FREE.
With a feeling of relief, Hanbury walked rapidly away. The last words
of Leigh had stirred within him once more the trouble which had made
him shirk meeting his mother that morning. The burning down of Leigh's
place and the destruction of the wonderful clock, and the meeting with
the unfortunate clockmaker, would afford a story to be told when he
got home, and he might interpose that history between the first words
of meeting and the ultimate announcement that the engagement between
Dora and himself was at an end.
Family considerations or desires had nothing to do with the
understanding which had existed between Dora and him; but to his
mother, from whom he had no secret, except that of the quarrel on
Thursday night, he must explain, and explain fully too. There was no
good in putting off the inevitable meeting any longer. He knew his
mother had great respect and liking for Dora, but she had had nothing
whatever to do with bringing about the understanding between the two
of them. They had been quite as free in their choice of one another as
though they had been the heroine and hero of a pastoral. He had never
been a fool about Dora and she had never been a fool about him. In his
life he meant to be no cypher among men; it would never do for him to
be a cypher in his own home. Dora and he had acted with great
reasonableness throughout their whole acquaintance, and with supreme
reasonableness when they agreed to separate. If he had been an
ordinary man, a man with no great public career before him, he might
have been disposed to yield more to Dora's opinion or judgment; but as
matters stood, any man with the smallest trace of common sense must
commend Dora's decision of terminating the engagement, and his
acceptance of her decision.
When he got back to Chester Square he heard, with great relief, that
Mrs. and Miss Grace were at luncheon in the dining-room with Mrs.
Hanbury. The presence of the two visitors and the general nature of
the conversation necessary to their presence and the meal, would serve
as an admirable softener of the story he had for his mother's private
ear.
"You see, John, I have succeeded," said Mrs. Hanbury, after greetings
were over. "I went the moment breakfast was finished and carried Mrs.
and Miss Grace away from that awful Grimsby Street. We have had a good
long chat, and, although I have done my best with Mrs. Grace, I cannot
induce her to promise not to go back to that murderous street again. I
must now ask you to join with me in forbidding her to leave us."
Hanbury spoke in favour of his mother's proposal and urged many
arguments; but the old woman was quite firm. Back they must and would
go. Why, if no other consideration would be allowed to weigh, there
was the fact that her grand-daughter had not yet received her luggage
from Eltham House.
This reference brought in Leigh's name, and then Hanbury told of the
fire, the destruction of the clock, his meeting that morning with the
dwarf, and the conviction of the latter that he would not long survive
the destruction of his incomparable machine. He noticed as he went on
that Miss Grace first flushed and then paled.
The girl had hardly spoken up to this. She sat silent and timid. She
did not seem to hear quickly or to apprehend accurately. She had
hesitated in her answers like one afraid. The table was small, and
laid for four people. Hanbury sat opposite his mother, Edith opposite
her grandmother. The heat was intense.
There was a buzzing and beating in the girl's ears. She heard as
through a sound of plashing water. The talk of Leigh had carried her
mind back to the country, back to Millway and Eltham House, and to the
unexpected and unwelcome and disquieting apparition of the dwarf at
the door of the house when she arrived there.
Through this strange noise of splashing water she heard in a low
far-away voice the story of her fear and loneliness and desolation on
that Wednesday, separated from her old home and the familiar streets,
and the sustaining companionship of her old grandmother, who had been
all the world to her. She heard this story chanted, intoned in this
low, monotonous voice, and she had a dim feeling that all was changed,
and that she was now environed by securities through which she could
not be assailed by the attentions of that strange, ill-featured dwarf.
But her sight was very dim, and she could not see anything clearly or
recollect exactly where she was. Gradually her sight cleared a little,
and she was under trees heavy with leaves, alone on a lonely road by
night. The rain fell unseen through the mute warm air. A thick perfume
of roses made the air heavy with richness. She felt her breath come
short, as though she had walked fast or run. The air was too rich to
freshen life to cool the fevered blood.
Now she became dimly conscious of some sound other than the plashing
of water. It was not the voice, for the voice had ceased. The sound
was loud and distinct, and emphatic and tumultuous.
All at once she remembered what that sound was. She hastily put one
hand to her left side, and the other to her forehead and rose, swaying
softly to and fro.
"I--I----" she whispered, but could say no more.
Hanbury caught her, or she would have fallen. The two ladies got up.
"She is not well," said the old woman excitedly. "She has eaten
nothing for days!"
The girl reclined, cold and pale as marble, in the young man's arms.
Her eyes were half closed, her lips half open.
He half led her half lifted her to a couch. Restoratives such as stood
at hand were applied, but she did not quite recover. She was not
exactly unconscious. This was no ordinary faint.
The women were terrified. Mrs. Grace had never seen her in any such
state before. To her knowledge the girl had never fainted.
The ladies were terrified, and Hanbury ran off for a doctor. When he
came back, the girl had been got upstairs. She was still in the same
state, not quite conscious, and not quite insensible.
The doctor made a long examination, and heard all that was to be told.
When he came down to the dining-room, where Hanbury was excitedly
walking up and down, he said the case was serious, but not exactly
dangerous, that is, the patient's life was in no imminent peril. She
had simply been overwrought and weakened by want of food, and jarred
by suppressed and contending emotions. There was no organic disease,
but the heart had been functionally affected by the vicissitudes of
the past few days acting on an organism of exquisite sensibility.
Quiet was the best medicine, and after quiet, careful strengthening,
and then the drugs mentioned in this prescription. But above all,
quiet.
Could she be moved? Mrs. Grace asked.
By no means. Moving might not bring about a fatal termination, but it
would most assuredly enhance her danger, and most certainly retard her
recovery.
Would she recover?
There was no reason to fear she would not. All was sound, but much was
weak. Her anxiety of mind, and the excitement of going to that
uncongenial home, and the long walk the morning she left, and the lack
of food had weakened her much, but nothing had given way or was in
immediate peril of giving way, and with care and quiet all would be
well.
And when this was passed would she be quite well again?
Yes. In all possible likelihood under Heaven, quite well again.
It would leave no blemish in her life? No weak place? She would be as
well as ever?
Well, that was asking a doctor to say a great deal, but it was
probable, highly probable, she would be quite as well as if this had
never happened. The key to her recovery lay in the one word, Quiet.
After quiet came careful nurture and, a long way from the second of
these, drugs. But recollect, Quiet.
Hanbury took up the prescription and hastened off with it.
The poor girl so sensitive and fragile! It was a mercy this illness
came upon her here. How would it have fared with her down in that
lonely Eltham House to which she had taken such a dislike? Why, it
would have killed her.
What an exquisite creature she was, and so soft and gentle in her
ways. It was fortunate this illness had not overtaken her in Eltham
House, or in Grimsby Street, for that matter, because the street was
detestable, and to be ill in lodgings must be much worse than to be
ill in a public hospital, for in hospital there was every appliance
and attendance, and in lodgings only noise, and bustle, and grumbling.
It was dreadful to think of being sick in lodgings. And now Mrs. Grace
and her grand-daughter were poor.
How horrible it would be to think of this girl lying stricken in that
other house, and requiring first of all quiet, and then cherishing,
and being able to get neither! It was dreadful to picture such things.
And fancy, if these poor ladies had not enough money for a good doctor
and what the poor weak child wanted! Fancy if they could not pay their
rent and were obliged to leave. Oh! how fortunate it was he had come
across them so soon, and how strange to think that Leigh had been the
means of first bringing them together. He owed that good turn to
Leigh.
On his way back from the druggist he reverted to the past of Leigh:
"Yes, I owed the introduction to him. I freely forgive him now.
Indeed, I don't know what I have to forgive him of. He did not send or
write that paragraph to the papers. He did not even write it, as far
as I know, and although he was rough and rude, and levied a kind of
blackmail on me, the price he asked me was not disgraceful from his
point of view. If I had met him under happy circumstances, I might
have brought him to a Thursday at Curzon Street. He was interesting,
with his alchemy and clock and omniscience and insolence and
intellectual swagger. Of course, I did not at the time know he was in
treaty with a fence. According to his own account he never committed
himself in that quarter, and as he had no need to tell me of that
transaction at all, I daresay he kept pretty near the truth. How
strange that when he lost his clock, he must straightway get a
confidant! I wonder is there any truth in his own prophecy about his
health?
"He, too, was the means of breaking off the Curzon Street affair. I
must write there at once. I have behaved badly in not doing so before.
I'll write the moment I get home. Yes, I must write when I get back,
and then I'll put the affair out of my mind altogether, for good and
ever."
Upon getting to the house, he went to the library and read over Dora
Ashton's letter once more, slowly. He gathered no new impression from
this second reading. Her resolution to put an end to the engagement
seemed to him more strong than at first. That was the only change he
noticed in the effect of the letter upon him. It was as cool and
business-like and complete as could be. He was too much of a gentleman
to give expression in his mind to any fault-finding with the woman to
whom he had been engaged, and whom he had behaved so badly towards the
other evening, but it seemed quite certain to him now that Dora Ashton
was a girl of great cleverness and good sense and beauty--but no
heart.
He did not at all like the task before him, but it must be done. When
the letter was finished, it ran:
"My Dear Miss Ashton,
"I got your letter. It was very good of you to write to me in so kind
and unreproaching a spirit, and I thank you with all my heart for your
merciful forbearance. My conduct, my violence on Thursday evening,
must always be a sorrow and a mystery to me. I only indistinctly
recollect what I said, but I feel and know my words were perfectly
monstrous and cruelly unjust. I feel most bitterly that no apology of
mine can obliterate the impression my insanity must have made on you.
To say I am profoundly sorry is only to say that I am once more in my
right mind. I must in the most complete and abject manner beg your
pardon for my shameful violence on Thursday evening. I must not even
try to explain that violence away. I ask your pardon as an expression
of my own horror of my conduct and of my remorse. But I do not hope
for your forgiveness, I do not deserve it, I will not accept it. I
shall bear with me in expiation of my offence the consciousness of my
unpardonable conduct, and the knowledge that it remains unpardoned.
Even lenity could ask no more indulgent treatment of my monstrous
behaviour.
"As to terminating the engagement between us I have nothing to do but
accept your decision, and since you ask it as a favour, the only
favour you ever asked of me, I must receive your decision as
irrevocable. I will not make any unpleasantness here by even referring
to the difference of the ending I had in the hope of my mind. As you
very justly say, the least said now the better. I shall say not a word
to anyone about the immediate subject of this letter except to my
mother. On that you may rely. I must tell her. You, I suppose, will
inform Mrs. and Mr. Ashton (if they do not know of it); nobody else
need hear of the abandonment of our designs. Let us by all means meet
as you suggest, as though we never had been more than the best of
friends, and were (as I hope we shall be) the best of friends still. I
also quite agree with you about the notes, &c. Burn and destroy them.
I will most scrupulously burn your letters, of which I have a few.
This letter will I suppose be the last of the series.
"In a little time I trust we may meet again, but not just now for both
our sakes.
"Yours ever most sincerely,
"John Hanbury."
When he had finished the letter he closed it without reading it over.
"When one reads over a letter like this," he thought, "one grows nice
about phrases and tries to alter, and finally tears up. I am satisfied
that if I tried all day long I should do no better than this. I shall
post it myself when I go out. That letter is a great weight off my
mind, and now I am much less disinclined to break the matter to my
mother. When that is over I shall feel that I am free."
He found his mother alone in her own room. Mrs. Grace was with Edith
in a room which had been hastily prepared for her.
"She is just the same way," said Mrs. Hanbury. The young man had heard
from a servant downstairs that there was no change. "We are not to
expect much change for a while. She has quite recovered consciousness,
but is very weak, and the doctor says she is not to be allowed to stir
even a hand more than is necessary. There is no anxiety. With time and
care all will be well."
"I am glad I found you alone, mother. I think you must have seen that
I have been a good deal excited during the past few days."
"Yes, and very naturally too. That letter must have disturbed you a
good deal."
The son paused in his walk and stared at her. "How did you know about
that letter? Who told you? Have you seen Dora? But that is absurd. She
would not speak of it."
Mrs. Hanbury looked at him in amazement and alarm. "What do you mean,
John? You make me very uneasy. What has Dora Ashton to do with it?
Miss Grace may, but not Dora. Surely you do not suppose I did not read
your father's letter?"
"Oh!" he cried, "I did not mean my father's letter. I was referring to
another letter. Upon reflection I quite agree with you and my father
in attaching little or no importance to that discovery. I was thinking
of a letter I had from Dora."
"Yes," said Mrs. Hanbury with a sigh of relief. For a moment she
thought her son's head had been turned by the disclosure of his
pedigree. "What does she say?"
He was walking up and down rapidly now. "Well, the fact is, mother,
the thing is off."
"Off?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the thing is over between us, the engagement, you know. The
fact is we had a scene on Thursday evening. I lost command of myself
completely, and used very violent language----"
"To Dora!" cried the mother in bewilderment.
"Yes, to Dora. I don't know what came over me, but I was carried quite
beyond myself and said things no gentleman, no man, ought to say to
any girl----"
"John, I don't believe you--you are under some strange and miserable
hallucination. You said something to Dora Ashton that no man ought to
say to any girl! Impossible! Thank God, I know my son better than to
believe anything of the kind," said Mrs. Hanbury, beginning in a
manner of incredulity and ending in firm conviction.
"Unfortunately mother it is only too true. I need not repeat what
passed, but the dispute----"
"Dispute--dispute with Dora! Why she would not dispute with you! How
could she dispute with you? Dispute with you! It is nonsense. Why the
girl _loves_ you, John, the girl _loves_ you. It is lunacy to say it!"
"I may have used an unhappy word----"
"A completely meaningless word, I assure you."
"At all events, we differed in opinion, and I completely lost my
temper and told her in the end that in certain cases of importance she
might betray me."
"Oh, this is too bad! I will not sit and listen to this raving. You
never said such a childishly cruel thing to Dora Ashton? She is the
noblest girl I know. The noblest girl I ever met."
"I was mad, mother."
"Most wickedly mad."
"Well you do not know how sorry I am I allowed myself to be carried
away. But that cannot be helped now. I must abide the consequence of
my folly and madness. She has broken off the engagement, for we were
engaged, and I have written saying I cannot disapprove of her
decision. We have agreed that as no one has known anything of the
engagement no one is to hear of its being broken off. Are you angry
with me, mother?"
"Angry--no; but greatly disappointed. I was as happy in thinking of
Dora as your wife as if she were my own daughter, but I suppose I must
become reconciled. If you and she have agreed to part no one has any
right to say more than that it is a pity, and I think it is a pity,
and I am very sorry."
That was the end of the interview of which the young man had stood in
such dread, and now that it was over and he was going to post his last
letter to Dora he felt relieved. The news had doubtless greatly
surprised and shocked his mother, but this meeting had not been nearly
so distressing as he had anticipated.
When he came to the post pillar into which he had dropped most of the
letters he had written to Curzon Street, he felt an ugly twinge as
this one slid from his fingers and he turned away--free.