MISS EDEN'S life-history was a sad one. She told it to her employer
before she had been a week at the Beeches. Mrs. Despard came into the
school-room and surprised the governess in tears. No one could ever
resist Mrs. Despard--I suppose she has had more confidences than any
woman in Sussex. Anyhow, Miss Eden dried her tears and faltered out her
poor little story.
She had been engaged to be married--Mrs. Despard's was a face trained to
serve and not to betray its owner, so she did not look astonished,
though Miss Eden was so very homely, poor thing, that the idea of a
lover seemed almost ludicrous--she had been engaged to be married: and
her lover had been killed at Elendslaagte, and her father had died of
heart disease--an attack brought on by the shock of the news, and his
partner had gone off with all his money, and now she had to go out as a
governess: her mother and sister were living quietly on the mother's
little fortune. There was enough for two but not enough for three. So
Miss Eden had gone governessing.
"But you needn't pity me for that," she said, when Mrs. Despard said
something kind, "because, really, it's better for me. If I were at home
doing nothing I should just sit and think of _him_--for hours and hours
at a time. He was so brave and strong and good--he died cheering his men
on and waving his sword, and he did love me so. We were to have been
married in August."
She was weeping again, more violently than before; Mrs. Despard
comforted her--there is no one who comforts so well--and the governess
poured out her heart. When the dressing-bell rang Miss Eden pulled
herself together with a manifest effort.
"I've been awfully weak and foolish," she said, "and you've been most
kind. Please forgive me--and--and I think I'd rather not speak of it any
more--ever. It's been a relief, just this once--but I'm going to be
brave. Thank you, thank you for all your goodness to me. I shall never
forget it."
And now Miss Eden went about her duties with a courageous smile, and
Mrs. Despard could not but see and pity the sad heart beneath the
bravely assumed armour. Miss Eden was fairly well educated, and she
certainly was an excellent teacher. The children made good progress. She
worshipped Mrs. Despard--but then every one did that--and she made
herself pleasures of the little things she was able to do for
her--mending linen, arranging flowers, running errands, and nursing the
Baby. She adored the Baby. She used to walk by herself in the Sussex
lanes, for Mrs. Despard often set her free for two or three hours at a
time, and more than once the mother and children, turning some leafy
corner in their blackberrying or nutting expeditions, came upon Miss
Eden walking along with a far-away look in her eyes, and a face set in a
mask of steadfast endurance. She would sit sewing on the lawn with Mabel
and Gracie playing about her, answering their ceaseless chatter with a
patient smile. To Mrs. Despard she was a pathetic figure. Mr. Despard
loathed her, but then he never liked women unless they were pretty.
"I ought to be used to your queer pets by now," he said; "but really
this one is almost too much. Upon my soul, she's the ugliest woman I've
ever seen."
She certainty was not handsome. Her eyes were fairly good, but mouth and
nose were clumsy, and hers was one of those faces that seem to have no
definite outline. Her complexion was dull and unequal. Her hair was
straight and coarse, and somehow it always looked dusty. Her figure was
her only good point, and, as Mr. Despard observed, "If a figure without
a face is any good, why not have a dressmaker's dummy, and have done
with it?"
Mr. Despard was very glad when he heard that a little legacy had come
from an uncle, and that Miss Eden was going to give up governessing and
live with her people.
Miss Eden left in floods of tears, and she clung almost frantically to
Mrs. Despard.
"You have been so good to me," she said. "I may write to you, mayn't I?
and come and see you sometimes? You will let me, won't you?"
Tears choked her, and she was driven off in the station fly. And a new
governess, young, commonplacely pretty, and entirely heart-whole, came
to take her place, to the open relief of Mr. Despard, and the little
less pronounced satisfaction of the little girls.
"She'll write to you by every post now, I suppose," said Mr. Despard
when the conventional letter of thanks for kindness came to his wife.
But Miss Eden did not write again till Christmas. Then she wrote to ask
Mrs. Despard's advice. There was a gentleman, a retired tea-broker, in a
very good position. She liked him--did Mrs. Despard think it would be
fair to marry him when her heart was buried for ever in that grave at
Elendslaagte?
"But I don't want to be selfish, and poor Mr. Cave is so devoted. My
dear mother thinks he would never be the same again if I refused him."
Mr. Despard read the letter, and told his wife to tell the girl to take
the tea-broker, for goodness' sake, and be thankful. She'd never get
such another chance. His wife told him not to be coarse, and wrote a
gentle, motherly letter to Miss Eden.
On New Year's Day came a beautiful and very expensive
handkerchief-sachet for Mrs. Despard, and the news that Miss Eden was
engaged. "And already," she wrote, "I feel that I can really become
attached to Edward. He is goodness itself. Of course, it is not like the
other. That only comes once in a woman's life, but I believe I shall
really be happy in a quiet, humdrum way."
After that, news of Miss Eden came thick and fast. Edward was building a
house for her. Edward had bought her a pony-carriage. Edward had to call
his house No. 70, Queen's Road--a new Town Council resolution--and it
wasn't in a street at all, but quite in the country, only there was
going to be a road there some day. And she had so wanted to call it the
Beeches, after dear Mrs. Despard's house, where she had been so happy.
The wedding-day was fixed, and would Mrs. Despard come to the wedding?
Miss Eden knew it was a good deal to ask; but if she only would!
"It would add more than you can possibly guess to my happiness," she
said, "if you could come. There is plenty of room in my mother's little
house. It is small, but very convenient, and it has such a lovely old
garden, so unusual, you know, in the middle of a town; and if only dear
Mabel and Gracie might be among my little bridesmaids! The dresses are
to be half-transparent white silk over rose colour. Dear Edward's father
insists on ordering them himself from Liberty's. The other bridesmaids
will be Edward's little nieces--such sweet children. Mother is giving me
the loveliest trousseau. Of course, I shall make it up to her; but she
will do it, and I give way, just to please her. It's not pretentious,
you know, but everything so _good_. Real lace on all the under things,
and twelve of everything, and--"
The letter wandered on into a maze of _lingerie_ and millinery and silk
petticoats.
Mr. and Mrs. Despard were still debating the question of the bridesmaids
whose dresses were to come from Liberty's when a telegraph boy crossed
the lawn.
Mrs. Despard tore open the envelope.
"Oh--how frightfully sad!" she said. "I _am_ sorry! 'Edward's father
dangerously ill. Wedding postponed.'"
The next letter was black-edged, and was not signed "Eden." Edward's
father had insisted on the marriage taking place before he died--it had,
in fact, been performed by his bedside. It had been a sad time, but Mrs.
Edward was very happy now.
"My husband is so good to me, his thoughtful kindness is beyond
belief," she wrote. "He anticipates my every wish. I should be
indeed ungrateful if I did not love him dearly. Dear Mrs.
Despard, this gentle domestic love is very beautiful. I hope I
am not treacherous to my dead in being as happy as I am with
Edward. Ah! I hear the gate click--I must run and meet him. He
says it is not like coming home unless my face is the first he
sees when he comes in. Good-bye. A thousand thanks for ever for
all your goodness.
"Your grateful Ella Cave."
"Either their carriage drive is unusually long, or her face was _not_
the first," said Mr. Despard. "Why didn't she go and meet the man, and
not stop to write all that rot?"
"Don't, Bill," said his wife. "You were always so unjust to that girl."
"Girl!" said Mr. Despard.
And now the letters were full of detail: the late Miss Eden wrote a good
hand, and expressed herself with clearness. Her letters were a pleasure
to Mrs. Despard.
"Poor dear!" she said. "It really rejoices my heart to think of her
being so happy. She describes things very well. I almost feel as though
I knew every room in her house; it must be very pretty with all those
Liberty muslin blinds, and the Persian rugs, and the chair-backs
Edward's grandmother worked--and then the beautiful garden. I think I
must go to see it all. I do love to see people happy."
"You generally do see them happy," said her husband; "it's a way people
have when they're near you. Go and see her, by all means."
And Mrs. Despard would have gone, but a letter, bearing the same date as
her own, crossed it in the post; it must have been delayed, for it
reached her on the day when she expected an answer to her own letter,
offering a visit. But the late Miss Eden had evidently not received
this, for her letter was a mere wail of anguish.
"Edward is ill--typhoid. I am distracted. Write to me when you can. The
very thought of you comforts me."
"Poor thing," said Mrs. Despard, "I really did think she was going to be
happy."
Her sympathetic interest followed Edward through all the stages of
illness and convalescence, as chronicled by his wife's unwearying pen.
Then came the news of the need of a miniature trousseau, and the letters
breathed of head-flannels, robes, and the charm of tiny embroidered
caps. "They were Edward's when he was a baby--the daintiest embroidery
and thread lace. The christening cap is Honiton. They are a little
yellow with time, of course, but I am bleaching them on the sweet-brier
hedge. I can see the white patches on the green as I write. They look
like some strange sort of flowers, and they make me dream of the
beautiful future."
In due season Baby was born and christened; and then Miss Eden, that
was, wrote to ask if she might come to the Beeches, and bring the
darling little one.
Mrs. Despard was delighted. She loved babies. It was a beautiful
baby--beautifully dressed, and it rested contentedly in the arms of a
beautifully dressed lady, whose happy face Mrs. Despard could hardly
reconcile with her recollections of Miss Eden. The young mother's
happiness radiated from her, and glorified her lips and eyes. Even Mr.
Despard owned, when the pair had gone, that marriage and motherhood had
incredibly improved Miss Eden.
And now, the sudden departure of a brother for the other side of the
world took Mrs. Despard to Southampton, whence his boat sailed, and
where lived the happy wife and mother, who had been Miss Eden.
When the tears of parting were shed, and the last waving handkerchief
from the steamer's deck had dwindled to a sharp point of light, and from
a sharp point of light to an invisible point of parting and sorrow, Mrs.
Despard dried her pretty eyes, and thought of trains. There was no
convenient one for an hour or two.
"I'll go and see Ella Cave," said she, and went in a hired carriage.
"No. 70, Queen's Road," she said. "I think it's somewhere outside the
town."
"Not it," said the driver, and presently set her down in a horrid little
street, at a horrid little shop, where they sold tobacco and sweets and
newspapers and walking-sticks.
"This can't be it! There must be some other Queen's Road?" said Mrs.
Despard.
"No there ain't," said the man. "What name did yer want?"
"Cave," said Mrs. Despard absently; "Mrs. Edward Cave."
The man went into the shop. Presently he returned.
"She don't live here," he said; "she only calls here for letters."
Mrs. Despard assured herself of this in a brief interview with a frowsy
woman across a glass-topped show-box of silk-embroidered cigar-cases.
"The young person calls every day, mum," she said; "quite a respectable
young person, mum, I should say--if she was after your situation."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Despard mechanically, yet with her own
smile--the smile that still stamps her in the frowsy woman's memory as
"that pleasant-spoken lady."
She paused a moment on the dirty pavement, and then gave the cabman the
address of the mother and sister, the address of the little
house--small, but very convenient--and with a garden--such a lovely old
garden--and so unusual in the middle of a town.
The cab stopped at a large, sparkling, plate-glassy shop--a very
high-class fruiterer's and greengrocer's.
The name on the elaborately gilded facia was, beyond any doubt,
Eden--Frederick Eden.
Mrs. Despard got out and walked into the shop. To this hour the scent of
Tangerine oranges brings to her a strange, sick, helpless feeling of
disillusionment.
A stout well-oiled woman, in a very tight puce velveteen bodice with
bright buttons and a large yellow lace collar, fastened with a blue
enamel brooch, leaned forward interrogatively.
"Mrs. Cave?" said Mrs. Despard.
"Don't know the name, madam."
"Wasn't that the name of the gentleman Miss Eden married?"
"It seems to me you're making a mistake, madam. Excuse me, but might I
ask your name?"
"I'm Mrs. Despard. Miss Eden lived with me as governess."
"Oh, yes"--the puce velvet seemed to soften--"very pleased to see you,
I'm sure! Come inside, madam. Ellen's just run round to the
fishmonger's. I'm not enjoying very good health just now"--the glance
was intolerably confidential--"and I thought I could fancy a bit of
filleted plaice for my supper, or a nice whiting. Come inside, do!"
Mrs. Despard, stunned, could think of no course save that suggested. She
followed Mrs. Eden into the impossible parlour that bounded the shop on
the north.
"Do sit down," said Mrs. Eden hospitably, "and the girl shall get you a
cup of tea. It's full early, but a cup of tea's always welcome, early or
late, isn't it?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Despard, automatically. Then she roused herself
and added, "But please don't trouble, I can't stay more than a few
minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?"
"Oh, yes--she's all right. She lives in clover, as you might say, since
her uncle on the mother's side left her that hundred a year. Made it all
in fried fish, too. I should have thought it a risk myself, but you
never know."
Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation as of sawdust in the
throat--sawdust, and a great deal of it, and very dry.
"But I heard that Miss Eden was married--"
"Not she!" said Mrs. Eden, with the natural contempt of one who was.
"I understood that she had married a Mr. Cave."
"It's some other Eden, then. There isn't a Cave in the town, so far as I
know, except Mr. Augustus; he's a solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths,
a very good business, and of course he'd never look the same side of the
road as she was, nor she couldn't expect it."
"But really," Mrs. Despard persisted, "I do think there must be some
mistake. Because she came to see me--and--and she brought her baby."
Mrs. Eden laughed outright.
"Her baby? Oh, really! But she's never so much as had a young man after
her, let alone a husband. It's not what she could look for, either, for
she's no beauty--poor girl!"
Yet the Baby was evidence--of a sort. Mrs. Despard hated herself for
hinting that perhaps Mrs. Eden did not know everything.
"I don't know what you mean, madam." The puce bodice was visibly moved.
"That was _my_ baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen's a respectable
girl--she's been with me since she was a little trot of six--all except
the eleven months she was away with you--and then my Fred see her to the
door, and fetched her from your station. She _would_ go--though not
_our_ wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since then she's never
been over an hour away, except when she took my Gustavus over to see
you. She must have told you whose he was--but I suppose you weren't
paying attention. And I must say I don't think it's becoming in you, if
you'll excuse me saying so, to come here taking away a young girl's
character. At least, if she's not so young as she was, of course--we
none of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you'll pardon me saying
so."
"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Despard. She had never felt so
helpless--so silly. The absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky with
double curtains, had for her all the effect of a nightmare.
She felt that she was swimming blindly in a sea of disenchantment.
"Don't think me inquisitive," she said, "but Miss Eden was engaged,
wasn't she, some time ago, to someone who was killed in South Africa?"
"Never--in all her born days," said Mrs. Eden, with emphasis. "I suppose
it's her looks. I've had a good many offers myself, though I'm not what
you might call anything out of the way--but poor Ellen--never had so
much as a nibble."
Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against reason to the one spar of hope in
this sea of faiths dissolved. It might be--it must be--some mistake!
"You see, poor Ellen"--Mrs. Eden made as much haste to smash up the spar
as though she had seen it--"poor Ellen, when her mother and father died
she was but six. There was only her and my Fred, so naturally we took
her, and what little money the old lady left we spent on her, sending
her to a good school, and never counting the bit of clothes and
victuals. She was always for learning something, and above her station,
and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St. Michael, and All Angels--she made a
sort of pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit."
Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson had been Miss Eden's
reference.
"And then she _would_ come to you--though welcome to share along with
us, and you can see for yourself it's a good business--and when that
little bit was left her, of course, she'd no need to work, so she came
home here, and I must say she's always been as handy a girl and obliging
as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and
ink. I shouldn't wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of
writing she does. I don't know what she does with it all."
But Mrs. Despard knew.
Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly--till not even a straw was left for
her hearer to cling to.
"Thank you very much," she said. "I see it was all a mistake. I must
have been wrong about the address." She spoke hurriedly--for she had
heard in the shop a step that she knew.
For one moment a white face peered in at the glass door--then vanished;
it was Miss Eden's face--her face as it had been when she told of her
lost lover who died waving his sword at Elendslaagte! But the telling of
that tale had moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity as this. For
from that face now something was blotted out, and the lack of it was
piteous beyond thought.
"Thank you very much. I am so sorry to have troubled you," she said, and
somehow got out of the plush parlour, and through the shop,
fruit-filled, orange-scented.
At the station there was still time, and too much time. The bookstall
yielded pencil, paper, envelope, and stamp. She wrote--
"Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always your friend. Let me
know--can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But
don't think I'm angry--I am only so sorry for you, dear--so very, very
sorry. Do let me help you."
She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer's. Afterwards
she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good,
and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late
Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled
herself--for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs.
Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone
away--no one knew where she had gone.
Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself for not having rushed towards
the white face that peered through the glass door. She could have done
something--anything. So she thinks, but I am not sure.
* * * * *
"And it was none of it true, Bill," she said piteously, when, Mabel and
Gracie safely tucked up in bed, she told him all about it. "I don't know
how she could. No dead lover--no retired tea-broker--no pretty house,
and sweet-brier hedge with ... and no Baby."
"She was a lying lunatic," said Bill. "I never liked her. Hark! what's
that? All right, Love-a-duck--daddy's here!"
He went up the stairs three at a time to catch up his baby, who had a
way of wandering, with half-awake wailings, out of her crib in the small
hours.
"All right, Kiddie-winks, daddy's got you," he murmured, coming back
into the drawing-room with the little soft, warm, flannelly bundle
cuddled close to him.
"She's asleep again already," he said, settling her comfortably in his
arms. "Don't worry any more about that Eden girl, Molly--she's not worth
it."
His wife knelt beside him and buried her face against his waistcoat and
against the little flannel night-gown.
"Oh, Bill," she said, and her voice was thick with tears, "don't say
things like that. Don't you see? It was cruel, cruel! She was all
alone--no mother, no sister, no lover. She was made so that no one could
ever love her. And she wanted love so much--so frightfully much, so
that she just _had_ to pretend that she had it."
"And what about the Baby?" asked Mr. Despard, taking one arm from his
own baby to pass it round his wife's shoulders. "Don't be a darling
idiot, Molly. What about the Baby?"
"Oh--don't you see?" Mrs. Despard was sobbing now in good earnest. "She
wanted the Baby more than anything else. Oh--don't say horrid things
about her, Bill! We've got everything--and she'd got nothing at
all--don't say things--don't!"
Mr. Despard said nothing. He thumped his wife sympathetically on the
back. It was the baby who spoke.
"Want mammy," she said sleepily, and at the transfer remembered her
father, "and daddy too," she added politely.
Miss Eden was somewhere or other. Wherever she was she was alone.
And these three were together.
"I daresay you're right about that girl," said Mr. Despard. "Poor
wretch! By Jove, she was ugly!"