"Oh, May, May! As if I had not care and pain enough without this.
Surely it cannot be true."
"Hush! don't make a fuss like that, you silly thing. You'll have the
people hearing you down in the street. How could I help it?"
"Help it? May, you must have been mad."
"Oh! no, I wasn't," said Mrs Burnett, nestling into a corner of the
couch in her father's drawing-room. "I believe he was, though, poor
fellow."
She gazed up at her portrait with her pretty girlish face wrinkling up,
and these wrinkles seeming to have had work to get the better of the
dimples in her baby cheeks and chin.
"He was dreadfully fond of me, Claire," she continued, "and I was very
fond of him. And then, you see, we were both so young."
Claire clasped her hands together and gazed at her sister with a face
full of wonder, she seemed so calm and unconcerned, as if it were some
one else's trouble and not her own that had brought the tears into her
eyes.
"But, May, why did not you confide in me?"
"Likely! You were always scolding and snubbing me, as it was. I don't
know what you would have said if you had known. Besides, I was afraid
of you in those days."
"May, you will drive me mad," said Claire, pacing the room.
"Nonsense; and don't go on running up and down the room like that. Be
sensible, and help me."
"Why have you not told me before?"
"I've been going to tell you heaps of times, but you've always had
something or other to worry about, and I've been put off."
"Till you knew that detection was inevitable; and now you come to me,"
cried Claire reproachfully.
"Look here, Claire, are you going to talk sensibly, or am I to go to
some lady friend to help me? There's Mrs Pontardent."
"No, no," cried Claire excitedly. "You must not take anyone else into
your confidence. Tell me all. But May, May, is this really true, or is
it some miserable invention of your own?"
"Oh, it's true enough," said May sharply, as she arranged her bonnet
strings, and bent forward to catch a glimpse of her great ostrich
feather.
Claire looked at her with her face drawn with care and horror, while she
wondered at the indifference of the little wife, and the easy way in
which she was trying to shift the trouble and responsibility of her
weakness and folly upon her sister.
"Why, May, you could not have been seventeen."
"Sixteen and a half," said May. "Heigho! I begin to feel quite an old
woman now."
"But, Frank? Do you ever think of the consequences if he were to know?"
"Why, of course I do, you silly thing. Haven't I lain in bed and quaked
hundreds of times for fear he should ever find out? How can you talk
so? Why do you suppose I came to you, if it was not that I was afraid
of his getting to know?"
"May, it would drive our father mad if all came out."
"Of course it would. Now you are beginning to wake up and understand
why I have come."
"How could you accept Frank Burnett, and deceive him so?"
"How could I marry him? What would papa have said if I had refused?
Don't talk stuff."
Claire's brow knit more and more, as she realised her sister's utter
want of principle, and her heart seemed rent by anger, pity, and grief.
"Besides, do you suppose I wanted to stop here and pinch and starve when
a rich husband and home were waiting for _me_? Poor Louis was dead, and
if I'd cried my eyes out every week and said I'd be a widow for ever and
ever, it would not have brought him to life."
Claire did not speak. Her words would not come, and she gazed in utter
perplexity, struggling to realise the fact that the girlish little thing
before her could possibly have been a widow and mother before she became
Mrs Burnett.
"When--when did this begin?" said Claire at last.
"Now, don't talk to me like that, Claire, or you'll set me off crying my
eyes blind, and I shall go home red and miserable, and Frank will find
it all out."
"He must be told."
"Told?" cried May, starting up. "Told? If he is told, I'll go right
down to the end of the pier and drown myself. He must never know, and
papa must never know. Do you think I've kept this a secret for more
than two years for them to be told?"
"They will be sure to know."
"Yes, if you tell them. Oh, Claire, Claire, I did think I could find
help in my sister, now that I am in such terrible trouble."
"I will help you all I can, May," said Claire sadly; "but they must
know."
"I tell you they must not," cried May angrily, and speaking like a
spoiled child. "Frank would kill me, and as for poor, dear, darling
papa, with all his troubles about getting you married and Morton
settled, and Fred turning out so badly, it would kill him, and then
you'd have a nice time of it, far worse than poor old mummy Teigne being
killed."
"Oh, hush, May!" said Claire, with a horrified look.
"That moves you, does it, miss? Well, then, be reasonable. I don't
know what to make of you of late, Claire; you seem to be so changed.
Ah, you'll find the difference when you're a married woman."
Claire gazed down at her, with the trouble and perplexity seeming to
increase, while May Burnett arranged the folds of her dress, as she once
more nestled in the corner of the old sofa, and seemed as if she were
posing herself to be pitied and helped.
Then she lifted her eyes towards the florid portrait on the wall, and
sighed.
"Poor Louis! How he did flatter me. But he always did that, and I
suppose it was his flattering words made me love him so. I was very
fond of him."
"May," said Claire excitedly, "when was it you were married?"
"Oh, it was such fun. It was while I was staying at Aunt Jerdein's, and
taking the music lessons. I went out as usual, to go to Golden Square
for my lesson as aunt thought, and Louis was waiting for me, and he took
me in a hackney coach with straw at the bottom and mouldy old cushions,
and one of the windows broken. And we went to such a queer old church
somewhere in the city, and were married--a little old church that smelt
as mouldy as the hackney coach; and the funny old clergyman took snuff
all over his surplice, and he did mumble so."
"And then?"
"Oh, Louis left Saltinville, you know, when I went up to London, and
gave lessons at Aunt Jerdein's, and we used to see as much of each other
as we could, till he had to go back to Rome, and there, poor boy, you
know he died of fever."
Claire did not speak, but stood with her hands clasped before her,
listening to the calm, cool, selfish words that seemed to come rippling
out from the prettily-curved mouth as if it were one of the simplest and
most matter-of-fact things in the world.
"It was a great trouble to me, of course, dear," May continued; and she
raised herself a little, to spread her handsome dress, so that it should
fall in graceful folds. "I used to cry my eyes out, and I don't know
what I should have done if it had not been for Anne Brown."
"Anne Brown? Aunt Jerdein's servant?" said Claire bitterly. "You
trusted her, then, in preference to your own sister."
"No, I didn't, baby. She found me out. And besides, I daren't have
told you. How you would have scolded me, you know," continued May.
"Anne was very good to me, and I went and stayed with her mother when
baby was born, and then Anne left aunt soon after. Aunt thought, you
know, that I'd come down home, and, of course, you all thought I was
still at aunt's. Anne Brown managed about the letters."
"Go on," said Claire, who listened as if this were all some horrible
fiction that she was forced to hear.
"Then I did come home, and Anne Brown took care of poor baby with her
mother, and it was terribly hard work to get money to send them, but
somehow I did it; and then you know about Frank Burnett, how poor dear
papa brought all that on."
Claire uttered a sigh that was almost a groan, but the pretty little
rosebud of a wife went prattling on, in selfish ignorance of the agony
she was inflicting, dividing her attention between her dress and the
picture of herself that was smiling down at her from the wall.
"I suffered very much all that time, Claire dear, and, whenever I could,
I used to go upstairs, lock myself in my room, and put on a little
widow's cap I had--a very small one, dear, of white crape--and have a
good cry about poor Louis. It was the only mourning I ever could wear
for him, and it was nearly always locked up in the bottom drawer; but I
used to carry a bit of black crape in my dress pocket, and touch that
now and then. It was a little strip put through my wedding ring and
tied in a knot. There it is," she said, fishing it out of her dress
pocket; "but the strip of crape only looks like a bit of black rag now."
She held out a tiny, plain gold ring for her sister to see, and it
looked so small that it seemed as if it had been used sometime when a
little girl had been playing at being married with some little boy, or
at one of the child weddings that history records.
"Poor Louis!" sighed May. "I was very fond of him. Then, when I was
married again, of course I was able to send money up every week easily
enough till Frank began to grow so stingy, when I've often had no end of
trouble to get it together. But I always have managed somehow. Oh,
dear me! This is a wearisome place, this world."
Claire stood gazing down at her, and May went on:
"Then all went smoothly enough till that stupid Anne's mother took a
cold or something, and died; then Anne sent me word that she was going
to be married, and I must fetch poor baby away."
The sisters' eyes now met as May continued:
"So, as I didn't know anyone else, I went to Mrs Miggles out there on
the cliff, and told her how I was situated. She wouldn't help me at
first. She said I was to tell you; but when I told her I dared not, and
promised her I'd pay her very regularly, she came round, and she went up
to London by the coach and fetched baby, and a great expense it was to
me, for she had to come back inside. Do open the window, Claire; this
room is stifling."
Claire slowly crossed the room and threw open the window and then
returned to stand gazing at her sister.
"And your little innocent child is there at that fisherman's hut on the
cliff?"
"Yes, dear," said May calmly; and then, for the first time, her face lit
up, and she showed some trace of feeling as she exclaimed:
"And, oh, Claire dear, she is such a little darling."
Claire looked at her in a strangely impassive way. It was as if the
story she had heard of her sister's weakness and deception had stunned
her, and, instead of looking at her, she gazed right away with wistful
eyes at the past troubles culminating in Fred's enlistment, and then
that horror, the very thought of which sent a shudder through her frame.
And now this new trouble had come, one that might prove a terrible
disgrace, while the future looked so black that she dared not turn her
mental gaze in that direction.
"Well," said May, at last, "why don't you speak--though you need not, if
you are only going to scold."
"Why have you come to tell me this now--this disgraceful story of deceit
and shame?"
"Do you wish to send me back broken-hearted, Claire--crying my eyes out
so that Frank is sure to know?"
"I say, why have you come to me, May?"
"Because I am in dreadful trouble at last, and don't know what to do. I
daren't communicate with those people or go near the cottage, for I'm
sure Frank is watching me and suspecting something."
"You will have to confess everything, May; he loves you and will forgive
you."
"But he doesn't love me, and he never would forgive me," cried May
excitedly. "You can't think how we quarrel. He's a horribly jealous
little monster, and I hate him."
"May!"
"I don't care: I do. Now, look here, Claire, it's of no use for you to
boggle about it, because you must help me. If it were to come out it
would be social ruin for us all, and I've had quite enough poverty,
thank you. I dare not go and see the little thing again, and if some
one does not take the Miggleses some money regularly, likely as not
they'll turn disagreeable and begin to talk. I shall bring you money,
of course, and as some one must go and see that my poor darling is
properly cared for, why you must."
"I?"
"Yes, dear, you. The poor little thing shall not be neglected, I'm
determined upon that; and as my situation prevents me, why it is your
duty, Claire."
"Who knows that this is your little girl, May?" said Claire coldly.
"Nobody."
"Not even the fisherman's wife?"
"Well, I dare say she thinks something; but those people never say
anything so long as you pay them regularly. But there, I dare not stay
any longer. There's a guinea, Claire; it's all I have to-day. Take
that to Mrs Miggles, and see how the darling is. I must be off. I'll
come in to-morrow and hear."
"May, I cannot--I dare not--try to cloak this shameful story."
"But you must, I tell you. Now, don't be so silly. Why, I'd do as much
for you."
"I tell you I dare not do this. I must tell papa--or, there, I'll be
your help in this; I'll come with you, and you shall confess to Frank."
"Why, he'd kill me. I know it has been a surprise to you, and you are a
bit taken aback, but think about it, and you will see that it is your
duty to help me now. Good-bye, Claire dear," she continued, as she
kissed her sister. "Nobody knows anything about this but you, and it is
our secret, mind. Good-bye."
Claire hardly heard the door close as May rustled out of the room, hot
and excited by the confidence she had had to make, but evidently quite
at her ease, as her bright eyes and smile showed, when she looked up
from her carriage and nodded at her sister.
Claire looked down at her, drawn involuntarily to the window; and as the
carriage drove off, and she still remained gazing straight before her,
an officer passed and raised his hat.
Claire had an instinctive feeling that it was Major Rockley, but she
neither looked nor moved, for the face of a tiny child seemed to be
looking up at her, smiling, and asking her sympathy.
Then she started into life as there was another footstep on the boulder
path, and another hat was raised, and an eager appealing look met hers,
making her shrink hastily away, with her erst blank face growing
agitated as she drew back trembling and fighting hard to keep down the
sobs that rose.
For all that was past now for her. With the secrets she had held within
her breast before, how dared she to think of his love? Now there was
another--a secret so fraught with future trouble that she hardly dared
dwell upon all that she had heard. It had come upon her that morning
like a thunderclap--this new trouble, known only to herself and the
fisherman's wife. So May had said: for she had gone to her sister to
demand her aid in happy ignorance of this part of her miserable story
being known, beside much more, to little library-keeping Miss Clode.
Volume One, Chapter XXVI.