A TELEGRAM FOR MISS WEST.
The very morning after Madeline had despatched her letter, a telegram
was handed in for Miss West, 2, Solferino Place. The landlady herself
mounted, breathless, to the attics, with the tan-coloured envelope in
her hand.
“I was just for sending it away, Mrs. Wynne,” she gasped, surveying her
with an inquiring eye; “but it came into my mind as I’d show it to you
on the chance.”
“Thank you; it is for me,” rejoined her lodger, hastily tearing it open
and running her eyes over it. As she read, she became crimson with
amazement and agitation. “Come at once--to-day if possible. News of
your father.--From Mrs. Harper, Streambridge,” was the message.
“But it’s for Miss West, and you’ve gone and opened it!” exclaimed
the landlady, suspiciously. “How is that, eh? I never would have
supposed--no, never,” folding her arms belligerently, “as you wasn’t
on the square; and as I’ve allus kep’ a respectable ’ouse, I couldn’t
think----”
“You need _not_ think, Mrs. Kane; you need not alarm yourself about
the matter, it is all quite right. I _am_ Mrs. Wynne, but I was
Miss West once upon a time. The sender of the message does not know
that I am married,” interrupted Madeline, speaking with studied
composure--though her heart was beating fearfully fast.
Insolent as Mrs. Kane was, she dared not quarrel with her. Her roof
covered them on sufferance. Were she to thrust them forth, where
were they to go? They were entirely at her mercy, for they owed her
money; and latterly she had been inclined to take out a large amount
of interest in rude insolence, biting gibes, and unpleasant hints
with regard to “paupers a coming and settling down on poor, honest,
hard-working people--paupers as could afford dress, and theatres, and
pianos once, and saved nothing for a rainy day!”
Paupers--impecunious people like the Wynnes, especially Mrs. Wynne,
who bore the brunt of these encounters--could not afford to stand on
their dignity, and be independent and “move on.” They must submit
humbly; but it was insufferably galling--as galling to Madeline as Miss
Selina’s yoke, that had pressed upon her so sorely but one little year
ago.
Who but herself knew with what deprecating eyes and voice she had
pleaded with her impatient landlady for a little time, how humbly she
ventured to ask for coals, how stealthily she crept up and down stairs,
carrying baby, and doing her own miserable errands, making her presence
as unobtrusive as possible, for fear of offending her hostess’s
threatening eyes.
The hostess’s threatening eyes were fixed upon her now, with a look
that was an insult, as she listened to her hurried explanation with a
down-drawn lip.
“Oh, well, I suppose, as I know no _better_, I must believe you,” and
with a noisy sniff that intimated quite the reverse, Mrs. Kane glared
once round their squalid sitting-room, to see if anything were broken
or missing, or the valuable property damaged in any way; and, failing
to discover the smallest pretext for complaint, passed out of the
apartment with a heavy and aggressive strut, and banged the door behind
her.
Madeline lost not a second in rushing to the invalid with the great
news, and placing the slip of pink paper in his hand.
“There is something at last! I feel that a change is coming; these
terrible days cannot--cannot go on for ever. I believe my father is
alive, and coming home! What do you think, Laurence?” she asked, and
her voice trembled.
Laurence, still holding the telegram in his thin, transparent hand,
gazed at his wife for some seconds in silence. How changed she was, he
thought, with a pang of self-reproach. She was shabby--very genteelly
shabby. Her black dress was all mended and pieced, her face was
haggard, her eyes sunken, their look eager, anxious, almost desperate.
An intelligent spectator would have declared that she was obviously
half-starved, and so she was. But how furiously she would have
disclaimed such a pronouncement. She would rather have died than have
admitted that truth. As long as Laurence had meat once a day, as long
as baby had milk, she did very well on anything, and anything may mean
almost nothing--it is an elastic word. Meanwhile, Laurence had been
telling himself that he had been a culpable wretch to marry Madeline
West. What would he say to her father when he placed his daughter in
his arms--a daughter in all but rags, with a face pinched with famine,
without a friend, without a penny, and weighted with a dying husband
and a peculiarly ill-tempered baby?
How much better would it have been if he had curbed his foolish
fancy--nipped it in the bud, and left Madeline to her fate. Why had he
not wired to Mrs. Wolferton? What would her father say? Would he cast
her off?
Madeline had hinted that, as well as she could judge her father from
his letters, he was fond of show and style and great people. He wished
her to dance and sing and play well, and to speak French; but he had
never said a word about literature, or the English classics, or what
Laurence called “the higher education of women.” On the other hand, he
hoped that she would always make acquaintance with girls her equals, or
even superiors, and never lower herself by school-friendships that it
would be impossible for him to recognize. Madeline had once innocently
repeated this to her husband verbatim, and it came vividly before
him now. Madeline had done more than form a friendship of which her
aspiring parent would disapprove, a friendship that could be slipped
out of like an old glove. Here she was tied for life to a poor man,
whose only career seemed likely to be that of an invalid--a stone round
her neck as long as he lived.
He had but faint hopes of his own recovery; everything was against it.
He knew that this could not be helped, and he was very patient. If he
had good wine, wholesome delicacies to tempt his appetite, instead
of gruesome scraps of stale, ill-cooked meat and poisonous port at
a shilling; if he could have a change to pure, invigorating air, he
might yet have a chance. And he knew that he might as well long for the
moon--for the entire firmament!
“What is to be done, Laurence?” asked Madeline, rather surprised at his
long silence. “What do you think of it?”
“You must go, of course,” he returned at last. “Go to-day.”
“To-day! My dear Laurence, what are you thinking of?” sitting down on
a rush chair as she spoke, and staring at him in amazement. “Where is
the money to come from? Look here,” producing a shabby little purse,
with a brass clasp, and turning out the pitiably small contents, “all I
possess is two and sevenpence.”
“Still you must go, Maddie, by hook or crook; much may depend on it. A
return third-class----”
“A return third-class would be twenty-two shillings--one pound two,”
she interrupted. “And, besides, I could not go in this,” looking down
at her gown; “now,” appealingly, “could I?”
“No, you could not,” he replied, with a little flush on his pale face.
“And you must get something out. To get something out something else
must go in. And,” speaking with an effort, “I never thought to part
with them, but they could not go in a better cause. I mean,” wiping
his damp forehead, “my mother’s miniature and my father’s medals. The
miniature is framed in seed pearls; the back is gold--it ought to fetch
a couple of pounds. It’s in my desk, Maddie, in a little morocco case.”
There were other things in his desk--neatly-copied-out manuscripts.
These, alas! were valueless--he had proved them. “Take it, my dear, and
welcome; and the medals--they will fetch a few shillings.”
“Oh, Laurence,” suddenly kneeling down beside him, “I don’t like to!
Must I really? I know you think so much of them. They are the only
relics you possess. No, no; I really can’t!”
“Yes, you can, and you shall,” said the sick man, with sudden decision.
“Here, at last, is an opening for you, my poor Maddie. Something tells
me that your father is alive--is coming home rich. You are his only
child, his heiress. You will be looked after and cherished when I am
gone. Yes, my dear, it will be best for you in the end. It was most
wicked of me to marry you. I see it all now, only too plainly. I had
put by nothing for such a strait, and I had no wealthy friends. But I
never dreamt that it would come to this, Maddie; believe me, I never
did. Forgive me!” he urged, and tears, born of weakness and remorse,
stood in his hollow eyes.
“Laurence!” she interrupted, attempting to place her hand on his mouth.
“I should have walked home in the snow that night; I should have taken
you to the Wolfertons’ house, and telegraphed for her; I should have
gone to the parish clergyman--done anything but what I did, and which
led to my dragging you into such a pit as this!” with an inclusive wave
of his hand and a glance round the mean little attic. “But it won’t be
for long now,” he added in a lower voice.
“Oh, Laurence,” she almost screamed as she seized his arm, “why are
you telling me such terrible things, when we have a little gleam of
hope at last? It is cruel--cruel of you. You couldn’t mean that, after
all we have gone through together--that when we are approaching smooth
water--you--you would leave me!”
And here she suddenly broke down and burst into tears, for, alas! she
had an agonizing inward conviction that there was truth in what he
said. How pale and thin and wasted he looked! No one would recognize
him who had seen him last year, with his shorn head, gaunt cheekbones,
and sunken eyes; and she had a heart-breaking feeling that it was not
mere actual illness, nor the dregs of that terrible fever, that were
to blame for this, but that cruel, pitiless, ferocious wolf called
WANT. He was dying of the lack of mere necessaries, and she, miserable
woman, was powerless to procure them; and for this she laid down her
head and wept as if her heart would burst--her passionate sobbing
fairly frightened Laurence. Madeline’s tears were rarely seen; Madeline
was always bright, cheery, almost gay, at the very worst of times; and
now came a reaction, and she was weeping as he had never seen any one
weep before.
“Don’t, Maddie, don’t,” he whispered, feebly stroking her hair; “you
will be better without me, though you don’t think so now. You are
young--only nineteen--many bright days may be in store for you. I will
leave you contentedly, if your father has come home. The greatest
horror I have ever known will be lifted from my mind. You don’t know,
dearest, what torments have racked me as I lay awake through the
long, dark nights, listening to the clocks striking hour after hour,
and wondering what would become of you? Now Providence has answered
the question; your father will give you and the child a home. There,
Maddie, there, don’t; I can’t bear to see you cry like this; and I--I
may get over it, and---- And now, you see, you have awakened the baby!”
as a shrill, querulous cry from the next room interrupted what he was
about to say.
The maternal instinct thus roused, he hoped that her tears would cease,
as he was powerless to arrest them. And Madeline completely broken
down--Madeline, who was always so brave, who had come out in a new
light under the scorching flames of the furnace of affliction--was a
sight that completely unmanned him.
Madeline hastily dried her eyes, strangled her sobs, took her shrieking
offspring out of his cradle, and gave him his midday bottle--an
operation which appeased his appetite and soothed his feelings. Then
she came back to her husband with the child in her arms, and said in
a husky voice, “If you had change of air, good food, properly cooked,
fruit, wine, and the little delicacies all sick people require, you
would get well--I know you would. Promise me, promise that you will try
to get better! Promise me that you will wish to get better, Laurence,”
she continued tremulously, “for--for our sake.”
“I can promise that, at any rate, Maddie,” he answered with a dim
smile; “but you know the old proverb about wishes.”
“And you know that while there’s life there’s hope,” she answered
quickly. “I have hope; you must have hope too! And now I am going
out, you will have to mind baby,” placing the white bundle beside his
father, who eyed his charge dubiously, as it stared at him stolidly,
thumb in mouth.
Madeline hurriedly put on her hat and jacket, and, taking a key,
unlocked a brass-bound desk, and, after a little search, drew out the
morocco case. “Is this it?” she asked, holding it up. “This is what you
mean?”
A nod assured her that it was.
“You would like to look at it once more,” she said, gently laying it
in his hand. “I don’t know how to take it. You are so like her, too,”
looking down at the little oval miniature of a pretty, spirited girl
with dark eyes and dark hair, and seeing her husband’s gaze fixed
greedily on the portrait. “You were so fond of her, Laurence.”
“Not more than I am of you, Maddie,” he answered, closing the case with
a decisive snap. “And my father’s medals,” he said, as he held them up,
and looked at them wistfully. “Well, they will fetch a few shillings,
and they go in a good cause. Here, take them, my dear, and go, and
don’t be long.”
Needless to add this formula. Was she ever long? But time passed very
slowly when Madeline was absent from those two poor attics which were
called home.