ONE MAN'S LOSS is ANOTHER MAN'S GAIN.
"Confound the Christmas tree!" grumbled Mr. Wedmore, as he stumbled over
a parcel of fluffy rabbits, whose heads screwed off to permit the
insertion of sweets.
"Oh, papa, you'll be saying 'Confound Christmas' next!"
And Doreen, with one watchful eye on Dudley all the time, made a lane
through her boxes and her hampers to admit the passage of her father to
a chair.
By this time Dudley had recovered himself a little, and was able to
answer the question Mr. Wedmore now put to him.
"What do you think of that, Horne?"
"I think, sir, that it must be more than a coincidence; that Mrs. Jacobs
must be the wife of the man who was my father's manager."
"Well, I think so, too. I know Jacobs's wife had an impediment in her
speech. The odd part of the business is that he should have disappeared
at Limehouse, the very place where one would have thought he would have
an objection to turning up at all, connected as it was with his old
peculations. I suppose he thought they were forgotten by this time."
"I suppose so."
Dudley still looked very white. He took up the paper again, as if to
re-read the paragraph. But Doreen, from her post of vantage on the
floor, saw that he held it before him with eyes fixed. Mr. Wedmore,
after a little hesitation, and after vainly trying to get another look
at the face of the younger man, went on again:
"I thought you would be struck by this; the subject turning up again in
this odd way, just when you've been interesting yourself so much in the
old story!"
Down went the paper, and Dudley looked into the face of Mr. Wedmore.
"Interesting myself in it! Have I? How do you mean?"
"Well, you've asked a good many questions about this Jacobs, and
wondered what had become of him. I fancy you have the answer in that
paragraph."
There was a pause, and Dudley seemed to recollect something. Then he
said:
"Oh, yes, I think I have. The man has fallen upon bad times, evidently.
I--I--I'm sorry for his wife."
"And the man himself--haven't you forgiven him yet?"
Dudley started, and glanced quickly round, as if the simple words had
been an accusation.
"Forgiven him? Oh, yes, long ago. At least--" He paused a moment, and
then added, inquiringly: "What had I to forgive?"
"Well, to tell the truth, Horne, that's just what I have often asked
myself, when you have insisted upon raking up all the details of poor
Jacobs's misdeeds! Why, your poor father, who was ruined by his
dishonesty, never showed half the animosity you do. I could have
understood it if you had suffered by his frauds. But have you? You have
been well educated; you have started well in life. And on the whole, no
man who has arrived at your age can honestly say that it would have been
better for him to start life with a fortune at his back, eh?"
"No."
Dudley got up from his chair. He seemed agitated and uneasy, and soon
took advantage of Mr. Wedmore's suggestion, somewhat dryly made, that he
was tired after his journey and would like to go to bed.
When he had left the room, Mr. Wedmore turned angrily to his daughter.
"Now, Doreen, I will have no more of this nonsense. Dudley is beginning
all the old tricks over again--absence of mind, indifference to you--did
he even look at you as he said good night?--and morbid interest in this
old, forgotten business of Jacobs and his misdoings. I won't have any
more of it, and I shall tell him plainly that we don't care to have him
down here until he can bring a livelier face and manner with him!"
Doreen had risen from her humble seat on the floor and had crawled on
her knees to the side of his chair, where she slid a coaxing, caressing
hand under his arm and put her pretty head gently down on his shoulder.
"No, you won't, papa dear. You won't do anything of the kind," she
whispered in his ear very softly, very humbly. "You would not do
anything to give pain to your old friend's son if you could help it, and
you would not do anything to hurt your own child, your little Doreen,
for a hundred thousand pounds, now would you?"
"Yes, I would, if it was for her good," replied Mr. Wedmore, in a very
loud and determined voice, which was supposed to have the effect of
frightening her into submission. "And it's all rubbish to think to get
around me by calling yourself 'little Doreen,' when you're a great, big,
overgrown lamp-post of a girl, who can take her own part against the
whole county."
Doreen laughed, but still clung persistently to the arm which he
pretended to try to release from her clutches.
"Well, I don't know about the county, but I think I can persuade my old
father into doing what I want," she purred into his ear with gentle
conviction. "You see, papa, it isn't as if Dudley and I were engaged.
We--"
"Why, what else have you been but engaged ever since last Christmas?"
said her father, irritably. "Everybody has looked upon it as an
engagement, and Dudley was devoted enough until a couple of months ago;
but now something has gone wrong with the lad, I'm certain, and it would
be much better for you both to make an end of this."
"Why, there's nothing to make an end of," pleaded Doreen. "Just 'let
things slide,' as Max says, and let Dudley come down or stay away as he
likes, and the matter will come quite right one way or the other, and
you will find there was really nothing for you to trouble your dear old
head about, after all."
There was really some excellence in the girl's suggestion; and her
father, after much grumbling, gave a half consent to it. He was forced
to admit to himself that there was some grounds for Dudley's agitation
on reading the paragraph concerning the disappearance of Edward Jacobs,
since he had been interesting himself of late in that person's history.
But it was the degree of the young man's agitation which had seemed
morbid. Mr. Wedmore found it difficult to understand why a mere
suggestion of the man's disappearance--if it were indeed _the_
man--should affect Dudley so deeply. And the idea of incipient insanity
in young Horne grew stronger than ever in Mr. Wedmore's mind.
Now, Doreen was by no means so sanguine as she pretended to be. She was
one of those high-spirited, lively girls who find it easy to hide from
others any troubles which may be gnawing at their heart. Such a nature
has an elasticity which enables it to throw off its cares for a time,
when in the society of others, only to brood over them in hours of
loneliness.
Nobody in the house knew--what, however, shrewd Queenie half guessed
that Doreen had many an anxious hour, many a secret fit of crying, on
account of the change in Dudley's manner toward her. The brilliant,
proud-hearted girl was more deeply attached to him than anybody
suspected. If any remark was made by outsiders as to the comparative
rarity of the young barrister's visits during the past two months, it
was always accompanied by the comment that Miss Wedmore would not be
long in consoling herself.
And everybody knew that the curate, the Rev. Lisle Lindsay, was
hungering to step into Dudley's shoes.
He was not quite to be despised as a rival, this "snowy-banded,
dilettant, delicate-handed priest." In the first place, he was a really
nice, honorable young fellow, with no much worse faults than a
pedantically correct pronunciation of the unaccented vowels; in the
second place, he was considerably taller than the race of curates
usually runs; and in the third place, he had a handsome allowance from
his mother, and "expectations" on a very grand scale indeed. Miss
Wedmore, if she were to decide in his favor, might well aspire to be the
wife of a bishop some day. And what could woman wish for more?
He was no laggard in love either. On the very morning after the arrival
of Max and Dudley, Mr. Lindsay called soon after breakfast to make
inquiries about the amount of holly and evergreens which would be
available for the decoration of the church, and was shown into the
morning-room, where most of the great work of preparation for Christmas
was taking place.
Mrs. Wedmore and all the young people were there, Max and Dudley having
been pressed into the service of filling cardboard drums with sweets for
what Max called "the everlasting tree." The tree itself stood in a
corner of the room, a colossal but lop-sided plant with a lamentable
tendency to straggle about the lower branches, and an inclination to run
to weedy and unnecessary length about the top.
Max was a hopeless failure as an assistant. He was always possessed with
a passionate desire to do something different from what he was asked to
do; and when they gave way and indulged his fancy, the fancy
disappeared, and he found that he wanted to do something else.
"It's always the way with a man!" was Queenie's scornful comment on her
brother's failing.
Queenie herself looked upon the whole business of the tree as a piece of
useless frivolity unworthy the time and attention of grown-up people.
And she went about the share in it which she had been persuaded to
undertake with a stolid and supercilious manner which went far to spoil
the enjoyment of the rest.
Dudley entered, into the affair with some zest, but it was noticeable
that he devoted himself to Queenie, and exchanged very few remarks with
Doreen. There was a certain barrier of constraint springing up between
him and Doreen which had risen to an uncomfortable height by the time
the curate entered.
Doreen, whose cheeks were much flushed and whose eyes were unusually
bright, was extremely gracious. She offered to take Mr. Lindsay into the
grounds to interview the gardener, so that they might come to an
understanding about the evergreens to be used. She glanced at Dudley as
she made this proposal. He glanced back at her; and in his black eyes
she fancied for a moment that she saw a mute protest, a plea.
For a moment she hesitated. Standing still in the middle of the room,
not far from where he was busy helping Queenie to tie up a particularly
limp and fragile box of chocolates, she seemed to wait for a single
word, or even for another look, to turn her from her purpose.
But Dudley turned away, and either did not see or did not choose to
notice the pause. Then the tears sprang to the girl's eyes, and she ran
quickly to the door.
"Come, Mr. Lindsay," said she, "we must make haste. At this stage of
things, every minute has to be weighed out like gold, I assure you."
She went quickly out into the large hall, and the curate followed with
alacrity. Max and his mother were engaged in a wrangle over some soup
and coal tickets which somebody had mislaid, and in the search for which
the whole room, with its parcels and bundles, had to be overturned.
Queenie, who was at work at the end of the room, near the window,
uttered a short laugh. Dudley, who was standing a little way off, drew
nearer, and asked what she was laughing at.
"Oh, that misguided youth who has just gone out!"
"Misguided?"
"Yes," said Queenie, shortly. "If he hadn't been misguided, he would
have devoted his attention to me, not to Doreen. By all the laws of
society, curates' wives should be plain. They should also be simple in
their dress, and devoted to good works. Doreen says so herself. Why,
then, didn't he see that I was the wife for him and not the beauty?"
"Don't you think she will have him, then?" asked Dudley, very stiffly,
after a short pause. "She seems to like him. There was no need, surely,
for her to have been in such a hurry to take him into the grounds, if
she had felt no particular pleasure in his society."
Queenie looked up rather slyly out of her little light eyes. She was
distressed on account of her sister's trouble about this apparently
vacillating lover, and irritated herself by his strange conduct. But at
the bottom of her heart she believed in him and in his affection for
Doreen, just as her sister herself did, and she would have given the
world to make things right between two people whom she chose to believe
intended by nature for each other.
"I think there are other people in the world whose society Doreen likes
better," she said at last, below her breath.
The wrangle at the other end of the room was still going on, and nobody
heard her but Dudley. He flushed slightly and looked as if he
understood. But he instantly turned the talk to another subject.
"Would you have liked that sleek curate yourself, really?"
"Sleek? What do you mean by sleek? You wouldn't have a minister of the
church go about with long hair and a velveteen coat and a pipe in his
mouth, would you?"
"Not for worlds, I assure you. He is a most beautiful creature, and I
admire him very much, though he is perhaps hardly the sort of man I
should have expected both you girls to rave about. And as for you, I
thought you were too good to rave about anybody! You are unlike yourself
this morning, and more like Doreen."
Queenie laughed again that satirical little laugh which made a man
wonder what her thoughts exactly were.
"You say that because you don't know anything about me. I don't talk
when Doreen is talking, because then nobody would listen to me. I could
talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me."
"But one sees so little of you," pleaded Dudley. "You are generally out
district-visiting, or busy for Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn't a chance
of knowing you well. And one has got an idea that you are too good to
waste your time in idle conversation with a mere man!"
"Good!" cried Queenie contemptuously. "There's nothing good about my
district-visiting. I like it, Doreen goes about telling people it is
good of me. But that's only because she wouldn't care about it herself.
I like fussing about and thinking I am making myself useful. It's like
mamma's knitting, which gets her the reputation of being very
industrious, while all the time she enjoys it very much."
"But you yourself said you were 'devoted to good works,' I quote your
very words."
"That was only in fun. It's what Doreen says of me. You must have heard
her. She is much better than I am--really much, more unselfish--much
more amiable. Only because she's always bright and full of fun, she
doesn't get the credit of any of her good qualities. People think she's
only indulging her own inclination when she keeps us all amused and
happy all day long. But they don't know that she can suffer just as much
as anybody else, and that it costs her an effort to be lively for our
sakes when she feels miserable."
Queenie spoke with a little feeling in her usually hard, dry voice.
Dudley was silent for a long time when she had finished speaking. At
last they looked up at the same moment and met each other's eyes. And
the reserved, harassed man felt his heart go out to the girl, with her
quiet shrewdness and undemonstrative affection for her brilliant sister.
"Your quiet eyes see a great deal more than one would think, Queenie,"
he said at last. "I suppose they have seen that there is
something--something wrong--with--"
He spoke very slowly, and finally he stopped without finishing the
sentence.
Queenie gravely took it up for him.
"Something wrong with you? Of course I have. Well?"
"I don't know why I am telling you this. I didn't mean to tell any one.
But--but--well, I've begun; I may as well finish. You're not a person
who would talk about anybody else's secrets more than about your own."
"A secret? Are you going to tell me a secret?"
Dudley smiled very faintly, and then his expression suddenly changed.
Something like a spasm of fear and of pain shot quickly across his face,
frightening her a little. Then he shook his head.
"No," said he. "I hardly think you will consider it a secret, after what
you have just told me. I am only going to tell you this: I have had a
great trouble, a great affliction, hanging over me for some time now.
Sometimes I have thought it was going to clear away and leave me as I
was before. Sometimes I have felt myself quite free from it, and able to
go on in the old way. But with this consciousness, this knowledge
hanging over me always, I have behaved in all sorts of strange ways,
have hurt the feelings of my friends, have not been myself at all. You
know that, Queenie."
Queenie slowly bowed her head. Mrs. Wedmore and Max, still occupied in
their search for the missing soup tickets, had now extended their
operations to the hall, and left the room in possession of the other
two. Dudley went on with his confession.
"And now something has happened which has cut me off from my old self,
as it were. I don't know how else to express what I mean. I came down
last night with the intention of speaking to--to Doreen for the last
time, of trying to explain myself, if not to--to justify myself to her.
You know what I mean, don't you?"
Again Queenie bowed her head. Her father's suspicions as to Dudley's
perfect sanity had, of course, reached her ears, and she felt so much
pity for the poor fellow whose confession she was then hearing that she
dared not even raise her eyes to his face again. He went on, hurrying
his words, as if anxious to get his confession over:
"But I thought it all over last night, and I decided to say nothing to
her, after all. I don't think I could, without making a fool of myself.
For you know--you know my feelings about her; everybody knows. I had
hoped--Oh, well, you know what I hoped--"
There was a pause. Dudley was afraid of breaking down.
"Oh, Dudley, is it really all over, then, between you? Oh, it is
dreadful! For, you know, she cares, too!"
"Not as I do. I hope and think that is impossible," said Dudley,
hoarsely.
There was another pause, a longer one. Then Queenie gave utterance to a
little sob. Dudley, who was sitting on the table at which she was at
work, got upon his feet with an impatient movement. His dark face looked
hard and angry. As he paced once or twice up and down the small space
available in the disordered room, the inward fight which was going on
between his passion and his sense of right convulsed his face, and
Queenie shuddered as, glancing at him, she fancied she could see in the
glare of his black eyes the haunting madness at which he seemed so
plainly to have hinted.
She rose in her turn.
"But, Dudley--" she began.
And then, unable to express what she felt, what she thought, any better
than he had done, she turned abruptly away and sat down again.
There was silence for a few moments, and then she heard the door close.
Looking round, she saw that he had left the room.