Dick went back to town on the Monday, having taken no decisive step, nor
said any decisive words. All that he had done was to make it apparent
that the matter was not to end there, as had seemed likely when they
parted in London. Chatty now saw that it was not to be so. The thing
was not to drop into the mere blank of unfulfilledness, but was to be
brought to her decision, to yea or nay. This conviction, and the company
of Dick in a relation which could not but be new, since it was no longer
accidental, but of the utmost gravity in her life, gave a new turn
altogether to her existence. The change in her was too subtle for the
general eye. Even Minnie, sharp as she was, could make nothing more of
it than that Chatty was "more alive looking," a conclusion which, like
most things nowadays, she declared to come from Eustace. Mrs. Warrender
entered with more sympathy into her daughter's life, veiled not so much
by intention as by instinctive modesty and reserve from her as from all
others: but even she did not know what was in Chatty's mind, the slow
rising of an intense light which illuminated her as the sun lights up
a fertile plain,--the low land drinking in every ray, unconscious of
shadow,--making few dramatic effects, but receiving the radiance at
every point. Chatty herself felt like that low-lying land. The new life
suffused her altogether, drawing forth few reflections, but flooding the
surface of her being, and warming her nature through and through. It was
to be hers, then,--not as Minnie, not as Theo had it,--but like
Shakespeare, like poetry, like that which maidens dream.
Dick went back to town. When he had gone to his old friend for advice
his mind had revolted against that advice and determined upon his own
way; but the short interview with Lizzie Hampson had changed everything.
He had not meant to speak to her on the subject; and what did it matter
though he had spoken to her for a twelvemonth? She could not have
understood him or his desire. She thought he meant to punish the poor,
lost creature, perhaps to put her in prison. The word divorce had
terrified her. And yet he now felt as if he had committed himself to
that procedure, and it must be carried out. Yet a strange reluctance to
take the first steps retarded him. Even to an unknown advocate in the
far West a man is reluctant to allow that his name has been dishonoured.
The publicity of an investigation before a tribunal, even when three
or four thousand miles away, is horrible to think of,--although less
horrible than had the wrong and misery taken place nearer home. But
after six years, and over a great ocean and the greater part of a
continent, how futile it seemed to stir up all those long-settled
sediments again! He wrote and rewrote a letter to a lawyer whose name
he remembered, to whom he had done one or two slight services, in the
distant State which was the scene of his brief and miserable story. But
he had not yet satisfied himself with this letter when there occurred an
interruption which put everything of the kind out of his thoughts.
This was the receipt of a communication in black borders so portentous
that Dick, always alive to the comic side of everything, was moved for
the moment to a profane laugh. "No mourning could ever be so deep as
this looks," he said to himself, and opened the gloomy missive with
little thought. It could, he believed, only convey to him information of
the death of some one whom he knew little, and for whom he cared less.
But the first glance effectually changed his aspect. His face grew
colourless, the paper fell out of his hands. "Good God!" he said. It was
no profane exclamation. What was this? a direct interposition of heaven
in his behalf, a miracle such as is supposed never to happen nowadays?
The first effect was to take breath and strength from him. He sat with
his under jaw fallen, his face livid as if with dismay. His heart seemed
to stand still; awe, as if an execution had been performed before his
eyes, came over him. He felt as if he had a hand in it, as if some
action of his had brought doom upon the sufferer. A cold perspiration
came out on his forehead. Had he wished her death in the midst of her
sins, poor, miserable woman? Had he set the powers of fate to work
against her, he, arrogant in his virtue and the happiness that lay
within his reach? Compunction was the first thought. It seemed to him
that he had done it. Had he a right to do it, to cut off her time of
repentance, to push her beyond the range of hope?
After this, however, he picked up the letter again with trembling hands,
and read it. It was from a man who described himself as the head of a
circus company in Liverpool, with whom Emma Altamont had been performing.
She had died in consequence of a fall two days before. "She directed me
with her last breath to write to you, to say that you would know her
under another name, which she was not going to soil by naming it even
on her deathbed, but that you would know. She died very penitent, and
leaving her love to all friends. She was very well liked in the company,
though she joined it not so very long ago. A few things that she left
behind she requested you to have the choice of, if you cared for any
keepsake to remember her by, and sent you her forgiveness freely, as
she hoped to be forgiven by you. The funeral is to be on Sunday, at two
o'clock; and I think she would have taken it kind as a mark of respect
if she had thought you would come. I leave that to your own sense of
what is best."
This was the letter which fell like a bomb into Dick's life. It was long
before he could command himself enough to understand anything but the
first startling fact. She was dead. In his heart, by his thoughts, had
he killed her? was it his fault? He did not go beyond this horrible idea
for some long minutes. Then there suddenly seized upon him a flood of
gladness, a sensation of guilty joy. God had stepped in to set the matter
straight. The miracle which we all hope for, which never seems impossible
in our own case, had been wrought. All lesser ways of making wrong right
were unnecessary now. All was over, the pain of retrospection, the painful
expedients of law, the danger of publicity, all over. The choice of her
poor little leavings for a token to remember her by! Dick shuddered at
the thought. To remember her by! when to forget her was all that he
wished.
It was long before he could do anything save think, in confused whirls
of recollection, and painful flashes of memory, seeing before his hot
eyes a hundred phantasmal scenes. But at last he roused himself to a
consideration of what he ought to do. Prudence seemed to suggest an
immediate journey to Liverpool, to satisfy himself personally that all
was effectually winded up and concluded in this miserable account; but
a dread, a repugnance, which he could not overcome, held him back. He
could not take part by act or word in anything that concerned her again;
not even, poor creature, in her funeral; not from any enmity or hatred
to her, poor unfortunate one, but because of the horror, the instinctive
shrinking, which he could not overcome. Dick determined, however, to
send the man who had charge of his chambers, a man half servant, half
clerk, in whom he could fully trust. It was Friday when he received
the letter. He sent him down next day to Liverpool with instructions to
represent him at the funeral, to offer money if necessary to defray its
expenses, to let no "respect" be spared. She would have liked "respect"
in this way. It would have given her pleasure to think that she was to
have a fine funeral. Dick gave his man the fullest instructions. "She
was connected with--friends of mine," Dick said, "who would wish
everything to be respectably done, though they cannot themselves take
any part." "I understand, sir," said the man, who put the most natural
interpretation upon the strange commission, and did not believe in any
fiction about Dick's "friends." Dick called him back when he had reached
the door. "You can see the things of which this person writes, and
choose some small thing without value, the smaller the better, to send
as he proposes to--the people she belongs to." This seemed the last
precaution of prudence to make assurance sure.
After this, three days of tumultuous silence till the messenger came
back. He came bringing a description of the funeral, a photograph of
"the poor young lady," and a little ring--a ring which Dick himself had
given her, so long, so long ago. The sight of these relics had an effect
upon him impossible to describe. He had to keep his countenance somehow
till the man had been dismissed. The photograph was taken in fancy dress,
in one of the circus costumes, and was full of all manner of dreadful
accessories; the stage smile, the made-up beauty, the tortured hair: but
there was no difficulty in recognising it. A trembling like palsy seized
upon him as he gazed at it: then he lit his taper once more, and with
a prayer upon his quivering lips burnt it. The ring he twisted up in
paper, and carried out with him in his hand till he reached the muddy,
dark-flowing river, where he dropped it in. Thus all relics and vestiges
of her, poor creature, God forgive her! were vanished and put out of
sight for evermore.
Next day Dick Cavendish, a new man, went once more to Highcombe. He
was not quite the light-hearted fellow he had been. There was a little
emotion about him, a liquid look in the eyes, a faint quiver about the
mouth, which Chatty, when she lifted her soft eyes with a little start
of surprise and consciousness to greet him, perceived at once and set
down to their true cause. Ah yes, it was their true cause. Here he was,
come to offer himself with a past full of the recollections we know,
with a life which had been all but ruined in times gone by, to the
whitest soul he had ever met with, a woman who was innocence and purity
personified; who would perhaps, if she knew, shrink from him, refuse the
hand which she would think a soiled one. Dick had all this in his mind,
and it showed in his countenance, which was full of feeling, but feeling
of which Chatty understood nothing. He found her alone by the merest
chance. Everything seemed to work for him in this season of fortune. No
inquisitive sister, no intrusive brother-in-law, not even the mother
with her inquiring eyes was here to interrupt. The jar with the big
campanulas stood in the corner; the mignonettes breathed softly an
atmosphere of fragrance; her muslin work was in Chatty's hand.
Well, he had not a great deal to say. It had all been said by his eyes
in the first moment, so that the formal words were but a repetition.
The muslin work dropped after a few seconds, and Chatty's hands were
transferred to his to be caressed and kissed and whispered over. He had
loved her ever since that day when she had lightly pushed open the door
of the faded drawing-room at the Warren and walked in with her bowl of
roses. "That was the door of my heart," Dick said. "You had come in
before I knew. I can smell the roses still, and I shall ask Theo for
that bowl for a wedding present. And you, my Chatty, and you?"
Mrs. Warrender had her little triumph that afternoon. She said, with the
most delicate politeness: "I hope, Minnie, that Eustace after all will
be able to tolerate his new brother-in-law." Minnie gave her mother a
look of such astonishment as proved that the fine edge of the sarcasm
was lost.
"To tolerate--a Cavendish! I can't think what you mean, mamma! Eustace
is not an ignorant goose, though you seem to think so; nor am I."
"I am glad your Honours are pleased," said the ironical mother, with a
laugh. Minnie stared and repeated the speech to Eustace, who was not
very clear either about its meaning. But "Depend upon it, dear, your
mother meant to be nasty," he said, which was quite true.
After this, all was commotion in the house. Dick, though he had been an
uncertain lover, was very urgent now. He made a brief explanation to
Mrs. Warrender that his proposal had not been made at the time they
parted in London, "only because of an entanglement of early youth,"
which made her look grave. "I do not inquire what you mean," she said,
"but I hope at least that it is entirely concluded." "Entirely," he
replied with fervour; "nor am I to blame as you think, nor has it had
any existence for six years. I was young then." "Very young, poor
boy!" she said with her old indulgent smile. He made the same brief
explanation to Chatty, but Chatty had no understanding whatever of what
the words meant and took no notice. If she thought of it at all she
thought it was something about money, to her a matter of the most
complete indifference. And so everything became bustle and commotion,
and the preparations for the wedding were put in hand at once. The
atmosphere was full of congratulations, of blushes and wreathed smiles.
"Marriage is certainly contagious; when it once begins in a family, one
never knows where it will stop," the neighbours said: and some thought
Mrs. Warrender much to be felicitated on getting all her young people
settled; and some, much to be condoled with on losing her last girl just
as she had settled down. But these last were in the minority, for to get
rid of your daughters is a well understood advantage, which commends
itself to the meanest capacity.
It was arranged for the convenience of everybody that the wedding was
to take place in London. Dick's relations were legion, and to stow them
away in the Dower house at Highcombe, or even to find room to give
them a sandwich and a glass of wine, let alone a breakfast, after the
ceremony, was impossible. Dick himself was particularly urgent about
this particular, he could not have told why, whether from a foreboding
of disturbance or some other incomprehensible reason. But as for
disturbance, there was no possibility of that. Every evil thing that
could have interfered had been exorcised and lost its power. There was
nothing in his way; nothing to alarm or trouble, but only general
approval and the satisfaction of everybody concerned.