‘Ashamed? not at all.’

‘Who did he think I was?’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t know anything about you, at all events. As you

may guess, I have something not very pleasant to tell. I didn’t mean

to be unkind; it was only the surprise at seeing you when I opened the

door. I had calculated the exact time. But never mind. You look cold;

warm yourself at the fire. You shall drink a glass of wine; it will put

your nerves right again.’

‘No, I want nothing. Tell me at once what it is.’

But Tarrant quietly brought a bottle and glass from his cupboard. Nancy

again refused, pettishly.

‘Until you have drunk,’ he said, with a smile of self-will, ‘I shall

tell you nothing.’

‘I don’t know what I’ve done to make you like this.’

Her sobs and tears returned. After a moment of impatience, Tarrant went

up to her with the glass, laid a hand upon her shoulder, and kissed her.

‘Now, come, be reasonable. We have uncommonly serious things to talk

about.’

‘What did your friend think of me?’

‘That you were one of the prettiest girls he had ever been privileged

to see, and that I was an enviable fellow to have such a visitor. There

now, another sip, and let us have some colour back into your cheeks.

There’s bad news, Nancy; confoundedly bad news, dear girl. My

grandmother was dead when I got there. Well, the foolish old woman has

been muddling her affairs for a long time, speculating here and there

without taking any one’s advice, and so on; and the result is that she

leaves nothing at all.’

Nancy was mute.

‘Less than nothing, indeed. She owed a few hundreds that she had

no means of paying. The joke of the thing is, that she has left an

elaborate will, with legacies to half-a-dozen people, myself first of

all. If she had been so good as to die two years ago, I should have come

in for a thousand a year or so. No one suspected what was going on; she

never allowed Vawdrey, the one man who could have been useful to her,

to have an inkling of the affair. An advertising broker got her in his

clutches. Vawdrey’s lawyer has been going through her papers, and finds

everything quite intelligible. The money has gone in lumps, good after

bad. Swindling, of course, but perfectly legal swindling, nothing to

be done about it. A minute or two before her death she gasped out some

words of revelation to the nurse, enough to set Vawdrey on the track,

when he was told.’

Still the listener said nothing.

‘Well, I had a talk with Vawdrey. He’s a blackguard, but not a bad

fellow. Wished he could help me, but didn’t quite see how, unless I

would go into business. However, he had a suggestion to make.’

For Nancy, the pause was charged with apprehensions. She seemed to

discover in her husband’s face a purpose which he knew would excite her

resistance.

‘He and I have often talked about my friend Sutherland, in the Bahamas,

and Vawdrey has an idea that there’ll be a profitable opening in that

quarter, before long. Sutherland has written to me lately that he thinks

of bestirring himself in the projects I’ve told you about; he has got

the old man’s consent to borrow money on the property. Now Vawdrey,

naturally enough, would like Sutherland to join him in starting a

company; the thoughts of such men run only on companies. So he offers,

if I will go out to the Bahamas for a month or two, and look about me,

and put myself in a position to make some kind of report--he offers to

pay my expenses. Of course if the idea came to anything, and a company

got floated, I should have shares.’

Again he paused. The listener had wide, miserable eyes.

‘Well, I told him at once that I would accept the proposal. I have no

right to refuse. All I possess in the world, at this moment, is about

sixty pounds. If I sold all my books and furniture, they might bring

another sixty or so. What, then, is to become of me? I must set to work

at something, and here’s the first work that comes to hand. But,’ his

voice softened, ‘this puts us face to face with a very grave question;

doesn’t it? Are we to relinquish your money, and be both of us

penniless? Or is there any possibility of saving it?’

‘How _can_ we? How could the secret be kept?’

Voice and countenance joined in utter dismay.

‘It doesn’t seem to me,’ said Tarrant slowly, ‘a downright

impossibility. It _might_ be managed, with the help of your friend Mary,

and granting that you yourself have the courage. But’--he made a large

gesture--‘of course I can’t exact any such thing of you. It must seem

practicable to you yourself.’

‘What are we to do if my money is lost?’

‘Don’t say _we_.’ He smiled generously, perhaps too generously. ‘A man

must support his wife. I shall arrange it somehow, of course, so that

_you_ have no anxiety. But--’

His voice dropped.

‘Lionel!’ She sprang up and approached him as he stood by the fireplace.

‘You won’t leave me, dear? How can you think of going so far away--for

months--and leaving me as I am now? Oh, you won’t leave me!’

He arched his eyebrows, and smiled gently.

‘If that’s how you look at it--well, I must stay.’

‘You can do something here,’ Nancy continued, with rapid pleading. ‘You

can write for the papers. You always said you could--yes, you did

say so. We don’t need very much to live upon--at first. I shall be

content--’

‘A moment. You mean that the money must be abandoned.’

She had meant it, but under his look her confused thoughts took a new

direction.

‘No. We needn’t lose it. Only stay near me, and I will keep the secret,

through everything. You will only need, then, just to support yourself,

and that is so easy. I will tell Mary how it is. She can be trusted, I

am sure she can. She would do anything for me. She knows that father was

not thinking of a man such as you. It would be cruelly wrong if I lost

everything. I will tell her, and she will help me. Scarcely any one

comes to the house, as it is; and I will pretend to have bad health, and

shut myself up. And then, when the time comes, Mary will go away with

me, and--and the child shall be taken care of by some people we can

trust to be kind to it. Horace is going to live in lodgings; and Mrs.

Damerel, I am sure, won’t come to see me again; and I can get rid of

other people. The Barmbys shall think I am sulking about the will; I’m

sure they think already that I dislike them because of it. Let them

think it; I will refuse, presently, to see them at all. It’s only a few

months. If I tell people I’m not well, nobody will feel surprised if I

go away for a month or two--now--soon. Mary would go with me, of course.

I might go for December and January. Father didn’t mean I was never to

have change of air. Then there would be February and March at home. And

then I might go away again till near the end of May. I’m sure we can

manage it.’

She stopped, breathless. Tarrant, who had listened with averted face,

turned and spoke judicially.

‘There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Nancy. Do you propose that we

shall never acknowledge the child? Remember that even if you were bold

enough, after our second marriage, to acknowledge it in the face of

scandal--that wouldn’t be safe. Any one, if suspicion is aroused, can

find out when we were actually married.’

‘We can’t think of that. The child may not live.’

Tarrant moved, and the movement startled Nancy. It meant that she had

pained him, perhaps made him think of her with repugnance.

‘I hardly know what I am saying. You know I don’t wish that. But all I

can think of now is to keep you near me. I can’t bear to be separated

from you. I love you so much more than you love me.’

‘Let me just tell you what I had in mind, Nancy. Supposing the secret

can be kept, we must eventually live abroad, that is to say, if our

child is not to grow up a stranger to us, which neither you nor I could

wish. Now, at Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, a lot of Americans

always spend the winter. If I made acquaintances among them, it might be

a very useful step, it would be preparing for the future.’

To Nancy this sounded far from convincing. She argued against it in

a perfectly natural way, and as any one else would have done who knew

Tarrant. More than once he had declared to her that he would rather die

than drag out his life in one of the new countries, that he could

not breathe in an atmosphere of commercialism unrelieved by historic

associations. Nancy urged that it would be better to make a home on

the continent, whither they could go, at any moment, without a sense of

exile.

‘So it comes to this,’ he interrupted, with an air of resignation.

‘I must refuse Vawdrey’s offer, and, in doing so, refuse an excellent

chance of providing for our future, _if_--what is by no means

improbable--the secret should be discovered. I must turn to journalism,

or be a clerk. Well and good. My wife decrees it.’

And he began to hum an air, as if the matter were dismissed. There was a

long silence.

‘How long would you be away?’ murmured Nancy, at length.

‘I suppose two months at most.’

‘November--December.’

‘The second of those months you might be spending, as you said, away

from London. Down in Devon, perhaps. I can’t blame your thoughts about

it; but it seems--doesn’t it?--a trifle inconsiderate, when you think

what may result from my journey.’

‘Would you promise me to be back by the end of the year?’

‘Not promise, Nancy. But do my best. Letters take fourteen days, that’s

all. You should hear by every mail.’

‘Why not promise?’

‘Because I can’t foresee how much I may have to do there, and how

long it will take me. But you may be very sure that Vawdrey won’t pay

expenses for longer than he can help. It has occurred to me that I might

get materials for some magazine articles. That would help to float me

with the editors, you know, if it’s necessary.’

Nancy sighed.

‘If I consented--if I did my best not to stand in your way--would you

love me better when you came back?’

The answer was a pleased laugh.

‘Why, there,’ he cried, ‘you’ve given in a nutshell the whole duty of a

wife who wishes to be loved!’

Nancy tried to laugh with him.

CHAPTER 8

He must be a strong man whom the sudden stare of Penury does not daunt

and, in some measure, debase. Tarrant, whatever the possibilities of his

nature, had fallen under a spell of indolent security, which declared

its power only when he came face to face with the demand for vigorous

action. The moment found him a sheer poltroon. ‘What! Is it possible

that I--_I_--am henceforth penniless? I, to whom the gods were so

gracious? I, without warning, flung from sheltered comfort on to the

bare road side, where I must either toil or beg?’ The thing seemed

unintelligible. He had never imagined such ruin of his hopes.

For the first time, he turned anxious thoughts upon the money to which

his wife was--would be--might be--entitled. He computed the chances of

success in the deception he and she were practising, and knew with

shame that he must henceforth be party to a vulgar fraud. Could Nancy

be trusted to carry through this elaborate imposition--difficult for the

strongest-minded woman? Was it not a certainty that some negligence, or

some accident, must disclose her secret? Then had he a wife and child

upon his hands, to support even as common men support wife and child, by

incessant labour. The prospect chilled him.

If he went to the West Indies, his absence would heighten the

probability of Nancy’s detection. Yet he desired to escape from her.

Not to abandon her; of that thought he was incapable; but to escape

the duty--repulsive to his imagination--of encouraging her through the

various stages of their fraud. From the other side of the Atlantic he

would write affectionate, consolatory letters; face to face with her,

could he support the show of tenderness, go through an endless series of

emotional interviews, always reminding himself that the end in view was

hard cash? Not for love’s sake; he loved her less than before she proved

herself his wife in earnest. Veritable love--no man knew better--would

have impelled him to save himself and her from a degrading position.

Was he committing himself to a criminality which the law would visit?

Hardly that--until he entered into possession of money fraudulently

obtained.

In miserable night-watchings, he fell to the most sordid calculations.

Supposing their plot revealed, would Nancy in fact be left without

resources? Surely not,--with her brother, her aunt, her lifelong friends

the Barmbys, to take thought for her. She could not suffer extremities.

And upon this he blushed relief.

Better to make up his mind that the secret must inevitably out. For the

moment, Nancy believed she had resigned herself to his departure, and

that she had strength to go through with the long ordeal. But a woman in

her situation cannot be depended upon to pursue a consistent course. It

is Nature’s ordinance that motherhood shall be attained through phases

of mental disturbance, which leave the sufferer scarce a pretence of

responsibility. Nancy would play strange pranks, by which, assuredly, he

would be driven to exasperation if they passed under his eyes. He had no

mind to be called father; perhaps even his humanity might fail under

the test to which, as a lover, he had given scarce a casual thought. By

removing himself, and awaiting the issue afar off, he gained time and

opportunity for reflection. Of course his wife could not come to want;

that, after all, was the one clearly comforting thought. Her old servant

would take good care of her, happen what might.

He must taste of liberty again before sinking into the humdrum of

married life. The thought of an ocean voyage, of the new life amid

tropic splendours, excited his imagination all the more because it

blended with the thought of recovered freedom. Marriage had come upon

him with unfair abruptness; for such a change as that, even the ordinary

bachelor demands a season preparative; much more, then, the young man

who revelled in a philosophic sense of detachment, who wrote his motto

‘Vixi hodie!’ For marriage he was simply unfit; forced together, he and

his wife would soon be mutually detestable. A temporary parting might

mature in the hearts of both that affection of which the seed was

undeniably planted. With passion they had done; the enduring tenderness

of a reasonable love must now unite them, were they to be united at all.

And to give such love a chance of growing in him, Tarrant felt that he

must lose sight of Nancy until her child was born.

Yes, it had begun already, the trial he dreaded. A letter from Nancy,

written and posted only an hour or two after her return home--a long,

distracted letter. Would he forgive her for seeming to be an obstacle

in the way of what he had proposed? Would he promise her to be faithful?

Would he--

He had hardly patience to read it through.

The next evening, on returning home about ten o’clock, he was startled

by the sight of Nancy’s figure at the foot of his staircase.

‘What has happened?’

‘Nothing--don’t be frightened. But I wanted to see you tonight.’

She gripped his hand.

‘How long have you waited? What! Hours? But this is downright

madness--such a night as this! Couldn’t you put a note for me in the

letter-box?’

‘Don’t--don’t speak so! I wanted to see you.’ She hurried her words, as

if afraid he would refuse to listen. ‘I have told Mary--I wanted you to

know--’

‘Come in. But there’s no fire, and you’re chilled through. Do you want

to be ill? What outrageous silliness!’

Her vitality was indeed at a low ebb, and reproaches made her weep.

Tarrant half carried her up to his room, made a light, and fell to his

knees at fire-building.

‘Let me do it,’ Nancy exclaimed. ‘Let me wait upon you--’

‘If you don’t sit still and keep quiet, you’ll make me angry in

earnest.’

‘Then you’re not _really_ angry with me? I couldn’t help it.’

‘No, I’m afraid you couldn’t,’ Tarrant muttered cheerlessly.

‘I wanted to tell you that Mary will be our friend. She was speechless

with astonishment; at first I didn’t know what she would say; she looked

at me as she had never looked before--as if she were the mistress, and

I the servant. But see what I have come to; all I felt was a dread lest

she should think it her duty to cast me off. I haven’t a bit of pride

left. I could have fallen on my knees before her; I almost did. But she

was very good and kind and gentle at last. She’ll do everything she can

for me.’

The fire in a blaze, Tarrant stood up and regarded it gloomily.

‘Well, did she think it possible?’ he asked at length.

‘Yes, she did. She said it would be very difficult, but the secret might

be kept--if I were strong enough. And I _am_ strong enough--I _will_

be--’

‘It doesn’t look like it,’ said Tarrant, taking the edge off his words

with a smile.

‘I won’t come again in this way. Where have you been tonight?’

‘Oh, with friends.’

‘Which friends? where?’

He moved impatiently.

‘People you don’t know, Nancy, and wouldn’t care about if you did. Do

you know what time it is?’

‘Do tell me where you have been. It isn’t prying into your affairs. Your

friends ought to be mine; at least, I mean, I ought to know their names,

and something about them. Suppose I were to tell you I had been spending

the evening with friends--’

‘My dear girl, I shouldn’t ask a question, unless you invited it.

However, it’s better to tell you that I have been making arrangements to

sublet these chambers. I can’t afford to keep them, even if there were

any use in it. Harvey Munden has introduced me to a man who is likely to

relieve me of the burden. I shall warehouse my books and furniture--’

‘Then you are going? Really going to leave England?’

He affected astonishment; in truth, nothing now could surprise him.

‘But wasn’t it all decided between us? Didn’t you repeat it in your

letter?’

‘Yes--I know--but I didn’t think it would come so soon.’

‘We won’t talk about it to-night,’ said Tarrant firmly. ‘For one thing,

there’s no time. Come closer to the fire, and get warm through; then I

must see you home.’

Nancy hung her head. When, in a few moments, she looked up again, it was

to say drily:

‘There’s no need for you to see me home.’

‘I’m going to, at all events.’

‘Why? You don’t care much about me. I might as well be run over--or

anything--’

To this remark no sort of answer was vouchsafed. Nancy sat with her

feet on the fender, and Tarrant kept up a great blaze with chips, which

sputtered out their moisture before they began to crackle. He and she

both seemed intent on this process of combustion.

‘Now you’re quite warm,’ said the young man, as if speaking to a child,

‘and it’s time to go.’

Nancy rose obediently, gazed at him with dreaming eyes, and suffered

herself to be led away by the arm. In Chancery Lane, Tarrant hailed a

crawling hansom. When they were driving rapidly southward, Nancy began

to question him about the date of his departure; she learnt that he

might be gone in less than a week.

‘If you could behave quietly and sensibly, we would have an evening to

make final arrangements.’

‘I can,’ she answered, with a calm that surprised him. ‘If you go

without letting me see you again, I don’t know what I might do. But I

can be as sensible as you are, if I’m treated fairly.’

He grasped her hand.

‘Remember, dear girl, that I have a good deal to worry me just now. Do

you suppose I leave you with a light heart?’

‘If you can persuade me that you care--’

‘I care a good deal more than I can easily say. Your position is a very

hard one,--harder than mine. But I’m going away to work for your future.

I see clearly that it’s the best thing I could do. Whether Vawdrey’s

ideas come to anything or not, I shall make profit out of the journey;

I mean to write,--I think it’s all I can do to any purpose,--and the

material I shall get together over there will give me a start. Don’t

think I am cold-hearted because I talk in this way; if I broke down, so

much the worse for both of us. The time has come for serious work.’

‘But we shan’t lose my money. I’ve made up my mind we shan’t.’

‘It’s impossible for you to guard against every danger. We must be

prepared for the worst, and that responsibility rests on me. Try and

keep your mind at ease; whatever happens, to protect you is my duty, and

I shall not fail in it.’

Speaking thus, Tarrant felt the glow of virtue. His words were

perfectly sincere, but had reference to a future which his thoughts left

comfortably vague.

They were to meet again, probably for the definite parting, three days

hence. Tarrant, whose desire for escape had now become incontrollable,

used the intervening time in a rush of preparations. He did not debate

with himself as to the length of his sojourn in the West Indies; that

must be determined by circumstances. Explicitly he had avoided a promise

on the subject. What money he possessed he would take with him; it might

be to his interest, for Nancy’s likewise, to exceed the term of

absence provided for in his stipulations with Mr. Vawdrey. But all he

deliberately thought of was the getting away. Impatient with Nancy,

because of the vagaries resultant from her mental and physical state,

he himself exhibited a flagrant triumph of instinct over reason. Once

in enjoyment of liberty, he would reflect, like a practical man, on the

details of his position, review and recognise his obligations, pay his

debt to honour; but liberty first of all. Not his the nature to accept

bondage; it demoralised him, made him do and say things of which he

was ashamed. Only let him taste the breezes of ocean, and the healthful

spirit which is one with rectitude would again inspire him.

Much to his surprise, he neither saw nor heard from Nancy until the hour

appointed. She came very punctually. On opening the door to her, with an

air of resolute cheerfulness, he saw something in her face that removed

the necessity for playing a part. It was the look which had so charmed

him in their love-days, the indescribable look, characteristic of Nancy,

and of her alone; a gleam between smile and laughter, a glance mingling

pride with submission, a silent note of personality which thrilled the

senses and touched the heart.

‘What now?’ he asked, holding her hand and gazing at her. ‘Some good

news?’

‘None that I know of. How hot your room is! Why, you look glad to see

me!’

‘Was I ever anything else?’

She answered him with a smile.

‘It’s a very pleasant surprise,’ he continued, watching her as she threw

off her out-door things. ‘I expected a doleful visage, eyes red with

weeping.’

‘Did you? See how much a man thinks of himself! If you choose to go

away, I choose to think as little of you as possible. That’s common

sense--isn’t it?’

‘I don’t want you to cry about it.’

‘Oh yes, you do. It flatters you, and you like flattery. But I’ve been

too obliging. I feel myself again, and there’s no more flattery for

you--till you come back. I don’t ask you when that will be. I ask you

nothing at all. I am independent of you.’

Tarrant grew uneasy. He feared that this mood of jest would change only

too suddenly, and her collapse into feminine feebleness be the more

complete.

‘Be as independent as you like,’ he said; ‘only keep your love for me.’

‘Oh, indeed! It’s your experience, is it, that the two things can go

together? That’s the difference between man and woman, I suppose. I

shall love you just as little as possible--and how little that will be,

perhaps I had better not tell you.’

Still he stood gazing at her.

‘You look very beautiful to-day.’

‘I know. I saw it for myself before I left home. But we won’t talk about

that. When do you go?’

‘My goods will be warehoused to-morrow, and the next day I go to

Liverpool.’

‘I’m glad it’s so soon. We shan’t need to see each other again. Smoke

your pipe. I’m going to make a cup of tea.’

‘Kiss me first. You forgot when you came in.’

‘You get no kiss by ordering it. Beg for it prettily, and we’ll see.’

‘What does it all mean, Nancy? How can you have altered like this?’

‘You prefer me as I was last time?’

‘Not I, indeed. You make me feel that it will be very hard to leave you.

I shall carry away a picture of you quite different from the dreary face

that I had got to be afraid of.’

Nancy laughed, and of a sudden held out her hands to him.

‘Haven’t I thought of that? These were the very words I hoped to hear

from you. Now beg for a kiss, and you shall have one.’

Never, perhaps, had they spent together so harmonious an evening.

Nancy’s tenderness took at length a graver turn, but she remained

herself, face and speech untroubled by morbid influence.

‘I won’t see you again,’ she said, ‘because I mightn’t be able to behave

as I can to-day. To-day I am myself; for a long time I have been living

I don’t know how.’

Tarrant murmured something about her state of health.

‘Yes, I know all about that. A strange thought came to me last night.

When my father was alive I fretted because I couldn’t be independent; I

wanted to be quite free, to live as I chose; I looked forward to it as

the one thing desirable. Now, I look back on that as a time of liberty.

I am in bondage, now--threefold bondage.’

‘How threefold?’

‘To you, because I love you, and couldn’t cease loving you, however I

tried. Then, to my father’s will, which makes me live in hiding, as if I

were a criminal. And then--’

‘What other tyranny?’

‘You mustn’t expect all my love. Before long some one else will rule

over me.--What an exchange I have made! And I was going to be so

independent.’

To the listener, her speech seemed to come from a maturer mind than she

had hitherto revealed. But he suffered from the thought that this might

be merely a pathological phase. In reminding him of her motherhood, she

checked the flow of his emotion.

‘You’ll remember,’ Nancy went on, ‘that I’m not enjoying myself whilst

you are away. I don’t want you to be unhappy--only to think of me, and

keep in mind what I’m going through. If you do that, you won’t be away

from me longer than you can help.’

It was said with unforced pathos, and Tarrant’s better part made

generous reply.

‘If you find it too hard, dear, write to me, and tell me, and there

shall be an end of it.’

‘Never. You think me wretchedly weak, but you shall see--’

‘It’s of your own free will you undertake it?’

‘Yes, of my own free will,’ she answered firmly. ‘I won’t come to you

penniless. It isn’t right I should do so. My father didn’t mean that. If

I had had the sense and the courage to tell him, all this misery would

have been spared. That money is mine by every right, and I won’t lose

it. Not only for your sake and my own--there is some one else to think

of.’

Tarrant gave her a kind look.

‘Don’t count upon it. Trust to me.’

‘I like to hear you say that, but I don’t wish you to be put to proof.

You are not the kind of man to make money.’

‘How do you mean it?’

‘As you like to take it. Silly boy, don’t I love you just because you

are _not_ one of the money-making men? If you hadn’t a penny in the

world, I should love you just the same; and I couldn’t love you more if

you had millions.’

The change which Tarrant expected did not come. To the end, she was

brave and bright, her own best self. She said good-bye without a tear,

refused to let him accompany her, and so, even as she had resolved, left

in her husband’s mind an image beckoning his return.

Part IV: The Veiled Figure

CHAPTER 1

Before his admission to a partnership in Mr. Lord’s business, Samuel

Barmby lived with his father and two sisters in Coldharbour Lane. Their

house was small, old and crumbling for lack of repair; the landlord, his

ground-lease having but a year or two to run, looked on with equanimity

whilst the building decayed. Under any circumstances, the family must

soon have sought a home elsewhere, and Samuel’s good fortune enabled

them to take a house in Dagmar Road, not far from Grove Lane; a new

and most respectable house, with bay windows rising from the half-sunk

basement to the second storey. Samuel, notwithstanding his breadth of

mind, privately admitted the charm of such an address as ‘Dagmar Road,’

which looks well at the head of note-paper, and falls with sonority from

the lips.

The Barmby sisters, Lucy and Amelia by name, were unpretentious

young women, without personal attractions, and soberly educated. They

professed a form of Dissent; their reading was in certain religious and

semi-religious periodicals, rarely in books; domestic occupations took

up most of their time, and they seldom had any engagements. At appointed

seasons, a festivity in connection with ‘the Chapel’ called them forth;

it kept them in a flutter for many days, and gave them a headache. In

the strictest sense their life was provincial; nominally denizens of

London, they dwelt as remote from everything metropolitan as though

Camberwell were a village of the Midlands. If they suffered from

discontent, no one heard of it; a confession by one or the other that

she ‘felt dull’ excited the sister’s surprise, and invariably led to the

suggestion of ‘a little medicine.’

Their brother they regarded with admiration, tempered by anxiety. ‘Great

talents,’ they knew by report, were often perilous to the possessor, and

there was reason to fear that Samuel Bennett Barmby had not resisted

all the temptations to which his intellect exposed him. At the age of

one-and-twenty he made a startling announcement; ‘the Chapel’ no longer

satisfied the needs of his soul, and he found himself summoned to join

the Church of England as by law established. Religious intolerance not

being a family characteristic, Mr. Barmby and his daughters, though they

looked grave over the young man’s apostasy, admitted his freedom in this

matter; their respected friend Mr. Lord belonged to the Church, and it

could not be thought that so earnest-minded a man walked in the way to

perdition. At the same time, Samuel began to exhibit a liking for social

pleasures, which were, it might be hoped, innocent, but, as they kept

him from home of evenings, gave some ground for uneasiness. He had

joined a society of young men who met for intellectual debate, and his

success as an orator fostered the spiritual pride already discernible in

him. His next step could not be regarded without concern, for he became

a member of the National Sunday League. Deceptive name! At first

the Miss. Barmbys supposed this was a union for safe-guarding the

Sabbath-day; it appalled them to discover that the League had quite an

opposite tendency, that its adherents sallied forth together on ‘Sunday

excursions,’ that they received tickets for Sunday admission to picture

galleries, and in various other ways offended orthodox feeling. But

again the father and sisters gave patient ear to Samuel’s elaborate

arguments. They became convinced that he had no evil intentions. The

elder girl, having caught up a pregnant phrase in some periodical she

approved, began to remark that Samuel had ‘a modern mind;’ and this

eventually consoled them.

When it began to be observed that Samuel talked somewhat frequently of

Miss. Lord, the implied suggestion caused a tremor of confused feeling.

To the Miss. Barmbys, Nancy seemed an enigmatic person; they had

tried to like her, but could not; they objected to her assumption of

superiority, and were in grave doubt as to her opinions on cardinal

points of faith and behaviour. Yet, when it appeared a possibility that

their brother might woo Miss. Lord and win her for a wife, the girls did

their best to see her in a more favourable light. Not for a moment

did it occur to them that Nancy could regard a proposal from Samuel as

anything but an honour; to _them_ she might behave slightingly, for they

were of her own sex, and not clever; but a girl who prided herself on

intellectual attainments must of course look up to Samuel Bennett with

reverence. In their unworldliness--of a truth they were good, simple

creatures--the slight difference of social position seemed unimportant.

And with Samuel’s elevation to a partnership, even that one shadowy

obstacle was removed. Henceforth they would meet Nancy in a conciliatory

spirit, and, if she insisted upon it, bow down before her.

Mr. Barmby, senior, whose years drew nigh to three-score, had a great

advantage in point of physical health over his old friend Stephen Lord,

and his mind enjoyed a placidity which promised him length of days.

Since the age of seventeen he had plied a pen in the office of a Life

Assurance Company, where his salary, by small and slow increments, had

grown at length to two hundred and fifty a year. Himself a small and

slow person, he had every reason to be satisfied with this progress, and

hoped for no further advance. He was of eminently sober mind, profoundly

conscientious, and quite devoid of social ambition,--points of character

which explained the long intimacy between him and Stephen Lord. Yet one

habit he possessed which foreshadowed the intellectual composition of

his son,--he loved to write letters to the newspapers. At very long

intervals one of these communications achieved the honour of type, and

then Mr Barmby was radiant with modest self-approval. He never signed

such letters with his own name, but chose a pseudonym befitting the

subject. Thus, if moved to civic indignation by pieces of orange-peel on

the pavement, he styled himself ‘Urban Rambler;’ if anxious to protest

against the overcrowding of ‘bus or railway-carriage, his signature was

‘Otium cum Dignitate.’ When he took a holiday at the seaside, unwonted

leisure and novel circumstances prompted him to address local editors at

considerable length. The preservation of decency by bathers was then

his favourite topic, and he would sign ‘Pudor,’ or perchance

‘Paterfamilias.’ His public epistles, if collected, would have made an

entertaining and instructive volume, so admirably did they represent

one phase of the popular mind. ‘No, sir,’--this sentence frequently

occurred,--‘it was not thus that our fathers achieved national and civic

greatness.’ And again: ‘All the feelings of an English parent revolt,’

&c. Or: ‘And now, sir, where is this to end?’--a phrase applied at one

moment to the prospects of religion and morality, at another to the

multiplication of muffin-bells.

On a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Barmby often read aloud to his daughters, and

in general his chosen book was ‘Paradise Lost.’ These performances had

an indescribable solemnity, but it unfortunately happened that, as his

fervour increased, the reader became regardless of aspirates. Thus, at

the culmination of Satanic impiety, he would give forth with shaking

voice--

‘_Ail, orrors, ail! and thou profoundest Ell, Receive thy new

possessor!’_

This, though it did not distress the girls, was painful to Samuel

Bennett, who had given no little care to the correction of similar

lapses in his own speech.

Samuel conceived himself much ahead of his family. Quite uneducated, in

any legitimate sense of the word, he had yet learnt that such a thing as

education existed, and, by dint of busy perusal of penny popularities,

had even become familiar with names and phrases, with modes of thought

and of ambition, appertaining to a world for ever closed against him. He

spoke of Culture, and imagined himself far on the way to attain it. His

mind was packed with the oddest jumble of incongruities; Herbert Spencer

jostled with Charles Bradlaugh, Matthew Arnold with Samuel Smiles; in

one breath he lauded George Eliot, in the next was enthusiastic over

a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood; from puerile facetiae he passed to

speculations on the origin of being, and with equally light heart.

Save for Pilgrim’s Progress and Robinson Crusoe, he had read no English

classic; since boyhood, indeed, he had probably read no book at all,

for much diet of newspapers rendered him all but incapable of sustained

attention. Whatever he seemed to know of serious authors came to him

at second or third hand. Avowing his faith in Christianity when with

orthodox people, in the society of sceptics he permitted himself to

smile at the old faiths,--though he preferred to escape this temptation,

the Nonconformist conscience still reigning within him. At home he posed

as a broad-minded Anglican, and having somewhere read that Tennyson’s

‘In Memoriam’ represented this attitude, he spoke of the poem as ‘one of

the books that have made me what I am.’

His circle of acquaintances lay apart from that in which the Lords

moved; it consisted for the most part of young men humbly endowed in

the matter of income, and making little pretence of social dignity. When

others resorted to theatre or public-house, or places not so readily

designated, Samuel and his friends met together to discourse on subjects

of which they knew somewhat less than nothing. Some of them occasionally

held audacious language, especially when topics such as the relations of

the sexes invited their wisdom; they had read something somewhere

which urged them to cast off the trammels of conventional thought;

they ‘ventured to say’ that in a very few years ‘surprising changes of

opinion would come about.’ These revolutionaries, after startling the

more sober of their hearers, went quietly home to mother or landlady,

supped on cheese and cocoa, and next day plied the cleric pen with

exemplary zeal.

Samuel believed himself in love. That he should conceive matrimonial

intentions with regard to Stephen Lord’s daughter was but the natural

issue of circumstance; from that conception resulted an amorous mood, so

much inflamed by Nancy’s presence that a young man, whose thoughts did

not often transgress decorum, had every reason to suppose himself her

victim. When Nancy rejected his formal offer of devotion, the desire to

wed her besieged him more vigorously; Samuel was piqued at the tone of

lofty trifling in which the girl answered his proposal; for assuredly

he esteemed himself no less remarkable a person than he appeared in the

eyes of his sisters, and his vanity had been encouraged by Mr. Lord’s

favour. Of his qualities as a man of business there was no doubt; in

one direction or another, he would have struck the road to fortune; why

Nancy should regard him with condescension, and make him feel at

once that his suit was hopeless, puzzled him for many a day. He tried

flattery, affecting to regard her as his superior in things of the

intellect, but only with the mortifying result that Miss. Lord accepted

his humility as quite natural. Then he held apart in dignified reserve,

and found no difficulty in maintaining this attitude until after Mr.

Lord’s death. Of course he did not let his relatives know of the repulse

he had suffered, but, when speaking to them of what had happened on

Jubilee night, he made it appear that his estimate of Miss. Lord

was undergoing modification. ‘She has lost him, all through her

flightiness,’ said the sisters to each other. They were not sorry, and

felt free again to criticise Nancy’s ideas of maidenly modesty.

The provisions of Mr. Lord’s will could not but trouble the intercourse

between Grove Lane and Dagmar Road. Mr. Barmby, senior, undertook with

characteristic seriousness the guardianship conferred upon him. He had

long interviews with Horace and Nancy, in which he acquitted himself

greatly to his own satisfaction. Samuel, equally a trustee, showed his

delicacy by holding aloof save when civility dictated a call upon the

young people. But his hopes had revived; he was quite willing to wait

three years for Nancy, and it seemed to him more than probable that

this period of reflection would bring the young lady to a sense of his

merits. In the meantime, he would pursue with energy the business now at

his sole direction, and make it far more lucrative than when managed on

Mr. Lord’s old-fashioned principles.

As the weeks went on, it seemed more clear than at first that Nancy

resented the authority held by Samuel and his father. They were not

welcome at the house in Grove Lane; the Miss. Barmbys called several

times without being admitted, though they felt sure that Nancy was at

home. Under these circumstances, it became desirable to discover some

intermediary who would keep them acquainted with the details of Nancy’s

life and of her brother’s. Such intermediary was at hand, in the person

of Miss. Jessica Morgan.

CHAPTER 2

Until of late there had existed a bare acquaintance between Jessica and

the Barmby family. The two or three hours which she perforce spent

in Samuel’s company on Jubilee night caused Jessica no little

embarrassment; as a natural result, their meetings after that had a

colour of intimacy, and it was not long before Miss. Morgan and the

Miss. Barmbys began to see more of each other. Nancy, on a motive

correspondent with that which actuated her guardians, desired Jessica’s

familiarity with the household in Dagmar Road; her friend could thus

learn and communicate sundry facts of importance, else hidden from her

in the retirement to which she was now condemned. How did the Barmbys

regard her behaviour to them? Did they, in their questioning, betray

any suspicion fraught with danger? Jessica, enjoying the possession of

a most important secret, which she had religiously guarded even from her

mother, made time to accept the Barmbys’ invitations pretty frequently,

and invited the girls to her own home as often as she could afford a

little outlay on cakes and preserves.

It made a salutary distraction in her life. As December drew near, she

exhibited alarming symptoms of over-work, and but for the romance which

assured to her an occasional hour of idleness, she must have collapsed

before the date of her examination. As it was, she frightened one of her

pupils, at the end of a long lesson, by falling to the floor and lying

there for ten minutes in unconsciousness. The warning passed unheeded;

day and night she toiled at her insuperable tasks, at times half

frenzied by the strangest lapses of memory, and feeling, the more she

laboured, only the more convinced that at the last moment every fact she

had acquired would ruthlessly desert her.

Her place of abode favoured neither health nor mental tranquillity. It

was one of a row of new houses in a new quarter. A year or two ago the

site had been an enclosed meadow, portion of the land attached to what

was once a country mansion; London, devourer of rural limits, of a

sudden made hideous encroachment upon the old estate, now held by a

speculative builder; of many streets to be constructed, three or four

had already come into being, and others were mapped out, in mud and

inchoate masonry, athwart the ravaged field. Great elms, the pride of

generations passed away, fell before the speculative axe, or were left

standing in mournful isolation to please a speculative architect;

bits of wayside hedge still shivered in fog and wind, amid hoardings

variegated with placards and scaffolding black against the sky. The

very earth had lost its wholesome odour; trampled into mire, fouled with

builders’ refuse and the noisome drift from adjacent streets, it sent

forth, under the sooty rain, a smell of corruption, of all the town’s

uncleanliness. On this rising locality had been bestowed the title of

‘Park.’ Mrs. Morgan was decided in her choice of a dwelling here by the

euphonious address, Merton Avenue, Something-or-other Park.

The old mansion--not very old, and far from beautiful, but stoutly

built--stood grim and desolate, long dismantled, and waiting only to be

torn down for the behoof of speculative dealers in old material. What

aforetime was a tree-bordered drive, now curved between dead stumps, a

mere slushy cartway; the stone pillars, which had marked the entrance,

damaged in the rending away of metal with a market value, drooped

sideways, ready at a touch to bury themselves in slime.

Through summer months the Morgans had suffered sufficiently from

the defects of their house; with the coming on of winter, they found

themselves exposed to miseries barely endurable. At the first slight

frost, cistern and water-pipes went to ruin; already so damp that

unlovely vegetation had cropped up on cellar walls, the edifice was now

drenched with torrents of water. Plaster fell from the ceilings; paper

peeled away down the staircase; stuccoed portions of the front began to

crack and moulder. Not a door that would close as a door should; not a

window that would open in the way expected of it; not a fireplace but

discharged its smoke into the room, rather than by the approved

channel. Everywhere piercing draughts, which often entered by orifices

unexplained and unexplainable. From cellar floor to chimney-pot, no

square inch of honest or trustworthy workmanship. So thin were the

parti-walls that conversation not only might, but must, be distinctly

heard from room to room, and from house to house; the Morgans learnt to

subdue their voices, lest all they said should become common property of

the neighbourhood. For the privilege of occupying such a residence, ‘the

interior,’ said advertisement, ‘handsomely decorated,’ they were racked

with an expenditure which, away in the sweet-scented country, would have

housed them amid garden graces and orchard fruitfulness.

At this time, Mr. Morgan had joined an acquaintance in the establishment

of a debt-collecting agency; his partner provided the modest capital

needful for such an enterprise, and upon himself fell the disagreeable

work. A man of mild temper and humane instincts, he spent his day in

hunting people who would not or could not pay the money they owed,

straining his wits to circumvent the fraudulent, and swooping

relentlessly upon the victims of misfortune. The occupation revolted

him, but at present he saw no other way of supporting the genteel

appearances which--he knew not why--were indispensable to his life. He

subsisted like a bird of prey; he was ever on the look out for carrion

which the law permitted him to seize. From the point of view forced upon

him, society became a mere system of legalised rapine. ‘You are in debt;

behold the bond. Behold, too, my authority for squeezing out of you the

uttermost farthing. You must beg or starve? I deplore it, but I, for my

part, have a genteel family to maintain on what I rend from your grip.’

He set his forehead against shame; he stooped to the basest chicanery;

he exposed himself to insult, to curses, to threats of violence.

Sometimes a whole day of inconceivably sordid toil resulted in the

pouching of a few pence; sometimes his reward was a substantial sum. He

knew himself despised by many of the creditors who employed him. ‘Bad

debts? For how much will you sell them to me?’ And as often as not he

took away with his bargain a glance which was equivalent to a kick.

The genteel family knew nothing of these expedients. Mrs. Morgan talked

dolorously to her friends of ‘commercial depression,’ and gave it to be

vaguely understood that her husband had suffered great losses because

he conducted his affairs in the spirit of a gentleman. Her son was in an

office;’ her elder daughter was attempting the art of fiction, which

did not promise to be lucrative; Jessica, more highly educated, would

shortly matriculate at the University of London--a consoling prospect,

but involving the payment of a fee that could with difficulty be

afforded.

Every friend of the family held it a matter of course that Jessica would

succeed in the examination. It seemed probable that she would have a

place in Honours.

And, meanwhile, the poor girl herself was repenting of the indiscreet

boastfulness with which she had made known her purpose. To come out in

an inferior class would be painful enough; how support the possibility

of absolute failure? Yet she knew only too well that in certain

‘subjects’ she was worse than shaky. Her Greek--her Chemistry--her

Algebra--

By way of propitiating the stern fates, she began to talk with Lucy and

Amelia Barmby in a tone of diffidence. Half a year ago, she would have

held her head very high in such company; now the simple goodness of the

old-fashioned girls made an appeal to her aching heart, and their homely

talk soothed her exhausted brain.

‘It’s fearfully difficult,’ she said to them one evening, as she sat

in their parlour. ‘And I lose so much time with my pupils. Really, you

know, I haven’t a fair chance. I was showing Nancy Lord the Algebra

paper set last summer, and she confessed she could hardly do a single

question.’

‘She couldn’t?’ exclaimed one of the sisters in astonishment. ‘But we

always thought she was so very clever.’

‘So she is--in many things. But she never dreamt of going in for such an

examination as this.’

‘And do you really know more than she does?’

Jessica smiled with affected modesty.

‘Oh, I have studied so much more.’

It was sweet to gain this triumph over her friend, whose progress in

the school of life she watched with the jealousy of a girl condemned to

sterile passions.

Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of Samuel Barmby, and his

elder sister, addressing him without reflection, said wonderingly:

‘Sam, did you know that Nancy Lord couldn’t pass the examination that

Miss. Morgan is going in for?’

Jessica blushed, and hastened to extenuate this crude statement.

‘Oh, I didn’t say that. Only that she would have to study very hard if

she went in for the matriculation.’

‘Of course she would,’ Samuel assented, largely, as he took his stand

before the fireplace and beamed upon the female trio. ‘Miss Lord goes

in for broad culture; that’s quite a different thing from studying for

examinations.’

To the hearers, Jessica not excepted, this seemed to argue the spirit of

broad culture in Samuel himself. Miss. Morgan pursued nervously:

‘Examinations are nothing. I believe very stupid people often do well in

them, and clever people often fail.’

Her voice sank on the last word, and she tried to read Barmby’s face

without meeting his look. Of late, a change had come about in her

estimation of Samuel. Formerly she spoke of him with contemptuous

amusement, in the tone set by Nancy; since she had become a friend of

the family, his sisters’ profound respect had influenced her way of

thinking, and in secret she was disposed rather to admire ‘the

Prophet.’ He had always struck her as a comely man, and, her education

notwithstanding, she never perceived in his remarks that downright

imbecility which excited Nancy’s derision. On Jubilee night he was

anything but a tedious companion; apart from her critical friend,

Jessica had listened without impatience to his jests, his instructive

facts, his flowing rhetoric. Now-a-days, in her enfeebled state of

body and mind, she began to look forward with distinct pleasure to her

occasional meetings with Samuel, pleasure which perhaps was enhanced

by the air of condescension wherewith he tempered his courtesy. Morbid

miseries brought out the frailty of her character. Desiring to be highly

esteemed by Mr. Barmby, she found herself no less willing to join his

sisters in a chorus of humbly feminine admiration, when he discoursed

to them from an altitude. At moments, after gazing upon his eloquent

countenance, she was beset by strange impulses which brought blood to

her cheek, and made her dread the Miss. Barmbys’ scrutiny.

‘I look upon examinations,’ Samuel was saying, ‘as a professional

matter. I never went in for them myself, simply because I--I turned my

energies in another direction.’

‘You _could_ have passed them,’ remarked one of his sisters, ‘easily

enough.’

‘In Miss. Morgan’s presence,’--he stroked his chin, and smiled with

delicious fatuity--‘I prefer to say nothing on that point.’

‘Oh but of course you could, Mr. Barmby,’ sounded Jessica’s voice, in

an unsteady falsetto, whilst her eyes were turned upon the floor. ‘You

would have thought nothing of this matriculation, which seems to me so

dreadful.’

Profoundly flattered, Samuel addressed the girl in his suavest tones.

‘I have a theory, Miss. Morgan, that young ladies ought not to undergo

these ordeals. The delicacy of their nervous system unfits them for such

a strain. I’m sure we shall all feel very glad when you are successfully

through the trial. After it, you ought to have a long rest.’

‘Oh, you ought--indeed you ought,’ assented the girls.

‘By the bye,’ said Samuel, ‘my father has heard from Miss. Lord that she

is going away for a month or two. She says her health requires it.’

Jessica sat silent, still with downcast eyes.

‘But it’s a new thing, isn’t it,’ remarked Amelia, ‘for Miss. Lord to be

in bad health?’

‘She has suffered a good deal, I’m afraid,’ said Jessica, ‘since her

father’s death. The doctor tells her she oughtn’t to live in that dull

house through the winter.’

‘In that case,’ Samuel exclaimed, ‘of course she must go at once--of

course!’

He never spoke of Nancy but with stress of unctuous generosity. This, if

his hearers knew what he had suffered at her hands, must tell greatly

to his credit; if they were not aware of the circumstances, such a tone

would become him as the young lady’s hopeful admirer.

‘I fear her nerves are affected,’ pursued Jessica. ‘She can’t

bear society. So unlike her, isn’t it? She goes out very little

indeed,--sometimes not for days together. And really she sees nobody.

I’m getting quite anxious about her.’

The subject was an awkward one in this house, and it soon gave place to

freer conversation. On her way home, though mechanically repeating dates

and formulae, Jessica could not resist the tendency of her thoughts,

to dwell on Samuel’s features and Samuel’s eloquence. This was a new

danger; she had now little more than a fortnight for her final ‘cram,’

and any serious distraction meant ruin.

In a day or two she took leave of Nancy, who had chosen for her winter

retreat no less remote a spot than Falmouth. Horace having settled

himself in lodgings, the house was to be shut up; Mary Woodruff of

course went down into Cornwall. Nancy had written a letter to Mr.

Barmby, senior, excusing herself for not being able to see him before

her departure; it was an amiable letter, but contained frank avowal of

pain and discontent at the prospect of her long pupilage. ‘Of course I

submit to the burden my father chose to lay upon me, and before long,

I hope, I shall be able to take things in a better spirit. All I ask of

you, dear Mr. Barmby, is to have forbearance with me until I get back

my health and feel more cheerful. You know that I could not be in better

hands whilst Mary is with me. I shall write frequently, and give you

an account of myself. Let me hear sometimes, and show me that you make

allowance for my very trying position.’

Jessica heard the letter discussed by its recipient and his family.

Samuel spoke with his wonted magnanimity; his father took a liberal view

of the matter. And in writing to her friend a few days later, Jessica

was able to say: ‘I think you may safely stay at Falmouth for the whole

winter. You will not be interfered with if you write nicely. I shouldn’t

wonder if they would let you keep out of their reach _as long as it is

necessary_.’

The week of Jessica’s ordeal was now at hand. She had had another

fainting-fit; her sleep was broken every night with hideous dreams; she

ate scarce enough to keep herself alive; a perpetual fever parched her

throat and burned at her temples.

On the last day of ‘cram,’ she sat from morning to night in her

comfortless little bedroom, bending over the smoky fire, reading

desperately through a pile of note-books. The motive of vanity no

longer supported her; gladly she would have crept away into a life of

insignificance; but the fee for the examination was paid, and she must

face the terrors, the shame, that waited her at Burlington House. No

hope of ‘passing.’ Perhaps at the last moment a stroke of mortal illness

would come to her relief.

Not so. She found herself in the ghastly torture-hall, at a desk on

which lay sheets of paper, not whiter than her face. Somebody gave her

a scroll, stereotyped in imitation of manuscript--the questions to be

answered. For a quarter of an hour she could not understand a word. She

saw the face of Samuel Barmby, and heard his tones--‘The delicacy of a

young lady’s nervous system unfits her for such a strain.’

That evening she went home with a half-formed intention of poisoning

herself.

But the morrow saw her seated again before another scroll of stereotype,

still thinking of Samuel Barmby, still hearing his voice. The man was

grown hateful to her; he seemed to haunt her brain malignantly, and to

paralyse her hand.

Day after day in the room of torture, until all was done. Then upon her

long despair followed a wild, unreasoning hope. Though it rained, she

walked all the way home, singing, chattering to herself, and reached the

house-door without consciousness of the distance she had traversed. Her

mother and sister came out into the hall; they had been watching for

her.

‘I did a good paper to-day--I think I’ve passed after all--yes, I feel

sure I’ve passed!’

‘You look dreadful,’ exclaimed Mrs. Morgan. ‘And you’re wet through--’

‘I did a good paper to-day--I feel sure I’ve passed!’

She sat down to a meal, but could not swallow.

‘I feel sure I’ve passed--I feel sure--’

And she fell from the chair, to all appearances stone-dead.

They took her upstairs, undressed her, sent for the doctor. When he

came, she had been lying for half-an-hour conscious, but mute. She

looked gravely at him, and said, as if repeating a lesson:

‘The delicacy of a young lady’s nervous system unfits her for such a

strain.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ repeated the doctor, with equal gravity.

‘But,’ she added eagerly, ‘let Mr. Barmby know at once that I have

passed.’

‘He shall know at once,’ said the doctor.

CHAPTER 3

A lady who lived at Kilburn, and entertained largely in a house not

designed for large entertainment, was ‘at home’ this evening. At eleven

o’clock the two drawing-rooms contained as many people as could sit and

stand with semblance of comfort; around the hostess, on the landing,

pressed a crowd, which grew constantly thicker by affluence from the

staircase. In the hall below a ‘Hungarian band’ discoursed very loud

music. Among recent arrivals appeared a troupe of nigger minstrels,

engaged to give their exhilarating entertainment--if space could be

found for them. Bursts of laughter from the dining-room announced the

success of an American joker, who, in return for a substantial cheque,

provided amusement in fashionable gatherings. A brilliant scene. The

air, which encouraged perspiration, was rich with many odours; voices

endeavouring to make themselves audible in colloquy, swelled to a

tumultuous volume that vied with the Hungarian clangours.

In a corner of the staircase, squeezed behind two very fat women in very

low dresses, stood Horace Lord. His heated countenance wore a look of

fretful impatience; he kept rising upon his toes in an endeavour to

distinguish faces down in the hall. At length his expression changed,

and with eager eyes he began to force a way for himself between the

fat women. Not unrewarded with glaring glances, and even with severe

remarks, he succeeded in gaining the foot of the staircase, and came

within reach of the persons for whom he had been waiting. These were

Mrs. Damerel and Fanny French. The elder lady exhibited a toilet of

opulence corresponding with her mature charms; the younger, as became a

_debutante_, wore graceful white, symbol of her maiden modesty.

‘You promised to be early,’ said Horace, addressing Mrs. Damerel,

but regarding Fanny, who stood in conversation with a florid man of

uncertain age.

‘Couldn’t get here before, my dear boy.’

‘Surely you haven’t brought that fellow with you?’

‘Hush! You mustn’t talk in that way. We met at the door. Mrs. Dane knows

him. What does it matter?’

Horace moved aside to Fanny. Flushed with excitement, her hair adorned

with flowers, she looked very pretty.

‘Come along,’ he said, gripping her hand more violently than he

intended. ‘Let us get upstairs.’

‘Oh, you hurt me! Don’t be so silly.’

The man beside her gave Horace a friendly nod. His name was Mankelow.

Horace had met him once or twice of late at Mrs. Damerel’s, but did not

like him, and felt still less disposed to do so now that Mankelow

was acquainted with Fanny French. He suspected that the two were more

familiar than Fanny pretended. With little ceremony, he interposed

himself between the girl and this possible rival.

‘Why didn’t you make her come earlier?’ he said to Fanny, as they began

a slow upward struggle in the rear of Mrs. Damerel.

‘It isn’t fashionable to come early.’

‘Nonsense! Look at the people here already.’

Fanny threw up her chin, and glanced back to see that Mankelow was

following. In his vexation, Horace was seized with a cough--a cough

several times repeated before he could check it.

‘Your cold’s no better,’ said Fanny. ‘You oughtn’t to have come out at

night.’

‘It _is_ better,’ he replied sharply. ‘That’s the first time I’ve

coughed to-day. Do you mean you would rather not have found me here?’

‘How silly you are! People will hear what you’re saying.’

It was Fanny’s ‘first season,’ but not her first ‘at home.’ Mrs. Damerel

seemed to be taking an affectionate interest in her, and had introduced

her to several people. Horace, gratified in the beginning, now suffered

from jealousy; it tortured him to observe Fanny when she talked with

men. That her breeding was defective, mattered nothing in this

composite world of pseudo-elegance. Young Lord, who did not lack native

intelligence, understood by this time that Mrs. Damerel and her friends

were far from belonging to a high order of society; he saw vulgarity

rampant in every drawing-room to which he was admitted, and occasionally

heard things which startled his suburban prejudices. But Fanny, in

her wild enjoyment of these novel splendours, appeared to lose all

self-control. She flirted outrageously, and before his very eyes. If he

reproached her, she laughed at him; if he threatened to free himself,

she returned a look which impudently bade him try. Horace had all her

faults by heart, and no longer tried to think that he respected her, or

that, if he married such a girl, his life could possibly be a happy one;

but she still played upon his passions, and at her beck he followed like

a dog.

The hostess, Mrs. Dane, a woman who looked as if she had once been

superior to the kind of life she now led, welcomed him with peculiar

warmth, and in a quick confidential voice bade him keep near her for a

few minutes.

‘There’s some one I want to introduce you to--some one I’m sure you will

like to know.’

Obeying her, he soon lost sight of Fanny; but Mrs. Dane continued to

talk, at intervals, in such a flattering tone, that his turbid emotions

were soothed. He had heard of the Chittles? No? They were very old

friends of hers, said Mrs. Dane, and she particularly wanted him to know

them. Ah, here they came; mother and daughter. Horace observed them.

Mrs. Chittle was a frail, worn, nervous woman, who must once have been

comely; her daughter, a girl of two-and-twenty, had a pale, thin face of

much sweetness and gentleness. They seemed by no means at home in this

company; but Mrs. Chittle, when she conversed, assumed a vivacious air;

the daughter, trying to follow her example, strove vainly against an

excessive bashfulness, and seldom raised her eyes. Why he should be

expected to pay special attention to these people, Horace was at a loss

to understand; but Mrs. Chittle attached herself to him, and soon led

him into familiar dialogue. He learnt from her that they had lived for

two or three years in a very quiet country place; they had come up for

the season, but did not know many people. She spoke of her daughter, who

stood just out of earshot,--her eyes cast down, on her face a sad fixed

smile,--and said that it had been necessary almost to force her into

society. ‘She loves the country, and is so fond of books; but at her age

it’s really a shame to live like a nun--don’t you think so, Mr. Lord?’

Decidedly it was, said Horace. ‘I’m doing my best,’ pursued Mrs.

Chittle, ‘to cure her of her shyness. She is really afraid of

people--and it’s such a pity. She says that the things people talk about

don’t interest her; but _all_ people are not frivolous--are they, Mr.

Lord?’ Horace hoped not; and presently out of mere good-nature he tried

to converse with the young lady in a way that should neither alarm her

shyness nor prove distasteful to her intelligence. But with very

little success. From time to time the girl glanced at him with strange

timidity, yet seemed quite willing to listen as long as he chose to

talk.

Fanny, being at a considerable distance from home, was to return to the

boarding-house where her chaperon now lived, and have a room there

for the night. Horace disliked this arrangement, for the objectionable

Mankelow lived in the same house. When he was able to get speech with

Fanny, he tried to persuade her to go with him all the way home to

Camberwell in a cab. Miss. French would not listen to the suggestion.

‘Who ever heard of such a thing? It wouldn’t be proper.’

‘Proper! Oh, I like that!’ he replied, with scathing irony.

‘You can either like it or not. Mrs. Damerel wouldn’t dream of allowing

it. I think she’s quite as good a judge of propriety as you are.’

They were in a corner of the dining-room. Fanny, having supped much to

her satisfaction, had a high colour, and treated her lover with more

than usual insolence. Horace had eaten little, but had not refrained

from beverages; he was disposed to assert himself.

‘It seems to me that we ought to have an understanding. You never do as

I wish in a single thing. What do you mean by it?’

‘Oh, if you’re going to be nasty--’

She made the gesture of a servant-girl who quarrels with her young man

at the street-corner.

‘I can’t stand the kind of treatment you’ve given me lately,’ said

Horace, with muffled anger.

‘I’ve told you I shall do just as I like.’

‘Very well. That’s as much as to say that you care nothing about me. I’m

not going to be the slave of a girl who has no sense of honour--not even

of decency. If you wish me to speak to you again you must speak first.’

And he left her, Fanny laughing scornfully.

It drew towards one o’clock when, having exhausted the delights of the

evening, and being in a decidedly limp condition, Mrs. Damerel and her

protegee drove home. Fanny said nothing of what had passed between her

and Horace. The elder lady, after keeping silence for half the drive,

spoke at length in a tone of indulgent playfulness.

‘So you talked a good deal with Mr. Mankelow?’

‘Not for long. Now and then. He took me down to supper--the first time.’

‘I’m afraid somebody will be a little jealous. I shall get into trouble.

I didn’t foresee this.’

‘Somebody must treat me in a reasonable way,’ Fanny answered, with a dry

laugh.

‘I’m quite sure he will,’ said Mrs. Damerel suavely. ‘But I feel myself

a little responsible, you know. Let me put you on your guard against Mr.

Mankelow. I’m afraid he’s rather a dangerous man. I have heard rather

alarming stories about him. You see he’s very rich, and very rich men,

if they’re rather handsome as well, say and do things--you understand?’

‘Is he really very rich?’

‘Well, several thousands a year, and a prospect of more when relatives

die. I don’t mean to say that he is a bad man. He belongs to a very good

family, and I believe him perfectly honourable. He would never do any

one any harm--or, if he happened to, without meaning it, I’m quite sure

he’d repair it in the honourable way.’

‘You said he was dangerous--’

‘To a young lady who is already engaged. Confess that you think him

rather good-looking.’

Having inflamed the girl’s imagination, Mrs. Damerel presently dropped

the subject, and fell again into weary silence.

At noon of the next day she received a call from Horace, who found her

over tea and toast in her private sitting-room. The young man looked

bilious; he coughed, too, and said that he must have caught fresh cold

last night.

‘That house was like an oven. I won’t go to any more such places. That

isn’t my idea of enjoying myself.’

Mrs. Damerel examined him with affectionate solicitude, and reflected

before speaking.

‘Haven’t you been living rather fast lately?’

He avoided her eyes.

‘Not at all.’

‘Quite sure? How much money have you spent this last month?’

‘Not much.’

By careful interrogation--the caressing notes of her voice seemed to

convey genuine feeling--Mrs. Damerel elicited the fact that he had spent

not less than fifty pounds in a few weeks. She looked very grave.

‘What would our little Fanny say to this?’

‘I don’t care what she would say.’

And he unburdened himself of his complaints against the frivolous

charmer, Mrs. Damerel listening with a compassionate smile.

‘I’m afraid it’s all too true, dear boy. But didn’t I warn you?’

‘You have made her worse. And I more than half believe you have

purposely put her in the way of that fellow Mankelow. Now I tell you

plainly’--his voice quivered--‘if I lose her, I’ll raise all the money I

can and play the very devil.’

‘Hush! no naughty words! Let us talk about something else till you are

quieter.--What did you think of Mrs. Chittle?’

‘I thought nothing of her, good or bad.’

‘Of her daughter, then. Isn’t she a sweet, quiet girl? Do you know that

she is rich? It’s perfectly true. Mrs. Chittle is the widow of a man who

made a big fortune out of a kind of imitation velvet. It sold only for a

few years, then something else drove it out of the market; but the money

was made. I know all about it from Mrs. Dane.’

‘It’s nothing to me,’ said Horace peevishly.

But Mrs. Damerel continued:

‘The poor girl has been very unfortunate. In the last year of her

father’s life they lived in good style, town-house and country-house.

And she fell in love with somebody who--who treated her badly; broke it

off, in fact, just before the wedding. She had a bad illness, and since

then she has lived as her mother told you.’

‘How do you know she told me?’

‘I--oh, I took it for granted. She said you had had a long talk. You can

see, of course, that they’re not ordinary people. Didn’t Winifred--her

name is Winifred--strike you as very refined and lady-like?’

‘She hardly spoke half-a-dozen words.’

‘That’s her nervousness. She has quite got out of the habit of society.

But she’s very clever, and so good. I want you to see more of her.

If she comes here to tea, will you--just to please me--look in for

half-an-hour?’

She bent her head aside, wistfully. Horace vouchsafed no reply.

‘Dear boy, I know very well what a disappointment you are suffering. Why

not be quite open with me? Though I’m only a tiresome old aunt, I feel

every bit as anxious for your happiness as if I were your mother--I do

indeed, Horace. You believe me, don’t you?’

‘You have been very kind, in many ways. But you’ve done harm to Fanny--’

‘No harm whatever, Horace--believe me. I have only given her an

opportunity of showing what she really is. You see now that she thinks

of nothing at all but money and selfish pleasures. Compare her, my dear,

with such a girl as Winifred Chittle. I only mean--just to show you the

difference between a lady and such a girl as Fanny. She has treated you

abominably, my poor boy. And what would she bring you? Not that I wish

you to marry for money. I have seen too much of the world to be so

foolish, so wicked. But when there _are_ sweet, clever, lady-like girls,

with large incomes--! And a handsome boy like you! You may blush, but

there’s no harm in telling the truth. You are far too modest. You don’t

know how you look in the eyes of an affectionate, thoughtful girl--like

Winifred, for instance. It’s dreadful to think of you throwing yourself

away! My dear, it may sound shocking to you, but Fanny French isn’t the

sort of girl that men _marry_.’

Horace showed himself startled.

‘You are so young,’ pursued the mature lady, with an indulgent smile.

‘You need the advice of some one who knows the world. In years to come,

you will feel very grateful to me. Now don’t let us talk any more of

that, just now; but tell me something about Nancy. How much longer does

she mean to stay in Cornwall?’

He answered absently.

‘She talks of another month or two.’

‘But what have her guardians to say to that? Why, she has been away for

nearly half a year. How can that be called living at the old house?’

‘It’s no business of mine.’

‘Nor of mine, you mean to say. Still, it does seem rather strange. I

suppose she is quite to be trusted?’

‘Trusted? What harm can come to her? She’s keeping out of Sam Barmby’s

way, that’s all. I believe he plagued her to marry him. A nice husband

for Nancy!’

‘I wish we had taken to each other,’ said Mrs. Damerel musingly. ‘I

think she was a little jealous of the attention I had paid to _you_. But

perhaps we shall do better some day. And I’m quite content so long as

_you_ care a little for me, dear boy. You’ll never give me up, will

you?’

It was asked with unusual show of feeling; she leaned forward, her eyes

fixed tenderly upon the boy’s face.

‘You would never let a Fanny French come between us, Horace dear?’

‘I only wish you hadn’t brought her among your friends.’

‘Some day you will be glad of what I did. Whatever happens, I am your

best friend--the best and truest friend you will ever have. You will

know it some day.’

The voice impressed Horace, its emotion was so true. Several times

through the day he recalled and thought of it. As yet he had felt

nothing like affection for Mrs. Damerel, but before their next meeting

an impulse he did not try to account for caused him to write her

a letter--simply to assure her that he was not ungrateful for her

kindness. The reply that came in a few hours surprised and touched him,

for it repeated in yet warmer words all she had spoken. ‘Let me be in

the place of a mother to you, dear Horace. Think of me as if I were your

mother. If I were your mother indeed, I could not love you more.’ He

mused over this, and received from it a sense of comfort which was quite

new to him.

All through the winter he had been living as a gentleman of assured

independence. This was managed very simply. Acting on Mrs. Damerel’s

counsel he insured his life, and straightaway used the policy as

security for a loan of five hundred pounds from a friend of Mrs.

Damerel’s. The insurance itself was not effected without a disagreeable

little episode. As a result of the medical examination, Horace learnt,

greatly to his surprise, that he would have to pay a premium somewhat

higher than the ordinary. Unpleasant questions were asked: Was he quite

sure that he knew of no case of consumption in his family? Quite sure,

he answered stoutly, and sincerely. Why? Did the doctor think _him_

consumptive? Oh dear no, but--a slight constitutional weakness. In fine,

the higher premium must be exacted. He paid it with the indifference of

his years, but said nothing to Mrs. Damerel.

And thereupon began the sowing of wild oats. At two-and-twenty, after

domestic restraint and occupations that he detested, he was let loose

upon life. Five hundred pounds seemed to him practically inexhaustible.

He did not wish to indulge in great extravagance; merely to see and to

taste the world.

Ah, the rapture of those first nights, when he revelled amid the tumult

of London, pursuing joy with a pocket full of sovereigns! Theatres,

music-halls, restaurants and public-houses--he had seen so little of

these things, that they excited him as they do a lad fresh from the

country. He drew the line nowhere. Love of a worthy woman tells for

chastity even in the young and the sensual; love of a Fanny French

merely debauches the mind and inflames the passions. Secure in his

paganism, Horace followed where the lures of London beckoned him; he

knew not reproach of conscience; shame offered but thin resistance to

his boiling blood. By a miracle he had as yet escaped worse damage to

health than a severe cold, caught one night after heroic drinking. That

laid him by the heels for a time, and the cough still clung to him.

In less than two years he would command seven thousand pounds, and a

share in the business now conducted by Samuel Barmby. What need to stint

himself whilst he felt able to enjoy life? If Fanny deceived him, were

there not, after all, other and better Fannys to be won by his money?

For it was a result of this girl’s worthlessness that Horace, in most

things so ingenuous, had come to regard women with unconscious cynicism.

He did not think he could be loved for his own sake, but he believed

that, at any time, the show of love, perhaps its ultimate sincerity,

might be won by display of cash.

Midway in the month of May he again caught a severe cold, and was

confined to the house for nearly three weeks. Mrs. Damerel, who nursed

him well and tenderly, proposed that he should go down for change of

air to Falmouth. He wrote to Nancy, asking whether she would care to

see him. A prompt reply informed him that his sister was on the point

of returning to London, so that he had better choose some nearer seaside

resort.

He went to Hastings for a few days, but wearied of the place, and came

back to his London excitements. Nancy, however, had not yet returned;

nor did she until the beginning of July.

CHAPTER 4

This winter saw the establishment of the South London Fashionable Dress

Supply Association--the name finally selected by Beatrice French and her

advisers. It was an undertaking shrewdly conceived, skilfully planned,

and energetically set going. Beatrice knew the public to which her

advertisements appealed; she understood exactly the baits that would

prove irresistible to its folly and greed. In respect that it was a

public of average mortals, it would believe that business might be

conducted to the sole advantage of the customer. In respect that it

consisted of women, it would give eager attention to a scheme that

permitted each customer to spend her money, and yet to have it. In

respect that it consisted of ignorant and pretentious women, this

public could be counted upon to deceive itself in the service of its own

vanity, and maintain against all opposition that the garments obtained

on this soothing system were supremely good and fashionable.

On a basis of assumptions such as these, there was every possibility of

profitable commerce without any approach to technical fraud.

By means of the familiar ‘goose-club,’ licensed victuallers make

themselves the bankers of people who are too weak-minded to save their

own money until they wish to spend it, and who are quite content to

receive in ultimate return goods worth something less than half the

deposit. By means of the familiar teapot, grocers persuade their

customers that an excellent trade can be done by giving away the whole

profit on each transaction. Beatrice French, an observant young woman,

with a head for figures, had often noted and reflected upon these two

egregious illustrations of human absurdity. Her dressmaking enterprise

assimilated the features of both, and added novel devices that sprang

from her own fruitful brain. The ‘Fashion Club,’ a wheel within a wheel,

was merely the goose-club; strictly a goose-club, for the licensed

victualler addresses himself to the male of the species. The larger net,

cast for those who lacked money or a spirit of speculation, caught all

who, in the realm of grocery, are lured by the teapot. Every sovereign

spent with the Association carried a bonus, paid not in cash but in

kind. These startling advantages were made known through the medium

of hand-bills, leaflets, nicely printed little pamphlets, gorgeously

designed placards; the publicity department, being in the hands of Mr.

Luckworth Crewe, of Farringdon Street, was most ably and vigorously

conducted.

Thanks also to Luckworth Crewe, Beatrice had allied herself with

partners, who brought to the affair capital, experience, and activity.

Before Christmas--an important point--the scene of operations was ready:

a handsome shop, with the new and attractive appendages (so-called

‘club-room,’ refreshment-bar, &c.) which Crewe and Beatrice had visioned

in their prophetic minds. Before the close of the year substantial

business had been done, and 1888 opened with exhilarating prospects.

The ineptitude of uneducated English women in all that relates to their

attire is a fact that it boots not to enlarge upon. Beatrice French

could not be regarded as an exception; for though she recognised

monstrosities, she very reasonably distrusted her own taste in the

choice of a garment. For her sisters, monstrosities had a distinct

charm, and to this class of women belonged all customers of the

Association who pretended to think for themselves as to wherewithal they

should be clothed. But women in general came to the shop with confessed

blankness of mind; beyond the desire to buy something that was modish,

and to pay for it in a minus quantity, they knew, felt, thought nothing

whatever. Green or violet, cerulean or magenta, all was one to them.

In the matter of shape they sought merely a confident assurance from

articulate man or woman--themselves being somewhat less articulate than

jay or jackdaw--that this or that was ‘the feature of the season.’ They

could not distinguish between a becoming garment and one that called for

the consuming fires of Heaven. It is often assumed as a commonplace that

women, whatever else they cannot do, may be trusted to make up their

minds about habiliments. Nothing more false, as Beatrice French was

abundantly aware. A very large proportion of the servant-keeping females

in Brixton, Camberwell, and Peckham could not, with any confidence, buy

a chemise or a pair of stockings; and when it came to garments visible,

they were lost indeed.

Fanny French began to regret that she had not realised her capital, and

put it into the Association. Wishing at length to do so, she met with a

scornful rebuff. Beatrice would have none of her money, but told her she

might use the shop like any other customer, which of course Fanny did.

Mrs. Peachey, meanwhile, kept declaring to both her sisters that they

must not expect to live henceforth in De Crespigny Park on the old

nominal terms. Beatrice was on the way to wealth; Fanny moved in West

End society, under the chaperonage of a rich woman; they ought to be

ashamed of themselves for not volunteering handsome recognition of the

benefits they had received beneath their sister’s roof. But neither

Beatrice nor Fanny appeared to see the matter in this light. The truth

was, that they both had in view a change of domicile. The elder desired

more comfort and more independence than De Crespigny Park could afford

her; the younger desired a great many things, and flattered herself that

a very simple step would put her in possession of them.

The master of the house no longer took any interest in the fortunes of

his sisters-in-law. He would not bid them depart, he would not bid them

stay, least of all would he demand money from them. Of money he had no

need, and he was the hapless possessor of a characteristic not to be

found in any other member of his household--natural delicacy.

Arthur Peachey lived only for his child, the little boy, whose newly

prattling tongue made the sole welcome he expected or cared for on his

return from a hard day’s work. Happily the child had good health, but

he never left home without dread of perils that might befall it in his

absence. On the mother he counted not at all; a good-tempered cow

might with more confidence have been set to watch over the little one’s

safety. The nurse-girl Emma, retained in spite of her mistress’s malice,

still seemed to discharge her duties faithfully; but, being mortal, she

demanded intervals of leisure from time to time, and at such seasons,

as Peachey too well knew, the child was uncared for. Had his heart been

resolute as it was tender, he would long ago have carried out a project

which haunted him at every moment of anger or fear. In the town of

Canterbury lived a sister of his who for several years had been happily

wedded, but remained childless. If the worst came to the worst, if his

wife compelled him to the breaking-up of a home which was no home, this

married sister would gladly take the little boy into her motherly care.

He had never dared to propose the step; but Ada might perchance

give ready assent to it, even now. For motherhood she had no single

qualification but the physical. Before her child’s coming into the

world, she snarled at the restraints it imposed upon her; at its birth,

she clamoured against nature for the pains she had to undergo, and hated

her husband because he was the intermediate cause of them. The helpless

infant gave her no pleasure, touched no emotion in her heart, save when

she saw it in the nurse’s care, and received female compliments upon its

beauty. She rejected it at night because it broke her sleep; in the

day, because she could not handle it without making it cry. When Peachey

remonstrated with her, she stared in insolent surprise, and wished that

_he_ had had to suffer all her hardships of the past year.

Peachey could not be said to have any leisure. On returning from

business he was involved forthwith in domestic troubles and broils,

which consumed the dreary evening, and invaded even his sleep. Thus it

happened that at long intervals he was tempted, instead of going home

to dinner, to spend a couple of hours at a certain small eating-house, a

resort of his bachelor days, where he could read the newspapers, have

a well-cooked chop in quietude, and afterwards, if acquaintances were

here, play a game of chess. Of course he had to shield this modest

dissipation with a flat falsehood, alleging to his wife that business

had kept him late. Thus on an evening of June, when the soft air and the

mellow sunlight overcame him with a longing for rest, he despatched a

telegram to De Crespigny Park, and strolled quietly about the streets

until the hour and his appetite pointed him tablewards. The pity of

it was that he could not dismiss anxieties; he loathed the coward

falsehood, and thought more of home than of his present freedom. But at

least Ada’s tongue was silent.

He seated himself in the familiar corner, and turned over illustrated

papers, whilst his chop hissed on the grid. Ah, if he were but

unmarried, what a life he might make for himself now that the day’s

labour brought its ample reward! He would have rooms in London, and a

still, clean lodging somewhere among the lanes and fields. His ideals

expressed the homeliness of the man. On intellect he could not pride

himself; his education had been but of the ‘commercial’ order; he liked

to meditate rather than to read; questions of the day concerned him not

at all. A weak man, but of clean and kindly instincts. In mercantile

life he had succeeded by virtue of his intensely methodical habits--the

characteristic which made him suffer so from his wife’s indolence,

incapacity, and vicious ill-humour.

Before his marriage he had thought of women as domestic beings. A wife

was the genius of home. He knew men who thanked their wives for all the

prosperity and content that they enjoyed. Others he knew who told quite

a different tale, but these surely were sorrowful exceptions. Nowadays

he saw the matter in a light of fuller experience. In his rank of life

married happiness was a rare thing, and the fault could generally be

traced to wives who had no sense of responsibility, no understanding of

household duties, no love of simple pleasures, no religion.

Yes, there was the point--no religion. Ada had grown up to regard

church-going as a sign of respectability, but without a shadow of

religious faith. Her incredible ignorance of the Bible story, of

Christian dogmas, often amazed him. Himself a believer, though careless

in the practice of forms, he was not disturbed by the modern tendency to

look for morals apart from faith; he had not the trouble of reflecting

that an ignorant woman is the last creature to be moralised by anything

but the Christian code; he saw straight into the fact--that there was

no hope of impressing Ada with ideas of goodness, truthfulness, purity,

simply because she recognised no moral authority.

For such minds no moral authority--merely as a moral authority--is

or can be valid. Such natures are ruled only by superstition--the

representative of reasoned faith in nobler beings. Rob them of their

superstition, and they perish amid all uncleanliness.

Thou shalt not lie--for God consumes a liar in the flames of hell! Ada

Peachey could lend ear to no admonition short of that. And, living when

she did, bred as she was, only a John Knox could have impressed her with

this menace--to be forgotten when the echoes of his voice had failed.

He did not enjoy his chop this evening. In the game of chess that

followed he played idly, with absent thoughts. And before the glow

of sunset had died from the calm heaven he set out to walk homeward,

anxious, melancholy.

On approaching the house he suffered, as always, from quickened pulse

and heart constricted with fear. Until he knew that all was well, he

looked like a man who anticipates dread calamity. This evening, on

opening the door, he fell back terror-stricken. In the hall stood a

police-constable, surrounded by a group of women: Mrs. Peachey, her

sisters, Emma the nurse-girl, and two other servants.

‘Oh, here you are at last!’ exclaimed his wife, in a voice exhausted

with rage. ‘You’re just in time to see this beast taken off to the

lock-up. Perhaps you’ll believe me now!’

‘What is it? What has she done?’

‘Stolen money, that’s what she’s done--your precious Emma! She’s been at

it for a long time; I’ve told you some one was robbing me. So I marked

some coins in my purse, and left it in the bedroom whilst we were at

dinner; and then, when I found half-a-crown gone--and it was her evening

out, too--I sent for a policeman before she knew anything, and we made

her turn out her pockets. And there’s the half-crown! Perhaps you’ll

believe it this time!’

The girl’s face declared her guilt; she had hardly attempted denial.

Then, with a clamour of furious verbosity, Ada enlightened her husband

on other points of Emma’s behaviour. It was a long story, gathered, in

the last few minutes, partly from the culprit herself, partly from her

fellow-servants. Emma had got into the clutches of a jewellery

tallyman, one of the fellows who sell trinkets to servant-girls on the

pay-by-instalment system. She had made several purchases of gewgaws, and

had already paid three or four times their value, but was still in debt

to the tallyman, who threatened all manner of impossible proceedings

if she did not make up her arrears. Bottomless ignorance and imbecile

vanity had been the girl’s ruin, aided by a grave indiscretion on

Peachey’s part, of which he was to hear presently.

Some one must go to the police-station and make a formal charge. Ada

would undertake this duty with pious eagerness, enjoying it all the more

because of loud wailings and entreaties which the girl now addressed to

her master. Peachey looked at his sisters-in-law, and in neither face

perceived a compassionate softening. Fanny stood by as at a spectacle

provided for her amusement, without rancour, but equally without pity.

Beatrice was contemptuous. What right, said her countenance, had a

servant-girl to covet jewellery? And how pitiable the spirit that

prompted to a filching of half-crowns! For the criminals of finance, who

devastate a thousand homes, Miss French had no small admiration; crimes

such as the present were mean and dirty.

Ada reappeared, hurriedly clad for going forth; but no one had fetched a

cab. Incensed, she ordered her husband to do so.

‘Who are you speaking to?’ he replied wrathfully. ‘I am not your

servant.’

Fanny laughed. The policeman, professionally calm, averted a smiling

face.

‘It’s nothing to me,’ said Mrs. Peachey. ‘I’m quite willing to walk.

Come along, constable.’

Her husband interposed.

‘The girl doesn’t go from my house until she’s properly dressed.’ He

turned to the other servants. ‘Please to blow the whistle at the door,

or get a cab somehow. Emma, go upstairs and put your things on.’

‘It was about time you behaved like a man,’ fell quietly from Beatrice.

‘You’re right.’ He looked sternly at the speaker. ‘It _is_ time, and

that you shall all know.’

The culprit, suddenly silent, obeyed his order. The constable went

out at the front door, and there waited whilst a cab-summoning whistle

shrilled along De Crespigny Park.

Ada had ascended to the first landing, to make sure that the culprit did

not escape her. Beatrice and Fanny retired into the drawing-room.

After a lapse of some ten minutes two cabs rattled up to the door

from opposite directions, each driver lashing his horse to gain the

advantage. So nearly were they matched, that with difficulty the

vehicles avoided a collision. The man who had secured a place

immediately in front of the doorsteps, waved his whip and uttered a

shout of insulting triumph; his rival answered with volleys of abuse,

and drove round as if meditating an assault; it was necessary for the

policeman to interfere. Whereupon the defeated competitor vowed that

it was sanguinary hard lines; that for the sanguinary whole of this

sanguinary day had he waited vainly for a sanguinary fare, and but for a

sanguinary stumble of his sanguinary horse--

Tired of waiting, and suspicious of the delay, Ada went up to the room

where the servant was supposed to be making ready. It was a little room,

which served as night-nursery; by the girl’s bed stood a cot occupied by

the child. Ada, exclaiming ‘Now, come along!’ opened the door violently.

A candle was burning; the boy, awake but silent, sat up in his cot, and

looked about with sleepy, yet frightened eyes.

‘Where are you?’

Emma could not be seen. Astonished and enraged, Ada rushed forward; she

found the girl lying on the floor, and after bending over her, started

back with a cry half of alarm, half of disgust.

‘Come up here at once!’ she screamed down the staircase. ‘Come up! The

wretch has cut her throat!’

There was a rush of feet. Peachey, the first to enter, saw a gash on the

neck of the insensible girl; in her hand she held a pair of scissors.

‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ he said to his wife.

The police-officer, animated by a brisk succession of events such as he

could not hope for every day, raised the prostrate figure, and speedily

announced that the wound was not mortal.

‘She’s fainted, that’s all. Tried to do for herself with them scissors,

and didn’t know the way to go about it. We’ll get her off sharp to the

surgeon.’

‘It’ll be attempted suicide, now, as well as stealing,’ cried Ada.

Terrified by the crowd of noisy people, the child began to cry loudly.

Peachey lifted him out of the cot, wrapped a blanket about him, and

carried him down to his own bedroom. There, heedless of what was going

on above, he tried to soothe the little fellow, lavishing caresses and

tender words.

‘My little boy will be good? He’ll wait here, quietly, till father comes

back? Only a few minutes, and father will come back, and sit by him.

Yes--he shall sleep here, all night--’

Ada burst into the room.

‘I should think you’d better go and look after your dear Emma. As if I

didn’t know what’s been going on! It’s all come out, so you needn’t tell

me any lies. You’ve been giving her money. The other servants knew of

it; she confessed it herself. Oh, you’re a nice sort of man, you are!

Men of your sort are always good at preaching to other people. You’ve

given her money--what does _that_ mean? I suspected it all along. You

wouldn’t have her sent away; oh no! She was so good to the child--and so

good to somebody else! A dirty servant! I’d choose some one better than

that, if I was a man. How much has she cost you? As much, no doubt, as

one of the swell women in Piccadilly Circus--’

Peachey turned upon her, the sweat beading on his ghastly face.

‘Go!--Out of this room--or by God I shall do something fearful!--Out!’

She backed before him. He seized her by the shoulders, and flung her

forth, then locked the door. From without she railed at him in the

language of the gutter and the brothel. Presently her shouts were

mingled with piercing shrieks; they came from the would-be-suicide, who,

restored to consciousness, was being carried down for removal in the

cab. Peachey, looking and feeling like a man whom passion had brought

within sight of murder, stopped his ears and huddled himself against the

bedside. The child screamed in terror.

At length came silence. Peachey opened the door, and listened. Below,

voices sounded in quiet conversation.

‘Who is down there?’ he called.

‘All of us except Ada,’ replied Beatrice. ‘The policeman said she

needn’t go unless she liked, but she _did_ like.’

‘Very well.’

He ran up to the deserted bedroom, carefully gathered together his

child’s day-garments, and brought them down. Then, as well as he could,

he dressed the boy.

‘Is it time to get up?’ inquired the little three-year-old, astonished

at all that was happening, but soothed and amused by the thought that

his father had turned nurse. ‘It isn’t light yet.’

‘You are going somewhere with father, dear. Somewhere nice.’

The dialogue between them, in sweet broken words such as the child had

not yet outgrown, and the parent did not wish to abandon for common

speech, went on until the dressing was completed.

‘Now, will my boy show me where his clothes are for going out? His cap,

and his coat--’

Oh yes, they were up in the nursery; boy would show father--and laughed

merrily that he knew something father didn’t. A few minutes more, and

the equipment was completed.

‘Now wait for me here--only a minute. My boy won’t cry, if I leave him

for a minute?’

‘Cry! of course not!’ Peachey descended to the drawing-room, closed the

door behind him, and stood facing his sisters-in-law.

‘I want to tell you that I am going away, and taking the child with me.

Ada needn’t expect me back to-night--nor ever. As long as I live I will

never again be under the same roof with her. You, Beatrice, said it was

about time I behaved like a man. You were right. I’ve put up long enough

with things such as no man ought to endure for a day. Tell your sister

that she may go on living here, if she chooses, for another six

months, to the end of the year--not longer. She shall be supplied with

sufficient money. After Christmas she may find a home for herself where

she likes; money will be paid to her through a lawyer, but from this

day I will neither speak nor write to her. You two must make your own

arrangements; you have means enough. You know very well, both of you,

why I am taking this step; think and say about me what you like. I have

no time to talk, and so I bid you good-bye.’

They did not seek to detain him, but stood mute whilst he left the room.

The little boy, timid and impatient, was at the head of the stairs. His

father enveloped him warmly in a shawl, and so they went forth. It was

not long before they met with a vacant cab. Half-an-hour’s drive brought

them to the eating-house where Peachey had had his chop that evening,

and here he obtained a bedroom for the night.

By eleven o’clock the child slept peacefully. The father, seated at a

table, was engaged in writing to a solicitor.

At midnight he lay softly down by the child’s side, and there, until

dawn, listened to the low breathing of his innocent little bedfellow.

Though he could not sleep, it was joy, rather than any painful

excitement, that kept him wakeful. A great and loathsome burden had

fallen from him, and in the same moment he had rescued his boy out of

an atmosphere of hated impurity. At length he could respect himself,

and for the first time in four long years he looked to the future with

tranquil hope.

Careless of the frank curiosity with which the people of the house

regarded him, he went down at seven o’clock, and asked for a railway

time-table. Having found a convenient train to Canterbury, he ordered

breakfast for himself and the child to be laid in a private room. It was

a merry meal. Sunshine of midsummer fell warm and bright upon the table;

the street below was so full of busy life that the little boy must needs

have his breakfast by the window, where he could eat and look forth at

the same time. No such delightful holiday had he ever enjoyed. Alone

with father, and going away by train into wonderful new worlds.

‘Is Emma coming?’ he asked.

It was significant that he did not speak of his mother.

They drove to the railway station, Peachey no less excited than the

child. From here he despatched a telegram to his partners, saying that

he should be absent for a day or two.

Then the train, struggling slowly out of London’s welter, through the

newest outposts of gloom and grime, bore them, hearts companioned

in love and blamelessness, to the broad sunny meadows and the sweet

hop-gardens of Kent.

CHAPTER 5

‘Serves her jolly well right,’ said Beatrice.

‘A lot _she’ll_ care,’ said Fanny. ‘I should think myself precious

lucky. She gets rid of him, and of the kid too, and has as much as she

wants to live on. It’s better than she deserves.--Do you believe he’s

been carrying on with that girl?’

Miss. French laughed contemptuously.

‘Not he!’

‘Well, there’s been a jolly good row to-night, if we never see another.

We shall all be in the papers!’ The prospect had charms for Fanny. ‘What

are you going to do? Live here till Christmas?’

Beatrice was quietly reviewing the situation. She kept silence, and her

sister also became meditative. Suddenly Fanny inquired:

‘What sort of a place is Brussels?’

‘Brussels? Why? I know nothing about it. Not much of a place, I think;

sprouts come from there, don’t they?’

‘It’s a big town,’ said the other, ‘and a lively sort of place, they

say.

‘Why do you ask me, if you know? What about it?’

As usual when performing the operation which, in her, answered to

thought, Fanny shuffled with her hands on her waist. At a distance from

Beatrice she stood still, and said:

‘Some one I know is going there. I’ve a good mind to go too. I want to

see abroad.’

Her sister asked several searching questions, but Fanny would not make

known whether the friend was male or female.

‘I shouldn’t be much surprised,’ remarked the woman of business,

indifferently, ‘if you go and make a fool of yourself before long. That

Mrs. Damerel is up to some game with you; any one could see it with half

an eye. I suppose it isn’t Lord that’s going to Brussels?’

Fanny sputtered her disdain.

‘If you had any common sense,’ pursued her sister, ‘you’d stick to him;

but you haven’t. Oh yes, you think you can do better. Very well, we

shall see. If you find yourself in a hole one of these days, don’t

expect _me_ to pull you out. I wouldn’t give you a penny to save you

from the workhouse.’

‘Wait till you’re asked. I know where all _your_ money ‘ll go to. And

that’s into Crewe’s pocket. He’ll fool you out of all you have.’

Beatrice reddened with wrath. But, unlike the other members of her

family, she could command her tongue. Fanny found it impossible to draw

another word from her.

On returning from the police-station, haggard and faint with excitement,

but supported by the anticipation of fresh attacks upon her husband,

Ada immediately learnt what had happened. For the first moment she

could hardly believe it. She rushed upstairs, and saw that the child

was really gone; then a blind frenzy took hold upon her. Alarming and

inexplicable sounds drew her sisters from below; they found her,

armed with something heavy, smashing every breakable object in her

bedroom--mirrors, toilet-ware, pictures, chimney-piece ornaments.

‘She’s gone mad!’ shrieked Fanny. ‘She’ll kill us!’

‘That beast shall pay for it!’ yelled Ada, with a frantic blow at the

dressing-table.

Wanton destruction of property revolted all Beatrice’s instincts.

Courageous enough, she sprang upon the wild animal, and flung her down.

Now indeed the last trace of veneer was gone, the last rag of

pseudo-civilisation was rent off these young women; in physical

conflict, vilifying each other like the female spawn of Whitechapel,

they revealed themselves as born--raw material which the mill of

education is supposed to convert into middle-class ladyhood. As a result

of being held still by superior strength Ada fell into convulsions,

foamed at the mouth, her eyes starting from their sockets; then she lay

as one dead.

‘You’ve killed her,’ cried the terrified Fanny.

‘No fear. Give me some water to pitch over her.’

With a full jug from another bedroom, she drenched the prostrate figure.

When Ada came round she was powerless; even her rancorous lips could

utter only a sound of moaning. The sisters stripped her stark naked on

the floor, made a show of drying her with towels, and tumbled her into

bed. Then Beatrice brewed a great jorum of hot whisky-punch, and after

drinking freely to steady her shaken nerves, poured a pint or so down

Mrs. Peachey’s throat.

‘There won’t be a funeral just yet,’ she remarked, with a laugh. ‘Now

we’ll have supper; I feel hungry.’

They went to bed at something after midnight. The servants, having

stolen a bottle of spirits from the cupboard, which Beatrice left open,

both got drunk, and slept till morning upon the kitchen-floor.

On the morrow, Miss. French, attired as a walking advertisement of the

South London Fashionable Dress Supply Association, betook herself to

Farringdon Street for an interview with her commercial friend. Crewe was

absent, but one of three clerks, who occupied his largest room, informed

her that it could not be very long before he returned, and being

so familiar a figure here, she was permitted to wait in the agent’s

sanctum. When the door closed upon her, the three young men discussed

her character with sprightly freedom. Beatrice, the while, splendidly

indifferent to the remarks she could easily divine, made a rapid

examination of loose papers lying on Crewe’s desk, read several letters,

opened several books, and found nothing that interested her until,

on turning over a slip of paper with pencilled figures upon it, she

discovered a hotel-bill, the heading: Royal Hotel, Falmouth. It was for

a day and night’s entertainment, the debtor ‘Mr. Crewe,’ the date less

than a week gone by. This document she considered attentively, her brows

knitted, her eyes wide. But a sound caused her to drop it upon the desk

again. Another moment, and Crewe entered.

He looked keenly at her, and less good-humouredly than of wont. These

persons never shook hands, and indeed dispensed, as a rule, with all

forms of civility.

‘What are you staring at?’ asked Crewe bluffly.

‘What are _you_ staring at?’

‘Nothing, that I know.’ He hung up his hat, and sat down. ‘I’ve a note

to write; wait a minute.’

The note written, and given to a clerk, Crewe seemed to recover

equanimity. His visitor told him all that happened in De Crespigny Park,

even to the crudest details, and they laughed together uproariously.

‘I’m going to take a flat,’ Beatrice then informed him. ‘Just find me

something convenient and moderate, will you? A bachelor’s flat.’

‘What about Fanny?’

‘She has something on; I don’t know what it is. Talks about going to

Brussels--with a friend.’

Crewe looked astonished.

‘You ought to see after her. I know what the end ‘ll be. Brussels? I’ve

heard of English girls going there, but they don’t usually come back.’

‘What can I do? I’m pretty certain that Damerel woman has a game on

hand. She doesn’t want Fanny to marry her nephew--if Lord _is_ her

nephew. She wants his money, that’s my idea.’

‘Mine, too,’ remarked the other quietly. ‘Look here, old chap, it’s your

duty to look after your little damned fool of a sister; I tell you that

plainly. I shan’t think well of you if you don’t.’

Beatrice displayed eagerness to defend herself. She had done her best;

Fanny scorned all advice, and could not be held against her will.

‘Has she given up all thought of Lord?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think so. And it looks as if he was going his own

way, and didn’t care much. He never writes to her now. Of course it’s

that woman’s doing.’

Crewe reflected.

‘I shall have to look into Mrs. Damerel’s affairs. Might be worth while.

Where is she living?’ He made a note of the information. ‘Well, anything

else to tell me?’

Beatrice spoke of business matters, then asked him if he had been out

of town lately. The question sounded rather abrupt, and caused Crewe to

regard her with an expression she privately interpreted.

‘A few short runs. Nowhere particular.’

‘Oh?--Not been down into Cornwall?’

He lost his temper.

‘What are you after? What business is it of yours? If you’re going

to spy on me, I’ll soon let you know that I won’t stand that kind of

thing.’

‘Don’t disturb yourself,’ said Beatrice, with a cold smile. ‘I haven’t

been spying, and you can go where you like for anything I care. I

guessed you _had_ been down there, that’s all.’

Crewe kept silence, his look betraying uneasiness as well as anger.

Speaking at length, he fixed her with keen eyes.

‘If it’s any satisfaction to you, you’re welcome to know that I have

been into Cornwall--and to Falmouth.’

Beatrice merely nodded, and still he searched her face.

‘Just answer me a plain question, old chap. Come, there’s no nonsense

between us; we know each other--eh?’

‘Oh yes, we know each other,’ Miss. French answered, her lips puckering

a little.

‘What do you know about _her_? What has she been doing all this time?’

Beatrice laughed.

‘I know just as little about her as I care.’

‘You care a good deal more than you’ll confess. I wouldn’t be up to

women’s tricks, if I were you.’

She revolted.

‘After all, I suppose I _am_ a woman?’

‘Well, I suppose so.’ Crewe grinned good-naturedly. ‘But that isn’t

in the terms of our partnership, you remember. You can be a reasonable

fellow enough, when you like. Just tell me the truth. What do you know

about Nancy Lord?’ Beatrice assumed an air of mystery.

‘I’ll tell you that, if you tell me what it is you want of her. Is it

her money?’

‘Her money be damned!’

‘It’s herself, then.’

‘And what if it is? What have _you_ to say to it?’

Her eyes fell, and she muttered ‘Nothing.’

‘Just bear that in mind, then. And now that I’ve answered your question,

answer mine. What have you heard about her? Or what have you found out?’

She raised her eyes again and again, but in a mocking voice said,

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re telling me a lie.’

‘You’re a brute to say so!’

They exchanged fierce glances, but could not meet each other’s eyes

steadily. Crewe, mastering his irritation, said with a careless laugh:

‘All right, I believe you. Didn’t mean to offend you, old chap.’

‘I won’t be called that!’ She was trembling with stormy emotions. ‘You

shall treat me decently.’

‘Very well. Old girl, then.’

‘I’m a good deal younger than you are. And I’m a good deal better than

you, in every way. I’m a lady, at all events, and you can’t pretend to

be a gentleman. You’re a rough, common fellow--’

‘Holloa! Holloa! Draw it mild.’

He was startled, and in some degree abashed; his eyes, travelling to

the door, indicated a fear that this singular business-colloquy might be

overheard. But Beatrice went on, without subduing her voice, and, having

delivered herself of much plain language, walked from the room, leaving

the door open behind her.