NATURE AND ART.
Lady Mitford's composure had been shaken by her interview with Sir
Laurence Alsager more rudely than by any of the events which had
succeeded each other with such rapidity in the course of the short but
troublous time since her marriage. She had reckoned upon his
friendship to support and his society to cheer her, and now they must
be relinquished. There could be no doubt, no hesitation about that;
and she did not doubt or hesitate, but she suffered, as such keenly
sensitive and highly-principled natures can suffer, whose only
possible course is to do the right thing, and pay, without having
counted, the cost.
All the loneliness, all the dreariness of her lot came on her
foreboding spirit, as she sat alone in her dressing-room, two days
after her parting interview with Sir Laurence. She had been thinking
of the day at Redmoor when their first confidence had been
interchanged; she had been remembering his counsel, and taking herself
to task for having neglected it, or, at any rate, for not having tried
more earnestly and more persistently to follow it.
"I must have been to blame in some degree," she thought; "I ought to
have tried to please him more; but--" and then she sighed--"I had been
used to please him without trying, and it is hard to realize the
change; and before one does realize it, it is too late. I wonder if
there is any case in which it would not be too late from the first; I
wonder if any woman in the world ever yet succeeded in retaining or
recovering the heart of any man when it had once in the least strayed
from her. I don't grieve for myself now,--I cannot; but I blame
myself. I might have tried--no doubt I should have failed; but still I
might have tried. I might have asserted myself from the moment that
they met at Redmoor, and I saw her clasp his hand as she did. But what
is the use of asserting oneself, of putting one's position, one's
conventional rights, against the perverted strength of a man's will?
No, no; there is no security where the question is one of feeling; in
the insecure holding of love we are but tenants-at-will."
She thought thus mournfully of her own lot, and condemned herself for
faults she had not committed; she thought of Alsager, and took herself
to task because she could not repress or deny the keen and
compensating joy which the knowledge that he loved her gave; she
thought of her husband with infinite compassion, with apprehension,
and with hopelessness. The downward course had been run with awful
rapidity by Sir Charles Mitford. Since he had discarded the gentle
influence of Georgie, the benignant restraint, the touch of higher
aspiration, and purer tastes had vanished, and he had returned to all
the low habits and coarse vices of his earlier career. Georgie knew
this vaguely, and she experienced all the horror and disgust which
were natural to such a mind as hers. At first, when she recognized in
the fullest extent the fact of her husband's infatuation with Mrs.
Hammond, she could not understand why he should not be restrained by
that passion, as he had been by his evanescent love for herself, from
coarse and debasing pleasures. But she soon found out, by the light of
her clear perceptions and the aid of her intuitive refinement of mind,
how widely different were the sentiments which she had ignorantly
compared; and learned that while there is no temporal salvation for a
man so powerful as love, there is no swifter or surer curse and ruin
than an illicit passion. When Georgie came to understand this fully,
her apprehensions concerning her husband reached a height of intensity
which would have been unreasonable, had she not possessed the painful
knowledge of what his former career had been. She had hardly
understood it at the time indeed, and her father had softened matters
down very much, partly through the invincible amiability of his own
disposition, and partly because he believed, in simple sincerity, that
all "Charley's" misbehaviour had been caused by want of money alone;
and that once rich, and holding a responsible position, he would not
again be assailed by temptations to disreputable conduct. Whence it is
presumable that the good parson knew a great deal more of the next
world than he knew of this.
Lady Mitford's dreary reverie was interrupted by the entrance of her
maid, who handed her a letter from Alsager. As she took it in her
hand, she saw that it had been sealed with the ring which she had
given him, and she broke it open with mingled joy and fear. The letter
was brief, kind, and earnest. Sir Laurence told her that he was
leaving England, and wished, before doing so, to place within her
reach a source of consolation which he felt she might to surely need.
Then, in a few words, he told her of his letter to Helen Manningtree;
and besought her in any emergency, in any unpleasantness, if she were
ill, or even if she were only lonely,--as he knew she had cultivated
no intimacies in her own circle,--to send for Helen. He had not waited
for Helen's reply; he knew so well how warm and sincere an
acquiescence in his request it would convey. He told her of the
attachment existing between Helen and the curate, and said, "Had there
been no other reason for my rejecting your advice, I knew she was, at
the time of my father's death, virtually affianced to Cuthbert
Farleigh."
Lady Mitford paused in her perusal of the letter at this point.
"Cuthbert Farleigh!" she repeated; "surely it must be the same--it
must be poor papa's old pupil; how very odd, if it should be! If _he_
had ever mentioned me before him at Knockholt, he would have
remembered me."
Her thoughts strayed back to her childhood and her old home, and she
sat absorbed in a reverie.
"How thoughtful he is for me!" she said to herself softly; "how truly
considerate! I will obey him in this and in everything. I will make
this young lady's acquaintance-not just yet, but later, when I am more
composed."
And then she thought how delightful it would be to talk with Helen
about Laurence; to hear from her all the particulars of his life at
Knockholt; to make all those researches and studies which have such an
ineffable attraction for loving hearts. There could be nothing wrong
in this; men and angels might scrutinize her feelings towards Laurence
Alsager, and find nothing to blame.
There was little more in the letter, which concluded with an
expression of the warmest regard.
Lady Mitford felt happier for the receipt of this parting note from
Sir Laurence. It seemed to decrease her loneliness--to surround her
with an atmosphere of protection. Georgie had never associated much
with women in her father's secluded parish. The inhabitants had been
chiefly of the lower classes; and since she had emerged from the
gushing schoolroom period, she had had none of those intimacies which
make up so great a part of the happiness of young womanhood. Perhaps
she had concentrated her affections in the object who had proved so
unworthy all the more obstinately, and had lavished them upon him all
the more unrestrainedly, because she had none of the lesser claimants
for them.
She looked forward now with almost girlish pleasure to making Helen's
acquaintance and winning her affections, as she determined she would
try to do; and she was surprised at herself as she felt her spirits
rising, and recognized in herself more energy and hopefulness than she
had felt for a long time.
Time slipped away, weighted though it was with care, and brought no
change in Sir Charles Mitford's evil life. The husband and wife rarely
met now; and when they did, their casual association was distressing
to Lady Mitford, and embarrassing to him. Their wealth, the magnitude
and style of their establishment, and the routine of life among
persons in their position, afforded them facilities for a complete and
tacit estrangement, such as the pressure of narrow circumstances would
have rendered impossible. They went their separate ways, and were more
strange and distant to each other than the merest surface
acquaintances. Lady Mitford was, as it was natural to suppose she
would be, the last person to hear particulars of her husband's
conduct; but she watched him as closely as her limited opportunities
permitted. For some time she had observed that he seemed restless and
unhappy, and that the moroseness and discontent, which had been early
indications of his relapse from his improved condition, were trying to
the household, and, on rare occasions when she had to encounter them,
distressing to her. He had no air of triumph now; he had no assured
complacency of manner; these were gone, and in their place were the
symptoms of suffering, of incertitude, of disappointment.
"I suppose she is treating him unkindly," Lady Mitford thought. "It
must be something concerning her which is distressing him; he does not
care about anything else. He is so infatuated with her now, that I
verily believe, when he drinks to the frightful excess he sometimes
does, it is to stupify himself between the time he leaves her and the
time he sees her again. Poor fellow! poor Charley!"
She pitied him now with her good and generous heart. Perhaps the time
that she had foreseen was near--the time which she had once hoped for,
and now dreaded, though prepared to meet it with all the dutifulness
of her nature--the time when the wicked woman who had taken him from
her, who had laid the fabric of her happiness low, would tire of him
and discard him; and he would seek forgiveness from the wife he had so
cruelly wronged.
The moodiness and moroseness, the restlessness and irritability of Sir
Charles had been peculiarly noticeable for some time after Lady
Mitford had received Sir Laurence's letter, and they had not failed to
receive the imprecations of the servants'-hall. Lady Mitford had been
aware that much information might have been obtained through that
fruitful medium, but she would not at any time have deigned to have
recourse to it; and would have shrunk from doing so with additional
distaste just now, as she could not avoid perceiving that she was the
subject of closer observation than usual on the part of the domestics,
especially her own maid and Mr. Banks.
One day, when Lady Mitford returned from her solitary drive, and
having alighted from her carriage, was passing through the hall, she
was encountered by Captain Bligh, coming quickly from the library. She
saluted him courteously, and was about to pass on, when he begged to
be permitted to speak with her. She acquiesced, and they went upstairs
and into the long drawing-room.
She knew in a moment that he had come to tell her bad news, and she
nerved herself to bear it, whatever it might be, by a strong effort.
He waited until she had seated herself, and then said:
"I fear, Lady Mitford, I can hardly escape some share of your
displeasure, incurred by my having undertaken the mission which has
brought me here to-day."
She looked at him, and turned very pale, but she remained quite silent
and still.
"You look frightened, Lady Mitford. Pray don't fear anything. There is
much to grieve you, but no cause for alarm."
"Sir Charles--" she stammered.
"Sir Charles is well; there is nothing of that sort the matter. But I
have a painful task to fulfil. Lady Mitford, are you aware that Sir
Charles has left London?"
She fell back in her seat, and deathlike cold crept through her. She
did not faint, but a momentary sensation like fainting passed over
her. Her eyes closed, and her hands grew cold and damp. It had come,
then, the catastrophe! She was deserted; he had left England with that
woman; and it was all over! She was to be alone, and he was utterly
ruined; there was no hope, no rescue for him now!
Captain Bligh was not a person adapted to act with discretion in a
crisis of this kind. He did not understand women's ways, as he was
accustomed to proclaim. He had a kind heart, however, and it supplied
the deficiencies of his judgment. He merely handed Lady Mitford a
scent-bottle, and waited until she had recovered herself. After a few
moments she sat upright and opened her eyes.
"That's right!" said the honest Captain encouragingly; "I knew you
would bear it well; I knew you had such pluck. By Jove, I haven't
forgotten the ponies!"
"Tell me what you came to say, Captain Bligh," said Lady Mitford. "I
am quite strong now;" and she looked so.
"Well, the truth is, Lady Mitford, things have gone too far, and Sir
Charles is conscious of the fact. I would not have done such a thing
for any one in the world but him. He and I have always been good
friends, though he has done many things I could hardly stand. You
mustn't mind my not being polished,--I don't mean to be rude; but I
have such unpleasant things to say, that, by Jove, I can't manage to
say them pleasantly!" He floundered very much in his speech, and
fidgeted distractingly; but she sat quite still and listened to him.
At last he blurted out desperately, "The truth is, that she-devil
Laura Hammond has driven him mad! She has snubbed him, and tried to
throw him over, and gone off to Baden without letting him know."
"Without letting him know! Then they are not gone together? I thank
God!" said Georgie emphatically.
"Gone together! No; she never would be such a fool as that, whatever
he might be. I beg your pardon, Lady Mitford. She has gone, as he
believes, with the intention of throwing him off entirely, and trying
it on with Tchernigow the Russian, you know; and Mitford would not
stand it, and he has gone. He heard something last night which
exasperated him, and he came to my rooms this morning--only a small
portmanteau with him--and told me he was going. He told me to come
down here, and send Banks off to-night with his things. I said
everything I could think of, but it was no use,--he was simply
desperate. Then, Lady Mitford"--and here Captain Bligh lowered his
voice, and spoke with great gentleness-"then I asked him if he
remembered the consequences of this to _you_."
"To me, Captain Bligh! What worse consequences can come to me than
have come already?"
"Many, Lady Mitford, and much worse. You cannot live any longer under
the same roof with Sir Charles; the scandal is too open and too great.
He will disgrace himself, and make himself ridiculous at Baden, if
much more serious mischief does not ensue; and you must keep aloof
from the scandal."
"I am as much aloof from it as I can be here, I think, Captain Bligh,"
said poor Georgie; "and I will not leave my husband's house until he
bids me. He may find that his going to Baden is useless; if she is
resolved to discard him, she will do so as resolutely and as
effectually there as here. No, Captain Bligh; this is my home, and
here I will remain until I see the end of this matter. I will not
forsake him, as he has forsaken me, at the beginning of it; I will not
heap additional disgrace upon him, and give this story additional
publicity, by leaving his house, unless he has told me, through you,
to do so."
"No, no, Lady Mitford," said Bligh; "he has not done that. He begged
of me to come to you, and tell you that he had gone. He would not try
to deceive you, he said; if he could induce her to allow him to remain
with her, he would, and never return to England. Yes, indeed,--so far
had his madness driven him: but at all events he would never ask you
to see him again; and whatever arrangements you might choose to make,
he would be quite prepared to carry into effect. He said he supposed
you would not remain here."
"He was mistaken," she said, very quietly and sadly; "I will remain
here. Tell me what more passed between you, Captain Bligh."
"Indeed, not much, dear Lady Mitford. He was dreadfully excited and
wretched, and looked fearfully ill,--he had been drinking deeply last
night, I am sure,--and his manner was agitated and incoherent. He
talked of his persecutions and his miseries, as every man who has the
best blessings of life at his command and throws them away does talk;
and his lamentations about this cursed infatuation of his were mixed
up with self-reproaches on your account, and imprecations on the men
who have tabooed him, and especially because he was rejected at the
Maecenas."
"Poor Charles!" said Lady Mitford musingly; "all the enemies he has
ever had could have done him little harm, had he not doubled in his
own person the strength of his enemies to injure him. He began ill;
and when he made an effort to do well, some gloomy recollection, some
haunting fear, always seemed to keep him back. There was some evil
power over him, Captain Bligh, before this woman laid her spells upon
him--a power which made him moody and wretched and reckless. This was
a subject upon which it was impossible for me to speak to him; and I
accounted for it easily enough, and I have no doubt with tolerable
correctness. You know, and I know, that the early years of Sir
Charles's life were full of dark days and questionable associations.
He was unfortunate at least as much as guilty; and not the smallest of
the misfortunes of such a career is the power it gives to miscreants
of every kind to embitter one's future and tarnish one's fame, to
blight the hopes and the efforts with which one endeavours to rise
above the mud-deposit of follies and sins repented and abandoned.
There has never been a case, I am sure, in which a man who had gone
extensively wrong, and who then tried to go right, and got a good
chance of doing it, was not pursued and persecuted by harpies of the
old brood, whose talons perpetually branded him, and whose inexorable
pursuit kept him constantly depressed and miserable. Then he will be
driven to excitement, to dissipation, to anything--which will enable
him to forget the torture; but this very necessity deprives all his
efforts of vigour, and renders him hopeless of success. I am confident
that some such merciless grinding misery lay hidden in Sir Charles's
life. I saw it very shortly after we came to town; and I had reason to
suspect that he met with some annoyance of the same kind down at
Redmoor. But he never told me, and there is no good in our speculating
upon any matter of this kind. I can hardly consider myself entitled
now to inquire into any affair of his. Did he give you any
instructions, Captain Bligh? did he give you any address?"
"No," replied the good-natured Captain, quite saddened and distressed
to witness her misery, and moved at the same time to great simple
admiration by her composure and firmness, which the Captain
denominated "pluck." "He did not say many words to me. He told me to
come here and tell you what I have told you, and he said he would
write. Let me leave you now, dear Lady Mitford, and let me return
to-morrow and take your commands."
"Thank you," she said simply; and then he left her; and perhaps in the
whole course of his chequered existence, and among his numerous and
varied experiences, he had never felt so much pure and deep respect
for any woman as for the deserted wife to whom he had had to disclose
the full measure of her sorrow.
The days passed, and no tidings of Sir Charles Mitford came. Georgie
had seen Banks, and had given him some directions relative to the
things which Sir Charles required him to take to Baden, in an
unconcerned and dignified manner, which had impressed that functionary
as much as her conduct of the previous day had affected Captain Bligh.
"She's a deal too good for Mitford, and always was, even before he
took to brandy and that ere Laurer 'Ammond," soliloquized Mr. Banks;
"and I hope, for my part, he'll never come back."
Mr. Banks left town early in the morning of the day which succeeded
the interview between Lady Mitford and Captain Bligh, and Georgie
remained in her own rooms the entire day. An agitated restlessness was
upon her, a feeling of suspense and apprehension, which deprived her
of the power of thinking consecutively, and distracted her sorrow by
changing its character. She expected to see Captain Bligh, and in her
confused state of mind she had forgotten to say that no other visitors
were to be admitted. At three in the afternoon, as she was sitting in
her boudoir, striving, quite ineffectually, to fix her attention on
some piece of feminine industry, a servant announced,
"Miss Gillespie."
Lady Mitford heard the name with unbounded astonishment. At first she
associated no idea whatever with it; she felt certain she had never
known any one so designated. But before the bearer of the name entered
the room, she had remembered the handsome young woman whose superb
singing and sudden disappearance had occasioned so much wonder and
discussion at Redmoor. The association of ideas was not pleasant; and
it was with a heightened colour, and something in her manner different
from its customary graceful sweetness, that she rose to receive her
unlooked-for visitor.
Miss Gillespie was looking very handsome; and the agitation under
which she was evidently labouring had not the usual effect of
destroying ease and gracefulness. She had always been quiet, and to a
certain extent ladylike in her manners. Even in the Lizzie-Ponsford
days she had not degenerated into the coarseness which might have been
supposed to be an inevitable attendant or result of such a career. The
ease and rapidity with which she had mastered the high-comedy style of
performance, the finish of her acting, and the perfect appreciation of
the refinement and repose which mark the demeanour of the true _grande
dame_, afforded ample proof of Miss Gillespie's tact and readiness.
She had needed only the accessories, and now she had procured
them; and as she walked slowly and gracefully up to the spot
where Lady Mitford stood to receive her, her rich and elegant but
studiously-simple dress, her courteous gesture of salutation, and her
nicely-modulated voice were all perfect.
"I daresay you have forgotten me, Lady Mitford," said she, "though you
were very kind indeed to me when I accompanied my employers to your
house at Redmoor; and your kindness made my position very different
from what it had ever been before under similar circumstances."
"Pray be seated, Miss Gillespie," said Lady Mitford, softened by her
respectful and graceful manner; "I am very glad to know that you have
any pleasant recollections of your visit to Redmoor."
"But you are at a loss to account for my seeking you here, Lady
Mitford, and venturing to call upon you without having first asked and
obtained your permission."
Georgie's nature was so truthful that even the little every-day
conventional matter-of-course falsehoods of society refused to come
trippingly from her tongue. She was surprised at Miss Gillespie's
visit, and she had let it appear that she was.
"If I am at a loss to account for your visit," she said, in her own
sweet persuasive manner, "do not therefore suppose that it is not
agreeable to me. I am very glad to see you, Miss Gillespie; and I hope
it was not any unhappy circumstance which obliged you to leave Redmoor
so abruptly at that time."
"One of the objects of my visit to you to-day, Lady Mitford, is to
explain my conduct on that occasion. I am sure you will be infinitely
surprised to learn that you were nearly, though unconsciously,
concerned in it."
"I, Miss Gillespie! Surely I had not done anything--nothing had
occurred at Redmoor--"
"No, no; you mistake my meaning, which, indeed, I must explain, if you
will permit me to do so, by telling you a long story. Have I your
permission, Lady Mitford?"
Georgie's astonishment was increasing. She marked the earnest gaze her
strange visitor fixed upon her. She saw how her face softened and
glowed as she looked at her. She knew that this young woman had a
kindly feeling towards her; and she was so lonely, so deserted, that
she felt grateful for that, though the person who bestowed it upon her
was only a humble governess. She stretched out her hand by a sudden
impulse, and Miss Gillespie caught and kissed it with intense fervour.
"You shall stay with me as long as you please, and tell me all your
story, Miss Gillespie. I have done nothing to deserve the interest I
see you feel in me; but I thank you for it."
Her visitor did not immediately reply: she sat looking at Georgie's
face, more beautiful in its expression of grief and courage than when
it was at its brightest, as though she were learning the features by
heart. Lady Mitford blushed a little under the scrutiny, and smiled,
as she said:
"You look at me very earnestly, Miss Gillespie. What is there in my
face to fix your attention?"
"There is everything that I once did not believe in, while I longed to
see it. There is beauty, Lady Mitford--well, I have seen enough of
that; but there is truth and gentleness, sweet self-forgetfulness, and
an impulse of kindness to everything that lives and feels and can
suffer. The first time I saw that face I thought of the common saying
about the face of an angel; but I soon ceased to think it was like
that. Angels are in heaven, where their sinless and sorrowless sphere
lies. Such women as you are on earth, to teach those who, standing far
off, see them, to hope, and believe, and take comfort, because they
exist and have their part in the same troubled world with themselves,
but always bringing the image and the ideal of a better nearer, and
making it real."
Her voice trembled, and tears stood in her eyes. Georgie wondered more
and more.
"When I have told you my story, Lady Mitford," she went on, "you will
be able to understand in a degree--you never could quite comprehend
it--the effect that such a woman as you produces upon such a woman as
I; for I studied you more closely than you could have suspected in
that brief time at Redmoor; and I hold a clue to your history, of
whose existence you were ignorant."
"Do not tell me anything that it will pain you to repeat, Miss
Gillespie," said Georgie, seeing that she hesitated and changed
colour.
"In that case I should tell you nothing, Lady Mitford; for there is
little in my life that has not been painful. I daresay you would find
it difficult to realize, if I could put it before you in the plainest
words; and I am sure, even if you did realize it, you would judge it
mercifully--you would remember the difficulties and the dangers of
such an existence, and suffer them to have their weight as against its
sins and sorrows. You know what it is to be motherless, Lady Mitford;
but yours was a guarded childhood, hedged about with pious care and
fatherly love,--they told me all about you down at Redmoor. Mine was a
motherless childhood; and my father was a thief, and the companion of
thieves. This is the simple English of the matter. You would not
understand the refinements and distinctions by which the dishonest
classes describe their different ranks in the army of thieves; you
could not comprehend the scenes and the influences among which my
childhood was passed; and I will not try to explain them, because they
have no bearing upon what it concerns you to hear."
She had rested her arm upon a table beside her chair, and supported
her head on her hand.
"My wretched childhood had passed by, and my more wretched girlhood
had reached its prime, when I was brought in contact with Sir Charles
Mitford."
Georgie recoiled, turned very red, and uttered an exclamation.
"I was associated at that time with some men who made their livelihood
in a number of dishonest ways; and one of them had in his possession a
document, by means of which he had maintained a hold over Mitford,
then a young man of small means and very indirect expectations. The
man I speak of died, and accident placed me in possession of the
document. It was a forged bill!"
Lady Mitford covered her face with her hands; and as Miss Gillespie
continued, the slow tears began to force their way through the slender
fingers.
"Others knew of the existence of this bill, Lady Mitford, and I have
no doubt whatever that they traded upon their knowledge. Every effort,
direct and indirect, was made to get the bill out of my possession;
but I resolved to keep it, and every effort failed. Perhaps I might
have used it for my own purposes against Sir Charles some day, if I
had never seen or known you. It is certain that I should have given it
to him, and set him free for ever from an apprehension which
constantly beset and tortured him, had I not known how unworthily he
was treating you, how completely all the hard lessons of his life of
poverty and shifts had failed to correct his low instincts and his
utter untrustworthiness. Don't cry, dear Lady Mitford,--your tears
pain me keenly; I must draw them forth a little while, and then I
trust to dry them.
"I saw Sir Charles when he first visited Mrs. Hammond at Torquay. By
that time I had drifted to land somehow, and I had contrived to get my
wandering feet within the confines of respectability. I was quiet,
even happy, in Mrs. Hammond's employment, though I soon perceived her
to be the most worthless of her sex. That, however, troubled me
little; and when Sir Charles came to the house and recognized me, and
I said a few words to him which were not pleasant to hear, and I saw
that he was in the toils, as--he had so often been before, I did not
much care either. I disliked and despised him, and I liked to think of
the hidden weapon in my possession, and to picture his amazement if he
knew that not only was I Lizzie Ponsford,--acquainted with all his
doings and all his disreputable associates,--but that I actually held
in my possession the document for which he would have given so large a
price, and which would have ruined him at any moment. I liked to know
that my presence made him uncomfortable, and I suffered him to
experience that discomfort to the fullest extent.
"You are shocked, Lady Mitford; such feelings are incomprehensible to
you but I tell you simply and plainly that they were mine, because I
am coming to the portion of lay story which concerns you. I went to
Redmoor with Mrs. Hammond, and on the first evening of our visit I saw
that you were suspicious and uneasy. I saw you, Lady Mitford; I
observed you closely, and I loved you; not so much as I did
afterwards, when every day brought some gift, some grace, some beauty
of your mind and disposition freshly before me; not so much as I did
when your sweet gentleness, your kindly courtesy, your unfailing
consideration filled me with sentiments which I had never known
before, when for the first time I learned what it was to be cared for
as an individual. Do you remember the day you took me to your
dressing-room, Lady Mitford, and lent me some of your favourite books,
and talked with me of what kind of reading I liked, and showed an
interest in me, as if I had been a lady and one of your most
considered guests? No, you do not remember it, but I do. Then I
determined to use the power I had over him on your behalf. I knew it
would not avail long; I knew if even he were rescued from her, he
never could realize your hopes, never could be worthy of you; but at
least I could control him for the time. I tried and succeeded. I
threatened him with exposure if he did not desist. I cannot tell you
exactly the course of subsequent events; I have never been able to
make that out to my own satisfaction; but I have a theory which I
think is a right one. A few days after I had the interview I have
mentioned with Sir Charles, a man appeared who had been mixed up in
many of the transactions of the time past to which I had been a party.
He met me, und told me a story which I did not believe, but which
altered my position completely. He had come down to get me away; and
whether he came as Sir Charles's _employé_ or on his own account, I
have never been certain. I believe the latter to be the more likely.
He had two alternatives at his command: he might expose me if I
refused to leave Redmoor quietly, and destroy all my hopes of
attaining respectability in future, or he might take the bill from me
by force or fraud, if I yielded to his threats. I did neither; I
temporized; I made an appointment with him for two o'clock on the
following day, and I left Redmoor, without clue by which I could be
tracked, at daybreak. Let who would be the author of Mr. Effingham's
proceeding (he called himself Effingham), I had balked their scheme,
and I turned my back on Redmoor with one bitter pang of regret mingled
with my triumph. I should see your face, Lady Mitford, no more, and I
could no longer interfere to prevent the deadly wrong which was being
done by your faithless husband and your false friend.
"All such regrets were, however, utterly vain. The imminent risk of
exposure left me no choice. At least I would punish Sir Charles so
far: he should never have the bill--he should never have the
satisfaction of feeling that that ghost was laid. So I left the only
place in which I had ever tasted happiness, and set my face to the
hard world again. But before I stole away from your house that
morning, I wrote a line to Colonel Alsager, and told him to take up
the watch I had been obliged to relinquish. You are astonished, Lady
Mitford; and well you may be. I had never exchanged more than a dozen
sentences with Colonel Alsager; but I knew that the interest he felt
in you was in no way inferior to mine; while his opportunities of
exhibiting it were infinitely greater, and so I wrote to him."
"What did you do, Miss Gillespie, when you left Redmoor? I fear you
had very little money. Forgive me if I offend you, but I gathered that
from something Mrs. Hammond said."
"You are right, Lady Mitford; and it is like you to think of a need
which you have never known. I _had_ very little money; but I had a
friend who put me in the way of earning some--how, I will tell you
when I have finished the portion of my story in which you are
interested."
The gentle look of forbearance and compassion in Georgie's face seemed
to touch Miss Gillespie very deeply. Once more she took her hand and
kissed it. Then she continued:
"I went to America, and for a long time I heard nothing of you, though
I longed most ardently to do so. The echoes of the great world did not
reach me in the distant sphere of my toil, and I longed to know how
the only person with whom I had ever felt true human sympathy was
wearing through her day. This may seem to you an unnatural and
overstrained sentiment; and so it would be in the mind of any one who
had any natural ties, or who was less desolate than I; but you must be
able to comprehend my life before you could understand these
inconsistencies. Let me leave this, then, unexplained, and tell you
that I came back to England, and that I have heard all that has
befallen you since I went away. I have never felt anything that has
happened to myself in my vagabond life so much. Incidents I heard, but
no one could tell me anything of you individually,--of how you were
bearing your trials, of what face you showed the world, which would
coldly criticise you--a creature as far beyond its comprehension as
any angel in the heaven far beyond their sphere."
She spoke with intense feeling, and her fine face glowed with the
depth of her sympathy and admiration.
"At last I caught sight of Colonel Alsager."
Georgie blushed, but her visitor did not appear to observe her
emotion.
"I knew he could tell me what I thirsted to know, and I went to his
hotel on the following day, but failed to see him; and when I sent a
note, asking him to let me speak a few words with him, it was
returned. Colonel Alsager had left town. I learned that his father
was dead, and he, of course, a baronet now; but I heard nothing
further--no one could tell me if his absence were likely to be
prolonged. I had the strongest, the most insatiable desire to see you,
Lady Mitford. I wanted to see the face that I had never forgotten, and
find it as beautiful, as good as ever."
Georgie smiled sadly "Ah, Miss Gillespie, I have suffered much, and am
greatly changed."
"Only for the better," she said eagerly; "only for the better. Every
line in your face is lighted up with spiritual light now. When I saw
it last, the girlish softness had not left the features and given the
expression fair play."
Her enthusiasm--her feeling--were so real, and there was such a strong
dash of the artist in her remarks, that it would have been impossible
to resent them. Lady Mitford once more smiled sadly.
"I knew there was no chance that I should see you in any public
place--your deep mourning precluded that possibility--and so I
resolved to come here and present myself boldly before you. In the
ordinary sense of society, between you and me there is a gulf fixed;
but I thought your gentleness would span it. It has done so. You have
permitted me to speak to you face to face; you have gratified the wish
which another might have resented as mere insolent curiosity."
"Why do you speak thus, Miss Gillespie? Why should there be a gulf
between you and me? I am not aware of any reason. I do not despise you
because you are a governess, because you use the talents and the
education you possess to earn an honourable livelihood. Why do you
speak thus?"
Miss Gillespie looked at her, and an expression of deep suffering
crossed her face.
"I will explain my meaning presently," she said; "but now I have
something else to say. Is it true that Sir Charles Mitford has
followed this woman to Baden? They say so at the clubs, and I heard it
this morning. Pardon me, and tell me. I don't ask the question for my
own sake, or out of idle curiosity. I have a serious, a most serious
meaning."
"Yes, it is too true," said Lady Mitford.
"Then listen. He must be brought back: he is only gone to
mortification and ridicule. I know a great many queer people, and I
hear a great many strange things; and I heard this to-day: Mrs.
Hammond is going to marry the Russian Prince Tchernigow, a man who is
a violent, jealous, brutal wretch,--I know all about him,--a man whose
cruelty and vindictiveness are not to be surpassed; her punishment is
in safe hands Dear Lady Mitford, I understand that look. You don't
wish her to be punished, I am sure--quite sure of that; but if she
marries Tchernigow, she must be. But it is not with that we are
concerned: it is to bring _him_ home--to rescue him from danger and
disgrace and ridicule, for your sake; and you can do it--you, and you
only."
Georgie was breathless with astonishment. Miss Gillespie rose and
caught her by both hands. Then she went on speaking with great
rapidity:
"Yes, I say you can do it. Write to him to-day--now, this very
hour-and tell him Lizzie Ponsford has been with you; that _she_ holds
the bill which he employed that poor wretch Effingham to get for him;
that Effingham cheated him from first to last--from the time of the
Albatross till the day he went to the bottom of the sea with the
Pocahontas. Tell him he shall have it placed in his hands on the day
he returns to London. Your letter will reach him when he has learned
the faithlessness of the woman for whom he has betrayed you. Do you
not think it will touch him, written as you will write it,--with the
gentleness, the pity, the pardon it will convey? At the moment of his
greatest exasperation, in the full tide of his bitterness, a way of
escape from one constant, overhanging, torturing cause of uneasiness
will be removed; and by whose hands? Yours!"
She paused, breathless in her excitement, and took from her bosom a
paper, which she laid on the table before Lady Mitford, who looked at
it pale and trembling.
"You will do as I say, dear Lady Mitford--you will do it for his sake,
and your own, and for mine? Let me have the satisfaction of knowing
that I have been able to do this service for you--the only service I
have ever done any one; the only one. I fear, I have ever wished to
do."
"O no, don't say that," said Lady Mitford. "You misjudge yourself; I
am sure you do, dear Miss Gillespie, or why should you have felt so
much for me, and done me such a service? Do not write hard things
against yourself. I will do this--it may succeed; but whether it
succeeds or not, I shall ever be grateful to you, ever bless you for
this act; and you will let me serve you in turn--you will tell me your
wishes, and let me try to carry them out. You said you would tell me
how you have been engaged since you left Redmoor."
"Thank you, dear Lady Mitford," said Miss Gillespie, in a low deep
tone; "but you cannot serve me. I told you there was a gulf fixed
between you, the patrician lady, and me. I am an actress, and my
stage-name is Constance Greenwood."
Lady Mitford wrote the letter to Sir Charles, as her strange visitor
had counselled her to do. She suffered much in writing it; she hoped
much from its effect. Time rolled on, and she knew that Sir Charles
must have received the letter; then she counted the days which must
elapse before the answer could arrive, and, arming herself with
patience, she waited.