ONE FRIEND MOST FAITHFUL.
It was Christmas Eve, and Mrs. Mortomley in the little house at Clapton
sat "counting out her money."
This ought not to have been a long process, for her resources had sunk
very low. Three months had elapsed since her husband's estate went into
liquidation, and for those three months, first at Homewood and next at
Clapton they had been living on that sum which Rupert's foresight saved
from the general wreck, so that the sovereigns lying in Dolly's lap were
easily counted. Nevertheless, as though she fancied they might grow more
numerous by handling, she let them slip through her fingers one by one,
whilst her eyes were fastened, not on the glittering gold, but on the
firelight as it now flashed over the small room and again seemed to die
away altogether.
She was quite alone in the house. Susan had gone out marketing, and
Esther, who had long left Homewood, was visiting her relations in order
to benefit her health, which had suffered severely during the weeks
succeeding to that dinner-party when Mortomley's friends proved of so
much service to his wife. Rupert, staying with them, had dragged
Mortomley, an unwilling sight-seer up to London, to inspect the glories
of the shops. Lenore was still at Dassell, and thus it came to pass that
Dolly sat alone in the firelight, counting her money and thinking
prosaically over ways and means.
She had not gone out to meet her trouble half way, but it was impossible
for her to evade the fact that poverty was coming upon them like
an armed man; and that although her husband's health was much
improved--miraculously improved said the doctor--it would still be worse
than folly to tell him nothing save a a few sovereigns stood between
them and beggary.
Through all, he had clung to the belief that Dolly's remaining thousands
were safe, that she and the child could never know want, and Dolly had
lacked courage to open his eyes, and no one else thought it worth while
to do so.
As she sat letting the sovereigns fall through her fingers as though
they had been beads on a string, Dolly's mind was full of very grave
anxiety. She had not taken Rupert into her confidence; a feeling of
distrust had arisen in her heart against him, and she did not feel
inclined to parade her troubles before a man who, to put the case in its
mildest form, was not likely to prove of much assistance to her.
Dolly was at her wits' end--no long journey some of her old detractors
would have said--all her early life she and shortness of money had been
close acquaintances, but hitherto she and no money had not even shaken
hands. A certain income, if small, had always been her or hers within
the memory of Dolly; and now, just when she wanted it most, just when
even fifty pounds a year would have seemed an anchor upon which to rest,
she found herself in London almost without money, with a husband still
in a delicate state of health, and without friends.
Yes, indeed, though a score of people at least had written to say how
delighted they would be if she and dear Mr. Mortomley would come and pay
them a long visit, she felt friendless. To many a kind soul, who knew no
better way of sympathizing with their misfortunes than ignoring them,
she entertained feelings of the keenest animosity.
Of their conventional little they offered her the best they dared offer.
How should they understand that to the Mrs. Mortomley they had known gay
and prosperous, her husband's trouble should mean looking after
pennies--thinking wearily over sixpences.
In a vague way they understood Mortomley had lost a lot of money, and
they at once offered hospitality to his wife and himself; what more
could those people do who were totally ignorant of business, and who
only imagined it meant something "horrid in the City;" but Dolly was
smarting just then under the blows she had received from Messrs.
Swanland, Dean, Forde, Kleinwort, Werner, to say nothing of the other
creditors who, in the Homewood days, had represented to Mortomley's wife
that he ought to pay up like a man, and she failed to do justice to the
delicate if ignorant kindness which tried to make her comprehend change
of circumstances could produce no coldness with acquaintances who had
shared the festivities of Homewood in the prosperous days departed.
Dolly was at her wits' end, as I have said. So far she had honestly been
able to pay her way, but the supplies were running very short indeed,
and she could see no source from which they could be replenished.
"I might sell my watch," she thought; "I suppose some jeweller would buy
it, but that money would not last long. I wish I could teach music or
sing or play, or write a novel"--poor Dolly evidently had the distressed
heroine of a work of fiction in her mind--"but I am a useless little
fool; I cannot even do worsted work or embroidery. Archie ought not to
have married me; any other woman could think of something; could have
done what Lang suggested, for instance," and the head, which still bore
its great tower of plaits and frizettes, drooped sadly while she
mechanically shifted the remaining sovereigns one after another from
hand to hand.
As she sat thus she heard the garden-gate open and shut, but imagining
that it had been opened and shut by Susan, she did not alter her
position.
Next moment, however, a knock roused her completely, and standing up she
went to the door and opened it.
A lady stood on the top step of the flight; but in the darkness, with
her eyes blind almost with looking at the firelight and the future,
Dolly did not recognize Mrs. Werner.
"Dolly," said the visitor softly.
"Nora," answered Mrs. Mortomley, and then they held one the other in a
clinging embrace.
"Come in, dear," Dolly said, and after one look round the house, the
poor little house as it seemed to her, unknowing what a haven of refuge
it had proved, Mrs. Werner did so.
"I only returned on Friday," Mrs. Werner began, sitting on the sofa and
holding both Dolly's hands in hers, "and I could not get over to you on
Saturday or yesterday, and I was doubtful about to-day, and consequently
did not write, but I wanted to see you so much, your letters have been
so short and unsatisfactory. You must tell me everything. First, how is
your husband?"
"Better," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "Better, but not well. He has gone to
London with Rupert to see the Christmas show set out in the shop
windows," Dolly added with a curious smile.
"What is he doing?" asked her friend.
"What can he do? what will they let him do?" Dolly retorted. "He might
get a situation at a pound a week, perhaps, if he were strong and well.
Don't, Leonora, you hurt me."
"I beg your pardon, darling," said Mrs. Werner, releasing her grasp of
Dolly's hands, and kissing one after another of the fingers she had
unconsciously clasped so tight; "I did not mean to hurt you, but you
ought not to speak in that way, you should not say such things."
"I speak the truth," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "It is not likely you
should be able to realise our position. I could not have imagined that
any man living in England could, unless he were in prison, be so utterly
powerless to help himself as Archie is now. When I said he might earn a
pound a week if well and strong, I was in error. He could do nothing of
the kind. He is bound to obey Mr. Swanland's bidding. He is his servant.
While he was too ill to leave the house, Mr. Swanland graciously excused
his attendance at Salisbury House; but now that he is better he has to
go there for hours each day, whether it is wet or dry, hail, rain, or
sunshine."
"But he is paid for going, of course," suggested Mrs. Werner.
"He certainly has not been paid yet," retorted Dolly; "and, what is
more, Mr. Swanland is not bound to pay him a penny."
"Then I am sure I should not go were I in his place."
"He is obliged to go," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "There is no use mincing
the matter. Archie is as utterly a slave as if his creditors had bought
him body and soul. I do not know how he bears it; why he is able to bear
it; or rather I do. If he understood our actual position, he would go
mad."
"Have you not told him, then?" asked Mrs. Werner in amazement.
"No, I dare not tell him."
"You ought to do so--"
"I ought not, Leonora. Time enough to let him know we are utterly
beggared when he is strong to bear the shock. Some day, of course, he
must be told, but I shall defer the evil time as long as possible."
Mrs. Werner sighed. She looked round the small rooms and then at Dolly's
changed face before she spoke again.
"And so everything was sold at Homewood?" she remarked at last.
"Everything," was the reply. "In the house, that is to say. The works
are still carried on. Mr. Swanland wrote to Archie to say we could have
the furniture at a certain valuation, and I answered the letter. If it
is preserved among the archives of the house of Swanland, some future
young cygnet of that ilk will marvel who the D. Mortomley was that
penned such an epistle. Fancy when he knew how we were situated making
such an offer. Just as if he believed we had a secret purse."
"He might have imagined your friends would come forward to help at such
a crisis," said Mrs. Werner gently.
"I do not think Mr. Swanland's imagination ever took such an erratic
flight as that," answered Dolly bitterly.
"Did you see the old place before it was dismantled?" inquired Mrs.
Werner. "I suppose not."
"Yes. I had to go over to point out an inlaid desk Mrs. Dean had
forgotten in the excitement of her departure. Mr. Dean went to Mr.
Swanland and mentioned the omission. Mr. Swanland said that if Mrs.
Dean would call at Homewood and point out the article in question to his
man, it should be taken to Salisbury House, there to await Mr. Dean's
orders. Mr. Dean thought Mrs. Dean could not possibly go to Homewood in
the present unhappy state of affairs. He suggested that 'his wife,
etcetera, etcetera,' and Mr. Swanland said,
"'Quite so; yes, exactly.' Lang, who happened to be in the outer office,
heard all this and told me about it.
"Then Mr. Dean and Mr. Swanland both wrote, requesting me to go to
Homewood and point out the curiosity, and though very much inclined to
say 'No,' still I went."
"Poor dear Dolly!" ejaculated Mrs. Werner, for there was a break in her
friend's voice.
"I am glad I went," Mrs. Mortomley went on; "glad I saw the old home
with its death face on. Otherwise, I might in fancy have imagined
Homewood still alive, and it is dead. I should tell you that Meadows is
no longer Mr. Swanland's lord-lieutenant there. The evening we left
Homewood he went out with some of the men and got drunk, a process he
repeated so often that at the end of a fortnight he was laid up with
what he called inflammation of the lungs, and had to be carried off the
premises. Then Mr. Swanland sent down another man, and that man took his
wife into residence with him, together with five of the very ugliest
children I ever beheld. They all squinted horribly--they all followed me
about the place--they all looked at me--'so,'" and Dolly distorted the
axis of her eyes to such an extent that Mrs. Werner covered hers up and
said,
"Don't, Dolly; pray, pray, don't. Think if your eyes should remain as
they are."
"Then they would resemble the eyes of those nice children," answered
Dolly, who, in the genial atmosphere of Mrs. Werner's presence, seemed
to be recovering her temper and her spirits. "Do let me tell you all
about it, Lenny. The mother wondered I had not taken away my beautiful
wool-work, evidently imagining I wrought those wonders of sofa-pillows
and anti-macassars, which so much impressed her, with my own hand."
"'The last lady with whom I was,' she said, 'lamented nothing so much as
her chairs; they were all done up with wool-work.'
"'Wasn't theirs forty thousand?' asked the biggest of the children, with
one eye fixed on his mother's face, and the other roaming over the
garden.
"'Yes, dear, it were a big thing,' she said hurriedly, evidently
thinking I might feel hurt to know the 'lady' had been so much greater a
personage than myself. 'She was in the public line you see, ma'am,' she
went on, 'and the house was just beautiful. She cried about them chairs,
she did. She said if she had known how things was a-going to be, she
would have got them away anyhow.' And then the wretch went on to say how
cheerful that public-house was in comparison with Homewood, and how she
did hope they would get back to London before long, and how Mr. Swanland
hated dogs; and how our men and their friends had got leave to take one
and another, except poor old Lion, who was desired by nobody,--you
remember Lion, Nora; and how she wished to gracious some one would soon
take him, for 'the creature was half-starved and so savage no one dare
go a-nigh him.'
"Then I asked how about the fowls and the pigeons and the cat; and the
children in chorus told how the fowls were all stolen and the pigeons
gone, and the cat so wild she would not come to anybody; and I wanted to
get away and cry by myself, Nora, but they would not leave me--no, not
for a moment.
"I had caught the braid of my dress on a bramble, and asked the woman to
lend me a needle and cotton to run it on again, and when she was looking
up those items and a thimble, I saw she had annexed my drawing box to
her own use. 'It was a handy box,' she said. Do not imagine I cared for
it, Lenny," added Dolly. "Unlike the lady in the public line, I had
passed beyond that state in life when one cries for lost wool-work and
desecrated girlish treasures."
"Do not go on--do not, Dolly," entreated Mrs. Werner.
"I will," answered Dolly pitilessly. "I have found my tongue and I must
speak. I went out and called the cat--called and called, and at last
from half a mile distant, as it seemed, the creature answered. I called
and she still kept answering till she came in sight, and then, when she
beheld those horrid children, she stopped--her tail straight on end, and
her ears pricked up.
"'Stay where you are,' I said to the little wretches, and I went and
caught and stroked her, and she rubbed her face against mine, and I felt
her poor ribs, and the bones were coming through her skin--oh! Lenny,
Lenny, I realized it all then--understood what our ruin meant to us and
to the dumb brutes who had trusted to us for kindness."
Mrs. Mortomley laid her head on Mrs. Werner's lap, and sobbed as if her
heart would break.
"Lion was wild with hunger," she went on after a pause. "When I
unfastened his collar the children fled indoors, frightened lest he
should eat them, and, God forgive me, I should not have cared if he
had; and the horses--I could not unloose their halters and bring those
poor brutes with me. I can talk about it no more.
"That day killed me. I do not mean that I am going to die, or any
nonsense of that sort, but I am not the same Dolly I was--not the Dolly
you knew once--and loved."
Mrs. Werner did not answer. She turned up Mrs. Mortomley's face and
looked at it through blinding tears--no, not the Dolly of the olden
time, not the Dolly she had loved so much, but another Dolly who was
dearer to her an hundredfold than any woman she had ever previously
known or ever might know again--a woman with a soft heart and a great
courage, the bravest, tenderest, truest woman, woman ever loved.
Like a far-off echo was the love she had once felt for Mortomley
himself. Like the sound of an air solemn and sweet was the love she felt
for the friend of her youth, Mortomley's wife.
Two fine natures they possessed, those friends; but the finer, the
truer, the loftier nature of the two was, spite of all her shortcomings,
possessed by the woman who chanced to be in such sore distress, and Mrs.
Werner, with her strong intellect, grasped this fact.
"What were the men about," asked Mrs. Werner after a pause, "that they
did not see after the animals you left behind?"
"My dear," said Dolly, "have you ever been in a house when the mother
just dead has left no one behind to look after the children? I think
every one must once in a lifetime have seen how the irresponsible,
unruly brats comport themselves. Homewood is in that strait. The men are
all at daggers drawn, each wants to be master, each wants to be a
gentleman of leisure. There are five foremen and three managers seeing
to the work now. Lang has left, or rather Lang has been dismissed."
"Why?" inquired Mrs. Werner.
"It is an old story now, as stories are with us--three weeks old at all
events. Some great firm who had never done business with Archie before,
sent to the Thames Street warehouse for a specimen of that wonderful
blue which he brought out eighteen months ago, and of course the letter
went on to Salisbury House.
"They knew nothing of the bankruptcy, and ordered, oh! some enormous
quantity of it to be despatched to America.
"Well, Mr. Swanland sent this order to Homewood, and Lang went up to his
office, and said plainly the blue could not be made unless Mr. Mortomley
superintended the manufacture. Hankins went up and said it could. Lang
came to Archie, and Archie wrote to Mr. Swanland offering to see that
the order was properly executed.
"Mr. Swanland wrote in reply that he would not trouble Archie personally
to superintend the manufacture, but if he would kindly send him a
memorandum of the process it might be useful.
"Archie declined to do this. He said he was quite willing to produce the
colour, but he could not give the formula.
"Mr. Swanland then appealed to Hankins, who said he knew all about the
manufacture. Lang said no one knew how to manipulate the materials but
Archie, and that Hankins had as much acquaintance with the process
needful to ensure success as a donkey with Arithmetic.
"Mr. Swanland seemed to think there was something personal in Lang's
utterances, and told him his services could be dispensed with after the
following Saturday. Lang claimed a month's notice or four weeks' wages.
Mr. Swanland declined to give either. Lang threatened to summon him, at
which idea Mr. Swanland laughed. Lang then went to a lawyer, who said he
could not summon a trustee. Lang said he would do it for the annoyance
of the thing, and so threw away half a sovereign which he now repents,
because the case cannot come on. He has got another situation, a very
good berth as he styles it. He is to have a (for him) large amount of
money to go abroad as consulting manager to some great works in course
of formation in Germany. One of the partners is an Englishman, and knew
Lang at a time when he was in business on his own account. It will be a
good thing for him," and Dolly sighed heavily.
Good things came to other people, but not to Mortomley or his wife.
"What a simpleton that Mr. Swanland must be!" remarked Mrs. Werner.
"For not accepting Archie's offer, I suppose you mean," suggested Mrs.
Mortomley. "I do not think so. What does he care about the trade, or the
colours, or anything, so long as he can find work for his clerks, and
knock up a fresh peg in his office on which to hang up the whole of the
estate? Lang says--"
"Dolly dear, I do not care to hear what Lang says," interrupted Mrs.
Werner. "I do not imagine that the utterances of an _employee_ concerning
his employer can be very profitable under any circumstances."
"Perhaps not," agreed Mrs. Mortomley; but she sighed again.
"Did you ever get your trunks away from Homewood," inquired Mrs. Werner,
in order to change the subject.
"Yes," was the short reply.
"Did Mr. Swanland send them to you, or had you to apply for them again,
or--"
"Mr. Swanland did not send them to me," said Dolly, as her friend
paused. "I applied for them, and he first agreed I should have the
boxes, and then thought it was a useless form having them removed from
Homewood. So I said nothing more on the subject, and neither did he; but
they are here."
"How did they come?" asked Mrs. Werner.
"That I cannot tell you. One Sunday evening, when I returned from
church, they were piled up in the kitchen. I promised never to say how
they were got away or who brought them; and, indeed, though half tempted
to send them back again, I was thankful to have a few decent clothes to
wear again once more."
Mrs. Werner looked down at her friend, and smiled as her glance wandered
over the pale grey silk dress and black velvet upper skirt and bodice in
which Dolly had thought fit to bemoan her lot.
Would Dolly ever be Dolly, she wondered, without her masses of hair--her
pretty dresses--her small effects of jewellery--her little graceful
knickknacks--and purely feminine deceptions.
No; they were an integral part of my heroine's imperfect character.
Honestly, and to be utterly outspoken, it was a comfort to Dolly, in the
midst of her misery, to be able to array herself in purple and fine
linen. Poor little soul! wretched though she might be and was, she did
not feel herself so completely forsaken by God and man when attired in
silk velvet and stiff silk as she might if only in a position to appear
in a linsey gown. Vanity shall we say? As you please, my readers. The
matter is really of little importance; only allow me to remark, there is
a vanity near akin to self-respect--a desire to turn the best side of
one's life's shield out for the world to see, which often invests
poverty itself with a certain grace of reticence and dignity of non
complaint, that we look for in vain amongst those who allow the
unmended rags and tatters of their lost prosperity to flaunt in the
breeze and stimulate the compassion of every passer-by.
"That reminds me, Dolly," said Mrs. Werner, after a slight pause. "I
meant to buy you a Christmas present."
"I am very glad you did not carry out your intention then," retorted
Mrs. Mortomley; "for I should not have taken the present."
Mrs. Werner laughed.
"I do not mean to buy it for you, Dolly," she remarked; "but I shall
give it to you nevertheless."
"I will not have it," her friend repeated. "I will take nothing from you
now, save love and kisses."
"Why, my dear?" asked Mrs. Werner. "In the old days Dolly Gerace would
have accepted anything Leonora Trebasson offered her as freely as
Leonora Trebasson would have taken Dolly's gift, small or large. What
has come between us? What have I done, Dolly, that you should now shut
the doors of your heart against me?"
"I have not shut the doors of my heart against you, Lenny, and you are
wicked to say anything of the kind," was the reply. "But it is no longer
you and me--it is no longer you and me, and your mother and my aunt,
but--"
"Finish your sentence, dear," said Mrs. Werner, as Dolly paused,
unwilling, in the presence of a man's wife, to terminate her utterance
with an ungracious reference to the absent husband.
"There is no necessity," answered Mrs. Mortomley; "you know what I mean
as well as I do myself."
"Let me see if you are right," was the reply, spoken almost caressingly.
"You would take anything from me, but you will have nothing from my
husband--belonging to or coming from him--directly or indirectly; is not
that your standpoint, Dolly?"
"Yes," Dolly answered. "I hate to seem ungracious, but I could receive
nothing from your hands, knowing you were but the filter through
which--"
"Mrs. Mortomley, you are eminently unhappy in your suggestions," said
her friend. "We need not pursue your curious metaphor to its inevitable
end. It is simply because I am Henry Werner's wife, and because, having
no fortune of my own, my money comes from him that you refuse my little
present."
"For once, Leonora, you have performed the marriage service over my
words and yours, and made the twain one," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "To
put the case plainly, I could take anything--a dry crust or a hundred
thousand pounds from you, but I could not take a sovereign or a
sovereign's worth from your husband."
"You mistake my husband, dear. But let that pass; or, rather, I cannot
let it pass; for I must tell you, if Henry thought you wanted his help,
he would be the first to ask me to offer it. Never shake your head,
Dolly."
"I won't, Nora, if it vexes you."
"And say to me solemnly, love, that you only object to me because I am
Henry Werner's wife; that you only refuse my present because bought with
my husband's money."
"That is true, Lenny. I could refuse nothing that came from you
yourself."
"Then, darling, you won't refuse this;" and Mrs. Werner placed in
Dolly's hands a tiny little purse and pocket-book bound together in
ivory. "Charley, my cousin--you remember Charley--sent me the contents
of that purse to buy some little trinket for myself as a memory of the
old days at Dassell. He has married an heiress, Dolly; and those waste
lands in the north, my uncle was always lamenting over, have turned out
to be a sort of El Dorado. Charley's dear kind letter reached me
yesterday, and I straightway wrote back to him, saying,
"Besides yourself I never had but one friend in all my life. I wanted to
make a present to her, and you have supplied the means. Believe me, in
granting me the power to do this you have given me ropes of pearls--to
quote Lothair--and miles on miles of diamonds; so there it is,
dear--poor Charley's Christmas gift to me, of which my husband knows
nothing."
And she rose, and fastening her fur cloak would have departed, but that
Dolly, clutching her arm, said,
"Don't go, Leonora, for an instant. Let me exorcise my demon with the
help of your presence."
"Pride, dear," suggested the other.
"I do not know--I cannot tell. He rends me to pieces, and I hate myself
and him. I want your present badly, Lenny, and yet--and yet I long to
compel you to take back your gift."
"Darling," answered Mrs. Werner, "though you are a mother, you never
knew what it was to have a mother to love you. Fancy, for a moment I am
your mother, saying, 'Dolly, keep it.' Could not that reconcile you,
love. And some day it may be I or one belonging to me shall in bitter
strait need your help; you would not then like to remember you had
refused in your trouble to be assisted by one of us. You would not wish
now to place a barrier between yourself and any one belonging to me who
might hereafter ask your aid."
"No," Dolly answered slowly. "I should not. It may be--impossible as it
now seems--that one of your children, or even you yourself, Leonora,
might hereafter stand in need of such comfort as I could give; and just
as surely as I take your present to-night, I will return your goodness
then. In the words of The Book, 'May God do so to me and more if ever
for ever I forget you and yours.'"
"Thank you, Dolly, it is a good vow for Christmas Eve. Good-bye dear, do
not come out with me."
For reply, Dolly folding a shawl around her walked along the Grove and
to the cross road where Mr. Werner's carriage was waiting.
"You ought not to be out in this damp night air," said Mrs. Werner.
But Dolly only shook her head. The footman banged the door, the coachman
touched his horses, Mrs. Werner put down the window and waved her hand,
and Dolly returned to the small house all alone. There, expecting
perhaps to find a ten-pound note in the silken folds of the new purse,
she opened Mrs. Werner's present; but, behold! it was no bank-note
which her fingers discovered, but a slip of paper on which was written,
"Pay to Mrs. Werner or order one hundred pounds," and on the back a
signature, that of "Leonora Werner."