LIGHT LOVER.
When a man turns his face definitely in that direction, and sets out on
his melancholy road to the dogs, he can get over a good deal of ground
in two years.
Two years had passed since we last saw him in his Temple chambers, and
in that time Tommy Hudson had travelled a long way down the hill. He had
considerably degenerated. He had drifted into hard drinking, and his
once-refined features indicated the habit too clearly. His practice at
the bar had nearly melted away; solicitors could no longer rely on the
drunkard.
Feeling his degradation, stricken by remorse, he would make resolutions
of reform which his nature, originally weak and unsteady and ever
further sinking, was unable to carry out.
His friends shunned him. He had become one in whose company men were
ashamed to be seen. He had recently been black-balled when put up for
election at a small legal club in the neighbourhood of the Law Courts;
and this last disgrace more than anything else hurried on his descent by
driving him to despair and recklessness.
However, he was still far from being irreclaimably lost, and it was only
occasionally that his condition was demonstratively disgraceful.
His originally strong tendency for adventure with the fair sex was much
exaggerated by his chronic alcoholism, and was becoming with him a sort
of monomania. A diseased brain made him restless and fearful of
solitude, so that the company of some strange woman or other grew to be
a constant necessity.
As decent men would not associate with him now--as he was still too
proud to make friends of the loafers, unprincipled, broken-down
gentlemen, and other rats of society who would have gladly welcomed him
among them--he was perforce driven into the at any rate far less
degrading companionship of the free-living members of the other sex.
But at the end of these two years an event happened that turned the
current of his life for a time. A relative died and left him a few
thousand pounds.
This brought Hudson to his senses. He made up his mind to live a more
cleanly life. He suddenly abandoned his drinking habits, and really
struggled hard to retrace his steps to respectability.
He knew that his practice would not return to him at once; so, in order
to occupy his time, he determined to take to literature--he had dabbled
in it before, and was not unknown to the editors of the magazines. He
resumed a novel that he had commenced and put aside years back, and felt
a great delight in finding that he had not to any great extent lost his
power for steady work.
He had been living this reformed life for a fortnight, when he bethought
him to take a holiday one fine afternoon and visit the academy. One who
had seen him only two weeks before would scarcely have recognized him,
as he walked with a light step along the streets. He was a man once
more. He held his head erect, and there was a happy smile about his
mouth, that spoke of high hope and ambition. He felt a lightness of
heart, an exultation of spirit, he had not known for years. Once more he
had an honest pride in himself, once more the future looked bright with
glorious dreams.
He had been strolling through the academy--which was rather empty at
the time--for about half an hour, when he remembered that an artist who
had been his friend in former days, and with whom he had taken several
very pleasant walking-tours on the continent, had made himself famous
this year by exhibiting two very well-executed landscapes.
He referred to the catalogue and soon found where one of these was hung.
He had been before it for some minutes, when he became conscious that a
lady was standing by him looking at the same picture.
He was rather in her way and was obstructing her view, so he stepped
aside, and taking off his hat murmured some slight apology.
She bowed and smiled faintly, but it was a particularly pleasing smile.
He looked at her and was immediately struck by her peculiar beauty. Her
rich complexion, long voluptuous eyes and full well-moulded form, were
indeed well fitted to attract the attention of man. She appeared to be
about twenty-four years old. There was nothing fast in her appearance.
She was well, though plainly dressed. He also noticed that she had tiny
and well-shaped hands and feet.
He was so fascinated, that without intending it, he was staring very
hard at her. At first she was--or pretended to be--unconscious of his
earnest gaze; then she looked up and their eyes met, hers calm and
wondering, his full of meaning admiration.
She dropped her eyes and blushed prettily, and then commenced to take a
great interest in the picture before her.
He stood by her, also pretending to be intent on the painting for about
half a minute, when, as she did not move away, he ventured to speak.
"I see our tastes are similar. It is a beautiful picture, is it not?"
She looked at him calmly.
"Indeed, it is; but I don't seem to recognize the artist's name, Is he
well known?"
"I don't think he had much reputation till this year; but the two
pictures he is exhibiting here now have been much admired. He has now
become quite a celebrated man."
"Then he has another picture in the academy!"
"He has, and I believe it is the best of the two. If you will allow me I
will find out for you where it is. They say it is quite one of the
pictures of the year."
She hesitated a little before she made a reply.
"It is very kind of you--I should very much like to see it. But I must
not trouble you."
"Please don't imagine it will be any trouble to me. Besides I am anxious
to see the picture myself. I used to know the artist very well."
"Oh! that must be very interesting for you. I have often thought how
nice it must be to know the authors and painters of the books and
pictures we admire."
"I am afraid you would be very often disappointed in them," he said,
laughing. "I see from the catalogue that the picture is in the next
room. Would you like to go there now?"
They walked into the room together, and after a few more common-place
remarks and interchange of ideas in front of the picture in question,
the ice was still further broken between them. The two young people
entered into quite a lively talk. He became still more fascinated; for
her voice was low and sweet, and there was a frank, trusting,
communicativeness in her conversation that was perfectly delicious.
They sat for a considerable time together on the divan in front of the
picture, but they paid little attention to that great work of art.
Said she, "You must think me very fast to come here all by myself, and
what is worse allow you, an entire stranger to me to enter into
conversation with me."
"No! It is all my fault. I forced myself upon you. It was very kind on
your part not to snub me for my presumption."
She sighed. "Ah! I am afraid I was wrong; but you see I am alone in
London, I have no friends here. It is so very lonely for me. It is so
pleasant to talk sometimes with--with--well with people like yourself. I
think I have some excuse, don't you?"
"Every excuse!"
"And after all, what great harm is there in it? It is rather
unconventional perhaps."
"And therefore the pleasanter. I don't see why we should be always tied
down by those silly hard-and-fast rules of society."
"No more do I! though I am not one of those strong-minded women who
believe in woman's rights. Besides,"--and she laughed prettily--"what
harm are you likely to do me? You don't look like a pickpocket or an
ogre. I am quite old enough to look after myself, even if you do prove
to be anything but what I take you for--a gentleman."
He bowed and said, "I do not think you need fear me."
"Dear me," she continued, "how curious it is! Here are we two, who had
never even seen each other an hour ago, talking as freely as if we had
known each other for years."
"That is the advantage of being frank and straightforward. Those stiff,
reserved people, who are always suspicious of strangers, miss a lot of
pleasure in this world. Now you see we were both dull, moping about here
alone, and now how happy we are!--at least I speak for myself."
He persuaded her to have some tea in the refreshment room, when she
confided to him a little of her history. The misfortunes of her family
had obliged her to seek a livelihood in the metropolis.
"I have been trying to start a small school for little boys," she said,
"but my capital was slender, and nobody knows me in London. I have spent
far more than I can properly afford in advertisements, and they seem to
produce no effect. I shall have to abandon that project."
The barrister's compassion was much excited by the simple tale. "And
what do you purpose doing then?" he said. "But forgive me; I am so
interested that I am afraid I am asking questions I have no right to
ask."
"Why not?" she replied simply. "I am thinking of becoming a nurse in a
hospital. I had some training of the kind a few years ago."
"It is rather a hard and unpleasant life I should imagine."
"Perhaps so--but you know beggars cannot be choosers; but I must not
bore you any longer with my foolish history."
"On the contrary I am deeply interested--and you say you have no friends
at all in London?"
"None!" she replied with a forlorn sigh that went to his heart.
After a pause he spoke again in earnest tones.
"I wish you would allow me to become a friend. I think it would be very
foolish of us to separate to-day without arranging any plans about
meeting again. We have already agreed that conventionality ought
sometimes to be dispensed with. Here surely is a very good case in
point. I should like exceedingly to see you again; I should be very
sorry if we did not continue this friendship. Have you any objection?"
"Of course not. I should very much like it," she replied looking at once
into his eyes. "The idea is charming to me. Ah! if you knew how terrible
it is to have no friend, no one to confide in, you would feel for me I
know."
"I find my own life a little lonely too sometimes," he said, "I am a
barrister--"
"A barrister!" she interrupted. "Ah! I have long wished to know a
barrister. I have always thought they must be such clever men."
"Well, I suppose we are quite up to the other professions. But now I
think, as we have settled that we are to be friends, it is not worth our
while to delay about it. Let us imagine we have been friends quite a
long time--and will you do me the honour of dining with me to-night?"
"Dine with you!" she exclaimed, as if startled by the idea.
"Yes--why not? It will enable us to learn more of each other. We will
dine at a restaurant, and if you like we will go to a theatre
afterwards."
She only hesitated a moment, then replied, "You are very kind--you don't
know what a treat you are proposing to me. I have been so very dull of
late--No!" she cried joyfully, "I cannot refuse you. The prospect is too
delightful."
They passed an exceedingly pleasant evening together. When the play was
over he put her in a cab and they separated. She would not tell him
where she lived, but gave him an address at a stationer's shop to which
he might write; and also made an appointment to meet him on the
following day.
He walked home aflame with a passion which he fondly believed was love.
He considered that he had fallen into a very lucky adventure. Knowing
well the weakness of his own character, he argued with himself that it
would be an excellent thing for him to be fond of a really nice little
woman like this. An intrigue of this kind would keep him straight. It
had always been one of his maxims that to have a mistress was a grand
thing for a man; it settled him, and preserved him from dissipation.
It was perhaps a rather wild thing to hope to find salvation in such a
union as the one he contemplated; nevertheless it has happened to many
men of his nature to be regenerated by a mistress.
There are certain men--not of the meanest order--whose happiness and
success in life, or misery and failure, entirely depend on women. Of an
amorous disposition, love is a necessity to these. If such a man take a
good woman as his mate, he is indeed happy in her. She makes him a god;
she stimulates him to noble endeavour; encourages him in the dark hours;
and raises to success a life that would have yielded to temporary
failure.
Happy too is the woman who has thus completed the nature of the powerful
weak man, happy in that her benign influence has made a being
intellectually so far her superior yet morally her inferior, admirable
instead of despicable. Happy too is she, in that the man knows it, and
his grateful love burns true and holy until death.
But the bad woman can as easily drag down such a nature, as a good woman
can ennoble it. A crisis had now come to the life of the barrister. He
had already checked himself on his downward career, he was struggling
after the lost good. Were this new friend of his to prove a woman of the
right sort, he might probably still become a distinguished man in his
profession or in literature.
But, alas! the Fates were against him.
* * * * *
For it happened that this young lady whom the barrister had met was no
other than our old acquaintance Susan Riley--the youngest member of the
Inner Circle of the Secret Society--the one who had known the pains and
joys of motherhood.
Cat that she was, she had a cat-like love for prowling about in the
evening with no definite purpose, but in search of adventure. She might
be often seen in Regent Street in the afternoon. She would on occasion
allow strange gentlemen to enter into conversation with her. Ah! how
modest and demure she would be at first! By-and-bye the befooled man
would become infatuated. Dinners, suppers, bonnets, gloves and jewellery
would be showered upon her; but at last when the swain thought it full
time that his amours should advance a step further, and leave the cold
regions of Platonic love she would as likely as not turn and laugh him
to scorn, leave him, and start to pastures new in search of fresh game.
She could talk low and sweetly, this cunning beauty, and her blue eyes
would so well lie of love as they looked up timidly from under their
curling lashes. By the very manner with which she would draw on her
glove, she could make a man believe she loved him.
The result of the adventure at the academy was that she and the
barrister saw a good deal of each other. Their friendship ripened. She
played her cards cunningly, and soon made her conquest complete.
She told him a lamentable tale about a runaway husband--a clergyman, she
said. He looked the name up in an old clergy-list, and there indeed it
was, so he believed her tale. She filled him with pity for her forlorn
state.
A very considerable proportion of Hudson's income found its way, if not
directly, indirectly, into her pockets. She wheedled him well, though he
was no fool. But what young man can look through the glamour that
surrounds a beautiful and clever woman? He deceives himself willingly,
and believes she is an angel, though he knows how silly he is to believe
so.
Susan understood her man, and she thought it worth her while to take
considerable trouble over his conquest. Cautiously she wove her web
around him. She did not yield her heart (?) too soon, but kept him for
some time in suspense.
How candid she appeared to be! One day she placed her daintily-gloved
hand gently on his arm, and looking openly into his eyes, said: "Ah! Mr.
Hudson, it is very kind of you to take so much interest in me--to do so
much for me; but I will not deceive you; you must not speak to me again
of love. I cannot love. I am deeply grateful--I like you very much--but
I will never, never love you!"
He poured out a flood of wild protestations of undying, boundless
affection; he implored, lamented, made oaths, and so forth, as is usual
with men under like circumstances.
"No!" she went on with a sigh--"no, Mr. Hudson, I dare not love again. I
know how sweet is love--no one better. Sometimes I think I was created
only to love and be loved. But after that one terrible disappointment, I
dare never love again. Oh, Mr. Hudson!"--looking at him with swimming
eyes, and speaking in thrilling tones--"how can I ever trust a man
again?--to trust and be deceived--to love and then to lose! Oh, it would
kill me! I can never allow my poor heart to love again."
Then of course followed fresh protestations and oaths of constancy from
the victim, to which she only replied by a piteous sigh.
This sort of thing went on for a fortnight or so; then she got sick of
it. She thought that there had been quite enough of this preliminary
play; and that the time had come for her to yield gracefully to his
importunity.
One fine Sunday afternoon, they were walking together in Kew gardens.
"Do you not like me a little bit?" asked Hudson, imploringly.
"Of course I like you. You are my dearest--my only friend!"
"But cannot you love me, my darling? Oh! indeed you can trust me--this
is no boy's love of mine! I am old enough to know my own mind. I love
you as few men ever loved a woman, as I never knew that I myself could
love. You are the one thing in the whole world to me. Trust me--this is
no passing fancy."
A profound sigh was her sole reply. She was rather proud of her sighs;
they were wonderfully expressive.
"Cannot you love me a _little_, Edith?" She called herself Edith to her
young men as being a more euphonious name than Susan.
Her answer this time was a nervous stirring up of the sand with her
parasol, and a downcast look and silence.
"Oh, Edith! I do so hunger for your love," he urged again. "Can you not
give me a little for all this love of mine? Oh, my darling! if you can
only give me back a hundredth part of my love for you, I shall be
satisfied."
She turned her head--as if to conceal her emotion, but really to hide a
smile that she could not altogether suppress, having a strong sense of
the ridiculous--and said, in accents of piteous pleading:
"Don't! don't, Tom!--don't take advantage of my weakness."
"Then you _do_ love me?" he cried, passionately.
"It is cruel of you to force me to confess my feelings. Oh, Tom!--I
can't help it!--now you know all!--I _do_ love you!"
* * * * *
She had still a few pretty scruples which she allowed him to talk her
out of gradually. It was very wrong, she urged, for her to accept him as
a lover--she a married woman!--her husband still alive! But the eloquent
barrister managed to persuade her to the contrary.
It was a grotesque burlesque of love at which these two were playing.
She, of course, felt no love whatever for the man. Love was a sentiment
unknown to her, though she had the voluptuous nature of a Messalina. She
also knew that his was not a real unselfish love for her. He himself was
more or less conscious of this latter fact. This new intrigue
disappointed him in a way; he instinctively felt that there was
something wrong about this pretty woman--that her society would probably
do him more harm than good.
His affection for her was passionate enough, but it would not bear
analysis--and he knew it--being made up as it was of equal parts of lust
and vanity.
A man who has gone mad over a girl in this way will squander everything
he has on her, not because he loves her, not even spending it so as to
benefit her, but merely in display--in suppers, dress, and folly,
whereby the vanity of both is gratified.
A very selfish love after all is this quasi-love of a man, however
fierce, however self-devoted it appear; and women of the world such as
the Riley know this well. Little wonder, then, that they laugh at their
admirers behind their back; and determine to fleece them well before the
inevitable weariness comes, and the men go off in search of newer loves.
These two contrived, however, to get on very well together, and their
intimacy continued for month after month, involving much expenditure of
hard cash on his side, of sighs and lies on hers.
The infatuation of the man increased. He would have thrown away his all,
nay, his life, for this woman. He became her very slave; and yet all the
while he felt that she was not a good woman; he was ashamed of his
ignoble passion.
Disgusted at his own folly, he took to drink again; he broke through his
resolution of reform, and, turning his face round, began to retrace his
steps down the hill--this time never to come back.
Susan had wormed out of him all his history, and found that he had
considerable prospects on the death of some relative, so she did not
desert him when his rapidly-increasing drinking propensities made of him
a not over pleasant companion at times; but she tried to play the part
of reformer and beautiful guardian angel of the man.
In reality, she contrived to sink him further into the abyss, and by
this means make him more and more her slave. While preaching to him like
a saint about his bad habits, she would put in suggestions and
tantalizing thoughts, despairs and regrets that she knew were calculated
to make him unhappy and drink the deeper when she was not by him. She
made up her mind to be indispensable to him; he should be a miserable
drunkard when she was not by; he should not forsake her, at any rate
till his property came in and she had taken her fair share of it.
Of all the circumstances that combined to drag this weak, vacillating
creature down, none were so dire as his friendship with this fiend in
the shape of an angel.