AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON
V-HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE
VI-THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON
VII-THE WALK TO WARM'ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS
A CHANGED MAN AND OTHER TALES By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTE
A CHANGED MAN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
THE WAITING SUPPER
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
ALICIA'S DIARY
CHAPTER I.-SHE MISSES HER SISTER
CHAPTER II.-NEWS INTERESTING AND SERIOUS
CHAPTER III.-HER GLOOM LIGHTENS A LITTLE
CHAPTER IV.-SHE BEHOLDS THE ATTRACTIVE STRANGER
CHAPTER V.-HER SITUATION IS A TRYING ONE
CHAPTER VI.-HER INGENUITY INSTIGATES HER
CHAPTER VII.-A SURPRISE AWAITS HER
CHAPTER VIII.-SHE TRAVELS IN PURSUIT
CHAPTER IX.-SHE WITNESSES THE END
CHAPTER X.-SHE ADDS A NOTE LONG AFTER
THE GRAVE BY THE HANDPOST
ENTER A DRAGOON
A TRYST AT AN ANCIENT EARTH WORK
WHAT THE SHEPHERD SAW
A COMMITTEE-MAN OF 'THE TERROR'
MASTER JOHN HORSELEIGH, KNIGHT
THE DUKE'S REAPPEARANCE-A FAMILY TRADITION
A MERE INTERLUDE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA-A COMEDY IN CHAPTERS By Thomas Hardy
"Vitae post-scenia celant."-Lucretius.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
1. A STREET IN ANGLEBURY-A HEATH NEAR IT-INSIDE THE 'RED LION' INN
2. CHRISTOPHER'S HOUSE-SANDBOURNE TOWN-SANDBOURNE MOOR
3. SANDBOURNE MOOR (continued)
4. SANDBOURNE PIER-ROAD TO WYNDWAY-BALL-ROOM IN WYNDWAY HOUSE
5. AT THE WINDOW-THE ROAD HOME
6. THE SHORE BY WYNDWAY
7. THE DINING-ROOM OF A TOWN HOUSE-THE BUTLER'S PANTRY
8. CHRISTOPHER'S LODGINGS-THE GROUNDS ABOUT ROOKINGTON
9. A LADY'S DRAWING-ROOMS-ETHELBERTA'S DRESSING-ROOM
10. LADY PETHERWIN'S HOUSE
11. SANDBOURNE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD-SOME LONDON STREETS
12. ARROWTHORNE PARK AND LODGE
13. THE LODGE (continued)-THE COPSE BEHIND
14. A TURNPIKE ROAD
15. AN INNER ROOM AT THE LODGE
16. A LARGE PUBLIC HALL
17. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE
18. NEAR SANDBOURNE-LONDON STREETS-ETHELBERTA'S
19. ETHELBERTA'S DRAWING-ROOM
20. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE HALL-THE ROAD HOME
21. A STREET-NEIGH'S ROOMS-CHRISTOPHER'S ROOMS
22. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE
23. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE (continued)
24. ETHELBERTA'S HOUSE (continued)-THE BRITISH MUSEUM
25. THE ROYAL ACADEMY-THE FARNFIELD ESTATE
26. ETHELBERTA'S DRAWING-ROOM
27. MRS. BELMAINE'S-CRIPPLEGATE CHURCH
28. ETHELBERTA'S-MR. CHICKEREL'S ROOM
29. ETHELBERTA'S DRESSING-ROOM-MR. DONCASTLE'S HOUSE
30. ON THE HOUSETOP
31. KNOLLSEA-A LOFTY DOWN-A RUINED CASTLE
32. A ROOM IN ENCKWORTH COURT
33. THE ENGLISH CHANNEL-NORMANDY
34. THE H�TEL BEAU S�JOUR AND SPOTS NEAR IT
35. THE HOTEL (continued), AND THE QUAY IN FRONT
36. THE HOUSE IN TOWN
37. KNOLLSEA-AN ORNAMENTAL VILLA
38. ENCKWORTH COURT
39. KNOLLSEA-MELCHESTER
40. MELCHESTER (continued)
41. WORKSHOPS-AN INN-THE STREET
42. THE DONCASTLES' RESIDENCE, AND OUTSIDE THE SAME
43. THE RAILWAY-THE SEA-THE SHORE BEYOND
44. SANDBOURNE-A LONELY HEATH-THE 'RED LION'-THE HIGHWAY
45. KNOLLSEA-THE ROAD THENCE-ENCKWORTH
46. ENCKWORTH (continued)-THE ANGLEBURY HIGHWAY
47. ENCKWORTH AND ITS PRECINCTS-MELCHESTER
SEQUEL. ANGLEBURY-ENCKWORTH-SANDBOURNE
LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES And a set of tales with some colloquial sketches
entitled: A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS By Thomas Hardy
CONTENTS
THE SON'S VETO
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
A TRAGEDY OF TWO AMBITIONS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
TO PLEASE HIS WIFE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
THE MELANCHOLY HUSSAR OF THE GERMAN LEGION
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
THE FIDDLER OF THE REELS
A TRADITION OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR
A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS
TONY KYTES, THE ARCH-DECEIVER
THE HISTORY OF THE HARDCOMES
THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN'S STORY
ANDREY SATCHEL AND THE PARSON AND CLERK
OLD ANDREY'S EXPERIENCE AS A MUSICIAN
ABSENT-MINDEDNESS IN A PARISH CHOIR
THE WINTERS AND THE PALMLEYS
INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MR. GEORGE CROOKHILL
NETTY SARGENT'S COPYHOLD
THE SON'S VETO
CHAPTER I
To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a
wonder and a mystery. Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft
of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like
the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example
of ingenious art. One could understand such weavings and coilings being
wrought to last intact for a year, or even a calendar month; but that
they should be all demolished regularly at bedtime, after a single day
of permanence, seemed a reckless waste of successful fabrication.
And she had done it all herself, poor thing. She had no maid, and it was
almost the only accomplishment she could boast of. Hence the unstinted
pains.
She was a young invalid lady-not so very much of an invalid-sitting in a
wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green
enclosure, close to a bandstand, where a concert was going on, during a
warm June afternoon. It had place in one of the minor parks or private
gardens that are to be found in the suburbs of London, and was the
effort of a local association to raise money for some charity. There are
worlds within worlds in the great city, and though nobody outside the
immediate district had ever heard of the charity, or the band, or the
garden, the enclosure was filled with an interested audience
sufficiently informed on all these.
As the strains proceeded many of the listeners observed the chaired
lady, whose back hair, by reason of her prominent position, so
challenged inspection. Her face was not easily discernible, but the
aforesaid cunning tress-weavings, the white ear and poll, and the curve
of a cheek which was neither flaccid nor sallow, were signals that led
to the expectation of good beauty in front. Such expectations are not
infrequently disappointed as soon as the disclosure comes; and in the
present case, when the lady, by a turn of the head, at length revealed
herself, she was not so handsome as the people behind her had supposed,
and even hoped-they did not know why.
For one thing (alas! the commonness of this complaint), she was less
young than they had fancied her to be. Yet attractive her face
unquestionably was, and not at all sickly. The revelation of its details
came each time she turned to talk to a boy of twelve or thirteen who
stood beside her, and the shape of whose hat and jacket implied that he
belonged to a well-known public school. The immediate bystanders could
hear that he called her 'Mother.'
When the end of the recital was reached, and the audience withdrew, many
chose to find their way out by passing at her elbow. Almost all turned
their heads to take a full and near look at the interesting woman, who
remained stationary in the chair till the way should be clear enough for
her to be wheeled out without obstruction. As if she expected their
glances, and did not mind gratifying their curiosity, she met the eyes
of several of her observers by lifting her own, showing these to be
soft, brown, and affectionate orbs, a little plaintive in their regard.
She was conducted out of the gardens, and passed along the pavement till
she disappeared from view, the schoolboy walking beside her. To
inquiries made by some persons who watched her away, the answer came
that she was the second wife of the incumbent of a neighbouring parish,
and that she was lame. She was generally believed to be a woman with a
story-an innocent one, but a story of some sort or other.
In conversing with her on their way home the boy who walked at her elbow
said that he hoped his father had not missed them.
'He have been so comfortable these last few hours that I am sure he
cannot have missed us,' she replied.
'Has, dear mother-not have!' exclaimed the public-school boy, with an
impatient fastidiousness that was almost harsh. 'Surely you know that by
this time!'
His mother hastily adopted the correction, and did not resent his making
it, or retaliate, as she might well have done, by bidding him to wipe
that crumby mouth of his, whose condition had been caused by
surreptitious attempts to eat a piece of cake without taking it out of
the pocket wherein it lay concealed. After this the pretty woman and the
boy went onward in silence.
That question of grammar bore upon her history, and she fell into
reverie, of a somewhat sad kind to all appearance. It might have been
assumed that she was wondering if she had done wisely in shaping her
life as she had shaped it, to bring out such a result as this.
In a remote nook in North Wessex, forty miles from London, near the
thriving county-town of Aldbrickham, there stood a pretty village with
its church and parsonage, which she knew well enough, but her son had
never seen. It was her native village, Gaymead, and the first event
bearing upon her present situation had occurred at that place when she
was only a girl of nineteen.
How well she remembered it, that first act in her little tragi-comedy,
the death of her reverend husband's first wife. It happened on a spring
evening, and she who now and for many years had filled that first wife's
place was then parlour-maid in the parson's house.
When everything had been done that could be done, and the death was
announced, she had gone out in the dusk to visit her parents, who were
living in the same village, to tell them the sad news. As she opened the
white swing-gate and looked towards the trees which rose westward,
shutting out the pale light of the evening sky, she discerned, without
much surprise, the figure of a man standing in the hedge, though she
roguishly exclaimed as a matter of form, 'Oh, Sam, how you frightened
me!'
He was a young gardener of her acquaintance. She told him the
particulars of the late event, and they stood silent, these two young
people, in that elevated, calmly philosophic mind which is engendered
when a tragedy has happened close at hand, and has not happened to the
philosophers themselves. But it had its bearing upon their relations.
'And will you stay on now at the Vicarage, just the same?' asked he.
She had hardly thought of that. 'Oh, yes-I suppose!' she said.
'Everything will be just as usual, I imagine?'
He walked beside her towards her mother's. Presently his arm stole round
her waist. She gently removed it; but he placed it there again, and she
yielded the point. 'You see, dear Sophy, you don't know that you'll stay
on; you may want a home; and I shall be ready to offer one some day,
though I may not be ready just yet.
'Why, Sam, how can you be so fast! I've never even said I liked 'ee; and
it is all your own doing, coming after me!'
'Still, it is nonsense to say I am not to have a try at you like the
rest.' He stooped to kiss her a farewell, for they had reached her
mother's door.
'No, Sam; you sha'n't!' she cried, putting her hand over his mouth. 'You
ought to be more serious on such a night as this.' And she bade him
adieu without allowing him to kiss her or to come indoors.
The vicar just left a widower was at this time a man about forty years
of age, of good family, and childless. He had led a secluded existence
in this college living, partly because there were no resident
landowners; and his loss now intensified his habit of withdrawal from
outward observation. He was still less seen than heretofore, kept
himself still less in time with the rhythm and racket of the movements
called progress in the world without. For many months after his wife's
decease the economy of his household remained as before; the cook, the
housemaid, the parlour-maid, and the man out-of-doors performed their
duties or left them undone, just as Nature prompted them-the vicar knew
not which. It was then represented to him that his servants seemed to
have nothing to do in his small family of one. He was struck with the
truth of this representation, and decided to cut down his establishment.
But he was forestalled by Sophy, the parlour-maid, who said one evening
that she wished to leave him.
'And why?' said the parson.
'Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him, sir.'
'Well-do you want to marry?'
'Not much. But it would be a home for me. And we have heard that one of
us will have to leave.'
A day or two after she said: 'I don't want to leave just yet, sir, if
you don't wish it. Sam and I have quarrelled.'
He looked up at her. He had hardly ever observed her before, though he
had been frequently conscious of her soft presence in the room. What a
kitten-like, flexuous, tender creature she was! She was the only one of
the servants with whom he came into immediate and continuous relation.
What should he do if Sophy were gone?
Sophy did not go, but one of the others did, and things went on quietly
again.
When Mr. Twycott, the vicar, was ill, Sophy brought up his meals to him,
and she had no sooner left the room one day than he heard a noise on the
stairs. She had slipped down with the tray, and so twisted her foot that
she could not stand. The village surgeon was called in; the vicar got
better, but Sophy was incapacitated for a long time; and she was
informed that she must never again walk much or engage in any occupation
which required her to stand long on her feet. As soon as she was
comparatively well she spoke to him alone. Since she was forbidden to
walk and bustle about, and, indeed, could not do so, it became her duty
to leave. She could very well work at something sitting down, and she
had an aunt a seamstress.
The parson had been very greatly moved by what she had suffered on his
account, and he exclaimed, 'No, Sophy; lame or not lame, I cannot let
you go. You must never leave me again!'
He came close to her, and, though she could never exactly tell how it
happened, she became conscious of his lips upon her cheek. He then asked
her to marry him. Sophy did not exactly love him, but she had a respect
for him which almost amounted to veneration. Even if she had wished to
get away from him she hardly dared refuse a personage so reverend and
august in her eyes, and she assented forthwith to be his wife.
Thus it happened that one fine morning, when the doors of the church
were naturally open for ventilation, and the singing birds fluttered in
and alighted on the tie-beams of the roof, there was a marriage-service
at the communion-rails, which hardly a soul knew of. The parson and a
neighbouring curate had entered at one door, and Sophy at another,
followed by two necessary persons, whereupon in a short time there
emerged a newly-made husband and wife.
Mr. Twycott knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide by
this step, despite Sophy's spotless character, and he had taken his
measures accordingly. An exchange of livings had been arranged with an
acquaintance who was incumbent of a church in the south of London, and
as soon as possible the couple removed thither, abandoning their pretty
country home, with trees and shrubs and glebe, for a narrow, dusty house
in a long, straight street, and their fine peal of bells for the
wretchedest one-tongued clangour that ever tortured mortal ears. It was
all on her account. They were, however, away from every one who had
known her former position; and also under less observation from without
than they would have had to put up with in any country parish.
Sophy the woman was as charming a partner as a man could possess, though
Sophy the lady had her deficiencies. She showed a natural aptitude for
little domestic refinements, so far as related to things and manners;
but in what is called culture she was less intuitive. She had now been
married more than fourteen years, and her husband had taken much trouble
with her education; but she still held confused ideas on the use of
'was' and 'were,' which did not beget a respect for her among the few
acquaintances she made. Her great grief in this relation was that her
only child, on whose education no expense had been and would be spared,
was now old enough to perceive these deficiencies in his mother, and not
only to see them but to feel irritated at their existence.
Thus she lived on in the city, and wasted hours in braiding her
beautiful hair, till her once apple cheeks waned to pink of the very
faintest. Her foot had never regained its natural strength after the
accident, and she was mostly obliged to avoid walking altogether. Her
husband had grown to like London for its freedom and its domestic
privacy; but he was twenty years his Sophy's senior, and had latterly
been seized with a serious illness. On this day, however, he had seemed
to be well enough to justify her accompanying her son Randolph to the
concert.
CHAPTER II
The next time we get a glimpse of her is when she appears in the
mournful attire of a widow.
Mr. Twycott had never rallied, and now lay in a well-packed cemetery to
the south of the great city, where, if all the dead it contained had
stood erect and alive, not one would have known him or recognized his
name. The boy had dutifully followed him to the grave, and was now again
at school.
Throughout these changes Sophy had been treated like the child she was
in nature though not in years. She was left with no control over
anything that had been her husband's beyond her modest personal income.
In his anxiety lest her inexperience should be overreached he had
safeguarded with trustees all he possibly could. The completion of the
boy's course at the public school, to be followed in due time by Oxford
and ordination, had been all previsioned and arranged, and she really
had nothing to occupy her in the world but to eat and drink, and make a
business of indolence, and go on weaving and coiling the nut-brown hair,
merely keeping a home open for the son whenever he came to her during
vacations.
Foreseeing his probable decease long years before her, her husband in
his lifetime had purchased for her use a semi-detached villa in the same
long, straight road whereon the church and parsonage faced, which was to
be hers as long as she chose to live in it. Here she now resided,
looking out upon the fragment of lawn in front, and through the railings
at the ever-flowing traffic; or, bending forward over the window-sill on
the first floor, stretching her eyes far up and down the vista of sooty
trees, hazy air, and drab house-fa�ades, along which echoed the noises
common to a suburban main thoroughfare.
Somehow, her boy, with his aristocratic school-knowledge, his grammars,
and his aversions, was losing those wide infantine sympathies, extending
as far as to the sun and moon themselves, with which he, like other
children, had been born, and which his mother, a child of nature
herself, had loved in him; he was reducing their compass to a population
of a few thousand wealthy and titled people, the mere veneer of a
thousand million or so of others who did not interest him at all. He
drifted further and further away from her. Sophy's milieu being a suburb
of minor tradesmen and under-clerks, and her almost only companions the
two servants of her own house, it was not surprising that after her
husband's death she soon lost the little artificial tastes she had
acquired from him, and became-in her son's eyes-a mother whose mistakes
and origin it was his painful lot as a gentleman to blush for. As yet he
was far from being man enough-if he ever would be-to rate these sins of
hers at their true infinitesimal value beside the yearning fondness that
welled up and remained penned in her heart till it should be more fully
accepted by him, or by some other person or thing. If he had lived at
home with her he would have had all of it; but he seemed to require so
very little in present circumstances, and it remained stored.
Her life became insupportably dreary; she could not take walks, and had
no interest in going for drives, or, indeed, in travelling anywhere.
Nearly two years passed without an event, and still she looked on that
suburban road, thinking of the village in which she had been born, and
whither she would have gone back-O how gladly!-even to work in the
fields.
Taking no exercise, she often could not sleep, and would rise in the
night or early morning and look out upon the then vacant thoroughfare,
where the lamps stood like sentinels waiting for some procession to go
by. An approximation to such a procession was indeed made early every
morning about one o'clock, when the country vehicles passed up with
loads of vegetables for Covent Garden market. She often saw them
creeping along at this silent and dusky hour-waggon after waggon,
bearing green bastions of cabbages nodding to their fall, yet never
falling, walls of baskets enclosing masses of beans and peas, pyramids
of snow-white turnips, swaying howdahs of mixed produce-creeping along
behind aged night-horses, who seemed ever patiently wondering between
their hollow coughs why they had always to work at that still hour when
all other sentient creatures were privileged to rest. Wrapped in a
cloak, it was soothing to watch and sympathize with them when depression
and nervousness hindered sleep, and to see how the fresh green-stuff
brightened to life as it came opposite the lamp, and how the sweating
animals steamed and shone with their miles of travel.
They had an interest, almost a charm, for Sophy, these semirural people
and vehicles moving in an urban atmosphere, leading a life quite
distinct from that of the daytime toilers on the same road. One morning
a man who accompanied a waggon-load of potatoes gazed rather hard at the
house-fronts as he passed, and with a curious emotion she thought his
form was familiar to her. She looked out for him again. His being an
old-fashioned conveyance, with a yellow front, it was easily
recognizable, and on the third night after she saw it a second time. The
man alongside was, as she had fancied, Sam Hobson, formerly gardener at
Gaymead, who would at one time have married her.
She had occasionally thought of him, and wondered if life in a cottage
with him would not have been a happier lot than the life she had
accepted. She had not thought of him passionately, but her now dismal
situation lent an interest to his resurrection-a tender interest which
it is impossible to exaggerate. She went back to bed, and began
thinking. When did these market-gardeners, who travelled up to town so
regularly at one or two in the morning, come back? She dimly recollected
seeing their empty waggons, hardly noticeable amid the ordinary day-
traffic, passing down at some hour before noon.
It was only April, but that morning, after breakfast, she had the window
opened, and sat looking out, the feeble sun shining full upon her. She
affected to sew, but her eyes never left the street. Between ten and
eleven the desired waggon, now unladen, reappeared on its return
journey. But Sam was not looking round him then, and drove on in a
reverie.
'Sam!' cried she.
Turning with a start, his face lighted up. He called to him a little boy
to hold the horse, alighted, and came and stood under her window.
'I can't come down easily, Sam, or I would!' she said. 'Did you know I
lived here?'
'Well, Mrs. Twycott, I knew you lived along here somewhere. I have often
looked out for 'ee.'
He briefly explained his own presence on the scene. He had long since
given up his gardening in the village near Aldbrickham, and was now
manager at a market-gardener's on the south side of London, it being
part of his duty to go up to Covent Garden with waggon-loads of produce
two or three times a week. In answer to her curious inquiry, he admitted
that he had come to this particular district because he had seen in the
Aldbrickham paper, a year or two before, the announcement of the death
in South London of the aforetime vicar of Gaymead, which had revived an
interest in her dwelling-place that he could not extinguish, leading him
to hover about the locality till his present post had been secured.
They spoke of their native village in dear old North Wessex, the spots
in which they had played together as children. She tried to feel that
she was a dignified personage now, that she must not be too confidential
with Sam. But she could not keep it up, and the tears hanging in her
eyes were indicated in her voice.
'You are not happy, Mrs. Twycott, I'm afraid?' he said.
'O, of course not! I lost my husband only the year before last.'
'Ah! I meant in another way. You'd like to be home again?'
'This is my home-for life. The house belongs to me. But I understand'-
She let it out then. 'Yes, Sam. I long for home-our home! I should like
to be there, and never leave it, and die there.' But she remembered
herself. 'That's only a momentary feeling. I have a son, you know, a
dear boy. He's at school now.'
'Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there's lots on 'em along this road.'
'O no! Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school-one of the
most distinguished in England.'
'Chok' it all! of course! I forget, ma'am, that you've been a lady for
so many years.'
'No, I am not a lady,' she said sadly. 'I never shall be. But he's a
gentleman, and that-makes it-O how difficult for me!'
CHAPTER III
The acquaintance thus oddly reopened proceeded apace. She often looked
out to get a few words with him, by night or by day. Her sorrow was that
she could not accompany her one old friend on foot a little way, and
talk more freely than she could do while he paused before the house. One
night, at the beginning of June, when she was again on the watch after
an absence of some days from the window, he entered the gate and said
softly, 'Now, wouldn't some air do you good? I've only half a load this
morning. Why not ride up to Covent Garden with me? There's a nice seat
on the cabbages, where I've spread a sack. You can be home again in a
cab before anybody is up.'
She refused at first, and then, trembling with excitement, hastily
finished her dressing, and wrapped herself up in cloak and veil,
afterwards sidling downstairs by the aid of the handrail, in a way she
could adopt on an emergency. When she had opened the door she found Sam
on the step, and he lifted her bodily on his strong arm across the
little forecourt into his vehicle. Not a soul was visible or audible in
the infinite length of the straight, flat highway, with its ever-waiting
lamps converging to points in each direction. The air was fresh as
country air at this hour, and the stars shone, except to the north-
eastward, where there was a whitish light-the dawn. Sam carefully placed
her in the seat, and drove on.
They talked as they had talked in old days, Sam pulling himself up now
and then, when he thought himself too familiar. More than once she said
with misgiving that she wondered if she ought to have indulged in the
freak. 'But I am so lonely in my house,' she added, 'and this makes me
so happy!'
'You must come again, dear Mrs. Twycott. There is no time o' day for
taking the air like this.'
It grew lighter and lighter. The sparrows became busy in the streets,
and the city waxed denser around them. When they approached the river it
was day, and on the bridge they beheld the full blaze of morning
sunlight in the direction of St. Paul's, the river glistening towards
it, and not a craft stirring.
Near Covent Garden he put her into a cab, and they parted, looking into
each other's faces like the very old friends they were. She reached home
without adventure, limped to the door, and let herself in with her
latch-key unseen.
The air and Sam's presence had revived her: her cheeks were quite pink-
almost beautiful. She had something to live for in addition to her son.
A woman of pure instincts, she knew there had been nothing really wrong
in the journey, but supposed it conventionally to be very wrong indeed.
Soon, however, she gave way to the temptation of going with him again,
and on this occasion their conversation was distinctly tender, and Sam
said he never should forget her, notwithstanding that she had served him
rather badly at one time. After much hesitation he told her of a plan it
was in his power to carry out, and one he should like to take in hand,
since he did not care for London work: it was to set up as a master
greengrocer down at Aldbrickham, the county-town of their native place.
He knew of an opening-a shop kept by aged people who wished to retire.
'And why don't you do it, then, Sam?' she asked with a slight
heartsinking.
'Because I'm not sure if-you'd join me. I know you wouldn't-couldn't!
Such a lady as ye've been so long, you couldn't be a wife to a man like
me.'
'I hardly suppose I could!' she assented, also frightened at the idea.
'If you could,' he said eagerly, 'you'd on'y have to sit in the back
parlour and look through the glass partition when I was away sometimes-
just to keep an eye on things. The lameness wouldn't hinder that . . .
I'd keep you as genteel as ever I could, dear Sophy-if I might think of
it!' he pleaded.
'Sam, I'll be frank,' she said, putting her hand on his. 'If it were
only myself I would do it, and gladly, though everything I possess would
be lost to me by marrying again.'
'I don't mind that! It's more independent.'
'That's good of you, dear, dear Sam. But there's something else. I have
a son . . . I almost fancy when I am miserable sometimes that he is not
really mine, but one I hold in trust for my late husband. He seems to
belong so little to me personally, so entirely to his dead father. He is
so much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough to
be his mother . . . Well, he would have to be told.'
'Yes. Unquestionably.' Sam saw her thought and her fear. 'Still, you can
do as you like, Sophy-Mrs. Twycott,' he added. 'It is not you who are
the child, but he.'
'Ah, you don't know! Sam, if I could, I would marry you, some day. But
you must wait a while, and let me think.'
It was enough for him, and he was blithe at their parting. Not so she.
To tell Randolph seemed impossible. She could wait till he had gone up
to Oxford, when what she did would affect his life but little. But would
he ever tolerate the idea? And if not, could she defy him?
She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at
Lord's between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back to
Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to the
match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk about
occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually
broach the subject while moving round among the spectators, when the
boy's spirits were high with interest in the game, and he would weigh
domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day's victory. They
promenaded under the lurid July sun, this pair, so wide apart, yet so
near, and Sophy saw the large proportion of boys like her own, in their
broad white collars and dwarf hats, and all around the rows of great
coaches under which was jumbled the d�bris of luxurious luncheons;
bones, pie-crusts, champagne-bottles, glasses, plates, napkins, and the
family silver; while on the coaches sat the proud fathers and mothers;
but never a poor mother like her. If Randolph had not appertained to
these, had not centred all his interests in them, had not cared
exclusively for the class they belonged to, how happy would things have
been! A great huzza at some small performance with the bat burst from
the multitude of relatives, and Randolph jumped wildly into the air to
see what had happened. Sophy fetched up the sentence that had been
already shaped; but she could not get it out. The occasion was, perhaps,
an inopportune one. The contrast between her story and the display of
fashion to which Randolph had grown to regard himself as akin would be
fatal. She awaited a better time.
It was on an evening when they were alone in their plain suburban
residence, where life was not blue but brown, that she ultimately broke
silence, qualifying her announcement of a probable second marriage by
assuring him that it would not take place for a long time to come, when
he would be living quite independently of her.
The boy thought the idea a very reasonable one, and asked if she had
chosen anybody? She hesitated; and he seemed to have a misgiving. He
hoped his stepfather would be a gentleman? he said.
'Not what you call a gentleman,' she answered timidly. 'He'll be much as
I was before I knew your father;' and by degrees she acquainted him with
the whole. The youth's face remained fixed for a moment; then he
flushed, leant on the table, and burst into passionate tears.
His mother went up to him, kissed all of his face that she could get at,
and patted his back as if he were still the baby he once had been,
crying herself the while. When he had somewhat recovered from his
paroxysm he went hastily to his own room and fastened the door.
Parleyings were attempted through the keyhole, outside which she waited
and listened. It was long before he would reply, and when he did it was
to say sternly at her from within: 'I am ashamed of you! It will ruin
me! A miserable boor! a churl! a clown! It will degrade me in the eyes
of all the gentlemen of England!'
'Say no more-perhaps I am wrong! I will struggle against it!' she cried
miserably.
Before Randolph left her that summer a letter arrived from Sam to inform
her that he had been unexpectedly fortunate in obtaining the shop. He
was in possession; it was the largest in the town, combining fruit with
vegetables, and he thought it would form a home worthy even of her some
day. Might he not run up to town to see her?
She met him by stealth, and said he must still wait for her final
answer. The autumn dragged on, and when Randolph was home at Christmas
for the holidays she broached the matter again. But the young gentleman
was inexorable.
It was dropped for months; renewed again; abandoned under his
repugnance; again attempted; and thus the gentle creature reasoned and
pleaded till four or five long years had passed. Then the faithful Sam
revived his suit with some peremptoriness. Sophy's son, now an
undergraduate, was down from Oxford one Easter, when she again opened
the subject. As soon as he was ordained, she argued, he would have a
home of his own, wherein she, with her bad grammar and her ignorance,
would be an encumbrance to him. Better obliterate her as much as
possible.
He showed a more manly anger now, but would not agree. She on her side
was more persistent, and he had doubts whether she could be trusted in
his absence. But by indignation and contempt for her taste he completely
maintained his ascendency; and finally taking her before a little cross
and altar that he had erected in his bedroom for his private devotions,
there bade her kneel, and swear that she would not wed Samuel Hobson
without his consent. 'I owe this to my father!' he said.
The poor woman swore, thinking he would soften as soon as he was
ordained and in full swing of clerical work. But he did not. His
education had by this time sufficiently ousted his humanity to keep him
quite firm; though his mother might have led an idyllic life with her
faithful fruiterer and greengrocer, and nobody have been anything the
worse in the world.
Her lameness became more confirmed as time went on, and she seldom or
never left the house in the long southern thoroughfare, where she seemed
to be pining her heart away. 'Why mayn't I say to Sam that I'll marry
him? Why mayn't I?' she would murmur plaintively to herself when nobody
was near.
Some four years after this date a middle-aged man was standing at the
door of the largest fruiterer's shop in Aldbrickham. He was the
proprietor, but to-day, instead of his usual business attire, he wore a
neat suit of black; and his window was partly shuttered. From the
railway-station a funeral procession was seen approaching: it passed his
door and went out of the town towards the village of Gaymead. The man,
whose eyes were wet, held his hat in his hand as the vehicles moved by;
while from the mourning coach a young smooth-shaven priest in a high
waistcoat looked black as a cloud at the shop keeper standing there.
December 1891.
FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE
CHAPTER I
Whether the utilitarian or the intuitive theory of the moral sense be
upheld, it is beyond question that there are a few subtle-souled persons
with whom the absolute gratuitousness of an act of reparation is an
inducement to perform it; while exhortation as to its necessity would
breed excuses for leaving it undone. The case of Mr. Millborne and Mrs.
Frankland particularly illustrated this, and perhaps something more.
There were few figures better known to the local crossing-sweeper than
Mr. Millborne's, in his daily comings and goings along a familiar and
quiet London street, where he lived inside the door marked eleven,
though not as householder. In age he was fifty at least, and his habits
were as regular as those of a person can be who has no occupation but
the study of how to keep himself employed. He turned almost always to
the right on getting to the end of his street, then he went onward down
Bond Street to his club, whence he returned by precisely the same course
about six o'clock, on foot; or, if he went to dine, later on in a cab.
He was known to be a man of some means, though apparently not wealthy.
Being a bachelor he seemed to prefer his present mode of living as a
lodger in Mrs. Towney's best rooms, with the use of furniture which he
had bought ten times over in rent during his tenancy, to having a house
of his own.
None among his acquaintance tried to know him well, for his manner and
moods did not excite curiosity or deep friendship. He was not a man who
seemed to have anything on his mind, anything to conceal, anything to
impart. From his casual remarks it was generally understood that he was
country-born, a native of some place in Wessex; that he had come to
London as a young man in a banking-house, and had risen to a post of
responsibility; when, by the death of his father, who had been fortunate
in his investments, the son succeeded to an income which led him to
retire from a business life somewhat early.
One evening, when he had been unwell for several days, Doctor Bindon
came in, after dinner, from the adjoining medical quarter, and smoked
with him over the fire. The patient's ailment was not such as to require
much thought, and they talked together on indifferent subjects.
'I am a lonely man, Bindon-a lonely man,' Millborne took occasion to
say, shaking his head gloomily. 'You don't know such loneliness as mine
. . . And the older I get the more I am dissatisfied with myself. And
to-day I have been, through an accident, more than usually haunted by
what, above all other events of my life, causes that dissatisfaction-the
recollection of an unfulfilled promise made twenty years ago. In
ordinary affairs I have always been considered a man of my word and
perhaps it is on that account that a particular vow I once made, and did
not keep, comes back to me with a magnitude out of all proportion (I
daresay) to its real gravity, especially at this time of day. You know
the discomfort caused at night by the half-sleeping sense that a door or
window has been left unfastened, or in the day by the remembrance of
unanswered letters. So does that promise haunt me from time to time, and
has done to-day particularly.'
There was a pause, and they smoked on. Millborne's eyes, though fixed on
the fire, were really regarding attentively a town in the West of
England.
'Yes,' he continued, 'I have never quite forgotten it, though during the
busy years of my life it was shelved and buried under the pressure of my
pursuits. And, as I say, to-day in particular, an incident in the law-
report of a somewhat similar kind has brought it back again vividly.
However, what it was I can tell you in a few words, though no doubt you,
as a man of the world, will smile at the thinness of my skin when you
hear it . . . I came up to town at one-and-twenty, from Toneborough, in
Outer Wessex, where I was born, and where, before I left, I had won the
heart of a young woman of my own age. I promised her marriage, took
advantage of my promise, and-am a bachelor.'
'The old story.'
The other nodded.
'I left the place, and thought at the time I had done a very clever
thing in getting so easily out of an entanglement. But I have lived long
enough for that promise to return to bother me-to be honest, not
altogether as a pricking of the conscience, but as a dissatisfaction
with myself as a specimen of the heap of flesh called humanity. If I
were to ask you to lend me fifty pounds, which I would repay you next
midsummer, and I did not repay you, I should consider myself a shabby
sort of fellow, especially if you wanted the money badly. Yet I promised
that girl just as distinctly; and then coolly broke my word, as if doing
so were rather smart conduct than a mean action, for which the poor
victim herself, encumbered with a child, and not I, had really to pay
the penalty, in spite of certain pecuniary aid that was given. There,
that's the retrospective trouble that I am always unearthing; and you
may hardly believe that though so many years have elapsed, and it is all
gone by and done with, and she must be getting on for an old woman now,
as I am for an old man, it really often destroys my sense of self-
respect still.'
'O, I can understand it. All depends upon the temperament. Thousands of
men would have forgotten all about it; so would you, perhaps, if you had
married and had a family. Did she ever marry?'
'I don't think so. O no-she never did. She left Toneborough, and later
on appeared under another name at Exonbury, in the next county, where
she was not known. It is very seldom that I go down into that part of
the country, but in passing through Exonbury, on one occasion, I learnt
that she was quite a settled resident there, as a teacher of music, or
something of the kind. That much I casually heard when I was there two
or three years ago. But I have never set eyes on her since our original
acquaintance, and should not know her if I met her.'
'Did the child live?' asked the doctor.
'For several years, certainly,' replied his friend. 'I cannot say if she
is living now. It was a little girl. She might be married by this time
as far as years go.'
'And the mother-was she a decent, worthy young woman?'
'O yes; a sensible, quiet girl, neither attractive nor unattractive to
the ordinary observer; simply commonplace. Her position at the time of
our acquaintance was not so good as mine. My father was a solicitor, as
I think I have told you. She was a young girl in a music-shop; and it
was represented to me that it would be beneath my position to marry her.
Hence the result.'
'Well, all I can say is that after twenty years it is probably too late
to think of mending such a matter. It has doubtless by this time mended
itself. You had better dismiss it from your mind as an evil past your
control. Of course, if mother and daughter are alive, or either, you
might settle something upon them, if you were inclined, and had it to
spare.'
'Well, I haven't much to spare; and I have relations in narrow
circumstances-perhaps narrower than theirs. But that is not the point.
Were I ever so rich I feel I could not rectify the past by money. I did
not promise to enrich her. On the contrary, I told her it would probably
be dire poverty for both of us. But I did promise to make her my wife.'
'Then find her and do it,' said the doctor jocularly as he rose to
leave.
'Ah, Bindon. That, of course, is the obvious jest. But I haven't the
slightest desire for marriage; I am quite content to live as I have
lived. I am a bachelor by nature, and instinct, and habit, and
everything. Besides, though I respect her still (for she was not an atom
to blame), I haven't any shadow of love for her. In my mind she exists
as one of those women you think well of, but find uninteresting. It
would be purely with the idea of putting wrong right that I should hunt
her up, and propose to do it off-hand.'
'You don't think of it seriously?' said his surprised friend.
'I sometimes think that I would, if it were practicable; simply, as I
say, to recover my sense of being a man of honour.'
'I wish you luck in the enterprise,' said Doctor Bindon. 'You'll soon be
out of that chair, and then you can put your impulse to the test. But-
after twenty years of silence-I should say, don't!'
CHAPTER II
The doctor's advice remained counterpoised, in Millborne's mind, by the
aforesaid mood of seriousness and sense of principle, approximating
often to religious sentiment, which had been evolving itself in his
breast for months, and even years.
The feeling, however, had no immediate effect upon Mr. Millborne's
actions. He soon got over his trifling illness, and was vexed with
himself for having, in a moment of impulse, confided such a case of
conscience to anybody.
But the force which had prompted it, though latent, remained with him
and ultimately grew stronger. The upshot was that about four months
after the date of his illness and disclosure, Millborne found himself on
a mild spring morning at Paddington Station, in a train that was
starting for the west. His many intermittent thoughts on his broken
promise from time to time, in those hours when loneliness brought him
face to face with his own personality, had at last resulted in this
course.
The decisive stimulus had been given when, a day or two earlier, on
looking into a Post-Office Directory, he learnt that the woman he had
not met for twenty years was still living on at Exonbury under the name
she had assumed when, a year or two after her disappearance from her
native town and his, she had returned from abroad as a young widow with
a child, and taken up her residence at the former city. Her condition
was apparently but little changed, and her daughter seemed to be with
her, their names standing in the Directory as 'Mrs. Leonora Frankland
and Miss Frankland, Teachers of Music and Dancing.'
Mr. Millborne reached Exonbury in the afternoon, and his first business,
before even taking his luggage into the town, was to find the house
occupied by the teachers. Standing in a central and open place it was
not difficult to discover, a well-burnished brass doorplate bearing
their names prominently. He hesitated to enter without further
knowledge, and ultimately took lodgings over a toyshop opposite,
securing a sitting-room which faced a similar drawing or sitting-room at
the Franklands', where the dancing lessons were given. Installed here he
was enabled to make indirectly, and without suspicion, inquiries and
observations on the character of the ladies over the way, which he did
with much deliberateness.
He learnt that the widow, Mrs. Frankland, with her one daughter,
Frances, was of cheerful and excellent repute, energetic and painstaking
with her pupils, of whom she had a good many, and in whose tuition her
daughter assisted her. She was quite a recognized townswoman, and though
the dancing branch of her profession was perhaps a trifle worldly, she
was really a serious-minded lady who, being obliged to live by what she
knew how to teach, balanced matters by lending a hand at charitable
bazaars, assisting at sacred concerts, and giving musical recitations in
aid of funds for bewildering happy savages, and other such enthusiasms
of this enlightened country. Her daughter was one of the foremost of the
bevy of young women who decorated the churches at Easter and Christmas,
was organist in one of those edifices, and had subscribed to the
testimonial of a silver broth-basin that was presented to the Reverend
Mr. Walker as a token of gratitude for his faithful and arduous
intonations of six months as sub-precentor in the Cathedral. Altogether
mother and daughter appeared to be a typical and innocent pair among the
genteel citizens of Exonbury.
As a natural and simple way of advertising their profession they allowed
the windows of the music-room to be a little open, so that you had the
pleasure of hearing all along the street at any hour between sunrise and
sunset fragmentary gems of classical music as interpreted by the young
people of twelve or fourteen who took lessons there. But it was said
that Mrs. Frankland made most of her income by letting out pianos on
hire, and by selling them as agent for the makers.
The report pleased Millborne; it was highly creditable, and far better
than he had hoped. He was curious to get a view of the two women who led
such blameless lives.
He had not long to wait to gain a glimpse of Leonora. It was when she
was standing on her own doorstep, opening her parasol, on the morning
after his arrival. She was thin, though not gaunt; and a good, well-
wearing, thoughtful face had taken the place of the one which had
temporarily attracted him in the days of his nonage. She wore black, and
it became her in her character of widow. The daughter next appeared; she
was a smoothed and rounded copy of her mother, with the same decision in
her mien that Leonora had, and a bounding gait in which he traced a
faint resemblance to his own at her age.
For the first time he absolutely made up his mind to call on them. But
his antecedent step was to send Leonora a note the next morning, stating
his proposal to visit her, and suggesting the evening as the time,
because she seemed to be so greatly occupied in her professional
capacity during the day. He purposely worded his note in such a form as
not to require an answer from her which would be possibly awkward to
write.
No answer came. Naturally he should not have been surprised at this; and
yet he felt a little checked, even though she had only refrained from
volunteering a reply that was not demanded.
At eight, the hour fixed by himself, he crossed over and was passively
admitted by the servant. Mrs. Frankland, as she called herself, received
him in the large music-and-dancing room on the first-floor front, and
not in any private little parlour as he had expected. This cast a
distressingly business-like colour over their first meeting after so
many years of severance. The woman he had wronged stood before him,
well-dressed, even to his metropolitan eyes, and her manner as she came
up to him was dignified even to hardness. She certainly was not glad to
see him. But what could he expect after a neglect of twenty years!
'How do you do, Mr. Millborne?' she said cheerfully, as to any chance
caller. 'I am obliged to receive you here because my daughter has a
friend downstairs.'
'Your daughter-and mine.'
'Ah-yes, yes,' she replied hastily, as if the addition had escaped her
memory. 'But perhaps the less said about that the better, in fairness to
me. You will consider me a widow, please.'
'Certainly, Leonora . . . ' He could not get on, her manner was so cold
and indifferent. The expected scene of sad reproach, subdued to delicacy
by the run of years, was absent altogether. He was obliged to come to
the point without preamble.
'You are quite free, Leonora-I mean as to marriage? There is nobody who
has your promise, or-'
'O yes; quite free, Mr. Millborne,' she said, somewhat surprised.
'Then I will tell you why I have come. Twenty years ago I promised to
make you my wife; and I am here to fulfil that promise. Heaven forgive
my tardiness!'
Her surprise was increased, but she was not agitated. She seemed to
become gloomy, disapproving. 'I could not entertain such an idea at this
time of life,' she said after a moment or two. 'It would complicate
matters too greatly. I have a very fair income, and require no help of
any sort. I have no wish to marry . . . What could have induced you to
come on such an errand now? It seems quite extraordinary, if I may say
so!'
'It must-I daresay it does,' Millborne replied vaguely; 'and I must tell
you that impulse-I mean in the sense of passion-has little to do with
it. I wish to marry you, Leonora; I much desire to marry you. But it is
an affair of conscience, a case of fulfilment. I promised you, and it
was dishonourable of me to go away. I want to remove that sense of
dishonour before I die. No doubt we might get to love each other as
warmly as we did in old times?'
She dubiously shook her head. 'I appreciate your motives, Mr. Millborne;
but you must consider my position; and you will see that, short of the
personal wish to marry, which I don't feel, there is no reason why I
should change my state, even though by so doing I should ease your
conscience. My position in this town is a respected one; I have built it
up by my own hard labours, and, in short, I don't wish to alter it. My
daughter, too, is just on the verge of an engagement to be married, to a
young man who will make her an excellent husband. It will be in every
way a desirable match for her. He is downstairs now.'
'Does she know-anything about me?'
'O no, no; God forbid! Her father is dead and buried to her. So that,
you see, things are going on smoothly, and I don't want to disturb their
progress.'
He nodded. 'Very well,' he said, and rose to go. At the door, however,
he came back again.
'Still, Leonora,' he urged, 'I have come on purpose; and I don't see
what disturbance would be caused. You would simply marry an old friend.
Won't you reconsider? It is no more than right that we should be united,
remembering the girl.'
She shook her head, and patted with her foot nervously.
'Well, I won't detain you,' he added. 'I shall not be leaving Exonbury
yet. You will allow me to see you again?'
'Yes; I don't mind,' she said reluctantly.
The obstacles he had encountered, though they did not reanimate his dead
passion for Leonora, did certainly make it appear indispensable to his
peace of mind to overcome her coldness. He called frequently. The first
meeting with the daughter was a trying ordeal, though he did not feel
drawn towards her as he had expected to be; she did not excite his
sympathies. Her mother confided to Frances the errand of 'her old
friend,' which was viewed by the daughter with strong disfavour. His
desire being thus uncongenial to both, for a long time Millborne made
not the least impression upon Mrs. Frankland. His attentions pestered
her rather than pleased her. He was surprised at her firmness, and it
was only when he hinted at moral reasons for their union that she was
ever shaken. 'Strictly speaking,' he would say, 'we ought, as honest
persons, to marry; and that's the truth of it, Leonora.'
'I have looked at it in that light,' she said quickly. 'It struck me at
the very first. But I don't see the force of the argument. I totally
deny that after this interval of time I am bound to marry you for
honour's sake. I would have married you, as you know well enough, at the
proper time. But what is the use of remedies now?'
They were standing at the window. A scantly-whiskered young man, in
clerical attire, called at the door below. Leonora flushed with
interest.
'Who is he?' said Mr. Millborne.
'My Frances's lover. I am so sorry-she is not at home! Ah! they have
told him where she is, and he has gone to find her . . . I hope that
suit will prosper, at any rate!'
'Why shouldn't it?'
'Well, he cannot marry yet; and Frances sees but little of him now he
has left Exonbury. He was formerly doing duty here, but now he is curate
of St. John's, Ivell, fifty miles up the line. There is a tacit
agreement between them, but-there have been friends of his who object,
because of our vocation. However, he sees the absurdity of such an
objection as that, and is not influenced by it.'
'Your marriage with me would help the match, instead of hindering it, as
you have said.'
'Do you think it would?'
'It certainly would, by taking you out of this business altogether.'
By chance he had found the way to move her somewhat, and he followed it
up. This view was imparted to Mrs. Frankland's daughter, and it led her
to soften her opposition. Millborne, who had given up his lodging in
Exonbury, journeyed to and fro regularly, till at last he overcame her
negations, and she expressed a reluctant assent.
They were married at the nearest church; and the goodwill-whatever that
was-of the music-and-dancing connection was sold to a successor only too
ready to jump into the place, the Millbornes having decided to live in
London.
CHAPTER III
Millborne was a householder in his old district, though not in his old
street, and Mrs. Millborne and their daughter had turned themselves into
Londoners. Frances was well reconciled to the removal by her lover's
satisfaction at the change. It suited him better to travel from Ivell a
hundred miles to see her in London, where he frequently had other
engagements, than fifty in the opposite direction where nothing but
herself required his presence. So here they were, furnished up to the
attics, in one of the small but popular streets of the West district, in
a house whose front, till lately of the complexion of a chimney-sweep,
had been scraped to show to the surprised wayfarer the bright yellow and
red brick that had lain lurking beneath the soot of fifty years.
The social lift that the two women had derived from the alliance was
considerable; but when the exhilaration which accompanies a first
residence in London, the sensation of standing on a pivot of the world,
had passed, their lives promised to be somewhat duller than when, at
despised Exonbury, they had enjoyed a nodding acquaintance with three-
fourths of the town. Mr. Millborne did not criticise his wife; he could
not. Whatever defects of hardness and acidity his original treatment and
the lapse of years might have developed in her, his sense of a realized
idea, of a re-established self-satisfaction, was always thrown into the
scale on her side, and out-weighed all objections.
It was about a month after their settlement in town that the household
decided to spend a week at a watering-place in the Isle of Wight, and
while there the Reverend Percival Cope (the young curate aforesaid) came
to see them, Frances in particular. No formal engagement of the young
pair had been announced as yet, but it was clear that their mutual
understanding could not end in anything but marriage without grievous
disappointment to one of the parties at least. Not that Frances was
sentimental. She was rather of the imperious sort, indeed; and, to say
all, the young girl had not fulfilled her father's expectations of her.
But he hoped and worked for her welfare as sincerely as any father could
do.
Mr. Cope was introduced to the new head of the family, and stayed with
them in the Island two or three days. On the last day of his visit they
decided to venture on a two hours' sail in one of the small yachts which
lay there for hire. The trip had not progressed far before all, except
the curate, found that sailing in a breeze did not quite agree with
them; but as he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three bore
their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint, till
the young man, observing their discomfort, gave immediate directions to
tack about. On the way back to port they sat silent, facing each other.
Nausea in such circumstances, like midnight watching, fatigue, trouble,
fright, has this marked effect upon the countenance, that it often
brings out strongly the divergences of the individual from the norm of
his race, accentuating superficial peculiarities to radical
distinctions. Unexpected physiognomies will uncover themselves at these
times in well-known faces; the aspect becomes invested with the spectral
presence of entombed and forgotten ancestors; and family lineaments of
special or exclusive cast, which in ordinary moments are masked by a
stereotyped expression and mien, start up with crude insistence to the
view.
Frances, sitting beside her mother's husband, with Mr. Cope opposite,
was naturally enough much regarded by the curate during the tedious sail
home; at first with sympathetic smiles. Then, as the middle-aged father
and his child grew each gray-faced, as the pretty blush of Frances
disintegrated into spotty stains, and the soft rotundities of her
features diverged from their familiar and reposeful beauty into
elemental lines, Cope was gradually struck with the resemblance between
a pair in their discomfort who in their ease presented nothing to the
eye in common. Mr. Millborne and Frances in their indisposition were
strangely, startlingly alike.
The inexplicable fact absorbed Cope's attention quite. He forgot to
smile at Frances, to hold her hand; and when they touched the shore he
remained sitting for some moments like a man in a trance.
As they went homeward, and recovered their complexions and contours, the
similarities one by one disappeared, and Frances and Mr. Millborne were
again masked by the commonplace differences of sex and age. It was as
if, during the voyage, a mysterious veil had been lifted, temporarily
revealing a strange pantomime of the past.
During the evening he said to her casually: 'Is your step-father a
cousin of your mother, dear Frances?'
'Oh, no,' said she. 'There is no relationship. He was only an old friend
of hers. Why did you suppose such a thing?'
He did not explain, and the next morning started to resume his duties at
Ivell.
Cope was an honest young fellow, and shrewd withal. At home in his quiet
rooms in St. Peter's Street, Ivell, he pondered long and unpleasantly on
the revelations of the cruise. The tale it told was distinct enough, and
for the first time his position was an uncomfortable one. He had met the
Franklands at Exonbury as parishioners, had been attracted by Frances,
and had floated thus far into an engagement which was indefinite only
because of his inability to marry just yet. The Franklands' past had
apparently contained mysteries, and it did not coincide with his
judgment to marry into a family whose mystery was of the sort suggested.
So he sat and sighed, between his reluctance to lose Frances and his
natural dislike of forming a connection with people whose antecedents
would not bear the strictest investigation.
A passionate lover of the old-fashioned sort might possibly never have
halted to weigh these doubts; but though he was in the church Cope's
affections were fastidious-distinctly tempered with the alloys of the
century's decadence. He delayed writing to Frances for some while,
simply because he could not tune himself up to enthusiasm when worried
by suspicions of such a kind.