The life which Helen Drummond lived during this winter would be very
hard to describe. Something wrong had happened, she saw, on that rapid
visit to town which Robert had made on Academical business in October,
leaving her at Southlees. No anxiety about business matters connected
with the bank had ever been suggested to her mind. She had long ago
accepted, as a matter of course, the fact that wealth was to come from
that source, with an ease and regularity very different from the
toilsome and slow bread-winning which was done by means of art. She was
not surprised by it as Robert was; and enough of the _bourgeois_
breeding was left in her to make her pleased that her husband should see
the difference between the possibilities of his profession and of the
commerce which she had been wont to hear lauded in her youth. She was
almost proud that Trade had done so much for him. Trade came from her
side, it was she who had the hereditary connection with it; and the
innate idealism of her mind was able to cling to the old-fashioned
fanciful conception of beneficent commerce, such as we have all heard of
in our educational days. But her pride was not sensitive on this point.
What really touched her was the praise or the blame which fell upon him
as a painter, and the dread that instantly sprang into her mind was that
he had met with something painful to him in this respect--that his
opinion had not been received as of weight in the deliberations of the
Academy, or his works been spoken of with less respect than they ought
to have secured. This was the foolish fancy that took hold of her mind.
She questioned him about the Academy meeting till poor Robert--his
thoughts occupied about things so very different--grew sick of the
subject. Yet he was almost glad of some subject on which to vent a
little of his excitement. Yes, they were a set of old fogies, he said,
with audacious freedom. They pottered about things they did not
understand. They puzzled and hesitated over that Rembrandt, which any
one with half an eye could see had been worked at by some inferior
hand. They threw cold water upon that loveliest Francia which nobody
could see without recognising. They did what they ought not to do, and
neglected what was their duty. 'We all do that every day of our lives,'
said Helen; 'but what was there that specially vexed you, Robert?'
'Nothing,' he said, looking up at her with eyes full of astonishment;
but there was more than astonishment in them. There was pain, dread,
anxiety--a wistful, restless look of suffering. He will not tell me: he
will keep it to himself and suffer by himself, not to vex me, Helen said
in her own thoughts. And though the autumn was lovely, Robert could not
be happy at Southlees that year. He had been very happy the two previous
summers. The house was situated on the Thames beyond Teddington. It was
rustic and old, with various additions built to it; a red-brick house,
grown over with all manner of lichens, irregular in form and harmonious
with its position, a house which had grown--which had not been
artificially made. The family had lived on the lawn, or on the river, in
those halcyon days that were past. There was a fringe of trees at every
side except that, shutting in the painter's retirement; but on the river
side nothing but a few bright flower-beds, and the green velvet lawn,
sloping towards the softly flowing water. One long-leaved willow drooped
over the stone steps at which the boat was lying. It was a place where a
pair of lovers might have spent their honeymoon, or where the weary and
sick might have come to get healing. It was not out of character either
with the joy or the grief. Nature was so sweet, so silent, so meditative
and calm. The river ran softly, brooding over its own low liquid gurgle.
The stately swans sailed up and down. The little fishes darted about in
the clear water, and myriads of flying atoms, nameless insect
existences, fluttered above. Boating parties going down the stream would
pause, with a sigh of gentle envy, to look at the group upon the lawn;
the table with books and work on it, with sometimes a small easel beside
it or big drawing pad supported on a stand; a low chair with Helen's red
shawl thrown over it, and Norah, with her red ribbons, nestled on the
sunny turf. They sat there, and worked, and talked, or were silent, with
an expansion of their hearts towards everything that breathed and moved;
or they spent long days on the river, catching the morning lights upon
those nooks which are only known to dwellers on the stream; or pursuing
water-lilies through all the golden afternoon in the back-waters which
these retired flowers love. The river was their life, and carried them
along, day after day. Such a scene could not but be sweet to every lover
of nature; but it is doubly sweet when the dumb poetic imagination has
by its side that eye of art which sees everything. The painter is a
better companion even than the poet--just as seeing is better than
saying that you see. Robert was not a genius in art; but he had the
artist's animated, all-perceiving eye. Nothing escaped him--he saw a
hundred beautiful things which would have been imperceptible to ordinary
men--a dew-drop on a blade of grass at his feet charmed him as much as a
rainbow--his 'Look, Helen!' was more than volumes of descriptive poetry.
They were out and about at all times, 'watching the lights,' as he said
in his pleasant professional jargon: in the early mornings, when all was
silvery softness and clearness, and the birds were trying over their
choicest trills before men woke to hear; in the evening when twilight
came gently on, insinuating her filmy impenetrable veil between them and
the sunset; and even at full noon, when day is languid at the height of
perfection, knowing that perfectness is brother to decadence. The
painter and his wife lived in the middle of all these changes, and took
them in, every one, to the firmament in their hearts.
Why do we stop in this record of trouble to babble about sunset skies
and running waters? Is it not natural? The 'sound as of a hidden brook
in the leafy month of June' comes in, by right, among all weird,
mysterious harmonies of every tragical fate. 'The oaten pipe and
pastoral reed' have their share even in the hurly-burly of cities and
noisy discord of modern existence. Robert Drummond had his good things
as well as his evil things. For these two summers never man had been
more happy--and it is but few who can say so much. His wife was happy
with him, her old ghosts exorcised, and a new light suffusing her life.
It seemed a new life altogether, a life without discontents, full of
happiness, and tranquillity, and hope.
But this autumn Robert was not happy at Southlees. He could not stay
there peaceably as he had done before. He had to go to town 'on
business,' he said, sometimes twice a week. He took no pleasure in his
old delights. Though he could not help seeing still, his 'Look, Helen!'
was no longer said in a tone of enthusiasm; and when he had uttered the
familiar exclamation he would turn away and sigh. Sometimes she found
him with his face hidden in his hands, and pressed against the warm
greensward. It was as if he were knocking for admission at the gates of
the grave, Helen thought, in that fancifulness which comes of fear as
much as of hope. When she questioned him he would deny everything, and
work with pretended gaiety. Every time he went to town it seemed to her
that five years additional of line and cloud had been added to the lines
on his forehead. His hair began to get grey; perhaps that was no wonder,
for he was forty, a pilgrim already in the sober paths of middle age,
but Helen was nearly ten years younger, and this sign of advancing years
seemed unnatural to her. Besides, he was a young man in his heart, a man
who would be always young; yet he was growing old before his time. But
notwithstanding his want of enjoyment in it he was reluctant that his
wife should leave Southlees sooner than usual. He would go into town
himself, he declared. He would do well enough--what did it matter for a
few weeks? 'For the sake of business it is better that I should go--but
the winter is long enough if you come in the end of the month. No,
Helen, take the good of it as long as you can--this year.'
'What good shall I get of it alone, and how can I let you live for
weeks by yourself?' said Helen. 'You may think it is fine to be
independent; but you could not get on without Norah and me.'
'No,' he said, with a shudder. 'God knows life would be a poor thing
without Norah and you! but when it is a question of three weeks--I'll go
and see my friends; I'll live a jovial bachelor life----'
'Did you see the Haldanes,' she asked, 'when you were in town last?'
It was the most innocent, unmeaning question; but it made him grow pale
to the very lips. Did he tremble? Helen was so startled that she did not
even realise how it was he looked.
'How cold the wind blows,' he said, with a shiver. 'I must have caught
cold, I suppose, last night. The Haldanes? No; I had no time.'
'Robert, something worries you,' she said earnestly. 'Tell me what it
is. Whatever it is, it will not be so heavy when you have told me. You
have always said so--since ever we have been together.'
'And truly, my darling,' he said. He took her hand and held it tenderly,
but he did not look at her. 'I cannot tell you of worries that don't
exist, can I?' he added, with an exaggerated cheerfulness. 'I have to
pay a little attention to business now the other men are out of town.
And business bores me. I don't understand it. I am not clever at it. But
it is not worth while to call it a worry. By-and-by they will come back,
and I shall be free.'
When he said this he really believed it, not being then fully aware of
the tormenting power of the destruction which was about to overwhelm
him. He thought the other directors would come back from their holidays,
and that he himself would be able to plunge back into that abyss of
ignorance which was bliss. But Helen did not believe it: not from any
true perception of the state of affairs, but because she could not
believe it was business at all that troubled him. Was Robert the kind of
man to be disturbed about business? He who cared nothing for it but as a
means, who liked money's worth, not money, whose mind was diametrically
opposite to all the habits and traditions of trade? She would as soon
have believed that her cousin Reginald Burton would be disturbed by a
criticism or troubled to get a true balance of light and shade. No, it
was not that. It was some _real_ trouble which she did not know of,
something that struck deeper than business, and was more important than
anything that belonged to bank or market. Such were Helen's
thoughts,--they are the thoughts that come most natural to a
woman,--that he had been betrayed into some wrong-doing or inadvertent
vice--that he had been tempted, and somehow gone astray. This, because
it was so much more terrible than anything about business, was the
bugbear that haunted her. It was to save her pain, as he thought, that
poor Robert kept his secret from her. He did as so many men do, thinking
it kindness; and thus left her with a host of horrible surmises to fight
against, any one of which was (to her) harder than the truth. There is
no way in which men, in their ignorance, inflict more harm upon women
than this way. Helen watched in her fear and ignorance with a zealous
eagerness that never lost a word, and gave exaggerated importance to
many an idle incident. She was doubly roused by her fear of the
something coming, against which her defences would not stand, and by her
absolute uncertainty what this something was. The three weeks her
husband was in town by himself were like three years to her. Not that a
shade of jealousy or doubt of his love to herself ever crossed her mind.
She was too pure-minded, too proud, to be jealous. But something had
come on him, some old trouble out of the past--some sudden horrible
temptation; something, in short, which he feared to tell her. That money
could be the cause of it, never crossed her thoughts.
And when she went home, things were no better; the house looked bare to
her--she could not tell why. It was more than a month before she found
out that the Botticelli was gone, which was the light of her husband's
eyes; and that little Madonna of the Umbrian school, which he delighted
to think Raphael must have had some hand in, in his youth. This
discovery startled her much; but worse had come before she made sure of
that. The absence of the pictures was bewildering, but still more so was
the change in her husband's habits. He would get up early, breakfast
hurriedly before she had come down, and go out, leaving a message with
the servants. Sometimes he went without breakfast. He avoided her,
avoided the long evening talks they had loved, and even avoided her eye,
lest she should read more in his face than he meant her to see. All this
was terrible to Helen. The fears that overwhelmed her were ridiculous,
no doubt; but amid the darkness and tragic gloom which surrounded her,
what was she to think? Things she had read in books haunted her;
fictitious visions which at this touch of personal alarm began to look
real. She thought he might have to bribe some one who knew some early
secret in his life, or some secret that was not his--something that
belonged to his friends. Oh, if he would but tell her! She could bear
anything--she could forgive the past, whatever it might be. She had no
bitterness in her feelings towards her husband. She used to sit for
hours together in his deserted studio, imagining scenes in which she
found out, or he was driven to confide to her, this mystery; scenes of
anguish, yet consolation. The studio became her favourite haunt. Was it
possible that she had once entered it with languid interest, and been
sensible of nothing but disappointment when she saw him working with his
heart in his work? She would go all round it now, making her little
comment upon every picture. She would have given everything she had in
the world to see him back there, painting those pictures with which she
had been so dissatisfied--the Francesca, which still stood on its easel
unfinished; the sketches of herself which she had once been so impatient
of. The Francesca still stood there behind backs; but most of the others
had been cleared away, and stood in little stacks against the walls. The
place was so orderly that it went to her heart to see it; nothing had
been done, nothing disturbed, for weeks, perhaps months; the housemaid
was free to go and come as if it had been a common parlour. All this was
terribly sad to the painter's wife. The spring was coming on before she
found the two sketches which afterwards she held so dearly. They
bewildered her still more, and filled her with a thousand fears. One
represented a pilgrim on a hilly road, in the twilight of a spring
evening. Everything was soft in this picture, clear sky and twinkling
stars above; a quiet rural path over the grass; but just in front of the
pilgrim, and revealing his uplifted hands and horror-stricken
countenance, the opening of a glowing horrible cavern--the mouth of
Hell. The other was more mysterious still. It was a face full of anguish
and love, with two clasped hands, looking up from the depths of a cave
or well, to one blue spot of sky, one star that shone far above. Helen
did not know what these sketches meant; but they made her shiver with
wonder and apprehension. They were all that he had done this year.
And then something else, of a different kind, came in to bewilder her.
Robert, who avoided her, who of evenings no longer talked over his
affairs with her, and who probably had forgotten all her wants, let the
quarter-day pass without supplying her, as he was in the habit of doing.
So great a host of fears and doubts were between the two, that Helen did
not remind him of his negligence. It pained her, but in a degree so
different. What did that matter? But time went on, and it began to
matter. She took her own little dividends, and kept silence; making what
use of them she could to fill up the larger wants. She was as timid of
speaking to him on this subject as if she had been a young girl. He had
never obliged her to do so. She had been the general treasurer of the
household in the old days; and even in recent times, he, who was so
proud of his wife, had taken care to keep her always supplied with what
she wanted. She never had needed to go to him to ask money, and she did
not know how to begin. Thus they both went their different way;
suffering, perhaps, about equally. His time seemed to himself to be
spent in a feverish round of interviews with people who could supply
money, or wildly signing his name to papers which he scarcely
understood--to bills which he could never dream of paying; they would be
paid somehow when the time came, or they could be renewed, or something
would be done, he was told. He had carried everything he could make
money by away before this time; the title-deeds of his house, his
pictures, even, and--this was done with a very heavy heart--his policies
of life insurance. Everything was gone. Events went faster as the crisis
approached, and Drummond became conscious of little more than his wife's
pale face wondering at him, with questioning eyes more pathetic than
words, and Golden's face encouraging, or trying to encourage. Between
the two was a wild abyss of work, of despair, of tiding over. Every
escape more hairbreadth than the last! The wild whirl growing wilder!
the awful end, ruin and fell destruction, coming nearer and more near!
It happened at length that Helen one day, in desperation, broke the
silence. She came before him when he was on his way out, and asked him
to wait, in a hollow voice.
'I don't want to trouble you,' she said, 'since you will not trust me,
Robert. I have been trying not to harass you more; but--I have no money
left--I am getting into debt--the servants want their wages. Robert--I
thought you had forgotten--perhaps----'
He stood and looked at her for a moment, with his hat in his hand,
ready to go out. How pale he was! How the lines had contracted in his
face! He looked at her, trying to be calm. And then, as he stood,
suddenly burst, without warning, into momentary terrible tears, of a
passion she could not understand.
'Robert! oh, what is the matter?' she cried, throwing her arms round
him. He put his head down on her shoulder, and held her fast, and
regained control over himself, holding her to him as if she had been
something healing. In her great wonder and pity she raised his head with
her hands, and gazed wistfully into his face through her tears. 'Is it
money?' she cried, with a great load taken off her heart. 'Oh, Robert,
tell me! Is that all?'
'All!' he said: 'my God!' and then kissed her passionately, and put her
away from him. 'To-morrow,' he said hoarsely, 'perhaps--I hope--I will
tell you everything to-morrow.' He did not venture to look at her again.
He went out straight, without turning to the right or left. 'The end
must be near now,' he said to himself audibly, as he went out like a
blind man. To-morrow! Would to-morrow ever come? 'The end must be near
now.'
The end was nearer than he thought. When he reached the bank he found
everything in disorder. Mr Golden was not there, nor any one who could
give information to the panic-stricken inquirers who were pouring in. It
was said the manager had absconded. Rivers's was at an end. For the
first ten minutes after Drummond heard the news that awaited him, it was
almost a relief to know that the worst had come.