"The sense of death is most in apprehension."
"Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure."
It is destined to be a day of grief! Monkton who had been out all the
morning, having gone to see the old people, a usual habit of his, had
not returned to dinner--a very unusual habit with him. It had occurred,
however, once or twice, that he had stayed to dine with them on such
occasions, as when Sir George had had a troublesome letter from his
elder son, and had looked to the younger to give him some comfort--some
of his time to help him to bear it, by talking it all over. Barbara,
therefore, while dressing for Mrs. Thesiger's "At Home," had scarcely
felt anxiety, and, indeed, it is only now when she has come down to the
drawing-room to find Joyce awaiting her, also in gala garb, so far as a
gown goes, that a suspicion of coming trouble takes possession of her.
"He is late, isn't he?" she says, looking at Joyce with something
nervous in her expression. "What can have kept him? I know he wanted to
meet the General, and now----What can it be?"
"His mother, probably," says Joyce, indifferently. "From your
description of her, I should say she must be a most thoroughly
uncomfortable old person."
"Yes. Not pleasant, certainly. A little of her, as George Ingram used to
say, goes a long way. But still----And these Thesiger people are friends
of his, and----"
"You are working yourself up into a thorough belief in the sensational
street accident," says Joyce, who has seated herself well out of the
glare of the chandelier. "You want to be tragic. It is a mistake,
believe me."
Something in the bitterness of the girl's tone strikes on her sister's
ear. Joyce had not come down to dinner, had pleaded a headache as an
excuse for her non-appearance, and Mrs. Monkton and Tommy (she could not
bear to dine alone) had devoured that meal _à deux_. Tommy had certainly
been anything but dull company.
"Has anything happened, Joyce?" asks her sister quickly. She has had her
suspicions, of course, but they were of the vaguest order.
Joyce laughs.
"I told you your nerves were out of order," says she. "What should
happen? Are you still dwelling on the running over business? I assure
you you wrong Freddy. He can take care of himself at a crossing as well
as another man, and better. Even a hansom, I am convinced, could do no
harm to Freddy."
"I wasn't thinking of him," says Barbara, a little reproachfully,
perhaps. "I----"
"No. Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Here he is," cries she
suddenly, springing to her feet as the sound of Monkton's footsteps
ascending the stairs can now be distinctly heard. "I hope you will
explain yourself to him." She laughs again, and disappears through the
doorway that leads to the second hall outside, as Monkton enters.
"How late you are, Freddy," says his wife, the reproach in her voice
heightened because of the anxiety she had been enduring. "I thought you
would never----What is it? What has happened? Freddy! there is bad
news."
"Yes, very bad," says Monkton, sinking into a chair.
"Your brother----" breathlessly. Of late, she has always known that
trouble is to be expected from him.
"He is dead," says Monkton in a low tone.
Barbara, flinging her opera cloak aside, comes quickly to him. She leans
over him and slips her arms round his neck.
"Dead!" says she in an awestruck tone.
"Yes. Killed himself! Shot himself! the telegram came this morning when
I was with them. I could not come home sooner; it was impossible to
leave them."
"Oh, Freddy, I am sorry you left them even now; a line to me would have
done. Oh, what a horrible thing, and to die like that."
"Yes." He presses one of her hands, and then, rising, begins to move
hurriedly up and down the room. "It was misfortune upon misfortune," he
says presently. "When I went over there this morning they had just
received a letter filled with----"
"From him!"
"Yes. That is what seemed to make it so much worse later on. Life in the
morning, death in the afternoon!" His voice grows choked. "And such a
letter as it was, filled with nothing but a most scandalous account of
his----Oh!"----he breaks off suddenly as if shocked. "Oh, he is dead,
poor fellow."
"Don't take it like that," says Barbara, following him and clinging to
him. "You know you could not be unkind. There were debts then?"
"Debts! It is difficult to explain just now, my head is aching so; and
those poor old people? Well, it means ruin for them, Barbara. Of course
his debts must be paid, his honor kept intact, for the sake of the old
name, but--they will let all the houses, the two in town, this one, and
their own, and--and the old place down in Warwickshire, the home, all
must go out of their hands."
"Oh, Freddy, surely--surely there must be some way----"
"Not one. I spoke about breaking the entail. You know I--his death, poor
fellow. I----"
"Yes, yes, dear."
"But they wouldn't hear of it. My mother was very angry, even in her
grief, when I proposed it. They hope that by strict retrenchment, the
property will be itself again; and they spoke about Tommy. They said it
would be unjust to him----"
"And to you," quickly. She would not have him ignored any longer.
"Oh, as for me, I'm not a boy, you know. Tommy is safe to inherit as
life goes."
"Well, so are you," said she, with a sharp pang at her heart.
"Yes, of course. I am only making out a case. I think it was kind of
them to remember Tommy's claim in the midst of their own grief."
"It was, indeed," says she remorsefully. "Oh, it was. But if they give
up everything where will they go?"
"They talk of taking a cottage--a small house somewhere. They want to
give up everything to pay his infamous----There!" sharply, "I am
forgetting again! But to see them makes one forget everything else." He
begins his walk up and down the room again, as if inaction is impossible
to him. "My mother, who has been accustomed to a certain luxury all her
life, to be now, at the very close of it, condemned to----It would break
your heart to see her. And she will let nothing be said of him."
"Oh, no."
"Still, there should be justice. I can't help feeling that. Her
blameless life, and his----and she is the one to suffer."
"It is so often so," says his wife in a low tone. "It is an old story,
dearest, but I know that when the old stories come home to us
individually they always sound so terribly new. But what do they mean by
a small house?" asks she presently in a distressed tone.
"Well, I suppose a small house," said he, with just a passing gleam of
his old jesting manner. "You know my mother cannot bear the country, so
I think the cottage idea will fall through."
"Freddy," says his wife suddenly. "She can't go into a small house, a
London small house. It is out of the question. Could they not come and
live with us?"
She is suggesting a martyrdom for herself, yet she does it
unflinchingly.
"What! My aunt and all?" asks he, regarding her earnestly.
"Oh, of course, of course, poor old thing," says she, unable this time,
however, to hide the quaver that desolates her voice.
"No," says her husband with a suspicion of vehemence. He takes her
suddenly in his arms and kisses her. "Because two or three people are
unhappy is no reason why a fourth should be made so, and I don't want
your life spoiled, so far as I can prevent it. I suppose you have
guessed that I must go over to Nice--where he is--my father could not
possibly go alone in his present state."
"When, must you go?"
"To-morrow. As for you----"
"If we could go home," says she uncertainly.
"That is what I would suggest, but how will you manage without me? The
children are so troublesome when taken out of their usual beat, and
their nurse--I often wonder which would require the most looking after,
they or she? It occurred to me to ask Dysart to see you across."
"He is so kind, such a friend," says Mrs. Monkton. "But----"
She might have said more, but at this instant Joyce appears in the
doorway.
"We shall be late," cries she, "and Freddy not even dressed, why----Oh,
has anything really happened?"
"Yes, yes," says Barbara hurriedly--a few words explains all. "We must
go home to-morrow, you see; and Freddy thinks that Felix would look
after us until we reached Kensington or North Wall."
"Felix--Mr. Dysart?" The girl's face had grown pale during the recital
of the suicide, but now it looks ghastly. "Why should he come?" cries
she in a ringing tone, that has actual fear in it. "Do you suppose that
we two cannot manage the children between us? Oh, nonsense, Barbara; why
Tommy is as sensible as he can be, and if nurse does prove incapable,
and a prey to seasickness, well--I can take baby, and you can look after
Mabel. It will be all right! We are not going to America, really.
Freddy, please say you will not trouble Mr. Dysart about this matter."
"Yes, I really think we shall not require him," says Barbara. Something
in the glittering brightness of her sister's eye warns her to give in at
once, and indeed she has been unconsciously a little half-hearted about
having Felix or any stranger as a travelling companion. "There, run
away, Joyce, and go to your bed, darling; you look very tired. I must
still arrange some few things with Freddy."
"What is the matter with her?" asks Monkton, when Joyce has gone away.
"She looks as if she had been crying, and her manner is so excitable."
"She has been strange all day, almost repellant. Felix called--and--I
don't know what happened; she insisted upon my leaving her alone with
him; but I am afraid there was a scene of some sort. I know she had been
crying, because her eyes were so red, but she would say nothing, and I
was afraid to ask her."
"Better not. I hope she is not still thinking of that fellow Beauclerk.
However----" he stops short and sighs heavily.
"You must not think of her now," says Barbara quickly; "your own trouble
is enough for you. Were your brother's affairs so very bad that they
necessitate the giving up of everything?"
"It has been going on for years. My father has had to economize, to cut
down everything. You know the old place was let to a Mr.--Mr.--I quite
forget the name now," pressing his hand to his brow; "a Manchester man,
at all events, but we always hoped my father would have been able to
take it back from him next year, but now----"
"But you say they think in time that the property will----"
"They think so. I don't. But it would be a pity to undeceive them. I am
afraid, Barbara," with a sad look at her, "you made a bad match. Even
when the chance comes in your way to rise out of poverty, it proves a
thoroughly useless one."
"It isn't like you to talk like that," says she quickly. "There, you are
overwrought, and no wonder, too. Come upstairs and let us see what you
will want for your journey." Her tone had grown purposely brisk; surely,
on an occasion such as this she is a wife, a companion in a thousand.
"There must be many things to be considered, both for you and for me.
And the thing is, to take nothing unnecessary. Those foreign places, I
hear, are so----"
"It hardly matters what I take," says he wearily.
"Well, it matters what I take," says she briskly. "Come and give me a
help, Freddy. You know how I hate to have servants standing over me.
Other people stand over their servants, but they are poor rich people. I
like to see how the clothes are packed." She is speaking not quite
truthfully. Few people like to be spared trouble so much as she does,
but it seems good in her eyes now to rouse him from the melancholy that
is fast growing on him. "Come," she says, tucking her arm into his.