A Daughter of Strife
BY
JANE HELEN FINDLATER
AUTHOR OF
“THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE”
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1897
Copyright, 1897
by
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
BURR PRINTING HOUSE, NEW YORK.
PART I
‘. . . _Old unhappy far-off things,_
_And battles long ago._’
A Daughter of Strife
CHAPTER I
As long ago as the year 1710 there lived in London town a girl of the
name of Anne Champion—a straw-plaiter by trade, and by hard fortune a
beauty. Anne lived alone in a garret, and earned her bread by the sweat
of her brow, plaiting straws for hats from early morning to late at
night. Then she would go out and buy her food for the next day, if she
had earned enough to buy food with, and if she had not, she would do
without food and work on.
A hard life enough; but it was not to last for ever. For Anne had a fine
lover at the wars—Surgeon Sebastian Shepley,—and ere very long he was
to return, and Anne was to say farewell to work. Partings were partings
in those days, and Anne never thought of getting a letter from Flanders
more than once in seven or eight weeks. When she got one, poor girl, she
could not read it—no, nor answer it; for she had no ‘book-learning,’
and had never been taught to write; but she used to take her letters to
a former adorer of her own who served in a print-shop, and he kindly
read his rival’s love-letters aloud, and, when Anne could afford to send
one in return, would even be forgiving enough to write it for her.
Anne’s fine lover had caused considerable jealousy among her neighbours,
and old Mrs. Nare, the mother of Matthew, the young man in the
news-shop, was never tired of hinting to Anne that no good ever came of
such unequal alliances. When she saw that Anne was quite undisturbed by
these prognostications, Mrs. Nare tried to persuade her that there was
little chance Shepley would ever return from the wars.
‘The surgeons do come by their deaths in war-time so well as the
soldiers,’ she would say; ‘best not set your heart overly on him, Anne.’
And Anne would whiten, and turn away at her words.
Yard’s Entry, where Anne Champion and Mrs. Nare lived, is a place that
smells of age now—it was counted old even in these far-away days I
write of,—and the stone stairs leading up to Anne’s garret were worn
away into crescent shape by the tread of many generations. At the foot
of these stairs, on warm evenings, Mrs. Nare used to stand and watch all
her neighbours’ affairs; so it was natural enough that a stranger coming
in to the Entry one evening should address himself to her when he made
inquiry for Anne Champion. He was a young man with very bright eyes, and
his voice, as clear as the note of a flute, echoed up the stair as he
spoke.
‘Doth Anne Champion live here, my good woman?’ he asked.
‘No, sir. Anne she lives at the top of the stair,’ said Mrs. Nare,
squinting up at the stranger out of her narrow old eyes, then, actuated
by unknown motives, she added—
‘Anne she’ve got a lover at the wars,’ in a sort of interrogative tone.
She had seen Shepley more than once, and knew this was not he; perhaps
she wished to find out the stranger’s errand.
‘Thank you, thank you,’ was all he said, however, as he disappeared up
the winding old stair. Up and up he went, feeling his way, for there was
little or no light to guide him, then he stumbled against a door, and
knocked at haphazard, hoping it was the door he sought.
‘Come in,’ said some one, and at that the man, groping with the latch
for a moment, at last got the door open, and stood on the threshold
looking in.
The sunshine fell across the floor in a flood of smoky brightness, and
full in the sun’s beams sat Anne Champion, surrounded by the straw she
was plaiting. It was piled up round her, within reach of her fingers,
that moved like lightning at her mechanical toil.
Anne wore a gown of pink calico, and, whether for greater comfort or
from mere untidiness, all her yellow hair hung over her shoulders in
splendid confusion. She let her work fall at sight of a stranger,
started up, and standing almost knee-deep among the straw, caught at her
hair, and began to wind it up into a knot.
The young man stood still on the threshold for a full minute, as I have
said. Then he seemed to recollect himself, and stepping across the floor
he held out his hand to the girl, smiling very pleasantly.
‘I scarce need to ask if you are Anne Champion,’ he said.
Anne seemed too much taken aback by this unexpected visitor to make any
reply. She stood looking at him and twisting her long yellow hair
between her fingers. At last she said—
‘Yes, sir, I be Anne Champion,’ and waited for him to make known his
errand.
The young man did not seem to be in any hurry, however. He looked round
the bare little room, and then looked again at Anne before he spoke.
‘I am come to make excuses,’ he said then; ‘and if you will allow me to
sit down, for I am weak still from a fever, I shall make them to the
best of my ability.’
Anne produced a stool from a corner and proffered it to her visitor.
‘I am come from Flanders,’ he began again; but he did not speak like one
intent on his business: his bright eyes were fixed on Anne; he seemed to
be speaking of one thing and thinking of another. His words, however,
had a quick effect on Anne—her look of perplexed shyness had vanished.
‘From Flanders? Ah, sir, ’tis welcome thrice over you are!’ she cried;
‘an’ are you bringing me news of my dear man?’ Her face was radiant; she
smiled, and the beautiful dimples in her cheek were revealed, and her
white even teeth. Her very eyes seemed to smile.
The young man began to speak again—with unaccountable stumblings and
hesitations, still reading Anne’s face with his quick bright eyes as he
spoke.
‘I am come—Sebastian Shepley,’ he said, and paused.
At the sight of his perturbation Anne came quickly towards him and laid
her hand on his shoulder.
‘Sir, sir,’ she cried. ‘Don’t tell me as there is aught amiss with my
Sebastian.’
‘Anne, I am come from your old lover Shepley, as you surmise,’ began the
young man again; ‘he—he is well in health.’
The colour which had left Anne’s face rushed back to it in a beautiful
scarlet tide.
‘Lord! sir, Sebastian’s not old, begging your pardon, sir,’ she said,
letting her hand fall from his shoulder, rather ashamed of her sudden
familiarity.
‘I—’twas not that way I meant it, Anne; I scarce know,’ stammered the
young man. ‘Come, sit down by me and I shall tell you all.’
Anne, however, would not have felt easy sitting down in the presence of
this fine stranger in lace ruffles. She stood opposite him and still
looked anxious in spite of his assurances.
‘There hath ill come to him, sir; he’s wounded; or—or—’ she said.
The young man seemed suddenly to have collected himself; his
embarrassment, if embarrassment it had been, vanished as suddenly as it
had come. He rose and came over to where Anne stood.
‘He hath no wound nor hurt of any sort, Anne, but he hath sent me with a
message to you, and this is it:—The war is like to keep him so long in
the Low Country he dare not ask you to wait.’
‘I’d wait a lifetime for him,’ laughed Anne. ‘If that be all his message
he hath troubled you for naught, sir.’
‘’Tis not all. The fact is Sebastian has married—married a pretty Dutch
wife. He feared to exhaust your patience. He asked me to tell you.
“For,” said he, “Anne hath so many lovers ’twill be neither here nor
there to her.” As like as not he may be years abroad still.’
There was a moment’s silence. Anne looked her visitor straight in the
eyes; she had whitened down to her very lips.
‘You are but fooling with me, sir,’ she said, half whispering the words.
‘I am in sober earnest; ’tis no matter for jest this,’ said the young
man, looking at Anne’s blanching cheeks.
‘O good Lord!’ then cried Anne in a piteous crying voice—the note of a
bird over its harried nest. She seemed to forget the presence of a
stranger, and, sinking down against a settle that stood by the wall, she
hid her face in her hands and sobbed, rocking herself back and forwards
in her bitter grief.
‘Sebastian, Sebastian dear, you are not wedded true and certain?’ she
cried. ‘O God help me, an’ what am I to do now? O Lord! O Lord!’
The young man who had brought this ill news did not go away and leave
Anne alone with her sorrow, as most men would have done. He sat down on
the settle she leant against and laid his hand kindly on her shoulder
though he said nothing. Anne sobbed on, with hidden face, and all the
time her visitor’s bright eyes were roving round the room, taking in
every detail of its poor arrangements, yet ever and again he would pat
the girl’s shoulder in token of sympathy.
Suddenly Anne rose to her feet.
‘He’s not worth a tear,’ she said. ‘He’s like the rest of you. I had no
opinion of men before that I took up with Sebastian, an’ a fool I was to
be deceived with him. You’re all like that,’ she cried, pointing to the
pile of straw at her feet. ‘A spark’ll send you up in a blaze, and
you’re as much to be leaned on as that.’ She plucked a straw from the
heap, and snapped the brittle yellow stalk across as she spoke, with an
unconsciously dramatic gesture.
‘Come, not all,’ said the young man, surprised by her words.
‘Yes, all. Well, this I do say for Sebastian, he’s as fine a liar as he
was a lover—would take in Judas hisself with them straight eyes o’
his.’
‘I am grieved to have borne such bitter news to any one,’ said the young
man. ‘But you take it the right way, Anne, and when Shepley returns
’twill be to find a better man in his place.’
‘Better man! There’s not one good among ’em—no, not one,’ said Anne,
bitterly. She walked away to the little window, through which the
sunshine was pouring in with garish brightness, and leant her forehead
against the panes.
‘Come, Anne,’ urged her visitor, following her to the window. ‘You must
do your endeavour to forget him. ’Tis a scurvy trick he has played you,
but there’s a proverb suited to your case I would have you remember,
about the good fish in the sea! Come, here is a coin as yellow as your
hair to help you to the forgetting. Buy yourself a new gown with
ribbands and have a night at the play.’
Anne looked askance at the stranger’s gold for a moment; then she flung
back her head and laughed a harsh-sounding mirthless laugh.
‘I had best make sure ’tis gold I’ve got this time!’ she said, catching
up the coin and ringing it on the table.
‘I shall bid you good-night then, my good girl,’ said the stranger, and
held out his hand once again.
A minute later he plunged down the dark old stair. ‘What is it like?
going down thus into darkness?’ he said to himself; but he did not reply
to the question.
CHAPTER II
The young man Richard Meadowes found a coach waiting for him round the
corner of Yard’s Entry; he jumped in and bade the coachman drive home to
St. James’ Square: a long drive, but Meadowes did not find it so, his
thoughts were amply occupied. When he reached home he went in and sat
down in a chair beside the fire, apparently in a brown study. What was
he thinking about so intently all the time? About a lie: for the whole
story of Sebastian Shepley’s marriage had been invented by Richard
Meadowes on the spur of the moment, as he stood stammering and
hesitating before Anne Champion.
Meadowes had known Sebastian Shepley from his childhood. They had been
born and brought up in the same little country village of Wynford, where
Meadowes’ father had owned the Manor House and the wide lands
appertaining to it, while Shepley’s father was the village apothecary.
Then they both went to the wars; Meadowes to fight, Shepley to heal;
now, tired of campaigning, which had never been to his mind, Meadowes
had left the service and returned to England, where, since his parents’
death, he had inherited, together with the Manor House of Fairmeadowes,
this house in St. James’ Square and enough of money to ruin most men.
But Richard Meadowes was neither idle nor without interests. The whole
of life appealed vividly to him, every day was crowded with incident and
amusement, his difficulty was to select between his pleasures: now of a
sudden he had brought himself into a curious place. It had been from the
easy pleasantness of his nature that Meadowes had offered, when leaving
Flanders, to carry any letters home to Wynford for Dr. Sebastian
Shepley. The young surgeon had hesitated for a moment before asking if,
instead of bearing a letter to Wynford, Meadowes would deliver one in
London.
‘With all my heart—a dozen an’ you please,’ said Meadowes kindly; for
he liked the young man with his steady blue eyes, who came moreover from
Wynford like himself.
So Sebastian Shepley had intrusted a bulky letter to his care, and along
with it a package containing, said he, some amber beads for ‘Annie,’ ‘as
yellow as her hair.’ These were to be given to his sweetheart by
Meadowes’ own hand.
Now, like most men who are good at making pleasant promises, Meadowes
was not quite so good at keeping them. He forgot all about Sebastian
Shepley’s love-letter for several weeks, and lost the amber beads, so
that when at last he set out to deliver the letter, he had determined to
make such apologies as he might for the loss of the beads.
But when first his eyes rested on Anne Champion he thought only of her
beauty. He stood and stammered before her, and then there came a
whisper: Shepley was in Flanders . . . might never return . . . might
have forgotten Anne when he did . . . why could he not supplant him in
the meantime?
No wonder he had hesitated for a little before inventing the story; but
now that it was done a host of difficulties presented themselves to
Meadowes’ fancy. First of all, Shepley might write again to Anne any
day—in all probability he would not do so for some weeks, but still he
might—therefore Anne must be induced to leave her present home as
quickly as might be. Secondly, Anne had impressed him as a
self-respecting woman, quite able to take care of herself; she was no
silly child to be easily deceived, and, so far as he could judge, not to
be bought either. It is true Anne had taken the coin he offered her, but
Meadowes acknowledged that she had scarcely seemed to know what she was
about at the time. How then was he to gain favour in her eyes? How
manage to ingratiate himself with her quickly without rousing her
suspicions? He had no possible pretext for going to visit her again, yet
go he must, and that speedily, or he ran the risk of Anne’s having
received another letter from her lover, which might make her disbelieve
all the statements she had accepted to-day.
As Meadowes weighed the matter in his mind, he remembered Shepley’s
amber beads. Find them he must, and they might be offered to Anne as a
farewell gift from her faithless adorer. So he prosecuted an active
search for the missing package, and when at last it had been discovered,
sat down and opened it. Then Meadowes slipped the warm yellow beads
through his fingers like a monk at his devotions, but all the while
darting fears and shivers of shame overcame him, for he was a man of
quick sensitiveness, fully conscious of the base part he was playing.
There was no time to be lost; the next day at latest he must go to see
Anne again.
Thus it came about that Meadowes stood once more at Anne Champion’s door
the next afternoon and knocked.
Anne opened it herself; she stood on the threshold, and did not invite
her visitor to come in.
‘Oh, ’tis you again,’ was all she said for greeting.
‘I am come with the remainder of my message, Anne,’ said Meadowes. ‘I
forgot yesterday to make over this part of it to you.’
‘Come in then,’ said Anne, curtly enough, and she moved across to the
little window, which stood open for the heat. The room had a deserted
air, Anne seemed to have been sitting idle, for there were no signs of
her usual occupation.
‘Sit down, sir,’ she said, and waited for Meadowes to make known this
further errand of his.
‘Shepley asked me to deliver this amber chain into your hand as a
keepsake, and to bear him no ill will,’ he said, handing the necklace to
Anne.
‘A likely thing it is I’ll have his gifts!’ cried the girl. She flushed
angrily, and with a quick movement of her arm flung the chain out at the
window; it fell on the opposite roof, and the smooth beads slid down the
slates and lodged in some unseen crevice.
‘There they may rot for me!’ she cried.
‘Ah, come,’ began Meadowes; ‘he meant kindly by the gift.’
‘I’ll have none o’ his kindness then,’ said Anne. She did not seem
disposed for further conversation. But Meadowes persisted:—
‘You seem scarce so busy to-day.’
‘No more I am, sir; I be tired of work.’
‘Have you ever lived in the country?’ queried Meadowes, who had since
the day before evolved his plans a little. ‘Work is none so hard there,
and living pleasant; quiet is good for a sad heart.’
‘You’ll have tried it, sir?’ said Anne sarcastically. ‘For sad hearts be
mighty common.’
‘Ah! I have had my sad days too.’
‘I’d scarce have thought it, sir,’ said Anne, taking a survey of her
visitor. ‘But there,’ she added, as if on second thoughts, ‘you have
mayhap felt things like the rest of us.’
‘I have—I have. God knows I feel things,’ said Meadowes, with sudden
curious earnestness. He crossed over to where Anne stood, and laid his
fine, white, ringed hand on her arm for a moment.
‘I am grieved for you, Anne; indeed I am; I had not thought ’twould be
such a stroke to you, this. I would it were in my power to help you.’
Anne shook her head.
‘’Tis kind of you, sir, and thank you; there’s but the cure of time for
me, I do fear,’ she said, drawing back slightly from the touch of
Meadowes’ hand as she spoke.
‘I have a cottage in the country,’ he began, ‘where an old nurse of mine
keeps bees and flowers and the like: mayhap a change to country air
would help you to the forgetting of your trouble.’
Anne shook her head and smiled.
‘I’d get no sale for my straw-plaits thereaway,’ she said.
‘Oh, I would pay you——’ began Meadowes, but Anne cut him short.
‘For what, sir?’ she asked sharply.
Meadowes became certain of what he had only suspected before,—that Anne
Champion was quite able to take care of herself.
‘For your work, my good girl,’ he said, drawing himself up rather
stiffly for a moment. ‘Martha hath over much on her hands between the
bees and the flowers. If you care to live with her it would be to give
her your assistance in these matters.’
‘I’ve no knowledge o’ flowers nor any skill with bees, sir,’ said Anne,
still speaking in a suspicious tone. Then she added: ‘And where will
this place be, sir? for I have been no more than ten miles from London
all my days.’
‘Not farther than that; ’tis out Richmond way,’ said Meadowes. ‘But pray
do not hasten yourself to decide. I can get another woman any day. ’Twas
but that I fancied the country might change your thoughts for you that I
made you the offer.’ He rose as he spoke and held out his hand.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Anne, curtseying to her fine visitor, and rather
impressed by his sudden assumption of dignity.
Meadowes was quick to observe the advantage he had gained.
‘If you care to take a week wherein to think over the offer,’ he said,
‘I shall keep the place vacant for you till then.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ again said Anne.
‘Shall I come and see you at the week’s end?’ asked Meadowes.
‘I thank you; yes, sir,’ said Anne.
When her visitor had gone Anne sat down by the window to consider the
matter. ‘Him an’ his bees!’ was her first contemptuous conclusion, for,
as she would have expressed it herself, ‘handsome women they do know
their own know about the men.’ Then she thought over the past, with its
hard work and scanty pay, over the present, that was swept empty of hope
and pleasure, into a future, that had nothing to offer but work, work,
work. It was a fixed belief with Anne that men were seldom wholly
disinterested in their motives. She could not bring herself to imagine
that Meadowes offered her this situation because he wished his work
done—no, no, it was because she was ‘so rarely fine-looking,’ that was
all. But then what if it proved to be a good situation—good pay, little
work?—she would be a fool to refuse it. And further, she was well able
to take care of herself.
There are moods of mind when only some change in the outward conditions
of life can promise hope or comfort. It seemed to Anne impossible that
she could stay on here in her old surroundings when everything in the
future had changed for her. She was even weak and feminine enough to
imagine the delight of Mrs. Nare when she discovered that her prophecies
had come true and Anne’s fine lover had proved faithless. This thought
recurred to her again and again, for women are curious creatures, and
bad as they find it to be jilted, they perhaps find it worse still that
other women should be able to marvel and gossip over their deserted
state! Said Anne, when this thought had become intolerable, ‘I shall go
away to the country; Mrs. Nare shall be none the wiser,’ and with that
she decided to accept the offered situation, whatever it might prove to
be.
So when on the following Sunday afternoon Meadowes appeared once more at
Yard’s Entry, he found Anne quite ready to undertake the unknown duties
she had hesitated over the week before.
‘I’m happy to go, sir,’ she said; ‘and if so be as I do fail at the
work, ’tis your own fault, sir, offering the place to one as knows
nought of country ways.’
‘You will learn—you will learn,’ said Meadowes hastily.
‘And your name, sir? if I may make bold to ask.’
‘Mr. Richard Sundon; I fancied I had given you my name ere this.’
‘No, sir, and mayhap you live in the country thereaway?’
It scarcely suited Meadowes to answer this with absolute veracity.
‘No, in town—in rooms just now; some day I shall settle down,’ he
replied.
‘O yes, sir, a home’s a fine thing they do say,’ said Anne, in a dreary
voice that had the echo of tears in it.
CHAPTER III
Meadowes did not pay much heed to where he was going as he left Yard’s
Entry that Sunday afternoon. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he
walked forward without aim or direction. And these thoughts were
curiously involved: a horror of what he was about; a determination to
persist in it.
‘What’s this I am doing? what’s this I’ve done? Broken a woman’s heart,
and played a good man false . . . and I am gaining (perhaps) my desires,
and losing (certainly) my soul. . . . Soul? Have we got souls? I that am
doing this, have I a soul? I doubt it . . . we are but as the beasts
that perish—and yet——’
He stumbled along through the narrow, crowded streets. ‘I’ll go and
pray,’ he said, stopping suddenly before the door of one of the old city
churches (it stands there yet, grey and cool).
‘Here,’ he said to the verger, ‘is the church empty?’
‘Empty as a new-made grave, sir,’ said the man cheerfully.
Meadowes passed into the musty coolness of the church. He walked up the
aisle and chose out the darkest corner he could find, where to offer up
his strange petitions. There was a brass let into the wall here
commemorating the brave fall of men who had died gallant deaths; a
banner, bullet-singed and tattered, hung from the roof. Meadowes knelt
under the faded fringes and covered his eyes with his hands, to shut out
the world.
Then the former doubt invaded him, and the terror that the unseen was a
delusion and man but a soulless higher brute with a hand-breadth of Time
to sport in, overcame him with the blackness of despair.
‘Better far have a lost soul than none at all,’ he cried out in horror.
He looked up at the banner above him; for things, after all, as
intangible as the soul he doubted of, some happy mortals had bled and
died—for Honour, Patriotism, Courage. Had they forfeited the merry
years for shadows, been fools for their pains? Remembrances crowded on
him of War and Death: he seemed to see whole spectral armies of the
slain arise. He named them happy as they rose; for had they not died
undoubtingly, bartering life for these intangible realities so worthy
the life-blood of men! Ah for the unquestioning heart—to be able to
walk straight forward in a plain path! But for him question would rise
upon question: and this, the darkest doubt, the poisoning of Effort at
its very sources, was worst of all—no Unseen, nothing but the solid
merry world really to be counted upon! If this was so, then good-bye to
aspiration, grasp at the Seen, hold it fast, for seventy miserable years
only were to be depended on—depended on! not seventy seconds were
assured to him. ‘Lord! I must have my pleasures!’ he cried, remembering
the few and evil years. Then in spite of the doubts that tormented him,
Meadowes suddenly began to pray. He came before the God whose existence
he could not be sure of, with a confession he would not have made to his
fellow-men.
‘O God,’ he prayed, speaking low into his clasped hands, ‘I have planned
this thing and am going on with it—’tis pure devilry, but I am going
on. Lord, I do it open-eyed. Some day punish me as I deserve—now I must
take my pleasure——’
A curious prayer; but perhaps better than no prayer at all. For herein
lies the world’s hope, that every man—the blackest sinner amongst
us—is on his own extraordinary terms with the Unseen. Were we as
grossly material as appears, we were lost indeed.
Meadowes’ faith truly was reduced to the minimum, and yet, and yet—to
Something he made confession, assured only of this, that if any Presence
listened it must be with pity. He rose from his knees and went out again
into the crowded streets, filled not with any sudden resolutions of
repentance, but with the determination to persist in the course he had
originally planned out. He even felt a certain relief of conscience. ‘_I
have explained it with God_,’ he found himself saying, adding a moment
later, ‘If there be such an One.’ Then his thoughts seemed to fall into
question and answer:
‘And doth that make all straight?’
‘_Straighter: for I have said that such punishment as I deserve for
this, I shall take._’
‘Did you mean what you prayed?’
‘_If there are punishments in truth._’
‘Do you think there are?’
‘_No: I doubt it._’
‘Then you will have your pleasure without risk?’
‘_I hope for it._’
But conscience had after all the last word, for it spoke suddenly and
loudly then:—
‘_No, no; “a sword shall pierce thine own heart also.”_’
CHAPTER IV
Till a few years ago the cottage was still standing where Anne Champion
went to live at the bounty of Richard Meadowes. It stood on one of the
crossways leading off the great west London road; but few people passed
down the green lane, few even looked that way. The cottage was one of
those deep thatched old dwellings that look like an owl with its
feathers drawn up over its head; it had a garden filled with flowers and
bee-hives, and the straight walk leading up to the door was bordered
with flowering shrubs. Anne worked in the garden, clumsily enough at
first, and she looked after the bees and got stung frequently, and time
went on. Each week the old woman, Martha Hare, who occupied the house
along with her, received a certain sum of money to be divided between
herself and Anne; but Meadowes only came occasionally to the cottage at
first: he was very cautious, having weighed Anne’s character pretty
accurately. Then his visits became more frequent, and were somewhat
prolonged, then he brought Anne a present from town. Anne began to draw
her usual conclusions from these things: ‘He’s a-making up to me,’ she
said to Martha Hare.
But she was scarcely prepared for it when Meadowes suddenly asked her
one day if she would marry him.
‘I have been thinking of it for long, Anne,’ he said.
‘Sir, sir!’ said vulgar Anne. ‘I’m not your kind.’
‘But that is just my difficulty, and if you will listen to me I shall
explain it. You cannot but see, Anne, that you are scarce in my class,
as you say, and for that reason ’twill be better to keep the matter
private, else my father will cut me off with a shilling. But if you will
marry me privately, Anne, I swear to you I’ll be a good husband to you.’
Anne had been listening intently; but here she suddenly held up her
hand.
‘There,’ she cried, ‘I’ll have you with no promises if I have you at
all. I’ll take you as I know you, sir, and trust you but so far as I
sees you.’
‘But you will trust me, Anne?’ he said.
‘No. I’ll never trust no man again this side time. But I’ll come an’
live along of you, sir, if so be I’m done with work and care for ever.’
‘Anne, Anne, do not be so bitter,’ said Meadowes. Anne stood looking at
him silently for a moment, then she laughed.
‘’Tis like I’m marrying you for love, sir?’ she said.
‘Well, I have done what I could for you,’ said Meadowes (but he blushed
hotly as he spoke. ‘_I am a devil_,’ he said to himself).
‘You have, sir, one way, but now you’ve showed your hand, so to say. I
knew as it would be this way some day—I’ve had lovers an’ lovers by the
score. Not but that you’ve been civil and taken your time, sir. Well, as
I do say, sir, you be kind and I’ll take you for that. But ’tis not for
love, sir. I have no heart left in me now, but a stone where it once
was. A woman she do have two throws o’ the dice in her life—one’s love
an’ t’other’s money. Lose the first; you’d best, if you’re a wise woman,
have a try for the second, for with never the one nor t’other you be in
a sad case.’
Meadowes listened gravely to this, Anne’s gospel of prudence.
‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘that’s your way of thinking, Anne, and
mayhap mine is not so different—to take what I can get.’
‘What are you gettin’, sir?’ asked Anne, turning suddenly to him. ‘Lor’
sakes, sir! what hath gone agin you in life that you take second best so
soon?’
‘Second best?’ queried Meadowes.
‘Ay, second best. You’ll not make me believe as how you are wedding for
love, sir.’
‘I—I am very fond of you,’ Meadowes began, but Anne stopped him
impatiently.
‘Not you, sir. I’m rarely fine-looking, an’ men be terrible fools.
You’ve a mind to marry—that’s short and long for it,—but for love——’
The silence that Anne ended her sentence with was more expressive than
words. Then she turned and laid her hand in his.
‘Here, sir,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask no questions. Mayhap you’ve had your
story like myself. Leastways you’ve been kind to me, and I’ll be a good
wife to you if you’re wishful to marry with me. Like enough some day we
may both forget——’
She turned hastily away with a sob that would not be kept back.
‘Shall we say Friday of next week, then, Anne?’ said Meadowes, passing
his arm round her and patting her shoulder very kindly.
‘When you please, sir.’
‘And we shall be married here, not in church, for the reason I have
mentioned?’
‘Any place you please, sir.’
‘My friend Mr. Prior will marry us.’
‘Any parson you have a mind for, sir.’
Meadowes drew Anne closer to him, and kissed her lovely tear-stained
face. Then he bade her good-bye, and she went into the cottage and sat
there face to face with life, as every woman is when she makes up her
mind on what now-a-days we term the Marriage Problem.
Anne was very clear-sighted; she saw, as every woman with her wits about
her must see, that it is not good for woman—especially pretty woman—to
be alone. She saw in ‘Dick Sundon,’ as she called him, a protector whom
she had every reason to like. In the bitterness of her heart she had
vowed never to trust any man again, but she must have had some vague
feeling of confidence in this kindly bright-eyed suitor, else Anne would
have hesitated more than she did before coming to her decision. She had
hitherto been rather suspicious of the attentions of ‘fine gentlemen,’
as she termed them, but this offer of marriage seemed honourable to a
degree. ‘I’ll never forget Sebastian—not for all he hath done by
me—but mayhap I’d be happier wedded to Dick Sundon than living alone
all my days. Oh, he’s kind enough for certain, an’ free with his money,
and now he do wish to marry me what better can I do?’ she asked herself.
Unanswerable arguments.
Meadowes, on his part, went home profoundly miserable. For the sinner
who would sin enjoyably must be of another stuff from that of which this
man was made. Just as he had achieved success, his heart turned with a
perfectly genuine emotion of pity towards the woman he had deceived so
cruelly.
Yet on he went.
That evening he called upon his friend Mr. Simon Prior, at his rooms in
Piccadilly.
‘A somewhat late visitor, I fear, Prior,’ he said.
‘Never too late to be welcome,’ said Prior.
‘Well, I am come on business, which must be my excuse,’ said Meadowes.
He sat down, and Prior waited to hear what the business might be.
‘The fact is, I wish you to do me a favour,—I wish your assistance to
the carrying out of—of an affair of some delicacy.’
‘I shall be delighted; but I find it difficult to imagine . . . my money
affairs,’ . . . began Prior, whose one idea of a difficulty was money.
‘I had best make a long story short,’ said Meadowes, ‘I want you to act
cleric for me; I’ve seen your powers of mimicry ere this, and I swear
you’d play the parson to a nicety.’
‘Phew!’ whistled Prior. ‘So ’tis a woman is the difficulty; but why,
Meadowes, if I may intrude upon your secrets, why do you demand a
parson?’
‘Ah! there is my difficulty. There are women, you see, who value their
good name, and this woman is of the number. ’Tis unfortunate, but a fact
I cannot get over. She hath promised to be my wife, however, and I have
explained to her that family reasons make a private marriage necessary
at present. I trusted to you for the rest of it.’
Simon Prior leant back in his chair and eyed his visitor narrowly.
‘And what are you going to give to me in return for these valuable
services?’ he said.
Meadowes leant forward—his bright eyes blazed in the lamplight.
‘I’ll pay every debt you have, if that will do,’ he said.
Prior went through a quick mental sum.
‘Yes, that will do,’ he said, when it had been added up. ‘I have played
many a part, and have no doubt I could acquit myself with credit in
this. I’ll go to church and hear the parson’s drawl (I’ve not heard it
this many a year), and I’ll reproduce it for you whenever you please
with becoming gravity.’
‘Thanks! I’ve no manner of doubt you will. Then you will tell me what I
owe you? And, by the way, this matter must never cross your lips, Prior;
I may trust you for that?’
‘You may.’
‘Then on Saturday of next week, all being well?’
‘On Saturday of next week, all being well,’ repeated Prior, in such a
startling reproduction of Meadowes’ voice that both men laughed aloud.
But laughter was not in Meadowes’ heart though it was on his lips. He
rose to say good-night soon after, and Simon Prior lay back in his
arm-chair and smiled.
CHAPTER V
Perhaps it was because he felt the knot so obligingly tied by Simon
Prior not quite impossible to untie, that Richard Meadowes took his
marital obligations very lightly. He was well pleased with his new
acquisition, and used to ride out from town constantly to see Anne. They
would walk out together in the long spring twilights, and gradually Anne
began to lose her dread of such a fine lover and spoke to him freely and
naturally.
Anne could be a very amusing companion; for she had quick wits; and that
for companionship is far better than being well educated. She would tell
Meadowes all about her life; excepting one episode only, no mention of
which ever crossed her lips—of the men who had courted her, and the
women who had hated her, of the straits of poverty, and all she had seen
and suffered and enjoyed in her five-and-twenty years’ pilgrimage. In
return, she would ask Meadowes about the unknown world to which he
belonged. Had they always enough to eat without thinking about it or
working for it? (‘Lord sakes, how grand!’) Had they never to walk when
they were weary, or toil when they were faint? Was it possible he had
never known what it was to be cold for want of clothing, or run out of
fuel in the winter? (‘You scarce know you’re alive!’) Or, sorest strait
of all, was it possible he had never known sickness and want together?
(‘You’ve not felt the Lord’s hand on you yet then, Dick.’) And she would
listen with delight to Meadowes’ tales of his world. Outwardly, indeed,
Anne was cheerful enough now; Meadowes began to think she was forgetting
the past. Only her entire silence about Sebastian Shepley seemed to mark
any feeling on the subject. Yet every now and then he fancied she was
thinking of her former lover. Once as they walked together down the lane
on a lovely summer night—the birds were singing as if their little
throats would burst, the year’s jubilee was at its height—Meadowes
turned to her in his sudden, impulsive way.
‘’Tis fine to be alive and young,’ he said; ‘and the birds sing like the
angels of Paradise!’
‘I think to have heard the sparrows in the Green Park——’ Anne began to
say, almost as if she were speaking to herself—then she broke off in
the middle of her sentence and turned away. A moment later she added—
‘You do speak rarely clear, Dick—for all the world like a flute’s note.
I like to hearken to your voice better than them birds by far.’
Meadowes was charmed with this pretty speech; he flung his arm round
Anne’s waist and kissed her. She looked up at him with her brown eyes
full of tears; but they may have been tears of mirth, for all she said
was, ‘Good sakes! but men be mortal vain,’ and with that she drew
herself away from his embrace.
‘Why should she cry over the sparrows in the Green Park?’ Meadowes
wondered; how should he know how often Anne had walked there with
Sebastian Shepley?
Time wore on, summer merged into autumn, and still Anne had never spoken
once to Meadowes about Sebastian Shepley; they were the best of friends,
Anne welcomed his coming and mourned at his going, but without a trace
of sentiment, as Meadowes found himself forced to admit. Men do not like
a want of sentiment in women: they may condone it in their own sex, it
is considered an essential in ours; so Meadowes, who had never blamed
himself for lacking this quality, found it in his heart to be surprised
and a little indignant with Anne for doing so. ‘She should be beginning
to care more for me by now,’ he thought; he had been a very devoted
husband.
It was devotion indeed, which urged him to ride out from London one
cruel night of wind and rain. The miles seemed as though they would
never be got over; yet Meadowes rode on and on, out into the deep
country, his head bowed before the lashing of the rain and the onslaught
of the wind. At the Cross Roads Inn he dismounted, and leaving his horse
there, strode on through the darkness to Anne’s cottage.
‘Good sakes, Dick, is it you!’ cried Anne at sound of his knock. She
flung open the door and he passed in, into the warmth and stillness of
the cottage kitchen, where he stood laughing and breathless, the water
dripping from his drenched clothes on to the sanded floor. Anne,
exclamatory and sympathetic, stood beside him.
‘’Tis wetted through and through you are, Dick,’ she said, wringing the
flap of his riding-coat. ‘For the love of heaven go and cast these wet
clothes from off you, while I do heat up some ale for you on the fire.
There be naught like hot ale for chills. Good lack! to think of mortal
man riding from London this night!’
Meadowes laughed. ‘I shall be none the worse, Anne. But not hot
ale—mulled claret for me, my girl.’
‘I have no knowledge of your fine sour-wine drinks, Dick. For certain
the hot ale be far wholesomer,’ urged Anne, who clung to tradition as
surely as Meadowes.
So to please her hot ale he drank, sitting by the wide cottage fireplace
listening to the driving storm. The candle, which had been low in its
socket, burned lower; then Anne put it out, and still they sat silently
in the pleasant fire-lit room and heard the storm rave on outside. They
were sitting side by side on the settle by the fire, Meadowes had his
arm round Anne’s shoulder in his kindly caressing fashion, but though
Anne permitted the endearment she did not respond to it in any way.
‘You are very quiet to-night?’ said Meadowes at last. Anne shivered, and
bent forward to stir up the fire for answer.
‘What ails you, Anne? Has aught distressed you through the day?’ he
asked.
Anne turned round and looked at him; her eyes had a curiously wild,
frightened expression.
‘’Tis like great guns,’ she said. ‘There, there. O Lord, I can’t a-bear
to hear it—guns and guns a-thundering on, and when it cometh round the
corner o’ the house ’tis for all the world like the shrieks of dying
men.’
Meadowes was mystified by her words. He had never seen Anne fanciful
before.
‘Well, what of it?—’tis not unlike heavy firing, as you say,’ he
admitted. ‘But you are safe enough here, my girl, in all truth.’
‘Eh, Dick! don’t _you_ understand?’ cried Anne. ‘Battles, and guns, and
all. . . . I do seem to hear from over seas, from Flanders, bringing to
my mind all I’ve a mind to forget. I’ve sat all this day a-hearing of
them guns, and times I’d stop my ears.—O Lord! there be the screams
again.’ And Anne, turning to the only helper she had, held out her hands
to him with a trembling, childish gesture.
‘Dick, Dick,’ she said, ‘you be quick to feel all things, and kind too,
more nor I deserve, I that have married you, and my heart turning back
to another.’
Quick to feel, Meadowes was feeling a hundred conflicting sensations at
that moment. But first of all he must quiet Anne.
‘Come, Anne,’ he said, ‘you are tired and fanciful. ’Tis time you were
gone to bed, and by the morning you will have forgot the storm that
scares you now. Ah, I understand altogether, Anne; aye, and feel for you
too. But these things are better left alone, it but makes them harder to
speak of them.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ said Anne, rising to put a fresh candle in the
candlestick. She had appealed to ‘Dick’ in vain, she thought, and would
not attempt to make him understand.
‘I have some letters to write,’ said Meadowes, dismissing the subject;
‘I shall sit up and finish them.’
When Anne had gone, however, there, was not much letter-writing done.
Meadowes sat and looked into the fire, coming to several conclusions.
Well, here was the end of his amour; up to this time he had been quite
content with Anne, delighted with her; but now—he simply could not
stand this. If she was going to be always thinking about Sebastian
Shepley, and even mentioning him, it was high time that the connection
between himself and her was at an end. Meadowes, who was a very
fastidious man, shuddered at the whole situation. ‘Horrible; truly ’twas
in Providence I did not marry her,’ he said. Yet he had quite enough of
conscience to make it a difficult matter for him to break with Anne. He
dreaded beyond measure her anger when she found herself to have been so
duped. It was indeed almost impossible to contemplate telling her. How
would it best be done? Offer her money? Anne would never consider that a
recompense. Just leave her? ‘Even I am not bad enough for that!’ Trust
to time? Time would possibly make matters worse. Yet after hours of
thought on the subject this last and very lame conclusion was the one
which Meadowes finally adopted. He resolved not to see so much of her
now and—to wait.
‘A plague upon Sebastian Shepley, and a plague upon Constancy and Love
and all the Virtues!’ he said as he rose from his chair at last; ‘and
equally a plague upon Richard Meadowes, and Treachery and Passion and
all the Vices,’ he added, as he stood looking down at the last embers of
the wood-fire that glowed on the hearth. He gave an angry kick to the
red ashes with the toe of his riding-boot that sent a shower of scarlet
sparks up into the air; they fell down a moment later in soft grey ash,
and the fire was out.
‘The end of all hot fires,’ said Meadowes, as he groped his way across
to the door.
CHAPTER VI
‘Business,’ Meadowes explained to Anne a few days after this, ‘was
taking him out of London.’ His absence, too, might be somewhat
prolonged. He left ample means with his friend Mr. Prior (‘the parson
who wedded us, Anne’), and these moneys were to be forwarded by him to
Anne at regular intervals; she would want for nothing. Anne took the
news quietly, as was her way, and hoped his business might delay ‘Dick’
a shorter time than he anticipated.
Meadowes, however, knew his own mind now, and was quite decided as to
the length of time he would be absent from Anne. In the spring a child
would be born to them, and after that he would come and tell her
everything; till then it might be brutal to disturb her present peace of
mind. But after the event it must be done, and the sooner the better.
This had been his ultimate decision.
Still, decisions being more easily taken than put into execution, Anne
had been a very proud and happy mother for some eight weeks before
Meadowes found it possible to speak to her of the matter of their
supposed marriage. And even then his hand was, so to speak, forced. He
had ridden out from town in haste one summer morning, and now sat in the
porch with Anne, wondering why after all he had come, for tell her he
could not, though he had started with the determination to do so.
‘For certain, Dick, you be mighty silent,’ said Anne at last, looking up
from her sewing.
‘I am annoyed over business,’ said Meadowes lamely, looking down at the
ground.
‘And a fine packet of letters unopened in your pocket too,’ laughed
Anne, pointing with her needle at the bundle as she spoke.
‘I rode off in such haste,’ began Meadowes absently, then he took the
letters from his pocket and turned them over one by one.
‘From my lawyer—from Simon Prior—from——’ He stopped short and looked
hard at the third letter, shook his head, and broke the seal to glance
at its contents.
‘Lor’, Dick! what hath come to you?’ cried Anne, throwing aside her work
a moment later, for she had caught sight of his face; it was grown
suddenly grey and rigid. She stepped behind him, laying her hand on his
shoulder, and glanced down at the sheet of paper he held.
‘Nothing, Anne—a mere joke,’ said Meadowes quickly, crumpling up the
paper as if Anne could have read what was written on it.
‘Dick, that’s a word from Sebastian Shepley, so sure as I do stand
here,’ said Anne, her voice shaking; ‘I do know the looks of his name
upon the sheet, for ’twas all ever I could read for myself of his
letters, an’ many’s the one I had.’
‘Shepley? what would Shepley write to me of?’ asked Meadowes hotly,
rising and walking away down the garden-walk towards the gate. But Anne
would not be put off. She followed him down the walk and laid her hand
on his arm.
‘Tell me, Dick,’ she said; ‘I had a deal rather hear straight all he
hath to say.’
‘I swear to you——’ Meadowes began; but Anne interrupted him.
‘Then you swear false, Dick: ’tis writ by Sebastian’s own hand, or my
name be not Anne Sundon. Best tell me what he saith.’
‘The letter is from a man Steven Shackleton, Anne. You mistook the
lettering, being no scholar,’ persisted Meadowes, lying desperately now,
his courage had so withered when brought to the point.
Anne faced round upon him; her big clever brown eyes seemed to be
reading into his very soul.
‘You’re makin’ up tales, Dick,’ she said. ‘You won’t look me in the eyes
and tell me that’s not Sebastian’s hand of write.’
‘There,’ cried Meadowes, facing round to meet her eyes directly. ‘The
letter was from——’ His glance fell to the ground, as he added, ‘Steven
Shackleton’ again.
‘If so be you speak straight——’ Anne began. But Meadowes with an
impatient exclamation cut her short.
‘What do you take me for? Well, I must be off. A fool I was to leave
town without reading my letters, for back to it I must go in a couple of
hurries. Come, bid me good-bye, Anne,’ he added, bending down towards
her.
‘Good-bye,’ said Anne absently, turning away into the cottage.
She sat beside the baby’s cradle, rocking it slowly, and gazed down at
the floor. What did all this confusion and contradiction on Dick’s part
mean? Why did he look like that, as scared as though he had seen a
ghost? And why was he so angry, and why again so flushed?
Dick meantime was riding back to London at a great pace—riding as if
the devil himself rode behind him. But when he reached town it was to
ask himself why he had come there; for deep down in his heart he knew
that the time had come, and that tell Anne he must—yes, the whole black
truth from first to last. He had ridden away from her searching
truth-compelling eyes, but they followed him still, and back he must go
and have done with it all. Why would the earth not open and swallow him
up?—Ah, happy Dathan and Abiram!
CHAPTER VII
The day passed slowly for Anne after Dick had left. Her mind was
troubled by vague half-formulated doubts. Had Dick spoken truly, or had
he lied to save her pain? Surely, surely she could never mistake
Sebastian’s signature, the same she had gazed at so often, and kissed,
aye, and wept over also. She revolved these questions in her mind all
day and found no satisfactory answers to them; when she lay down at
night, one insistent suggestion whispered on in her ear, ‘Why did Dick
look like that? Was he lying? Did ever man look so mazed and scared when
he spoke the truth?’ Then Anne’s tired eyes closed and she entered the
beautiful dream-world. Now the dream-world holds sensations of
indescribable vividness not attainable on the earth-world; here
experiences come within the scope of words, there we experience the
inexpressible.
In a dream, then, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep had fallen
upon her, Anne dreamed and thought she awoke in Paradise. For Sebastian
came to her (out of nowhere, after the fashion of dreams), and their
souls seemed fused together in a warm silence. Not a word was spoken
between them; yet the miserable past was blotted out for ever; a great
light shone everywhere—a glow, a heat of forgiveness, a passion of
fulfilment at last; and the beautiful thrilling silence of it all! They
seemed alone in hollow space, out of reach of this world’s hubbub. What
need of explanations when all was understood? Her thoughts rested on
that splendid wordless vacancy. ‘Sure I be in heaven at last!’ said poor
Anne. ‘A fine heaven too, that quiet as it is! The old one as I used to
hear on was all noise o’ trumpets an’ hosannas—here’s heaven indeed,
with this grand quiet as is to go on for ever.’
Anne woke suddenly then—the appalling conviction of a dream was upon
her: she might have spoken face to face with her dear lover, so vividly
present he had seemed, such a sudden assurance of his faithfulness had
come to her. She sat up in bed and called out aloud in the quiet room—
‘Lord! be it a dream? Sebastian dear, what’s this I’m feelin’? Have Dick
Sundon fooled me out an’ out a-tellin’ lies of you all this long time?
Help me, am I losing my judgment?’
She rose up, groped her way across the dark room, and drew back the
window-curtain. The first streaks of day were showing in the sky, the
peaceful wooded land was half shrouded still in the mists of morning.
With long whistling notes the birds gave welcome to the coming day; they
called to each other, near at hand, and far off among the blossoming
thickets, like happy spirits that sing together in the fields of joy.
Anne leaned from the window and listened to these songs that went up so
straight into the dim blue morning skies. A great fear held her
fast,—the fear that Dick, her husband, her helper, had deceived her. In
her dismay and bewilderment she could only repeat again and again, ‘Lord
help me, Lord help me,’ scarcely knowing what she said. Then, afraid to
lie down again, she dressed and went down-stairs and into the garden.
Far off on the London road she heard the distant trotting of a horse and
the roll of wheels; some one must be driving along in the quiet morning
dimness. Anne stepped down the little walk and stood leaning against the
gate.
The wheels came nearer, and then came down the lane. Anne turned away,
for even in that dim light the passers-by must see her tears.
Then she heard the chaise stop at the gate; Dick’s voice—how clear it
sounded in the early stillness!—was speaking to the post-boy.
‘There, my man; that’s for your trouble all a dark night.’
‘Thank you, sir—thanks to you,’ said the boy as the chaise rattled off.
Anne turned and came down the little walk to meet Dick; her gown brushed
the dew from the overgrown rose-bushes in showers as she passed. She
came towards him silently, her face tear-stained, tragic. Dick held out
both hands to her, but before he could speak Anne checked him with an
upraised hand.
‘God’s spoke to me, Dick,’ she said, stopping before him like an
avenging angel.
‘I have come to tell you everything,’ said poor Dick; and at that moment
he drank the dregs of a bitter cup, ‘for I knew you guessed something
when I left you.’
‘God spoke to me in a dream,’ repeated Anne. ‘When I waked up I knew for
sure you had lied to me.’
‘Yes, Anne, I lied,’ he said, almost in a whisper.
‘About Sebastian?’
‘Yes.’
‘An’ he never played me false, nor married a Dutch wife?’
‘Never.’
‘Come,’ said Anne. ‘Come then an’ try if you can speak truth this once.’
She pointed to the seat by the bee-hives, and in silence they crossed
over to it and sat down.
‘Tell me now,’ said Anne.
Dick leant forward and began his story, and a pitiful story it was. Now
that he was face to face with the worst he made no attempt at
extenuation of his falsity; he might have been reading off the words
from a printed page, they came so straight from his lips, his
flute-clear voice never hesitated once till the whole was told. Anne on
her part listened quietly enough; without the usual exclamatory
interruptions which her sex commonly indulge in. When the story was done
there was a moment’s silence, before she said, speaking very low—
‘Eh! but I’ve been a bitter fool.’ She rose then and stood looking down
at Dick.
‘I’m goin’ now,’ she said. ‘If I’m no man’s wife, at least I’ll be no
man’s mistress. An’ for the child, you’d best care for him yourself.
You’ll maybe make him as good a man as his father some day.’
Dick sprang up and caught her hand. ‘Anne, Anne,’ he cried, ‘you must
see how it is—you must understand—I scarce knew all your feeling for
Shepley at first—I thought you had forgot—I thought women forgot
always—I had not realised—not until that night you spoke of him—and
then, then I could not bear it, and I resolved to tell you truly. I——’
‘Oh, you’ve acted mighty true for certain,’ said Anne quietly.
‘I have indeed told you all the truth——’
‘Yes, now.’
‘But, Anne, men are mortal—will fall before temptation. ’Tis hard to
blame us too cruelly.’
‘O yes; for certain men be mortal.’
‘I shall in truth provide for you all your days, Anne; I thought of no
other thing.’
‘Will you, sir?’ said Anne, with a curious smile, and Meadowes, not
catching its meaning, pursued eagerly—
‘All your days truly, Anne; you shall have all that woman can wish, if
you will but pardon me.’
Anne stood looking at him in a curious dispassionate way for a moment.
‘I’d sooner starve,’ she said then, shortly.
‘But, Anne, you can never suppose that I would let you want, after all
there has come and gone between us, after——’
Anne smiled again her curious smile, and shook her head.
‘A strange man you be for certain, Dick,’ she said; ‘kind an’ tender
when you’ve a mind to be, and one as feels quick. She paused before
adding slowly, ‘_And just as false as hell_.’
Meadowes winced under the words, but he went on, ‘False or no, Anne, I
must provide for you—for you and the child.’
‘For the child mayhap, never for me,’ said Anne. ‘You’d best see after
him, for he’ll be set down to your account when all things is squared.
See you train him up to be so good a man as you are, Dick.’
‘Then do you not wish to care for your son yourself, Anne?’ asked
Meadowes incredulously, for, up to this time, Anne had doted on the boy.
‘No more I do. He be your son, Dick, and ’tis for you to fend for him.’
‘Then——’ Meadowes hesitated, waiting for Anne to make her intentions
known.
‘I’ve worked before, and now I’ll work again; and if so be I get no
work, then I’ll starve, as I’ve starved before,’ said Anne quietly.
‘Martha’s kind and up in years, best leave the boy with her.’
‘Are you going to leave him?’
‘Yes, an’ never see him nor you again,’ said Anne. She turned away into
the house without another word, and Meadowes heard her go up-stairs and
move about in her room gathering a few possessions together. She came
out again before long, carrying a little bundle.
‘Good-bye, Dick,’ she said, holding out her hand to him; ‘good-bye to
the part on you as was kind to me—the rest be rotten bad.’
‘It cannot be you are really going, Anne.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Anne for answer, and she walked away down the lane and
turned off at the opening that led into the London road.
CHAPTER VIII
On a warm summer evening, some three weeks later, Richard Meadowes sat
in the library of his town house thinking, perhaps not unnaturally, of
Anne Champion and wondering where she was.
‘Dr. Sebastian Shepley, to wait upon you, sir,’ said the man-servant,
showing some one in, and Meadowes rose to greet his visitor, feeling the
room strangely warm.
‘Ah, Shepley,’ was all he said for welcome to the tall steady-eyed man
who came forward into the room.
Shepley sat down opposite to Richard Meadowes and facing the sunlight.
His pleasant blue eyes rested on Meadowes inquiringly for a moment.
‘I fear I have intruded on you, sir,’ he said, noticing the other man’s
embarrassment.
‘I—I am pleased to see you,’ said Meadowes, not with absolute veracity.
The situation seemed at that moment intolerable to him—better, he
thought, make a quick end of it.
‘You have heard about Anne Champion?’ he said, forcing himself to look
straight at Sebastian Shepley.
‘I am come for no other reason than to ask your aid in the matter,’ said
Shepley, ‘for the last I have heard of Anne was the message of thanks
you gave me from her anent the amber necklace. Often as I’ve writ to her
I have heard never a word in answer. Tell me, sir, do you know aught of
where she went?’
‘I know naught of Anne now,’ said Meadowes, looking down as he spoke.
‘_Now?_’ asked Shepley, for something in the other’s voice attracted his
attention.
‘A year and more she lived with me, and she bore me a son,’ said
Meadowes.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to tingle.
‘There—swallow your lies!’ cried Shepley; and he struck with all his
great strength across Meadowes’ lips. Without another word he left the
room, passed out through the hall, and strode away down the Square.
‘Lies, lies—hellish black lies every word he spoke,’ he cried in his
heart. ‘And ah! my poor Annie, what is come to you these weary years?’
Then remembering that Anne’s neighbours in Yard’s Entry might have some
knowledge of her whereabouts he turned his steps in that direction.
It was drawing to sundown when at last he reached Yard’s Entry. He stood
still for a moment and looked up at the little window he had known as
Anne’s, and which used to reflect the sunlight. It was blazing scarlet
just now. Then he went up to the doorway and knocked; Mrs. Nare appeared
in answer to his summons.
‘A good even to you, mistress,’ said Shepley. ‘And can you tell me aught
of Anne Champion, who lived here some two years since?’
Mrs. Nare squinted up at him out of her narrow old eyes.
‘Anne, she came back here some three weeks agone,’ she said. ‘Came and
went her ways again. And now she hath come here mortal stricken—taken
with a fever she’ve caught working amidst the rags for a Jew man in
Flower and Dean Street.’
Sebastian waited to hear no more; he ran up the dark stair and
unceremoniously opened the door of Anne’s room.
Such a blaze of light smote across his eyes as he came in that he was
half-blinded, for the skies were scarlet that night from a great sunset,
and all the room was lit up with the red glow. He stood for a moment in
the doorway shading his eyes from the dazzle, then stepped across the
crazy old floor, that creaked and gave under his heavy tread.
‘Annie, Annie!’ he cried, kneeling down beside her.
For Anne, she thought she dreamed again; the weary tossings of the
desolate day were done—she tasted a supreme felicity. What if with the
breaking day the vision fled, and she woke again to want and loneliness?
enough that now it tarried with her. She would not move, she scarcely
dared to breathe for dread lest the dream should depart; but lay very
still and felt the kindly strength of Sebastian’s arm support her, and
his cool hard cheek pressed against hers that burned with fever.
‘Annie,’ he said again, and this time Anne opened her eyes and smiled.
‘Eh, Sebastian, Sebastian, my dear man, stay—stay one minute, for
dreams be terrible short,’ she cried. Nor would all Shepley’s words
reassure her of his actual presence.
‘So many days as I’ve lain here, an’ such dreams and dreams! Lor’! them
was dreams! You and Dick Sundon, Dick Sundon an’ you, back and fore you
came and went the two of you. Sometimes Phil ’ud be there too (Phil my
boy as is)—(Lord Christ, have a care on Phil, being that he’s so young
and with none but Dick Sundon a-carin’ of him!) . . . then I’d dream of
Dick for hours and hours, an’ now, Sebastian, ’tis you; Lord send this
dream stays!’
Shepley knelt beside her, listening to all her strange babble of ‘Dick’
and ‘Phil;’ but feeling how the fever ran hot in her blood he pushed
back the fears that came to him with her words. He looked round the
room, with the stamp of relentless poverty set everywhere on it, and
thanked Heaven he was there now. For poor Anne lay on the bare boards of
this place that was now her shelter, and for covering she had thrown
over her the dress she had taken off. No trace of meat or drink was to
be seen anywhere.
As he sat thus taking in the bareness of poor Anne’s sick-room, with a
perfunctory little knock the door was shoved open and Mistress Nare came
in. She walked across the floor on tiptoe and stood looking at Anne.
‘The fever hath gotten that hold on her blood ’twill burn her up before
the week is out,’ she said sagely, winking across at Sebastian. ‘And by
your leave, sir, I’d make bold to say you’d best sit farther off from
her—’tis a catching sickness I dare swear.’
‘I am come here to cure her,’ said Sebastian; ‘I am a surgeon to my
trade.’
‘For certain then, sir, you’ve come too late,’ croaked the old woman.
Sebastian rose angrily.
‘Have a care what you say,’ he exclaimed. ‘And now, if you’ll do me a
service, you shall go and buy all that Anne Champion needs—a bed to lie
on——’
‘And die on,’ interpolated Mrs. Nare viciously, but Sebastian gave no
heed to her remark, only went on with his enumeration:—
‘And blankets to cover her, and food to eat and wine to drink—all these
things she must have before the day is done; so hasten you—if so be you
wish for this.’ He drew from his pocket a coin and laid it in the old
woman’s hand.
‘A bed and blankets. Food and wine and fire,’ repeated Mistress Nare.
‘Good lack, sir, dyin’ Anne she’ve not got so much as will buy a shroud
to wrap her in!’
‘Here,’ said Sebastian hastily, shaking out from his purse a handful of
coins. ‘How much will you require?’ Mrs. Nare was convinced.
‘Happen three guineas, sir, to begin with,’ she said, and her crooked
old fingers closed greedily over the yellow coins.
‘Well, hasten—hasten,’ said Sebastian, and Mrs. Nare shuffled off down
the stair chuckling and curious.
‘Dyin’ Annie’s gotten a lover up to the last, Matthew,’ she said as she
passed her son on the stair. So much for maternal jealousy.
CHAPTER IX
The vision tarried. Anne never woke to another lonely day; always there
was Sebastian sitting by her, Sebastian holding her hand, Sebastian
bending over her, wise and tender.
Whenever the fever left her, Anne was trying to tell him
something—something he would not listen to then. But at last one day,
lying still and white, Anne suddenly spoke.
‘Listen to me, Sebastian,’ she said, ‘for I’m not long for this world;
you can’t refuse to hear me now.’ And with that she told him all her
story. Sebastian sat beside her, his head bowed upon his hands,
listening without word or comment.
‘Now that I be come to death’s dear, I’ve but the one thought. Dick,
he’s a man to look out for hisself—and you was ever straight, my man;
but w’at’s to come of Phil? Lord, I’d turn in my grave to think on him!
for sure he’s gotten part o’ my soul, Sebastian—he hath truly.’
Sebastian did not speak, and Anne went on—
‘Dick’ll fend for him an’ no fear—make a fine gentleman of him most
like—as fine as hisself, and then teach him lyin’ ways an’ false
dealin’s, an’ my boy as hath half my soul he’ll go down into hell with
all the liars as find their place there, and who’s to help?’
Still Sebastian did not speak.
‘Eh!’ cried Anne, half rising on her pillows. ‘This once I seen you
hard, Sebastian! ’Tis no fault o’ the child’s—no, nor mine neither, as
he’s there.’
‘You can scarce expect me to love him, Anne,’ said Sebastian at last.
‘And what help can I give the child?’
‘Eh! none, none, my man; maybe Heaven’ll help him,’ sobbed Anne, then
she turned and laid her hands in Sebastian’s.
‘But as you love me,’ she said, ‘you’ll make me this vow—you’ll swear
to me if ever you can help my poor Phil you’ll do it; not for his own
sake, Sebastian (an’ forgettin’ Dick Sundon an’ all his lies), but for
mine, as was Phil’s mother, and gave him half her soul?’
‘Annie, Annie, I’d do more than that for you!’ said Sebastian. He prayed
her then to lie still—she had spoken beyond her strength. Anne obeyed,
and till late in the day she did not speak again, then she spoke
suddenly—half-wanderingly this time.
‘You’ll live long and happy, Sebastian,’ she said; ‘you’ll marry, my
pretty man, and another woman but me, she’ll be the joyful mother o’
your sons.’ Then with no change in her voice, but as if she suddenly
addressed a third person in the room, she continued: ‘And, God, you’ll
avenge me on Dick Sundon? You understand how it’s been with me, an’ how
’tis impossible I should forgive him? And, Lord, have a care of Phil,
and give him a white heart—my caring of him be past an’ done with now.’
There fell a long silence then, poor Anne having disposed of all her
earthly cares.
‘Come, Sebastian,’ she cried, then quickly—with that awful chanting
voice of the dying—and she held out her arms to him. But even as he
bent down, Sebastian felt a long straining shiver pass through her, the
sorrows of death compassed her, the pains of hell took hold upon her. He
caught her to his heart for a moment, but a Stronger than he was drawing
Anne away from his embrace. As their lips met she smiled a far-away
dreamy smile.
‘Ha’ done, my man—ha’ done,’ she said; ‘no more of earth.’
* * * * *
‘I’ll bury Annie,’ said Sebastian, ‘and then I’ll kill Richard
Meadowes.’
* * * * *
It was in compliance with this resolution that Sebastian Shepley, a few
days later, waited again upon Richard Meadowes.
Meadowes sat writing at the table with his back to the door, but at the
sound of its opening he turned round, and at sight of his visitor sprang
up; the two men faced each other silently for a moment. Sebastian’s eyes
from under their overhanging brows flashed like blue flames.
‘I called you a liar,’ he said, advancing up the room, ‘and for that
mistake I crave your pardon; you spoke truth, and now I am come to fight
you for the truth you spoke.’
‘Fight with you, you damned surgeon! you son of a village leech! I fight
with gentlemen!’ said Meadowes scornfully.
‘And I with men, so if you are one you had best show it,’ retorted
Shepley; and he drew the sword that hung at his side with a drawing
rattle from its sheath.
There was not much question then between them of rank. They fought with
savage hatred on either side; but from the first the fortunes of the
fight followed Sebastian.
The whole had been ended, and ended with it there would also have been
the larger half of this story, if an unaccountable impulse had not moved
Sebastian Shepley to mercy. Something, perhaps, of the futility of
revenge, now that Anne was dead and could never know of it, came to him
of a sudden, and stayed his hand.
‘There,’ he said. ‘You have your life at my hand, for all it may be
worth.’ And he turned away as if to leave the house.
Meadowes leant against the wall, breathing hard after the struggle.
‘Stop—one moment, Shepley,’ he said, ‘I—I would speak with you; Anne
Champion, if I can find her, shall want for naught.’
‘She wants for naught now,’ said Shepley shortly.
‘But,’ interposed Meadowes, ‘I should be the man to provide for her, I
looked to do that always, I had indeed no intention——’
‘Anne Champion is dead,’ said Shepley slowly, pausing for a moment on
the threshold. ‘Anne is dead, and her blood be upon you and upon your
children.’
PART II
‘_He that hath a wife and children hath given_
_hostages to Fortune._’