Mary Jupp's Explosion.
A frosty day in December. Time had gone on, winter had come in: the
seasons go their round, whatever the world may be doing.
How grew Clara Lake? Better? Well, she did not seem to grow much
better; at any rate, she was not well, and the old doctor at
Katterley, who had known her constitution from infancy, appeared
puzzled. She dressed, as in her days of health, and went about the
house: on fine days would go out for a walk in the sunshine: but she
remained weak and debilitated, and could not get rid of her cough.
Compared to the dangerous attack she had at Guild, of course her
present state seemed to be a vast improvement. On first coming home,
the change for the better appeared to be marvellous; and Mr. Lake,
never seeing anything but the bright side of things, congratulated
himself that she was well again. The improvement did not go on as it
ought to have gone; but the falling off was so gradual, the increasing
degrees of weakness were so imperceptible, that he neither saw nor
suspected either. Had any one told him his wife was in a bad way, he
had simply stared in amazement. Latterly the inertness, the seeming
debility had certainly made itself apparent to him, but only as a dim
idea; so little importance did he attach to it, that he set it all
down to apathy on his wife's part, and chided her for not "rousing
herself." He did not mean to be unkind; never think that of him; for
his wife he would have gone through fire and water, as the saying
runs; but he was light, unobservant by nature, and careless.
He was enjoying himself immensely. Chiefly dividing his leisure time
between Katterley and Guild. To-day he would be at home with his wife,
tomorrow with Lady Ellis; the affectionate husband to the one, saying
soft nothings (it must be supposed) to the other. Of course he never
went for the sake of seeing my lady; certainly not; there was an
excuse ever ready. Mrs. Chester had given him this commission, and he
must go and report to her; or Mrs. Chester had given him the other; or
she wanted to consult him on her affairs, which were going downwards;
or he went over to escort some of the Jupps; or he had business with
his tailor; for he had fallen into a freak to employ one who lived at
Guild. On one plea or another, a plausible excuse for taking him to
Guild never failed.
The fault of this lay partially with Mrs. Chester. Nearly at her wits'
end lest Lady Ellis, wearied with the monotony of the house, should
leave her; plainly seeing that Mr. Lake's visits were the sole
attraction that kept her, Mrs. Chester invented demands upon him to
draw him over to Guild. That the confidential footing on which he and
Lady Ellis continued was scarcely seemly for a married man, Mrs.
Chester completely ignored. She shut her eyes to it; just as she had
shut them in the days when Clara was at Guild. I am telling the simple
truth of the woman, and things took place exactly as I am relating
them. What mattered it to Mrs. Chester whether the wife's feelings
were pained, outraged, so long as her own ends were served? Clara was
at a safe distance, seeing nothing; and, after all, it was but a bit
of passing nonsense between them--there was no real wrong, reasoned
Mrs. Chester in her sophistry. "What the eye does not see the heart
cannot rue."
"But Mr. Lake ought not to have given way to her," remonstrates the
upright reader. Of course he ought not, everybody knows that; but
he liked the pastime. Lady Ellis made herself uncommonly attractive
to him, and it never occurred to him to see that she ought not to
have done so. She was exacting now; saying to him "You must come
tomorrow," or "You must come the next day." They rode together and
walked together as before; not so much, because it was winter weather;
and they strolled out in the wide gardens in the dim afternoons, and
sat alone very much in the drawing-room by twilight.
Unfortunately these pleasant arrangements were not kept from Clara. If
she had partially forgotten her jealousy upon returning home, her
husband's constant visits to Guild, and the whispers reaching her from
thence, brought it back in all its unhappy force. She was not told
purposely. Of the Jupps, the only one whose eyes were open to the
flirtation going on--that is, to a suspicion that it was deeper than
it ought to be, considering that Mr. Lake had a wife--was the eldest
of them, Mary. She held her tongue. But the others, after a day spent
at Guild, would jokingly allude in Clara's hearing to the soft hours
spent together by him and Lady Ellis, and tell her she ought to keep
her husband in better order. They meant nothing. Had Clara been there
she might have thought far less of it than she was doing; incertitude
always increases suspicion, just as jealousy makes the food it feeds
on. So Mrs. Lake sat at home with her cough, and her increasing
weakness, and her miserable torture; conscious of little save one
great fact, that her husband was perpetually at Guild. Had he gone
more openly, as it were, without framing (as he invariably did) some
plausible plea for the journey, she had thought less. What could Clara
do? Could she descend to say to him, you shall not go there? No; she
suffered in silence; but it was killing her.
A bright December morning, clear and frosty, Mrs. Lake was seated at
the window in their comfortable room, making tiny little flannel
petticoats. There was a good deal of distress in Katterley, and she
was intending to give warm garments to sundry poor half-naked
children. Stooping over the work, her cheeks had acquired their hectic
tinge, seen frequently now, otherwise the face was pale and thin; the
fingers were attenuated. Mr. Lake, who had been looking at the
newspaper, reading occasional scraps of news from it to his wife, rose
from his chair by the fire and stretched himself.
"How busy you are, little wife! Who on earth are all those small
things for?"
"The poor children in the cottages by the brick-fields. They are so
badly off, Robert," she added, glancing up, with a pleading look. "I
could not help doing something for them."
"All right, my dear; do whatever you like. Only, don't over-work
yourself."
"There's no fear of that. Elizabeth will do part of them; and Mary
Jupp is coming to help me."
"What a lovely day it is for December!" he added, looking at the
sparkling sunlight.
"Very. It almost tempts me to go out."
"I will take you tomorrow, Clara; I must go to Guild today."
Mrs. Lake resumed her work with trembling fingers. "Penelope's watch
is at Van Buren's. I promised faithfully to take it to her today."
"Are there no watchmakers at Guild, that Mrs. Chester should send her
watch to Katterley?"
"I don't know. I brought it to him at her request a fortnight ago. Van
Buren has a great name in his trade, you know."
As he spoke he looked at his own watch; it was time to depart.
"Shall you be home to dinner, Robert?"
"No. But I shall to tea. I shall be in by the seven train. Good-bye,
Clary."
She raised her face with its crimson hectic colour, the result of
emotion, to receive his farewell kiss. Its loveliness could but strike
him.
"How well you are getting to look, my darling," he said, tenderly.
And it would no doubt have astonished Mr. Lake excessively could he
have glanced back at his wife through the garden and the walls of the
house as he went off, gaily whistling. Dropping her work on the floor,
she fell into a storm of sobs in her utter self-abandonment. Miss Jupp
came in, and so found her.
"Clara! _Clara!_"
Up she got: but to affect indifference was an impossibility. Mary
Jupp, greatly shocked, took the sorrowful face in her sheltering arms.
"Tell me what it is, Clara. Open your poor little heart to me, my
dear. I am older than you by many years, and have had trouble myself.
Where's your husband?"
"Gone to Guild."
"Oh," said Miss Jupp, shortly, who had her private opinion on many
things. "Well, dear, he has got a nice day for it."
Clara dried her eyes and stifled her sobs, and sat down to work again.
"I am so stupid," she said, in a tone of apology. "Since my illness I
don't feel strong; it makes me cry sometimes."
Mary Jupp said no more, perhaps wisely. She took her things off and
remained the day. And Mr. Lake got home, not by seven at night, but by
the last train.
Christmas approached, and Mrs. Lake got thinner and weaker. Still her
husband suspected nothing amiss. She rose in the morning, went through
her duties, such as they were, and had a bright colour. How was he, an
unobservant man by nature and habit, to detect that it was all wrong?
Had he suspected the truth, none would have been more anxiously
troubled than he.
It was in Clara Lake's nature to conceal what was amiss. With these
reticent temperaments, a great grief touching the heart, a grief unto
death, never can be spoken of. At the last, perhaps, when hours are
numbered, but not always then. _He_ saw no signs of it: the low
spirits, the nervous weakness were given way to when alone: never
before him. Except that she had grown strangely still and quiet, he
saw no alteration. She tried to be cheerful, and succeeded often.
So the days, as I have said, glided on, bringing the end nearer and
nearer. Mr. Lake went on his heedless way, and she sat at home and did
silent battle with the anguish that was killing her. Her history is
drawing to a close. The world, going round in its hard, matter-of-fact
reality, is apt to laugh at such stories; but they are taking place,
for all that, in some of its nooks and corners.
One day, when it wanted but three or four to Christmas, Mr. Lake
tempted his wife into the greenhouse to see his winter plants. She was
more cheerful than customary--talked more; an artificial renovation
had brought back some of the passing strength.
"Clary, I have promised to spend Christmas-day with Penelope."
A sudden rush of colour to her wasted cheeks, a pause, and a response
that came forth faintly.
"Have you?"
"She said how dull it would be for us at home, and would not take a
denial. You will be able to go?"
"I go!" She glanced at him in surprise, and shook her head.
"Why not?"
"I am too ill."
Mr. Lake felt annoyed. The proposed expedition had been presenting
itself to his mind in a very agreeable light: for his wife to set her
face against it, whether on the plea of ill-health or any other plea,
would be especially provoking.
"My dear, I tell you what it is," he said in a voice that betrayed his
temper, "you will fancy yourself ill and lie-by and stay at home,
until it ends in your being ill."
"Do you think I am well?"
"You are not strong; but if you would rouse yourself, and go more out,
and shake off fancies, you would soon become so. An illness, such as
yours was in the autumn, leaves its weakening effects behind it as a
matter of course; but there's no sense in giving way to them."
"I go out sometimes."
"Just for a walk or so; that does little good. What you want is
cheerful society; change. You have not been once to Guild since we
came home."
"You make up for it, then; you are there often enough."
She could not help the retort; it seemed to slip from her tongue
unguided. Mr. Lake kicked out at a broken pot.
"Something or other is always happening to take me there. Mrs. Chester
loads me with commissions, and I don't like to refuse to execute
them."
They went in. Mr. Lake returned to the charge.
"You will go on Christmas-day, Clary, won't you? Penelope is preparing
for us."
"No; I am not well enough. And if I were, I should prefer to be at
home. Say no more," she added almost passionately interrupting what he
was about to urge. "You ought not to wish me to go there."
A long silence. "I shall go. I must. I can't get off it."
She did not speak.
"What is to be done, Clara? It will never do for me to spend
Christmas-day there, and you to spend it at home." And he finished the
clause by breaking out, half-singing, half muttering, with the lines
of a popular ditty that our childhood was familiar with--
"To-morrow is our wedding-day, and all the world would stare
If wife should dine at Edmonton, and I should dine at Ware."
She sat with her hands folded before her, and did not immediately
answer. If _he_ could not tell what was to be done, or what ought to
be done, she would not. Mr. Lake looked at her and waited.
"You must do as you think _right_," she said, laying a slight stress
upon the word. "I am too unwell to be anywhere but at home on
Christmas-day."
Mr. Lake left the room, whistling to hide his anger. Had he possessed
the worst wife in the world he had never reproached or quarrelled with
her. Some men _cannot_ be actively unkind to women, and he was one. He
thought her very obstinate, unreasonably so, and said to himself that
he would go to Guild. If Clara did not come to her senses beforehand
and accompany him, his going without her would bring her to them
after. Not another word was said between them; each seemed to avoid
the subject.
Christmas-day dawned, cloudy but tolerably fine. Mr. Lake was going to
Guild. Not doing exactly as he thought _right_, for his conscience was
giving him a sharp twinge or two, but following the bias of his
inclination, which urged him into the sunshine of my Lady Ellis's
smiles. Clara felt worse that morning, dreadfully weak and languid,
but she put on her things to attend church. Mr. Lake went with her,
and they sat out the service together. At its termination he rose to
quit the church; she remained.
"Shall you not be too tired with the long service, Clara?" he
whispered. "You had better leave it until another opportunity."
"Please don't! let me stay."
There was something in the pleading words--in the pleading up-turned
glance of the wan face, that struck upon him as being strange, leaving
a momentarily unpleasant impression. He never stayed the sacrament
himself, and went out.
She gathered herself into the corner of their high, broad,
old-fashioned pew, and knelt down, leaning her arms and head on the
seat. An intense weariness was upon her frame and spirit; she did not
feel things as keenly as she used--it was as if the world were
drifting away from her. Her soul was longing for the comfort of the
approaching rite--for its _comfort_. Ah, my friends, we kneel
periodically at the altar, and take the bread and wine, and hope that
we return comforted and refreshed. Believe me, it is but those from
whom the comfort of this world has utterly departed who can indeed
realize what that other comfort is, and how great our need of it. Only
when earth and its interests fail us, when the silver cord is loosed,
the golden bowl broken--in that hour do we desire the rest from
travail, as a yearning longing. That hour had come for Clara Lake: she
knelt there, feeling that earth had no longer a place for her,--the
home above was ready for her,--the Redeemer at hand to welcome her,
and take her to God.
She walked home quietly, a dim consciousness upon her that it might be
the last time she should partake of the sacrament here. It was not far
off two o'clock, and Mr. Lake was walking about, all impatience, for
his train started at five minutes past. She had thought he would be
gone.
"I waited for you, Clary. _Won't_ you come with me?"
"Indeed I cannot."
"Then it's a case of Johnny Gilpin."
With a farewell to his wife, full of paraded affection, Mr. Lake took
himself off to the station, telling his wife to be sure and eat a good
dinner and drink everybody's health in champagne, including his and
her own.
In spite of the inward peace that was hers, she was feeling terribly
dispirited. A fond thought had delusively whispered that, after all,
perhaps he might not go. She remembered the epoch of her dream; how he
had stayed at home then in tender consideration of her wishes. Things
were altered now.
At three o'clock she sat down to dinner, cutting herself a small slice
from the turkey placed before her. When the sauces were brought round
she simply shook her head. She had no appetite: an oppressive feeling
of bitter grief sat on her spirit; the tears dropped on her plate
silently, and she could not control them.
Presently she laid down her knife and fork, the little bit of meat
only half eaten. Elizabeth ventured to remonstrate.
"I can't swallow it; it is like dry chips in my throat."
"And no wonder, ma'am: the meat's dry by itself. And such delicious
bread-sauce and gravy that's here."
Sauce or no sauce, gravy or no gravy, Mrs. Lake could not eat. They
brought in the pudding. She cut it, eat a mouthful, and, sent it away
again.
Leaving her to her solitary dessert--for her a mere matter of
form--the servants sat down to their own dinner. Some short time
had elapsed, when Elizabeth thought she heard a noise in the
dining-parlour, and went in to see if her mistress wanted anything. A
cry of alarm burst from the girl as she opened the door: Mrs. Lake was
lying on the carpet.
Whether she had fainted--whether she had been crossing the room and
fell over anything--could not then be ascertained. As the servants
raised her, a thin stream of blood issued from her mouth. Nearly
beside themselves with terror, they laid her on the sofa, and
Elizabeth ran for the doctor. She had to pass Mr. Jupp's house, and on
her return it occurred to Elizabeth to call and ask to see Miss Jupp.
That young lady came out to her from the dining-room, her mouth full
of turkey.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, half petrified at the news. "Burst a
blood-vessel! Dying! Is any one with her besides Mr. Lake?"
"He is not with her--there's nobody with her," answered Elizabeth.
"That's why I made bold to disturb you, miss. He is gone off to dine
at Mrs. Chester's."
Catching up a garden hat and woollen shawl that hung close at hand,
Mary Jupp flung them on without a moment's pause for consideration,
and started at a gallop down the street. The worthy shopkeepers,
standing at their sitting-room windows, saw the transit with
amazement, and thought the eldest Miss Jupp had gone suddenly mad. She
was in the house before Dr. Marlow: his old steps were slow at the
best--hers fleet. Mrs. Lake had broken a vessel on the chest or lungs.
"There is no immediate danger, as I hope," said the old doctor in Miss
Jupp's ear; "but her husband ought to be here." Mary looked at her
watch, and found that she had just time to catch a train.
But that Mary Ann Jupp was a strong-minded female, she might not have
cared to go a journey on Christmas-day in the guise she presented. It
may be questioned if she as much as gave a thought to her attire,
except to remember that there was no time to go home and change
it. In addition to being strong-minded, she was also an exceedingly
upright-minded, right-feeling young woman, and had for a long while
past greatly condemned what was going on--the absurd intimacy between
Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis, and his consequent neglect of his wife. _Her_
eyes had been open to it if nobody else's had; and Mary Jupp, in her
impulsive way, had threatened herself that she should "one day have it
out with the lot." That day had come.
Very considerably astonished was Mr. Lake to find himself burst in
upon by Mary Jupp. Mrs. Chester and Lady Ellis looked up in amaze.
They had dined together, a family party, and Mrs. Chester's children,
with Anna and the two Clapperton girls, who were guests that day, had
retired to another room to make what noise they pleased, leaving the
trio round the comfortable fire, wine and good things on the table
behind them. Miss Jupp walked in without notice or ceremony. Her old
red woollen shawl had jagged ends and a slit; her brown hat, white
once, was vastly disreputable, and had a notch in the brim. Excited
and out of breath, having run all the way from Guild station, she
walked straight up to Mr. Lake and spoke. "Would you see your wife
before she dies?"
He had risen and stood in consternation. Mrs. Chester rose. _She_ sat
still, calmly equable, listening and looking. Mr. Lake's lips turned
white as he asked Miss Jupp for an explanation.
It was given in a sharp, ringing tone. Mrs. Lake had been found on the
floor in her solitary dining-room, and when they lifted her up blood
issued from her mouth. A vessel of some sort had given way. Dr. Marlow
was with her, and said that Mr. Lake ought to be found. "Will you go
to her?" asked the young lady as she finished her recital; "or shall I
go back and take word that you will not?"
"Why do you say that to me?" he asked with emotion.
"My dear Miss Jupp!" struck in Mrs. Chester, in a voice of
remonstrance.
"Why do I say it to you?" retorted Mary Jupp, in her storm of angry
indignation. "It is time some one said it to you. You have been
killing her by inches: yes, I speak to all of you," she added, turning
about upon them. "You have been killing his wife by inches: you,
Angeline Ellis, with your false and subtle snares; and you, Penelope
Chester, with your complacent winking at sin. He is weak and
foolish--look at him, as he stands there in his littleness!--but he
would scarcely have been wicked, had not you drawn him to it. You
wonder that I can thus speak out"--drowning some interrupted words of
Mrs. Chester's--"is it right for me to be silent, a hypocritical
glosser over of crime, when she is dying? I am an English gentlewoman,
with a gentlewoman's principles about me, and I hope some Christian
ones: it behoves such to speak out sometimes."
"You are mad," gasped Mrs. Chester.
"_You_ have been mad, to allow this conduct in your house--folly,
frivolity, much that is bad going on under your very eyes. Had your
brother been a single man, it might have been deemed excusable by
some: never by me: but he had a fair young wife, and you deliberately
set to work to injure her. You did, Penelope Chester: you knew quite
well what you were doing: and to encourage ill by winking at it, is
the same thing as committing it. I say nothing more to _you_," she
added, turning upon Lady Ellis with ineffable scorn. "You may remember
certain words you said to me regarding Mr. Lake and his wife, the
first afternoon you came here: I did not understand them then; I do
now; and I know that, in that first hour of your meeting, you were
laying your toils around him to gain his admiration and wean him from
his wife. If you retain a spark of feeling, of conscience, the
remembrance of Clara Lake, when the grave shall have closed on her,
will be as a sharp iron, ever eating into it."
Lady Ellis rose, her jet-black eyes flashing. "Who are you, that you
should dare thus insult me?"
Mary Jupp dropped her tone to one of calmness--mockingly calm it was,
considering the scorn that mingled with it. "I have told you who I am:
an English gentlewoman amidst gentlewomen: and with such I should
think you will never henceforth presume to consort."
Mr. Lake had made no further retort, good or bad. While they were
speaking, he took out his watch, saw that he had time, too much of it,
to catch the next train, and quitted the room. Mary Jupp was
following. Up started Mrs. Chester.
"If Clara is in the sad state you describe, Mary Jupp, I ought to go
to her."
Mary Jupp turned short round and faced them. "I do not pretend to any
right of control over your actions; but, were I you, I would at least
allow my brother to be alone with his wife in her last hours. You have
come between them enough, as it is, Mrs. Chester. The sight of you
cannot be pleasant to her."
She quitted the room, condescending to give no farewell to either of
those she left in it, and followed in the steps of Mr. Lake, who was
already on his way to the station, buttoning his coat as he went,
taking care not to catch him up. On the platform, as the train was
dashing in, he spoke to her.
"Your accusations have been harsh, Mary."
"What has your conduct been?" she sharply retorted. "I loved your
wife, and I feel her unhappy fate as keenly as though it had fallen on
one of my own sisters. The world may spare you; it may flatter and
caress you, for it is wonderfully tender to these venial sins of
conduct; but you cannot recall to life her whom you vowed before God to
love and to cherish."
"Step in. The train is going."
"Not into that carriage--with you. Others are in it, and I might be
saying things that they would stare at. My temper is up, today."
"First class, miss?" cried an impatient porter "There's only that
there one first-class carriage on."
And Mary Jupp walked away; opened the door of another, which was a
third-class, and took her seat in it.
Thus they reached Katterley. Mr. Lake came to the carriage to assist
her out, but she simply put his arm away. Her face looked awfully
severe as the gaslights fell upon it.
"One moment," he said, arresting her as she was passing. "I do not
know what turn your suspicions can have taken; a very free one, as it
seems to me. Let me assure you that you are mistaken. On my word of
honour as a man there has been nothing; nothing wrong. In justice to
Lady Ellis I am bound to say this."
"Justice to Lady Ellis! Don't talk to me about justice to Lady Ellis,"
was the young lady's retort. Her temper, as she said, was up, that
day. "Think of justice to your wife, rather. You are either a fool or
a knave, sir."
"Thank you, Miss Jupp."
"Nothing wrong!" she repeated, returning to the charge. "I don't know
what you mean. What do you call wrong? You have been tied to that
woman's skirts these five months; lavishing your money and your time
upon her; and leaving your wife alone to die. If that's not wrong, I
should like to know what is."
He made no reply; almost too confounded to do it.
"I don't blame you, Robert Lake, as much as I blame them," she took
occasion to say as they were parting. "You are a vain, thoughtless,
empty-headed fellow, made so, I believe, by your enforced idleness;
and they, those two women, are old and crafty. Mrs. Chester was
serving her self-interest; the other her unjustifiable woman's vanity.
You yielded yourself a willing prisoner to the birdlime spread under
your feet, and now your folly has come home with interest. _I_ saw
your wife was dying of the pain, if you did not."
Without another word, whether of adieu or apology, she brushed past
him up the street; and Mr. Lake turned to his home, something like a
beaten dog that dare not lift its tail from between its legs.