THE POOR BOY.
Walter had plunged into London as a diver plunges into the sea. He was
in search of but one thing: to find her again who had eluded him, who
had drawn him after her by the strongest chains that can draw the
imagination at his age, by all the tantalizing of vague promises,
avoiding fulfillment, of vague engagements which came to nothing, and
last of all by this sudden flight, a provocation more audacious than any
that went before. Could he ever have expected that she would go with
him, to wait all the preliminaries which (as she knew so much better
than he did) must precede any possible marriage? When he came to think
of it by the light of the morning, which alters the aspect of so many
things, he saw quite plainly that this was not a thing he could have
expected of her. She was very daring, he thought, and frank, and secure
in her own innocence, but this was not a thing which she could be
expected to do. He had been foolishly miserable, disappointed to the
bottom of his soul, when he heard that she had gone away. The night he
had spent trying to sleep, trying to get through the black hours that
made any enterprise impossible, had been terrible to him; but with the
morning there had come a better cheer. Of course, he said to himself!
How could he be so imbecile, so silly, as to think differently. Of
course she would not go with him under such circumstances; and it was
delicacy on her part that prevented her from saying so. There are times
when it is a failure of modesty even to suggest that modesty requires
certain precautions. Therefore she had not said it. Impossible for her
pure lips, for her pure mind, to put into words the idea that he and
she, like any noble knight and maiden, might not have gone together
blameless to the end of the world. But she had felt that in the present
artificial state of the world it was better not to do this, and she had
acted without saying anything, confident that he would understand. There
is no limit to the ingenuity of a lover in framing excuses for the
actions of the person beloved. Instead of being blamable, was not this
another proof of her perfection, of the sensitive delicacy of all her
thoughts, she who was so little bound by conventional laws? The mixture
of freedom and of reserve, Walter said to himself, was what he had above
all admired and adored in her. It was his own stupidity, not any fault
of hers, that had given him so wretched a night, such a sense of
desertion and abandonment. He remembered now that he had caught the
address of the box which stood half packed in the room where she had
talked to him, in Crockford’s cottage.
He comprehended everything now. She had taken him there that he should
see it, that he should be able to follow her, without the need of saying
a word. Oh, how well he understood it all! Had they gone together every
circumstance would have been embarrassing; the mere payments to be made,
the railway tickets, the cabs, everything would have been awkward. How
well (he thought to himself) her fine sense had divined this, perceived
it when he saw nothing! That was no doubt the woman’s part, to divine
what could and could not be done--to settle it all swiftly, silently,
without any need of talk, which would have been more embarrassing still.
These thoughts carried him as on fairy wings to the railway station on
the dark and cold morning of his flight from home. He had Rochford’s
fifty pounds in his pocket, which seemed to his inexperience a fortune,
a sum he would never get through, and which was his own, not taken from
his father, or lessening the means at home, but his, to do what he liked
with. With that in his pocket, and the delightful confidence that Emmy
had not abandoned him--that, on the contrary, she had done what was
ideally right, the very thing that if he had understood, if he had not
been dull beyond example, he would have liked her to do--Walter rushed
from his father’s house with not too much thought of the wretchedness he
was leaving behind. He would not think of that, nor did he feel himself
at all constrained to do so. Why should they be miserable? He was old
enough to know how to take care of himself. A man did get helpless,
almost effeminate, living so much at home; but, after all, he could not
be made a fuss over as if he were a lost child. They would understand at
least that he could take care of himself. And then he reflected, with a
smile about the corners of his mouth, they would soon know why it was.
If at the bottom of his heart there might be a thrill of alarm as to how
they would take it, yet on the surface he felt sure that Emmy’s beauty
and charm would overcome all objections; and then it was not as if he
were a boy dependent on his father’s bounty. That ten thousand pounds
made all the difference! He had thought at first that it was a mean
thing to suppose that it made any difference or disturbed any of the
bonds of duty: but now his mind was changed, and he perceived that a man
has his own career to think of, that nature forbids him to be always in
a state of subordination to his father--nature, and the consciousness
that he has enough of his own to live upon without troubling his father.
Yes, it made a difference, not only on the surface, but fundamentally, a
difference which was real; and then the present matter was not one of a
day. It concerned, he said to himself with tremendous gravity, the
happiness of his life. How could a little anxiety on the part of his
parents, a little quite groundless anxiety, be compared to that? Even to
be brutal, he said to himself, as he must live longer than they could,
his happiness was of the most importance, even if it should affect
permanently their peace of mind; and it was only for a time, a few
weeks, a few days. What comparison was there? Even father himself, who
was a just man, would see and acknowledge this. And as for his
mother--oh, mother would forgive! That was easily settled. She might be
unhappy for a moment, but she would rather be unhappy than condemn him
to life-long misery. That he was very sure of; if the choice were given
she would accept that which was best for him. Thus Walter completely
vindicated to himself what he was doing; and before he got to the
railway, which was a long way off, and gave time for all these
elaborations of thought, he was convinced that what he was doing was
what, on the whole, if they knew all the circumstances, they would like
him to do.
An ordeal which he had not calculated upon met him when he reached
London. The address which he had seen on Emmy’s box was in an
out-of-the-way and poor place, though Walter, knowing nothing of town,
did not know how much out of the way it was. He left his bag at a hotel,
and then he went on in a hansom through miles and miles of squalid
streets, until at length he reached the goal of his hopes. The goal of
his hopes! Was it so? As he stood at the poor little narrow door the
ideas with which he had contemplated Crockford’s cottage came into his
mind. He had persuaded himself into thinking that Crockford’s cottage
was in its way as venerable as Penton; but this No. 37 Albert Terrace,
what was there to be said for it? He could not restrain a little
shudder, nor could he, when he was shown into the little parlor on the
ground-floor, look round him without a gasp of dismay. The only
consolation he could get out of it was that he could take Emmy away,
that this was indeed his object here, to take her away, to separate her
from everything that was squalid and miserable, to surround her with the
graces and luxuries of a very different kind of life. But even the
aspect of the house, and of the little parlor, which was full of dirty
finery and hung round with photographs and colored pictures of a woman
in various theatrical dresses, with whom he never associated the object
of his affections, was nothing to the shock which Walter sustained when
the door opened and the original of these portraits presented herself, a
large faded woman, very carelessly dressed, and with the smile which
was beaming around him from all the walls, the stereotyped smile of the
stage, upon her face. To realize, as he did by and by, that this was
_her mother_, to feel that she had a right to ask him questions, and
consider him with a judicial air, as one who had in her greasy hands,
which were so disagreeably soft, and felt as if they were pomaded, the
thread of his life, gave poor young Wat such a shock as took the words
from his lips. He stared at her without knowing what to say to her in a
dismay which could find no expression. No, Emmy was not there. Her
occupation required that she should live in another part of London. No,
she did not know that she could give him her daughter’s address--but if
he returned in the evening he might perhaps see her.
“You are Mr. Penton? Oh, yes, she has spoken of you. She feared that
perhaps you would take this step. But, Mr. Penton, my daughter is a girl
of the highest principle. She can see you only under her mother’s roof.”
“I wish nothing else!” cried poor Wat. “I--I am ready to do whatever she
pleases. She knows I am ready--she knows--”
“Yes,” said the mother, nodding her terrible head, upon which was banded
and braided and plaited more hair than ever grew, and smiling her
terrible smile, and putting forth that odious hand to give a little
confidential pressure to his. “I also know a great deal, Mr. Penton. I
have heard about you--your chivalry and your magnificent position, and
your many, many qualities. But, as you know, a mother’s duty is to guard
her child. I know the snares of life better than she; I have trodden the
thorny way before her, young gentleman. I have myself experienced much
which--I would save her from,” added the woman, with the imposing
gesture of a _mère noble_, turning away her head and extending her hand
as if to hold the gay deceiver at a distance.
He was the wolf at the gate of the sheepfold, it appeared. Alas, poor
Wat! he did not recognize himself from that point of view. Was not he
more like the poor strayed lamb, straying in ignorantly into the midst
of the slayers? He was glad to get away, to bring this alarming,
unexpected interview to an end: all the more that it had begun to be
apparent to him, in a way that made his heart sick, that in the face of
this woman, with all its traces of paint and powder, and in the little
gestures and tricks of tone and movement, there were resemblances,
frightful resemblances, suggestive of his Emmy; that it was possible she
might some day--oh, horrible thought!--be like her mother. But no, he
cried to himself! the marks which her profession had left--the lines
under her eyes, the yellow stains of the rouge, the unwholesome softness
of her pomaded hands--from all those he had come to deliver Emmy; these
artificial evils never need to be hers. She should smile upon people who
loved her, not upon the horrible public staring at her and her beauty.
As he turned away from the place he even said to himself that this poor
woman was not to blame for all those blemishes of self-decoration. It
had been her trade; she had been compelled to do it. Who had any right
to blame her? These might be as honorable scars as those which a soldier
gets in battle. Perhaps she had to do it to get bread for herself and
her child--to bring up Emmy and make her what he knew her. If that
should be so, were not the traces of what she had gone through, of what
she had had to bear, to be respected, venerated even, like any other
marks of painful toil? He made these representations hotly to himself,
but he did not find that any ingenuity of thought delivered him from
that honor and repulsion. To see the rouge and the powder on the face of
a young woman still playing her part was one thing; to mark the traces
of them on the vulgarized and faded countenance of one whose day was
over was quite another. It was unjust, but it was natural. And this was
Emmy’s mother, and Emmy was like her. Oh, that such a thing should be!
After this came the strangest episode that could occur in a young man’s
life. He was afloat on London, on that sea of pleasure and misery, amid
all the perils and temptations that made the hearts of those who loved
him sink within them. Even little Mab, with her little stock of worldly
knowledge, who thought he would return home when he “tired,” or when his
money was done, could form no other idea of the prodigal than that he
was living in pleasure. He was amusing himself, Rochford thought, not
without a half sympathy in the break-out of the home boy. As for his
father and mother, unutterable terrors were in their minds, fears of
they knew not what--of vice and depravity, evil associates, evil
habits, the things that kill both body and soul. But Walter’s present
life was a life more tedious than all the monotony of home. It had its
bright moments, when he was with Emmy, who sometimes permitted him to
take her to the play, sometimes to walk with her through the
bright-lighted streets, sometimes even on Saturday afternoons or Sunday
to take her to the country. It was only on these days that he saw her in
daylight at all. She said, laughingly, that her occupation forbade it at
other times, but she would not tell him what that occupation was. When
they went to Richmond or Greenwich, or to a little box in one or other
of the theaters, where they could sit half hidden by the curtains, and
carry on their own little drama, which was more interesting than
anything on the stage, Walter was in a strange elysium, in which the
atmosphere was charged with painful elements, yet was more sweet than
anything else in life. He made a hundred discoveries in her, sometimes
sweet, sometimes--different. It made no alteration in his sentiment when
they happened to be discoveries that wounded--sometimes even that
shocked him. He was hurt, his sensitive nature felt the shock as if it
had been a wound; but it did not affect his love. That love even changed
a little--it became protecting, forgiving, sometimes remonstrating; he
longed that she should be his, that he might put all that right, mold
her to a more exquisite model, smooth away the points that jarred.
Already he had begun to hint this and that to her, to persuade her to
one little alteration and another. To speak more softly--she had spoken
softly enough at Crockford’s, it was only the spirit of the street that
had got into her blood--to move more gently, to know that some of the
things she said were dreadful things--things that should not come from
such lips. He had not perceived any of these things while she was at
Crockford’s; he perceived them now, but they did not affect his love,
they only penetrated that golden web with threads of shadow, with lines
of pain, and smote his heart with keen arrows of anguish and
regret--regret not that he had given his life and love to her, but only
that she was less perfect than he had thought--that, instead of looking
up to her always, and shaping his harsher being (as he had thought) upon
her sweetness, it must be his first to shape and pare these excrescences
away.
But, besides these glimpses of a paradise which had many features of
purgatory, Walter had nothing at all to counterbalance the havoc he was
making in his existence. He did not know what to do with himself in
London. He rose late, having no occupation for the morning; he wandered
about the streets; he eat the late breakfast and dinner, which were now
all the meals he had time for, spinning out these repasts as long as
possible. It was a wonder that he never met his father, who was straying
about the streets in search of him; but Walter’s streets were not those
which his father frequented. He acquired, or rather both acquired, a
great knowledge of town in these perambulations, but not of the same
kind. And then he would go to his occupation, the only tangible thing in
his life, the meeting with Emmy. She was sadly shifty and uncertain even
in these scraps of her time, which were all she would or could give him.
She was not sure that she wanted to marry him at all. She was quite sure
that she would only be married by special license at four in the
afternoon, which was all the fashion now. But no; he was not to take
that oath and make himself unhappy about her. He should not be obliged
to swear. She would be married by bans--that was the fashion too. She
knew all about what had to be done--everything that was necessary--but
she would not tell him. She laughed and eluded him as before. Then she
said, Why should they marry? they were very well as they were. “You are
very good to me at present,” she said; “you think I must have a box
whenever we go to the theater, and a bouquet, and everything that is
nice; but after we are married, you will not be so kind.”
When Walter protested that neither marriage nor anything else could
diminish his devotion, she shook her head, and said that they would not
be able to afford it.
“You can’t have so much as five hundred a year,” she said; “most likely
not more than four--and what would that be in London?”
“But we need not live in London,” he said; “my father would give us the
Hook.”
Emmy threw up her arms with a scream.
“Should you like to murder me?” she cried.
It hurt the poor boy that she should have this opinion of his home--the
home in which he had been born; and he listened with deep depression to
the satirical description of it she began to make.
“We ought to be ducks to live in the damp like that. I’ve never been
used to dabble in the water, and it would be my death--I know it would
be my death. But we might let it, you know, and that would give us a
little more money, say two hundred a year more--do you think it would
bring two hundred a year?”
“Don’t talk of such things!” cried the young man; “it is not for you to
be troubled about that.”
“And for whom is it, then?” she cried, “for you know no more than a
baby; and I believe you think we are to live like the birds on worms and
seeds, and anything else that turns up.”
Walter had never left her with so heavy a heart as on this evening. He
was entirely cast down by her hesitations, her doubts, the contempt with
which she spoke of the fortune which he had thought magnificent in his
ignorance, and the home which he loved. He went back to his hotel with a
heavy heart. He had given up everything for her--all the other objects
that made life of importance. He had put himself altogether at her
disposal, and lived but for the moments of their meeting. What was he to
do if she despised him--if she cast him off? A faint sense of the
pitiful part he had to play began vaguely to awaken in his mind, not
moving him to the length of rebellion, nor even to the exercise of his
critical faculties, only to misery and a chill suspicion that, instead
of sharing the fervor of his feelings, she was weighing him in terrible
scales of judgment, estimating what he was worth--a process which made
Walter’s heart sink. For what was he worth?--unless it might happen to
be love--in repayment of that which he gave.
And next evening when he went to the house, which he always approached
with a shiver, afraid of meeting the mother, relieved when he found his
love alone, he suddenly found himself in the presence he dreaded with a
shock of alarm and surprise: for Emmy, whose perceptions were keen
enough on this point, generally contrived to spare him the meeting which
she divined he feared. Mrs. Sam Crockford met him with her sunniest
smile. She caressed his hand with those large, soft, flaccid fingers
from which he shrunk. “She is not in, but I have a message for you, my
dear young sir,” she said.
“Not in!” cried Walter, his heart sinking into his boots.
“She is engaged elsewhere. May I tell you the truth, Mr. Penton? She has
confidence in her mother. I am her only protector, for her step-father,
though an honest fellow, does not count, being in another walk of life.
I am her only protector, young gentleman.”
“But surely, surely she doesn’t want protection--from me?”
“Pardon me, my dear Mr. Penton, that is exactly where she wants
protection--from you, that is, from her own heart, from her own
treacherous, foolish heart. What have you to offer her, that is the
question? She has had very good offers. There is one at present, hung
up, so to speak, because she does not know her own mind.”
“Let me speak to her,” said Walter, hoarsely. “She can not intend to
desert me after all--after all!”
“Dear boy!” cried the woman, pressing his hand once more with hers, “how
I admire such impetuosity. But you must remember my duty as a mother.
You have nothing to settle on her, Mr. Penton. Yes, I understand your
ten thousand pounds; but you are not of age. You can’t even make your
will or sign the settlements till you are of age. She has very good
offers, no one could have better. Shall I tell you,” said Emmy’s mother,
with the most ingenuous and ingratiating of smiles, “shall I tell you
what I should do if I were you? I would not allow her to sacrifice
herself. I would rather, much rather, that the sacrifice was on my
side.”
“Sacrifice!” he cried, feeling the dreadful little room reel round him.
“What else can you call it, Mr. Penton? You will not be twenty-one till
the autumn, I hear. October, is it? And in the meantime my chyild has to
toil. Conceive a creature of her refined and sensitive temperament,
young gentleman! a girl not adapted to face the world.”
This confused Walter, who could not but feel that Emmy was very well
qualified to face the world, and to whom she seemed a sort of Una
triumphant over it; but he would not reply on this score. All he could
say was an impassioned offer if she would only accept--if her mother
would but accept--all that he had. What could it matter, when so soon
everything he had would be hers?
The mother put away his offer with her large white hand, turning her
shoulder to him and half averting her head. “Money! I dare not propose
it; I dare not suggest it, though it is most generous, most noble on
your part,” she added, turning round suddenly, seizing his hand in both
of hers with a soft lingering pressure, which poor Walter could not help
feeling left something of the pomade behind. Then she subsided into a
more majestic pose. “But, dear fellow, what have you?” she said, with a
sort of caressing reflectiveness. It all seemed like a scene in a play
to Walter, notwithstanding that he himself was one of the actors. “What
have you?” she said, with a sort of tender regret. “Your agent will soon
tire of making you advances, and every advance diminishes your capital.
We are talking of marriage, my dear young gentleman, not of mere
amusement and spending your money free, as some young men will do to
please a girl they are in love with; but the object of my life has been
to bring up my girl respectable, and nothing of that sort is possible.”
She waved her hand, dismissing the idea, while Walter stood stupefied,
gazing at her. “It is a question of marriage,” she added, with
solemnity; “and what have you to offer--expectations?” Then she sunk her
voice to a sort of stage whisper. “Do you know that your father is after
you, young sir? He has been here.”
“Here!” said the boy, in sudden alarm and dismay.
She nodded her head slowly and solemnly. “Here. I need not say I gave
him no information: but if you rely upon him to receive and support you,
as my child has told me--Young Mr. Penton, Emmy must not be exposed to
an angry father’s wrath.”
“My father here!” He looked round him, at the room, at the woman, at all
these dreadful accessories, with a sinking heart. He seemed to see them
all through his father’s eyes, who had never seen Emmy, and to himself
they were terrible enough, with all the charm that she exercised.
“No!” she said, raising her arm. “I can not have her exposed to an angry
father’s wrath. Mr. Penton, this suit of yours must come to an end.”
“I must see Emmy,” he cried, with confused misery. “I must see Emmy;
don’t, don’t, for pity’s sake, say any more. It is she who must decide.”
“Pardon me; she takes her own way in small matters, but in this a mother
is the best judge. Mr. Penton, she must not be exposed to an angry--”
“I must see Emmy, I must see Emmy,” cried poor Walter. He was capable of
no other thought.