I wonder how many people have stood on Waterloo Bridge, looking down
upon the ever-moving river, and feeling themselves irresistibly
attracted by the weird fascination of its cruel waters! But one
cannot wonder at the eerie influence it exerts upon the miserable.
One moment’s nerve – one plunge – one splash – a short struggle –
and the stress and anguish of life are left behind!
And the Hereafter, what of it? It is truly an inscrutable puzzle.
But the sudden recollection that an account of earthly doings may be
required of us in another world has nerved many a desperate victim
of misery to further endurance, and cheated Father Thames of much of
his prey.
It was different with Lucy Markham. She was so desperate, so
despairing, so wildly reckless, that nothing but the forcibly
detaining arms which I flung around her would have prevented her
from jumping into the river, and putting an end to a young life that
had only seen seventeen summers.
“Let me go!” she shrieked. “How dare you hinder me? Can I not do as
I like with myself?”
“No,” I panted, as I vainly strove to avoid the blows with which the
frantic girl sought to release herself from my grasp. “I will not
let you go until you promise that you will not put an end to your
life.”
“Let me go!” she repeated. “I will do as I like! All the world has
forsaken me, and I owe it no duty now. You can’t hold me much
longer, and you shall see how soon I will end it all.”
“Never! If I don’t get your promise, I will scream for help, and
then you will be locked up until your senses come back to you.”
My determination had its effect. She ceased to struggle, and looked
solemnly at me with big, lovely eyes, to which the pale light of
the moon seemed to give an uncanny glitter.
“Who are you?” she asked, “that you should so concern yourself about
the fate of a stranger?”
“I am a friend of humanity, I hope.”
“Humanity! My God! How much humanity has my short life met with? And
what sort of a specimen of humanity do you suppose me to be?”
“Unfortunate; that is evident. Not naturally depraved, I am sure.
The victim of some scoundrel, I imagine. A fitting subject for help
and counsel. That is certain.”
“Help and counsel! Oh, how I have prayed for them! and now it is
too late!”
But I saw that I had conquered. The fierceness of the girl’s frenzy
had passed, and the crisis in her fate was over. Poor child! how my
heart bled for her! It is sad to witness despair at any time. But
saddest of all is it to recognise the insatiate ghoul on the face of
those to whom life should just be opening wide its portals of joy.
“Perhaps I can afford you help and counsel,” I said soothingly.
“People would never find themselves utterly forsaken if they only
knew to whom to apply in their need. Tell me about yourself. It will
relieve you. What is your name, and where do you live?”
“My name,” was the bitter answer, “has been disgraced, and I will
not add to my folly by involving my family in my disgrace. As for my
home, it is a truly magnificent one. The air, the sky, and the
roaring noises of civilisation are all mine to enjoy ad libitum.
Why, I am quite rich!”
As the stranger made the last remark, she lost her self-restraint,
and sobbed with hysterical violence. I felt very much relieved at
this outburst, for I knew that though it would probably leave the
girl faint and exhausted, it would also leave her in a more gentle
and pliable frame of mind.
My judgment proved correct, and I was presently fully confided in.
It was the old story of blind trust and deliberate betrayal, and is
soon told. Lucy Markham had been well educated and delicately
reared, but was without relatives or near friends at the time I
found her. Her mother had died eighteen months before this. The
penury consequent upon the previous death of the father had been
partly met by disposing of the furniture and other effects, and when
Lucy was left unprotected she was also quite without means.
But she meant to be very industrious and attentive to her duties,
and quite expected to earn her living easily in London. So she
migrated from the quiet little Surrey village where she had seen so
much sorrow to seek and to find employment in one of the greatest
hives of wickedness the world has ever known, to wit – London.
When her employer began to pay her little attentions, she felt
flattered. When he requested her to observe the strictest secrecy
regarding his stealthily bestowed attention, she believed his
representation that her fellow employees would be spitefully jealous
if they suspected which way the wind was blowing. When he took her
to a pretty house, she never doubted his assertion that marriage
would follow immediately upon her transference thither, and it was
with a feeling of rapturous pride that she obeyed his injunctions
to the letter, and allowed herself to be introduced to the servant
as “Mrs Maynard,” “just for the look of the thing” as Mr Collinson
said.
Asked what the servant would think of her being called “Mrs Collinson”
soon, the specious schemer replied that the servant really knew all
particulars, and that it was the neighbours for whose benefit the
little temporary deception was intended.
But it soon transpired that Lucy herself was the object of deception.
The self-styled Mr Maynard had ever some excuse ready for putting
off the marriage until his victim felt herself hopelessly
compromised. The servant was his willing tool; and when he got tired
of his toys, he had no difficulty in getting the servant to help him
further in his rascally work. The latter contrived to tell Lucy that
all the neighbours already looked down upon her, and that she, being
kept by a man to whom she was not married, was considered beyond the
pale of respectability. Innocent the girl was. But who would believe
her protestations to that effect? In the face of her apparent guilt,
no one would do it.
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk,” said the servant. “The master
will be kind and generous to you as long as he likes you. But you
will have to give up such a notion as marrying so rich a man as he
is. Take my advice, and get all you can out of him while you have
the chance. He’ll soon fall in love with somebody else.”
Lucy’s heartbroken threat to expose her betrayer only provoked the
derision of the servant.
“You would very likely get locked up for attempted blackmailing,”
she said. “He has been too careful for such a greenhorn as you to
circumvent him. He has never been here to see either you or the
house except after dark, and nobody would believe you if you said
that Mr Maynard was Mr Collinson. For he is a great man at church,
and subscribes to everything. He is supposed to have nearly broken
his heart when his wife died, and if ever anybody was looked upon by
the world as a pattern of virtue, it is the man whom you, a bit of a
shopgirl, expected to marry you. You would only get yourself laughed
at and despised. So take my advice and don’t be fool enough to fly
in the face of fortune yet.”
Even after these revelations the poor child could hardly believe in
the utter baseness of her betrayer. But in her next interview with
him she was soon convinced of the fact that the man whom she, in
common with the rest of the world, regarded as a pattern of virtue,
was, in reality, a monster of deceit and vice.
That night she escaped from her pretty home, and from then until I
saved her from self-destruction she had undergone all manner of
rebuffs, disappointments, and privations, which were enough to drive
any other modest girl to the refuge of the wretched.
I found a temporary home for Lucy, and promised to put an end to her
troubles in some way or other. Nor did I doubt my ability to do this.
Lucy believed an appeal or a threat of exposure to be equally vain
weapons to use against Mr Collinson, but I was more worldly wise,
and more sure of success. I saw that as yet the girl was not fit to
cope with the world, and I determined to make the “Pattern of
Virtue” provide for her comfort. In this determination Lucy’s own
guileless and simple nature aided me. Though tenacious of her
honour, she did not recoil from the idea of compelling Mr Collinson
to pay for his deception, as many a girl of more vigorous mind whose
feelings had been outraged would have done.
I confess to feeling more slightly malicious when I went to
interview the great draper and clothier, who soon found that he had
a much more experienced woman than simple little Lucy to deal with.
His dismay, when I quietly laid the whole array of facts before him
and proved the strength of my position, was comical to witness. At
first he tried to frighten me with his bogie reputation as a pattern
of virtue. But I had several cards up my sleeve, and as I played
them, one by one, he realised that if I were to make public exposure
of only one-half the seedy facts I had been able, with the aid of
my colleagues, to rake up against him, the world would know him in
all his carnal hideousness, and a vast number of people would take
their custom elsewhere.
Before I had done with him I convinced him of the expediency of
providing liberally for Lucy for at least five years to come, and I
declined to be satisfied with less than three hundred per annum for
that period. It was a bitter pill for him to swallow, but he saw no
other way out of the embroglio into which his scoundrelly nature had
brought him, and I carried my point.
Lucy has a rare taste for music, and her special gifts lie in the
direction of operatic composition. She is talented, industrious, and
ambitious, and she is having the best tuition obtainable. Her whole
soul is in her art, and there is little fear that she will hearken
to the flattery which her sweet looks, gentle nature, and future
prospects evoke. When her five years of study are ended there will
be another star added to our galaxy of genius, and I shall be more
thankful than ever that the opportunity was given me to rescue a
despairing soul from a watery grave, and that I had the ability to
make a Pattern of Virtue pay liberally for his vices.