trouble as possible. Insulting post-cards showered upon her husband at
his place of business. After a few weeks she discovered his lodging, and
addressed the post-cards thither; but she made no attempt at personal
molestation. The loss of her child gave her not the slightest concern,
yet she determined to find out where the boy was living. She remembered
that Peachey had relatives at Canterbury, and after a troublesome search
succeeded in her purpose. An interview with her husband’s married sister
proved so unsatisfactory to Ada, that she had recourse to her familiar
weapons, rage, insult, and menace; with the result that she was forcibly
removed, and made a scandal in the quiet street.
Then she consulted men of law, and found one who encouraged her to sue
for restitution of conjugal rights. It came to nothing, however; for in
the meantime she was growing tired of her solitary existence,--friends
of course she had none,--and the spirit moved her to try a change of
tactics.
She wrote a long, long letter, penitent, tear-bestained. ‘I have behaved
outrageously to you, dearest Arthur; I must have been mad to say and do
such things. The doctor tells me that my health has been in a very
bad state for a long time, and I really don’t remember half that has
happened. You were quite right when you told me that I should be better
if I didn’t live such an idle life, and I have quite, quite made up my
mind to be an industrious and a _good_ woman. All yesterday I spent
in needlework and crying. Oh, the tears that I have shed! My darling
husband, what can I do to win your forgiveness? Do consider how lonely I
am in this house. Beatrice has been horrid to me. If I said all I think
about _her_, she wouldn’t like to hear it; but I am learning to control
my tongue. She lives alone in a flat, and has men to spend every evening
with her; it’s disgraceful! And there’s Fanny, who I am sure is leading
an immoral life abroad. Of course I shall never speak to her again. You
were quite right when you said my sisters were worthless.’--Peachey had
never permitted himself any such remark.--‘I will have no one but you,
my dear, good, sweet husband.’
So on, over several pages. Reading it, the husband stood aghast at this
new revelation of female possibilities; at the end, he hurriedly threw
it into the fire, fearing, and with good reason, that weakness in his
own character to which the woman addressed herself.
Every day for a week there arrived a replica of this epistle, and at
length he answered. It was the fatal concession. Though he wrote with
almost savage severity, Ada replied in terms of exuberant gratitude.
Oh, how delighted she was to see his dear handwriting once more! How it
reminded her of happy days, when they loved each other so tenderly! Then
came two strophes of a sentimental drawing-room song, and lastly, an
impassioned appeal to be allowed to see her husband, were it only for
five minutes.
Another week of such besieging, and the poor fellow’s foolish heart gave
way. He would see the wretched woman, and tell her that, though never
could he consent to live with her again, he had no malicious feeling,
and was willing to be her friend at a distance. So, at six o’clock one
evening, behold him tremulously approaching the house in De Crespigny
Park,--tremulously, because he dreaded the assault upon his emotions to
which he so recklessly exposed himself. He was admitted by a very young
servant, in a very clean cap and apron. Silence possessed the
dwelling; he did not venture to tread with natural step. He entered
the drawing-room, and there, from amid a heap of household linen which
required the needle, rose the penitent wife. Ostentatiously she drew
from her finger a thimble, then advanced with head bent.
‘How kind of you, Arthur! How--how very--’
And she was dissolved in tears--so genuine, that they marked pale
rillets across the bloom of her cheeks.
About a month after that the furniture was removed from De Crespigny
Park to a much smaller house at Brixton, where Mr. and Mrs. Peachey
took up their abode together. A medical man shortly called, and Ada,
not without secret disgust, smilingly made known to her husband that she
must now be very careful of her health.
On one point only the man had held to a rational resolve; he would not
allow his little son to be brought back to London, away from the home
where he was happy and thriving. Out of mere self-will Ada strove for a
long time to overcome this decision; finding argument and artifice of no
avail, she dropped the matter. Peachey owed this triumph largely to the
firm commonsense of his sister, who plainly refused to let the little
fellow quit her care for that of such a woman as he was unfortunate
enough to call mother.
Christmas came, and with it an unanticipated call from Miss. Fanny
French, who said she had lately recovered from a serious illness in
Paris; the nature of her malady she did not specify; it had left her
haggard and thin, but by no means deficient in vivacity. She was dressed
with tawdry extravagance, wore a mass of false yellow hair, had her
eyebrows dyed black,--piquant contrast,--and her cheeks and lips richly
carmined. No veritable information as to her past and present could be
gleaned from the mixture of French and English which she ceaselessly
gabbled. She had come over for Christmas, that was all; could not dream
of returning to live in wretched England. At Brussels and in Paris she
had made hosts of friends, just the right sort of people.
Ada told her all the news. Of most interest was that which related to
Nancy Lord. Only a month ago it had become known that Nancy was married,
and the mother of a child.
‘The Barmbys found it out somehow,’ Ada narrated. ‘She was married to a
man called Tarrant, some one we never heard of, on the very day of her
father’s death, and, of course, before she knew anything about his will.
Then, of course, it had to be kept dark, or she’d lose all her money.
Her husband hadn’t a farthing. She supported him, and they say he lived
most of the time in her house. He’s a regular scamp, a drinking, betting
fellow. Well, it all came out, and the Barmbys turned her into the
street at a moment’s notice--serve her right!’
Fanny shrieked with merriment.
‘And what is she doing?’
‘She went on her knees to Beatrice, and begged for a place at the shop,
if it was only a few shillings a week. Nice come-down for Nancy Lord,
wasn’t it? Of course Beatrice sent her off with a flea in her ear. I
don’t know where she’s living, but I’ve heard that her husband has gone
to America, and left her to shift for herself, now there’s nothing more
to be got out of her.’
For supplementary details of this racy narrative, Fanny sought out
Beatrice; but to her astonishment and annoyance Beatrice would tell
nothing. The elder sister urged Fanny to give an account of herself, and
used some very plain speech of the admonitory kind.
‘What has become of that jackanapes, Horace Lord?’ asked Fanny, after a
contemptuous remark about ‘sermons.’
‘I don’t know. The question is, what’s going to become of _you_?’
Whereupon the girl grew vituperative in two languages, and made off. Her
relatives saw no more of her for a long time.
To Mrs. Peachey was born a daughter. Naturally, the months preceding
this event had been, for her husband, a renewal of martyrdom; his one
supporting solace lay in the thought of the little lad at Canterbury.
All the old troubles were revived; from morning to night the house rang
with brawls between mistress and servants; in the paroxysms favoured
by her physical condition, Ada behaved like a candidate for Bedlam, and
more than once obliged her husband to seek temporary peace in lodgings.
He left home at eight o’clock every morning, and returned as late as
possible. The necessity of passing long evenings made him haunt places
of entertainment, and he sometimes had recourse to drink,--he by
nature the soberest of men,--in fear of what awaited him on his tardy
appearance at Brixton. A month after Ada’s confinement he once more
acted a sane part, and announced by letter that he would die rather than
continue living with his wife. As it was fine autumn weather he went
down to a seaside place, where his Canterbury relatives and the little
boy joined him for a holiday of several weeks. Again Ada was to receive
an allowance. She despatched a few very virulent post-cards, but
presently grew quiet, and appeared to accept the situation.
In early winter Fanny French came over to England. She had again been
ill, and this time with results obviously graver. Her first call was
upon Beatrice, who still occupied the flat at Brixton, and here she
unbosomed herself of a dolorous story. All her money had vanished;
stolen, most of it, Fanny declared; she was without resources, and, as
any one could see, in a wretched state of health. Would Beatrice have
compassion on her? Would she lend her money till she was well enough to
‘look round’?
Miss. French at once took the girl into her own home, and had her looked
after. Fanny coughed in an alarming way; the doctor, speaking privately
with Beatrice, made an unpleasant report; was it possible to send the
patient to a mild climate for the winter months? Yes, Miss. French could
manage that, and would. A suitable attendant having been procured, Fanny
was despatched to Bournemouth, whence, in a day or two, she wrote to her
sister thus:
‘You’ve been awfully kind to me, and I shan’t forget it when I’m well
again. Feel a good deal fitter already. Dullish place this, but I’ve got
to put up with it. I’ve had a letter from Ada. If you see her, tell her
she’s a beast, and I wish Arthur would wring her scraggy neck. She says
it’s all my own fault; wait till I’m back again, and I’ll pay her a
call. My own fault indeed! It seems to me I’m very much to be pitied.’
Walking one day along the sea-front by herself, Fanny observed a young
man’s figure a few paces in advance of her, which seemed to awaken
recollections. Presently the young man turned and showed, beyond doubt,
the countenance of Horace Lord. He met her eyes, gave a doubtful,
troubled look, and was going past when Fanny accosted him.
‘Well, don’t you know me?’
‘Why, it _is_--it really _is_! How glad I am to see you! But what on
earth are you doing here?’
‘Amusing myself--_comme vous voyez_; and you?’
‘Oh, doing the same.’
They had shaken hands, and were sauntering on together.
‘Anything wrong with your health?’ Fanny asked, scrutinising the pale
thin face, with its touch of warmth on the cheeks.
‘Oh, I’ve had a bit of a cold; nothing to speak of. You been out of
sorts?’
‘A little run down. Over-study, they say.’
Horace looked his surprise.
‘Why, I didn’t know you went in for that kind of thing.’
‘Didn’t you? I’ve been studying abroad for a long time. Thinking of
taking a place as French teacher in some tip-top high school.’
‘I am very glad to hear it. Capital idea. Sure I hope you’ll be
successful.’
‘Thanks awf’ly. Tell me something about yourself. Why, it’s two years
since we saw each other, isn’t it? Are you married yet?’
Horace smiled and coloured.
‘No, no--not yet. I’m in business with Luckworth Crewe,--sort of
sleeping partner just now.’
‘Are you really? And how’s your sister?’
The young man bent his brows uncomfortably.
‘Don’t you know anything about her?’ he asked.
‘I’ve heard she’s married.’
‘Yes, a man called Tarrant. Very clever fellow; he writes for the
papers.--I say, Miss. French, I generally have a glass of wine and a
biscuit, at the confectioner’s, about this time. Will you give me the
pleasure of your company?’
‘_Charmee_, _Monsieur_! I generally go in for the same kind of thing.’
So they repaired to the cake-shop, and sat talking for half-an-hour of
trifles which made them laugh.
‘And you really didn’t know me?’ said Fanny, when her glass of wine was
finished. ‘Have I changed so much?’
‘A good deal. Not for the worse, oh dear no!’
The girl giggled.
‘Well, I don’t mind saying that _you_ have changed a good deal for the
better.’
Horace flushed at the compliment.
‘I’m much older,’ he answered with a sigh, as though the years of a
sexagenarian weighed upon him.
‘That’s just what I like in you. You’re so much more of a man. Don’t be
offended.’
They went forth again into the sunshine. At the door both coughed, and
both pretended that it wasn’t a cough at all, but a voluntary little
hem.
CHAPTER 2
Mrs. Damerel was younger than ever. She had spent October abroad, with
her friends Mrs. and Miss. Chittle, and the greater part of November at
Brighton, with other friends. Back in town she established herself
at one of the various boarding-houses honoured by her patronage, and
prepared to enjoy the social life of winter.
Half a year ago an unwonted depression had troubled her serene
existence. At the close of the London season she seemed weary and
spiritless, very unlike herself; having no invitation for the next two
months, she withdrew to Whitsand, and there spent some cheerless weeks.
Whitsand was the as yet unfashionable seaside place which had attracted
the speculative eye of Luckworth Crewe. For the past two years he had
been trying to inspire certain men of capital with his own faith in
the possibilities of Whitsand; he owned a share in the new hotel just
opened; whenever his manifold affairs allowed him a day’s holiday,
he spent it at Whitsand, pacing the small esplanade, and meditating
improvements. That these ‘improvements’ signified the conversion of a
pretty little old-world spot into a hideous brand new resort of noisy
hordes, in no degree troubled Mr. Crewe’s conscience. For his own part,
he could appreciate the charms of Whitsand as it stood; he was by
no means insensible to natural beauty and the ancient peace which so
contrasted with his life of every day; but first and foremost in his
mind came the necessity of making money; and to fill his pockets he
would no more hesitate about destroying the loveliest spot on earth,
than the starving hunter would stay his hand out of admiration for bird
or beast.
It was with much delight that he heard of Mrs. Damerel’s retreat to
Whitsand. To the note in which she acquainted him with her arrival
there he replied effusively. ‘The patronage of a few really fashionable
people, such as yourself, would soon do wonders. We must have a
special paragraph in the local paper, drawing attention to your being
there’--and so on. An answer by return of post rather disappointed him.
On no account, wrote Mrs. Damerel, must her name be specially mentioned
in the paper. She had taken very simple lodgings, very inexpensive, and
wished to live as quietly as possible. But, after seeing the place, she
quite agreed with Mr Crewe that it had a future, and if he could run
down some day, whilst she was here, it would give her great pleasure to
hear his projects explained on the spot.
Crewe ran down. In speaking of Mrs. Damerel as a ‘really fashionable’
person, he used no insincerity; from their first meeting he had seen in
this lady his ideal of social distinction; she was, in fact, the only
woman of skilfully pretentious demeanour with whom he had ever spoken.
Her distant likeness to Nancy Lord interested and attracted him; her
suave superiority awed his conscious roughness; she seemed to him
exquisitely gracious, wonderfully sweet. And as, little by little,
he attained the right to think of her almost as a friend, his humble
admiration became blended with feelings he took particular care not to
betray, lest he should expose himself to ridicule. That her age exceeded
his own by some years he was of course aware, but this fact soon dropped
out of his mind, and never returned to it. Not only did he think Mrs.
Damerel a type of aristocratic beauty, he saw in her countenance all the
freshness and the promise of youth.
The slight mystery attaching to her position only increased his
susceptibility to her charms. It seemed to him very probable that she
had but a moderate income; perhaps she was not free from anxieties on
that score. But such a woman would of course marry again, and marry
well. The thought grew troublesome, and presently accounted for
ebullitions of wrath, accompanied by more than usually vigorous
language, when business matters went wrong.
At Whitsand, Mrs. Damerel showed herself more than ever sweetly affable.
The season, she said, had been rather too much for her; she must
take care of her health; besides--and her smile played upon Crewe’s
pulses--there were troubles, cares, of which she could not speak _even_
to so valued a friend.
‘I’m afraid you’re anxious about your nephew,’ murmured the man of
business; though at the same time he suspected other things, for the
lodgings in which he found Mrs. Damerel were certainly modest.
‘Yes, I trouble a good deal about him. If only dear Horace would be
reconciled to me. It seems such a long, long time. You know that we have
corresponded, but he refuses to see me. It pains me deeply, Mr Crewe.’
And, after a silence:
‘There’s a special reason why I wish he would be friends with me,--a
reason that concerns his own future. Why should I not tell you? I
am sure you will respect my confidence.--He will very soon become
independent, and then I do so fear he may make a foolish marriage. Yet
all the time there is a chance waiting for him which would establish his
fortune and his happiness for life. Did he ever speak to you of Miss.
Chittle?’
‘I don’t remember the name.’
‘Such a dear, sweet girl, and with really large means. He was introduced
to her during the happy time when we saw so much of each other, and she
at once became interested in him. Her dear mother assured me of it. She
is a very shy, retiring girl, and has refused many offers, before and
since then. Isn’t it a pity? But I am losing all hope, and I so fear he
may have formed some other attachment.’
Crewe went back to London resolved that Horace Lord should no longer
‘play the fool.’ And he was successful. Horace had all but lost
his resentment against Mrs. Damerel; he kept aloof out of stubborn
conceit--it had not dignity enough to be called pride; the same feeling
that still estranged him from Nancy, though he would gladly have
welcomed his sister’s offer of affection. Persuaded, or commanded, by
Luckworth Crewe, he took the train to Whitsand, and remained there
for several days. Mrs. Damerel wrote her friend in Farringdon Street
a letter of gratitude, which acted upon him like champagne. In a
postscript she said: ‘Mrs. Chittle and her daughter have consented to
come here for a week or two. They will take rooms at the Imperial.’
Before the end of September, Horace Lord was engaged to Winifred
Chittle.
Two years had made very little change in Miss. Chittle’s appearance. She
was still colourless and abnormally shy, still had the look of one who
sheds secret tears, and her repugnance to Society had, if possible,
increased. Horace thought her pretty, was impressed by her extreme
gentleness and refinement, but she obtained no power over his emotions
such as that formerly exercised by Fanny French. It struck him, too, as
a very strange thing, that a young lady with a large fortune should be
willing to marry a man of his social insignificance. ‘My dear,’ said
Mrs. Damerel, ‘it was a case of love at first sight.’ But Horace, who
had gained some experience of life, could not believe this. He wooed,
and won; yet even when Winifred accepted him, he felt that she did it
under some constraint. Her pale face declared no happiness.
Had she chosen, Mrs. Damerel could have explained the mystery. She knew
that, several years ago, Winifred’s name had been blighted by a scandal,
and that the girl’s shrinking from every proposal of marriage was due,
in part perhaps, to the memory of love betrayed, in part to a sense of
honour, and to the suspicion that men, knowing her disgrace, condoned
it for the sake of her wealth. Interest made Mrs. Damerel generous;
she admitted every excuse for Winifred, and persuaded herself that in
procuring Horace such a wife she was doing him only a nominal wrong. The
young people could live apart from that corner of Society in which Miss.
Chittle’s name gave occasion to smiles or looks of perfunctory censure.
If Winifred, after marriage, chose to make confession, why, that was her
own affair, and Horace would be wise enough, all advantages considered,
to take the matter philosophically.
That was the view of a practical-minded observer. To read Winifred
perfectly, there needed a much more subtle and sympathetic intelligence.
The girl had, in truth, conceived a liking for Horace Lord, and it grew
stronger when she learnt that neither by birth nor present circumstances
did he belong to her own world. To please her mother she was willing to
take a husband, but the husband must be of her own choice. She wished to
enter upon a wholly new life, remote from the social conditions which
of late years had crushed her spirit. From the men who had hitherto
approached her, she shrank in fear. Horace Lord, good-looking and not
uneducated, yet so far from formidable, suggested a new hope; even
though he might be actuated by the ordinary motives, she discerned in
him a softness, a pliability of nature, which would harmonise with her
own timid disposition. To the thought of deceiving him on the subject of
her past, she was reconciled by a resolve to make his happiness the sole
object of her existence in the future. Horace was amiability itself, and
seemed, if not to love her ardently (which, perhaps, she did not even
desire), at least to regard her with an increasing affection.
Nothing was said about the condition of the prospective bridegroom’s
health, though Horace had confided to Mrs. Damerel that he suffered from
a troublesome cough, accompanied now and then by an alarming symptom. In
her boundless exultation at the end achieved, Mrs. Damerel made light of
this complaint. Horace was not free to marry until nearly the end of
the year; for, though money would henceforth be no matter of anxiety,
he might as well secure the small inheritance presently due to him.
November and December he should spend at Bournemouth under the best
medical care, and after that, if needful, his wife would go with him to
Madeira or some such place.
No wonder Mrs. Damerel could think of nothing but the great fact that
Horace had secured a fortune. Her own resources were coming to an end,
and but for the certainty that Horace would not grudge her an ample
provision, she must at this moment have been racking her brains (even
as through the summer) for help against the evil that drew near.
Constitutional lightness of heart had enabled her to enjoy life on a
steadily, and rapidly, diminishing fund. There had been hope in Nancy’s
direction, as well as in her brother’s; but the disclosure of Nancy’s
marriage, and Horace’s persistency in unfriendliness, brought Mrs.
Damerel to a sense of peril. One offer of marriage she had received
and declined; it came from a man of advanced years and small property.
Another offer she might, or thought she might, at any moment provoke;
but only in direst extremity could she think of bestowing her hand upon
Luckworth Crewe. Crewe was in love with her, an amusing fact in itself,
and especially so in regard to his former relations with Nancy Lord. He
might become a wealthy man; on the other hand, he might not; and in any
case he was a plebeian.
All such miseries were now dismissed from her mind. She went abroad with
the Chittles, enjoyed herself at Brighton, and came home to prepare for
Horace’s wedding, Horace himself being at Bournemouth. After her letter
of gratitude to Crewe she had ceased to correspond with him; she did not
trouble to acquaint him with Horace’s engagement; and when Crewe,
having heard the news from his partner, ventured to send her a letter of
congratulation, Mrs. Damerel replied in two or three very civil but cold
sentences. Back in London, she did not invite the man of projects to
call upon her. The status she had lost when fears beset her must now be
recovered. Let Crewe cherish a passion for her if he liked, but let him
understand that social reasons made it laughably hopeless.
Horace was to come up to London in the third week of December, and to be
married on New Year’s Day; the honeymoon would be spent at Ventnor, or
somewhere thereabout. Afraid to lose sight of her relative for more than
a week or two, Mrs. Damerel had already been twice to Bournemouth, and
now she decided to go for a third time, just to talk quietly over the
forthcoming event, and, whether Horace broached the subject or not, to
apprise him of the straits into which she was drifting. Unannounced
by letter, she reached Bournemouth early in the afternoon, and went
straight to Horace’s lodgings. The young man had just finished luncheon,
and, all things considered, including the fact that it was a remarkably
bright and warm day for the time of year, he might have been expected to
welcome Mrs. Damerel cheerfully. Yet on seeing her his countenance
fell; he betrayed an embarrassment which the lady noted with anxious
suspicion.
‘Aren’t you glad to see me, dear boy?’ she began, with a kiss upon his
cheek.
‘Yes--oh yes. I never dreamt of your appearing just now, that was all.’
‘I couldn’t resist the temptation. Such a morning in London! Almost as
fine as it is here. And how is your cough?’
Even as she made the inquiry, he answered it by coughing very badly.
‘I don’t think this place suits you, Horace,’ said Mrs. Damerel gravely.
‘You’re not imprudent, I hope? Don’t go out after dark?’
Oh, it was nothing, Horace maintained; for several days he had hardly
coughed at all. But with every word he uttered, Mrs. Damerel became more
convinced of something unusual in his state of mind; he could not keep
still, and, in trying to put himself at ease, assumed strange postures.
‘When did you hear from Winifred?’ she asked.
‘Yesterday--no, the day before.’
He shrank from her scrutiny, and an expression of annoyance began to
disturb his features. Mrs. Damerel knew well enough the significance
of that particular look; it meant the irritation of his self-will, the
summoning of forces to resist something he disliked.
‘There has been no difference between you, I hope?’
‘No--oh no,’ Horace replied, wriggling under her look.
At that moment a servant opened the door.
‘Two ladies have called in a carriage, sir, and would like to see you.’
‘I’ll go down. Excuse me for a moment, aunt.’
‘Who are they, Horace?’ asked Mrs. Damerel, rising with an ill-concealed
look of dismay.
‘Some friends I have made here. I’ll just go and speak to them.’
He hurried away. No sooner was he gone than Mrs. Damerel sprang to the
window, where she could look down upon the carriage standing before the
house; it was open, and in it sat two ladies, one middle-aged, the other
much younger. To her vexation she could not, from this distance, clearly
discern their faces; but on glancing rapidly round the room, she saw
Horace’s little binocular. An instant brought it into focus upon the
carriage, and what she then saw gave Mrs. Damerel such a shock, that an
exclamation escaped her. Still she gazed through the glasses, and only
turned away when the vehicle drove on.
Horace came up flushed and panting.
‘It’s all right. They wanted me to go for a drive, but I explained--’
He saw the binocular in Mrs. Damerel’s hand, and at the same moment read
detection on her countenance. She gazed at him; he answered the look
with lowering challenge.
‘Horace, that was Fanny French.’
‘So it was, aunt.’
‘What is going on between you?’
The young man took a seat on the edge of the table, and swung his leg.
He looked suddenly obstinate.
‘We met by accident--here--the other day.’
‘How can I believe that, Horace?’ said Mrs. Damerel, in a voice of soft
reproach. And she drew near to him. ‘Be truthful with me, dear. Do tell
me the truth!--Is she anything to you?’
‘I have told you the truth, aunt. She came here, as I have done, for her
health. I haven’t seen her for two years.’
‘And you don’t wish to renew acquaintance with her,--I’m sure you
don’t.’
He looked away, and said nothing.
‘My dear, do you know her character?’
‘What about her?’
The tone was startling, but Mrs. Damerel kept firm, though agitated.
‘She has led the most disgraceful life. I heard about her half a year
after she ran away, but of course I wouldn’t tell you such painful
things.’
Horace reddened with anger.
‘And who is to blame for it?’ he cried passionately. ‘Who drove her to
it?’
‘Oh, don’t, don’t come back to that again, Horace!’ pleaded the other.
‘How can any one drive a girl into a life of scandalous immorality? It
was in herself, dear. She took to it naturally, as so many women do.
Remember that letter she wrote from Brussels, which I sent you a copy
of--’
‘It was a forgery!’ thundered Horace. ‘I have asked her. She says she
never wrote any such letter.’
‘Then she lies, as such creatures always do.’
Bitterness of apprehension overcame Mrs. Damerel’s prudence. With
flashing eyes, she faced the young man and dared his wrath. As they
stood thus, the two were astonishingly like each other, from forehead to
chin.
‘It’s no use, I’m not going to quarrel with you, aunt. Think what you
like of Miss. French, _I_ know the truth about her.’
He slipped from the table, and moved away.
‘I will say no more, Horace. You are independent, and must have your own
acquaintances. But after you are married--’
The other voice interrupted.
‘I had better tell you at once. I shall not marry Miss. Chittle. I am
going to write this afternoon to break it off.’
Mrs. Damerel went pale, and stood motionless.
‘Horace, you can’t be so wicked as that!’
‘It’s better,’ he pursued recklessly, ‘to break it off now, than to
marry her and make her miserable. I don’t love her, and I have never
really thought I did. I was going to marry her only for her money.
Why she wants to marry me, I don’t know. There’s something wrong; she
doesn’t really care for me.’
‘She does! I assure you she does!’
‘Then I can’t help it.’
Mrs. Damerel went close to him, and touched his arm.
‘My dear,’--her voice was so low that it seemed terror-stricken,--‘you
don’t mean to marry--any one else?’
He drew apart, she followed him.
‘Oh, that would be terrible! What can I say to open your eyes and show
you what you are doing? Horace, have you no sense of honour? Can you
find it in your heart to cast off a girl who loves you, and thinks that
in so short a time she will be your wife?’
‘This again is your fault,’ he replied, with a violence which proved the
conflict of emotions in him. ‘But for you, I should never have proposed
to Winifred--never dreamt of such a thing. What do I want with her
money? I have enough of my own, and I shall make more in business. Why
have you driven me into this? Did you expect to get some profit out of
it?’
The blow struck home, and Mrs. Damerel flinched.
‘I had your happiness in view, my dear.’
‘My happiness! that’s your view of things; that’s why I couldn’t really
like you, from the first. You think of nothing but money. Why you
objected to Fanny French at first was because you wished me to marry
some one richer. I don’t thank you for that kind of happiness; I had
rather marry a woman I can love.’
‘And you can love such a creature as that?’
Again she lost her self-command; the mere thought of Fanny’s possible
triumph exasperated her.
‘I won’t hear her abused,’ cried Horace, with answering passion. ‘You
are the last person who ought to do it. Comparing her and you, I can’t
help saying--’
An exclamation of pain checked his random words; he looked at Mrs.
Damerel, and saw her features wrung with anguish.
‘You mustn’t speak to me like that!’ Once more she approached him. ‘If
you only knew--I can’t bear it--I’ve always been a worldly woman, but
you are breaking my heart, Horace! My dear, my dear, if only out of pity
for me--’
‘Why should I pity you?’ he cried impatiently.
‘Because--Horace--give me your hand, dear; let me tell you something.--I
am your mother.’
She sobbed and choked, clinging to his arm, resting her forehead against
it. The young man, stricken with amazement, stared at her, speechless.
‘I am your own mother, dear,’ she went on, in a quivering voice. ‘Your
mother and Nancy’s. And neither of you can love me.’
‘How can that be?’ Horace asked, with genuine perplexity. ‘How could you
have married some one else?’
She passed an arm about his neck, and hid her face against him.
‘I left your father--and he made me free to marry again.’
‘You were divorced?’
Horace did not mean to speak brutally; in his wonderment he merely
pressed for a complete explanation. The answer was a sob, and for some
moments neither of them spoke. Then the mother, her face still hidden,
went on in a thick voice:
‘I married because I was poor--for no other reason--and then came the
temptation. I behaved wickedly, I deserted my little children. Don’t
revenge yourself upon me now, darling! If only I could have told you
this before--I did so want to, but I was afraid. I had to conceal half
my love for you. You can’t imagine how I have suffered from your anger,
and from Nancy’s coldness. You don’t know me; I have never been able
to let you see what I really think and feel. I am worldly; I can’t live
without luxuries and society and amusements; but I love you, my dear
son, and it will break my heart if you ruin yourself. It’s true I
thought of Winifred’s money, but she is very fond of you, Horace; her
mother has told me she is. And it was because of my own position. I have
spent nearly all my husband left me; it wasn’t enough to supply me
with an income; I could only hope that something--that you, dear, would
forgive your poor mother, and help her. If you cast me off, what shall I
do?’
There was a silence. Then the young man spoke gravely:
‘You are welcome, mother, to half my income. But you must leave me free
to marry as I like.’
‘Then I can’t take a penny from you,’ she answered, weeping. ‘If you
ruin yourself, you ruin me as well.’
‘The ruin would come if I married Winifred. I love Fanny; I love her
with all my heart and soul, and have never ceased to love her. Tell me
what you like about her, it will make no difference.’
A fit of violent coughing stopped his speech; he turned away, and stood
by the window, holding his handkerchief to his mouth.
Mrs. Damerel sank upon a chair in mute misery.
CHAPTER 3
Below the hill at Harrow, in a byway which has no charm but that of
quietness, stands a row of small plain houses, built not long ago,
yet at a time when small houses were constructed with some regard for
soundness and durability. Each contains six rooms, has a little strip
of garden in the rear, and is, or was in 1889, let at a rent of
six-and-twenty pounds. The house at the far end of the row (as the
inhabitants described it) was then tenanted by Mary Woodruff, and with
her, as a lodger, lived Mrs. Tarrant.
As a lodger, seeing that she paid a specified weekly sum for her shelter
and maintenance; in no other respect could the wretched title apply to
her. To occupy furnished lodgings, is to live in a house owned and ruled
by servants; the least tolerable status known to civilisation. From her
long experience at Falmouth, Nancy knew enough of the petty miseries
attendant upon that condition to think of it with dread when the stress
of heroic crisis compelled her speedy departure from the old home. It is
seldom that heroic crisis bears the precise consequence presumed by
the actors in it; supreme moments are wont to result in some form
of compromise. So Nancy, prepared to go forth into the wilderness of
landladies, babe in arm, found that so dreary a self-sacrifice neither
was exacted of her, nor would indeed be permitted; she had to reckon
with Mary Woodruff. Mary, thanks to her old master, enjoyed an
income more than sufficient to her needs; if Nancy must needs go into
lodgings,--inevitable, perhaps, as matters stood,--her friend was ready
with kind and practical suggestion; to wit, that she should take and
furnish a house for herself, and place a portion of it at Mrs. Tarrant’s
disposal. To this even Tarrant could offer no objection; he stipulated
only that his wife should find a temporary refuge from the home she had
occupied on false pretences until Mary had her new house in readiness.
This was managed without difficulty. Nancy went to Dulwich, and for
several weeks dwelt with the honest woman who took care of her child.
Of the dealings between Nancy and her legal guardians Tarrant learned
nothing, save the bare fact that her marriage was avowed, and all
benefit under her father’s will renounced. He did not visit the house
at Dulwich, and only saw his child after the removal to Harrow. On this
occasion he asked Nancy what arrangements had been made concerning the
money that must be reimbursed to the Messrs Barmby; she replied that
justice would be done, but the affair was hers alone, and to her must be
left.
Tarrant himself suggested the neighbourhood of Harrow for Nancy’s abode.
It united the conditions of being remote from Camberwell, of lying
beyond the great smoke-area, and of permitting him, poor as he was, to
visit his wife whenever he thought fit.
In December, Nancy had lived thus for all but a twelvemonth, seeing the
while none of her old acquaintances, and with very little news from her
old world. What she heard came through Horace, who, after learning
with astonishment the secret in his sister’s life, came by degrees to
something like the old terms of affection with her, and went over to
Harrow pretty frequently. Of his engagement to Winifred Chittle he at
once informed Nancy, who tried to be glad of it, but could have little
faith in anything traceable to the influence of Mrs. Damerel. With
that lady the Harrow household had no direct communication; Tarrant had
written to her on the night of crisis, civilly requesting her to keep
aloof, as her advice and assistance were in nowise needed. She answered
him with good temper, and wrote kindly to Nancy; after that, silence on
both sides.
It wanted a few days to Christmas; with nightfall had come a roaring
wind and sleety rain; the house-door was locked; within, lamps and fires
burned cheerily. At half-past six, Nancy--she occupied the two front
rooms--sat in her parlour, resting after the exertion of putting her
son to bed. To judge from her countenance, she was well and happy. The
furniture about her aimed at nothing but homely comfort; the pictures
and books, being beyond dispute her own, had come from Grove Lane.
Save when Tarrant was here, Nancy and Mary of course lived like friends
who share a house, eating together and generally sitting together.
During an hour or two each day the younger woman desired solitude, for a
reason understood by her companion, who then looked after the baby. This
present evening Nancy had proposed to spend alone; but, after sitting
idly for a few minutes, she opened the door and called Mary--just then
occupied in teaching a young servant how to iron.
‘I shall not write, after all,’ she said, when her friend came. ‘I’m too
tired. Bring your sewing, or your book, here.’
Mary was never talkative; Nancy kept a longer silence than usual.
‘How,’ she exclaimed at length, ‘do poor women with a lot of children
manage? It really is a mystery to me. Here am I with one baby, and with
the constant help of two people; yet he tires me out. Not a troublesome
baby, either; healthy and good-tempered. Yet the thought and anxiety and
downright hard labour for a good twelve hours out of the twenty-four! I
feel that a second child would be too much for me.’
She laughed, but looked seriously for the reply.
‘Poor mothers,’ said Mary, ‘can’t give the same care to their children
that you give to baby. The little ones grow up, or they don’t grow
up--that’s what it comes to.’
‘Yes; that is to say, only the fit survive. A very good thing--when
other people’s children are in question. But I should kill myself in
taking care of them, if I had a large family.’
‘I have known mothers who did,’ Mary remarked.
‘It comes to this. Nature doesn’t intend a married woman to be anything
_but_ a married woman. In the natural state of things, she must either
be the slave of husband and children, or defy her duty. She can have no
time to herself, no thoughts for herself. It’s a hard saying, but who
can doubt that it is Nature’s law? I should like to revolt against it,
yet I feel revolt to be silly. One might as well revolt against being
born a woman instead of a man.’
Mary reflected, but held her peace.
‘Then comes in money,’ pursued Nancy, ‘and that alters the state of the
case at once. The wife with money says to people: Come here, and be
my slaves. Toil for me, whilst I am enjoying myself in ways that Dame
Nature wouldn’t allow. I want to read, to play music, to see my friends,
to see the world. Unless you will slave for me, I can’t budge from
nursery and kitchen.--Isn’t it a queer thing?’
The less sophisticated woman had a difficulty in catching Nancy’s point
of view. She began to argue that domestic service was no slavery.
‘But it _comes_ to that,’ Nancy insisted. ‘And what I mean is, that the
thought has made me far more contented than I was at first. After all,
one can put up with a great deal, if you feel you’re obeying a law of
Nature. Now, I have brains, and I should like to use them; but Nature
says that’s not so important as bringing up the little child to whom I
have given life. One thought that troubles me is, that every generation
of women is sacrificed to the generation that follows; and of course
that’s why women are so inferior to men. But then again, Nature says
that women are born _only_ to be sacrificed. I always come round to
that. I don’t like it, but I am bound to believe it.’
‘Children grow up,’ said Mary, ‘and then mothers are free.’
‘Free to do what? To think of what they _might_ have done in the best
years of their life.’
It was not said discontentedly; Nancy’s mood seemed to be singularly
calm and philosophical. She propped her chin on her hand, and gazed at
the fire.
‘Well,’ remarked Mary, with a smile, ‘you, at all events, are not one of
the poorest women. All seems to be going well, and you will be able, I
am sure, to get all the help you need.’
‘Perhaps. But I shall never feel quiet in my conscience. I shall feel
as if I had defeated Nature by a trick, and fear that she’ll somehow be
revenged on me.’
This was quite beyond Mary’s scope of thought, and she frankly said so.
‘One thing I’m quite sure of, Nancy,’ she added, ‘and that is, that
education makes life very much harder to live. That’s why I don’t
hold with educating the poor--not beyond reading and writing. Without
education, life is very plain, though it may be a struggle. But from
what I have seen of highly-taught people, I’m very sure they suffer
worse in their minds than the poor ever do in their bodies.’
Nancy interrupted her.
‘Hush! Was that baby?’
‘Only the wind, I think.’
Not content, Nancy went to the foot of the stairs. Whilst she stood
there listening, Mary came out, and said in a low voice:
‘There’s a tap at the window.’
‘No!--You must have been mistaken.’
‘I’m sure it was a tap on the glass.’
She withdrew to the back sitting-room, and Nancy, with quick step, went
to open the house-door. A great gust of wind forced it against her as
soon as she turned the handle; standing firm, she peeped into darkness.
‘Any one there?’
‘No enemy but winter and rough weather,’ chanted a familiar voice.
‘Why, what brings you here, frightening lone women at this time of
night? Shut and lock the door for me. The house will be blown out of the
windows.’
Nancy retreated to her parlour, and stood there in an attitude of joyous
expectation. Without hurry Tarrant hung up his coat and hat in the
passage, then came forward, wiping rain from his moustache. Their eyes
met in a smile, frank and confident.
‘Why have you come, Lionel?’
‘No reason in particular. The fancy took me. Am I unwelcome?’
For answer, his wife’s arms were thrown about him. A lovers’ meeting,
with more of tenderness, and scarcely less of warmth, than when Nancy
knocked at the door in Staple Inn.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Only for what you have given me.’
‘Some tea, then, after that wretched journey.’
‘No. How’s the boy?’
He drew her upon his knee, and listened laughingly whilst the newest
marvels of babyhood were laughingly related.
‘Anything from Horace?’
‘Not a word. He must be in London now; I shall write tomorrow.’
Tarrant nodded carelessly. He had the smallest interest in his wife’s
brother, but could not help satisfaction in the thought that Horace
was to be reputably, and even brilliantly, married. From all he knew
of Horace, the probability had seemed that his marriage would be some
culmination of folly.
‘I think you have something to tell me,’ Nancy said presently, when her
hand had been fondled for a minute or two.
‘Nothing much, but good as far as it goes. Bunbury has asked me to write
him an article every week for the first six months of ‘90. Column and a
half, at two guineas a column.’
‘Three guineas a week.’
‘O rare head!’
‘So there’s no anxiety for the first half of next year, at all events,’
said Nancy, with a sigh of relief.
‘I think I can count on a margin of fifty pounds or so by
midsummer--towards the debt, of course.’
Nancy bit her lip in vexation, but neither made nor wished to make any
protest. Only a week or two ago, since entering upon his patrimony,
Horace Lord had advanced the sum necessary to repay what Nancy owed to
the Barmbys. However rich Horace was going to be, this debt to him must
be cancelled. On that, as on most other points, Tarrant and his wife
held a firm agreement of opinion. Yet they wanted money; the past year
had been a time of struggle to make ends meet. Neither was naturally
disposed to asceticism, and if they did not grumble it was only because
grumbling would have been undignified.
‘Did you dine with the great people on Thursday?’ Nancy asked.
‘Yes, and rather enjoyed it. There were one or two clever women.’
‘Been anywhere else?’
‘An hour at a smoking-concert the other evening. Pippit, the actor,
was there, and recited a piece much better than I ever heard him speak
anything on the stage. They told me he was drunk; very possibly that
accounted for it.’
To a number of such details Nancy listened quietly, with bent head. She
had learned to put absolute faith in all that Tarrant told her of his
quasi-bachelor life; she suspected no concealment; but the monotony of
her own days lay heavy upon her whilst he talked.
‘Won’t you smoke?’ she asked, rising from his knee to fetch the pipe and
tobacco-jar kept for him upon a shelf. Slippers also she brought him,
and would have unlaced his muddy boots had Tarrant permitted it. When
he presented a picture of masculine comfort, Nancy, sitting opposite,
cautiously approached a subject of which as yet there had been no word
between them.
‘Oughtn’t you to get more comfortable lodgings?’
‘Oh, I do very well. I’m accustomed to the place, and I like the
situation.’
He had kept his room in Great College Street, though often obliged to
scant his meals as the weekly rent-day approached.
‘Don’t you think we might make some better--some more economical
arrangement?’
‘How?’
Nancy took courage, and spoke her thoughts.
‘It’s more expensive to live separately than if we were together.’
Tarrant seemed to give the point his impartial consideration.
‘H’m--no, I think not. Certainly not, with our present arrangements. And
even if it were we pay for your comfort, and my liberty.’
‘Couldn’t you have as much liberty if we were living under the same
roof? Of course I know that you couldn’t live out here; it would put
a stop to your work at once. But suppose we moved. Mary might take a
rather larger house--it needn’t be much larger--in a part convenient
for you. We should be able to pay her enough to set off against her
increased expenses.’
Smoking calmly, Tarrant shook his head.
‘Impracticable. Do you mean that this place is too dull for you?’
‘It isn’t lively, but I wasn’t thinking of the place. If _you_ lived
here, it would be all I should wish.’
‘That sounds so prettily from your lips, Nancy, that I’m half ashamed
to contradict it. But the truth is that you can only say such things
because we live apart. Don’t deceive yourself. With a little more money,
this life of ours would be as nearly perfect as married life ever can
be.’
Nancy remembered a previous occasion when he spoke to the same purpose.
But it was in the time she did not like to think of, and in spite of
herself the recollection troubled her.
‘You must have more variety,’ he added. ‘Next year you shall come into
town much oftener--’
‘I’m not thinking of that. I always like going anywhere with you; but I
have plenty of occupations and pleasures at home.--I think we ought to
be under the same roof.’
‘Ought? Because Mrs. Tomkins would cry _haro_! if her husband the
greengrocer wasn’t at her elbow day and night?’
‘Have more patience with me. I didn’t mean _ought_ in the vulgar
sense--I have as little respect for Mrs. Tomkins as you have. I don’t
want to interfere with your liberty for a moment; indeed it would be
very foolish, for I know that it would make you detest me. But I so
often want to speak to you--and--and then, I can’t quite feel that you
acknowledge me as your wife so long as I am away.’
Tarrant nodded.
‘I quite understand. The social difficulty. Well, there’s no doubt it is
a difficulty; I feel it on your account. I wish it were possible for
you to be invited wherever I am. Some day it will be, if I don’t get run
over in the Strand; but--’
‘I should like the invitations,’ Nancy broke in, ‘but you still don’t
understand me.’
‘Yes, I think I do. You are a woman, and it’s quite impossible for a
woman to see this matter as a man does. Nancy, there is not one wife in
fifty thousand who retains her husband’s love after the first year of
marriage. Put aside the fools and the worthless; think only of women
with whom you might be compared--brave, sensible, pure-hearted; they can
win love, but don’t know how to keep it.’
‘Why not put it the other way about, and say that men can love to begin
with, but so soon grow careless?’
‘Because I am myself an instance to the contrary.’
Nancy smiled, but was not satisfied.
‘The only married people,’ Tarrant pursued, ‘who can live together with
impunity, are those who are rich enough, and sensible enough, to have
two distinct establishments under the same roof. The ordinary eight or
ten-roomed house, inhabited by decent middle-class folk, is a gruesome
sight. What a huddlement of male and female! They are factories of
quarrel and hate--those respectable, brass-curtain-rodded sties--they
are full of things that won’t bear mentioning. If our income never rises
above that, we shall live to the end of our days as we do now.’
Nancy looked appalled.
‘But how can you hope to make thousands a year?’
‘I have no such hope; hundreds would be sufficient. I don’t aim at a
house in London; everything there is intolerable, except the fine old
houses which have a history, and which I could never afford. For
my home, I want to find some rambling old place among hills and
woods,--some house where generations have lived and died,--where my boy,
as he grows up, may learn to love the old and beautiful things about
him. I myself never had a home; most London children don’t know what is
meant by home; their houses are only more or less comfortable lodgings,
perpetual change within and without.’
‘Your thoughts are wonderfully like my father’s, sometimes,’ said Nancy.
‘From what you have told me of him, I think we should have agreed in a
good many things.’
‘And how unfortunate we were! If he had recovered from that illness,--if
he had lived only a few months,--everything would have been made easy.’
‘For me altogether too easy,’ Tarrant observed.
‘It has been a good thing for you to have to work,’ Nancy assented. ‘I
understand the change for the better in you. But’--she smiled--‘you have
more self-will than you used to have.’
‘That’s just where I have gained.--But don’t think that I find it easy
or pleasant to resist your wish. I couldn’t do it if I were not so sure
that I am acting for your advantage as well as my own. A man who finds
himself married to a fool, is a fool himself if he doesn’t take his own
course regardless of his wife. But I am in a very different position;
I love you more and more, Nancy, because I am learning more and more to
respect you; I think of your happiness most assuredly as much as I think
of my own. But even if my own good weighed as nothing against yours, I
should be wise to resist you just as I do now. Hugger-mugger marriage is
a defilement and a curse. We know it from the experience of the world
at large,--which is perhaps more brutalised by marriage than by anything
else.--No need to test the thing once more, to our own disaster.’
‘What I think is, that, though you pay me compliments, you really have
a very poor opinion of me. You think I should burden and worry you in
endless silly ways. I am not such a simpleton. In however small a house,
there could be your rooms and mine. Do you suppose I should interfere
with your freedom in coming and going?’
‘Whether you meant to or not, you would--so long as we are struggling
with poverty. However self-willed I am, I am not selfish; and to see you
living a monotonous, imprisoned life would be a serious hindrance to me
in my own living and working. Of course the fact is so at present, and
I often enough think in a troubled way about you; but you are out of my
sight, and that enables me to keep you out of mind. If I am away from
home till one or two in the morning, there is no lonely wife fretting
and wondering about me. For work such as mine, I must live as though I
were not married at all.’
‘But suppose we got out of our poverty,’ urged Nancy, ‘you would be
living the same life, I suppose; and how would it be any better for you
or me that we had a large house instead of a small one?’
‘Your position will be totally changed. When money comes, friends come.
You are not hiding away from Society because you are unfit for it, only
because you can’t live as your social equals do. When you have friends
of your own, social engagements, interests on every hand, I shall
be able to go my own way without a pang of conscience. When we come
together, it will be to talk of your affairs as well as of mine. Living
as you do now, you have nothing on earth but the baby to think about--a
miserable state of things for a woman with a mind. I know it is
miserable, and I’m struggling tooth and nail to help you out of it.’
Nancy sighed.
‘Then there are years of it still before me.’
‘Heaven forbid! Some years, no doubt, before we shall have a home; but
not before I can bring you in contact with the kind of people you ought
to know. You shall have a decent house--socially possible--somewhere out
west; and I, of course, shall still go on in lodgings.’
He waited for Nancy’s reply, but she kept silence.
‘You are still dissatisfied?’
She looked up, and commanded her features to the expression which makes
whatever woman lovely--that of rational acquiescence. On the faces of
most women such look is never seen.
‘No, I am content. You are working hard, and I won’t make it harder for
you.’
‘Speak always like that!’ Tarrant’s face was radiant. ‘That’s the kind
of thing that binds man to woman, body and soul. With the memory of that
look and speech, would it be possible for me to slight you in my life
apart? It makes you my friend; and the word friend is better to my ear
than wife. A man’s wife is more often than not his enemy. Harvey Munden
was telling me of a poor devil of an author who daren’t be out after ten
at night because of the fool-fury waiting for him at home.’
Nancy laughed.
‘I suppose she can’t trust him.’
‘And suppose she can’t? What is the value of nominal fidelity, secured
by mutual degradation such as that? A rational woman would infinitely
rather have a husband who was often unfaithful to her than keep him
faithful by such means. Husband and wife should interfere with each
other not a jot more than two friends of the same sex living together.
If a man, under such circumstances, worried his friend’s life out
by petty prying, he would get his head punched. A wife has no more
justification in worrying her husband with jealousies.’
‘How if it were the wife that excited suspicion?’ asked Nancy.
‘Infidelity in a woman is much worse than in a man. If a man really
suspects his wife, he must leave her, that’s all; then let her justify
herself if she can.’
Nancy cared little to discuss this point. In argument with any one else,
she would doubtless have maintained the equality of man and woman before
the moral law; but that would only have been in order to prove herself
modern-spirited. Tarrant’s dictum did not revolt her.
‘Friends are equals,’ she said, after a little thought. ‘But you don’t
think me your equal, and you won’t be satisfied with me unless I follow
your guidance.’
Tarrant laughed kindly.
‘True, I am your superior in force of mind and force of body. Don’t you
like to hear that? Doesn’t it do you good--when you think of the maudlin
humbug generally talked by men to women? We can’t afford to disguise
that truth. All the same, we are friends, because each has the other’s
interest at heart, and each would be ashamed to doubt the other’s
loyalty.’
The latter part of the evening they spent with Mary, in whom Tarrant
always found something new to admire. He regarded her as the most
wonderful phenomenon in nature--an uneducated woman who was neither
vulgar nor foolish.
Baby slept in a cot beside Nancy’s bed. For fear of waking him, the
wedded lovers entered their room very softly, with a shaded candle.
Tarrant looked at the curly little head, the little clenched hand, and
gave a silent laugh of pleasure.
On the breakfast-table next morning lay a letter from Horace. As soon
as she had opened it, Nancy uttered an exclamation which prepared her
companion for ill news.
‘Just what I expected--though I tried not to think so. “I write aline
only to tell you that my marriage is broken off. You will know the
explanation before long. Don’t trouble yourself about it. I should never
have been happy with Winifred, nor she with me. We may not see each
other for some time, but I will write again soon.” He doesn’t say
whether he or she broke it off. I hope it was Winifred.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Tarrant, ‘from the tone of that letter.’
‘I’m afraid not, too. It means something wretched. He writes from his
London lodgings. Lionel, let me go back with you, and see him.’
‘By all means.’
Her gravest fear Nancy would not communicate. And it hit the truth.
CHAPTER 4
They parted at Baker Street, Tarrant for his lodgings and the work that
awaited him there, Nancy to go westward by another train.
When she reached the house from which her brother had dated his letter,
it was half-past ten. At the door stood a cab, and a servant was helping
the driver to hoist a big trunk on to the top.
‘Is Mr. Lord still here?’ Nancy asked of the girl.
‘He’s just this minute a-goin’, miss. This is his luggage.’
She sent her name, and was quickly led up to the first floor. There
stood Horace, ready for departure.
‘Why have you come?’ he asked, with annoyance.
‘What else could I do on hearing such news?’
‘I told you I should write again, and I said plainly that it was better
we shouldn’t see each other for some time.--Why will people pester me
out of my life?--I’m not a child to be hunted like this!’
On the instant, he had fallen into a state of excitement which alarmed
his sister. There were drops of sweat on his forehead, and tears in his
eyes; the blood had rushed to his cheeks, and he trembled violently.
‘I am so troubled about you,’ said Nancy, with anxious tenderness. ‘I
have been looking forward with such hope to your marriage,--and now--’
‘I can’t tell you anything about it just now. It was all Mrs. Damerel’s
doing; the engagement, I mean. It’s a good thing I drew back in
time.--But I have a train to catch; I really mustn’t stay talking.’
‘Are you going far, Horace?’
‘To Bournemouth again,--for the present. I’ve given up these rooms, and
I’m taking all my things away. In a month or two I may go abroad; but
I’ll let you know.’
Already he was out of the room; his sister had no choice but to
follow him downstairs. He looked so ill, and behaved with such lack
of self-restraint, that Nancy kept her eyes upon him in an awestricken
gaze, as though watching some one on the headlong way to destruction.
Pouring rain obliged her to put up her umbrella as she stepped down
on to the pavement. Horace, having shouted a direction to the driver,
entered the cab.
‘You haven’t even shaken hands with me, Horace,’ Nancy exclaimed,
standing at the window.
‘Good-bye, dear; good-bye! You shouldn’t have come in weather such as
this. Get home as fast as you can. Good-bye!--Tell the fellow to drive
sharp.’
And the cab clattered away, sending spurts of mud on to Nancy’s
waterproof.
She walked on for a few paces without reflection, until the vehicle
disappeared round a corner. Coming to herself, she made for the railway
again, which was at only a few minutes’ distance, and there she sat down
by the fire in the waiting-room. Her health for the last year had been
sound as in the days of girlhood; it was rarely that she caught cold,
and weather would have been indifferent to her but for the discomfort
which hindered her free movement.
Vexed at so futile a journey, she resolved not to return home without
making another effort to learn something about Horace. The only person
to whom she could apply was the one who would certainly be possessed of
information,--Mrs. Damerel. At the time of Horace’s engagement, Nancy
had heard from Mrs. Damerel, and replied to the letter; she remembered
her aunt’s address, and as the distance was not great, the temptation to
go there now proved irresistible. Her husband would dislike to hear of
such a step, but he had never forbidden communication with Mrs. Damerel.
By help of train and omnibus she reached her new destination in
half-an-hour, and felt a relief on learning that Mrs. Damerel was at
home. But it surprised her to be conducted into a room where lamps were
burning, and blinds drawn close; she passed suddenly from cheerless day
to cosy evening. Mrs. Damerel, negligently attired, received her with a
show of warm welcome, but appeared nervous and out of spirits.
‘I am not very well,’ she admitted, ‘and that’s why I have shut out the
dreadful weather. Isn’t it the most sensible way of getting through the
worst of a London winter? To pretend that there is daylight is quite
ridiculous, so one may as well have the comforts of night.’
‘I have come to speak about Horace,’ said Nancy, at once. In any case,
she would have felt embarrassment, and it was increased by the look
with which Mrs. Damerel kept regarding her,--a look of confusion, of
shrinking, of intense and painful scrutiny.
‘You know what has happened?’
‘I had a letter from him this morning, to say that his marriage was
broken off--nothing else. So I came over from Harrow to see him. But
he had hardly a minute to speak to me. He was just starting for
Bournemouth.’
‘And what did he tell you?’ asked Mrs. Damerel, who remained
standing,--or rather had risen, after a pretence of seating herself.
‘Nothing at all. He was very strange in his manner. He said he would
write.’
‘You know that he is seriously ill?’
‘I am afraid he must be.’
‘He has grown much worse during the last fortnight. Don’t you suspect
any reason for his throwing off poor Winifred?’
‘I wondered whether he had met that girl again. But it seemed very
unlikely.’
‘He has. She was at Bournemouth for her health. She, too, is ill;
consumptive, like poor Horace,--of course a result of the life she has
been leading. And he is going to marry her.’Nancy’s heart sank. She
could say nothing. She remembered Horace’s face, and saw in him the
victim of ruthless destiny.
‘I have done my utmost. He didn’t speak of me?’
‘Only to say that his engagement with Winifred was brought about by
you.’
‘And wasn’t I justified? If the poor boy must die, he would at least
have died with friends about him, and in peace. I always feared just
what has happened. It’s only a few months ago that he forgave me for
being, as he thought, the cause of that girl’s ruin; and since then
I have hardly dared to lose sight of him. I went down to Bournemouth
unexpectedly, and was with him when that creature came to the door in a
carriage. You haven’t seen her. She looks what she is, the vilest of the
vile. As if any one can be held responsible for that! She was born to be
what she is. And if I had the power, I would crush out her hateful life
to save poor Horace!’
Nancy, though at one with the speaker in her hatred of Fanny French,
found it as difficult as ever to feel sympathetically towards Mrs.
Damerel. She could not credit this worldly woman with genuine affection
for Horace; the vehemence of her speech surprised and troubled her, she
knew not how.
‘He said nothing more about me?’ added Mrs. Damerel, after a silence.
‘Nothing at all.’
It seemed to Nancy that she heard a sigh of relief. The other’s face was
turned away. Then Mrs. Damerel took a seat by the fire.
‘They will be married to-morrow, I dare say, at Bournemouth--no use
trying to prevent it. I don’t know whether you will believe me, but it
is a blow that will darken the rest of my life.’
Her voice sounded slightly hoarse, and she lay back in the chair, with
drooping head.
‘You have nothing to reproach yourself with,’ said Nancy, yielding to a
vague and troublous pity. ‘And you have done as much as any one could on
his behalf.’
‘I shall never see him again--that’s the hardest thought. She will
poison him against me. He told me I had lied to him about a letter
that girl wrote from Brussels; she has made him think her a spotless
innocent, and he hates me for the truth I told about her.’
‘However short his life,’ said Nancy, ‘he is only too likely to find out
what she really is.’
‘I am not sure of that. She knows he is doomed, and it’s her interest to
play a part. He will die thinking the worst of me.--Nancy, if he writes
to you, and says anything against me, you will remember what it means?’
‘My opinion of people is not affected by hearsay,’ Nancy replied.
It was a remark of dubious significance, and Mrs. Damerel’s averted
eyes seemed to show that she derived little satisfaction from it. As the
silence was unbroken, Nancy rose.
‘I hope you will soon get rid of your cold.’
‘Thank you, my dear. I haven’t asked how the little boy is. Well, I
hope?’
‘Very well, I am glad to say.’
‘And your husband--he is prospering?’
‘I shouldn’t like to say he is prospering; it seems to mean so much; but
I think he is doing good work, and we are satisfied with the results.’
‘My dear, you are an admirable wife.’
Nancy coloured; for the first time, a remark of Mrs. Damerel’s had given
her pleasure. She moved forward with hand offered for leave-taking.
They had never kissed each other, but, as if overcoming diffidence, Mrs.
Damerel advanced her lips; then, as suddenly, she drew back.
‘I had forgotten. I may give you my sore throat.’
Nancy kissed her cheek.
That night Mrs. Damerel was feverish, and the next day she kept her
bed. The servant who waited upon her had to endure a good many sharp
reproofs; trouble did not sweeten this lady’s temper, yet she never lost
sight of self-respect, and even proved herself capable of acknowledging
that she was in the wrong. Mrs. Damerel possessed the elements of
civilisation.
This illness tried her patience in no slight degree. Something she had
wished to do, something of high moment, was vexatiously postponed. A
whole week went by before she could safely leave the house, and even
then her mirror counselled a new delay. But on the third day of the new
year she made a careful toilette, and sent for a cab,--the brougham she
had been wont to hire being now beyond her means.
She drove to Farringdon Street, and climbed to the office of Mr
Luckworth Crewe. Her knowledge of Crewe’s habits enabled her to choose
the fitting hour for this call; he had lunched, and was smoking a cigar.
‘How delightful to see you here!’ he exclaimed. ‘But why did you trouble
to come? If you had written, or telegraphed, I would have saved you the
journey. I haven’t even a chair that’s fit for you to sit down on.’
‘What nonsense! It’s a most comfortable little room. Haven’t you
improved it since I called?’
‘I shall have to look out for a bigger place. I’m outgrowing this.’
‘Are you really? That’s excellent news. Ah, but what sad things have
been happening!’
‘It’s a bad business,’ Crewe answered, shaking his head.
‘I thought I should have heard from you about it.’
The reason of his silence she perfectly understood. Since Horace’s
engagement, there had been a marked change in her demeanour towards the
man of business; she had answered his one or two letters with such
cold formality, and, on the one occasion of his venturing to call, had
received him with so marked a reserve, that Crewe, as he expressed it
to himself, ‘got his back up.’ His ideas of chivalrous devotion were
anything but complex; he could not bend before a divinity who snubbed
him; if the once gracious lady chose to avert her countenance, he would
let her know that it didn’t matter much to him after all. Moreover,
Mrs. Damerel’s behaviour was too suggestive; he could hardly be wrong
in explaining it by the fact that her nephew, about to be enriched by
marriage, might henceforth be depended upon for all the assistance she
needed. This, in the Americanism which came naturally to Crewe’s lips,
was ‘playing it rather low down,’ and he resented it.
The sudden ruin of Horace Lord’s prospects (he had learnt the course of
events from Horace himself) amused and gratified him. How would the
high and mighty Mrs. Damerel relish this catastrophe? Would she have the
‘cheek’ to return to her old graciousness? If so, he had the game in
his hands; she should see that he was not to be made a fool of a second
time.
Yet the mere announcement of her name sufficed to shatter his resolve.
Her smile, her soft accents, her polished manners, laid the old spell
upon him. He sought to excuse himself for having forsaken her in her
trial.
‘It really floored me. I didn’t know what to say or do. I was afraid you
might think I was meddling with what didn’t concern me.’
‘Oh, how could I have thought that? It has made me ill; I have suffered
more than I can tell you.’
‘You don’t look quite the thing,’ said Crewe, searching her face.
‘Have you heard all?’
‘I think so. He is married, and that’s the end of it, I suppose.’
Mrs. Damerel winced at this blunt announcement.
‘When was it?’ she asked, in an undertone. ‘I only knew he had made up
his mind.’
Crewe mentioned the date; the day after Nancy’s call upon her.
‘And are they at Bournemouth?’
‘Yes. Will be for a month or so, he says.’
‘Well, we won’t talk of it. As you say, that’s the end. Nothing worse
could have happened. Has he been speaking of me again like he used to?’
‘I haven’t heard him mention your name.’
She heaved a sigh, and began to look round the office.
‘Let us try to forget, and talk of pleasanter things. It seems such a
long time since you told me anything about your business. You remember
how we used to gossip. I suppose I have been so absorbed in that poor
boy’s affairs; it made me selfish--I was so overjoyed, I really could
think of nothing else. And now--! But I must and will drive it out of my
mind. I have been moping at home, day after day, in wretched solitude. I
wanted to write to you, but I hadn’t the heart--scarcely the strength.
I kept hoping you might call--if only to ask how I was. Of course
everything had to be explained to inquisitive people--how I hate them
all! It’s the nature of the world to mock at misfortunes such as this.
It would really have done me good to speak for a few minutes with such a
friend as you--a real friend. I am going to live a quiet, retired life.
I am sick of the world, its falsity, and its malice, and its bitter,
bitter disappointments.’
Crewe’s native wit and rich store of experience availed him nothing when
Mrs. Damerel discoursed thus. The silvery accents flattered his ear,
and crept into the soft places of his nature. He felt as when a clever
actress in a pathetic part wrought upon him in the after-dinner mood.
‘You must bear up against it, Mrs. Damerel. And I don’t think a retired
life would suit you at all. You are made for Society.’
‘Don’t seek for compliments. I am speaking quite sincerely. Ah, those
were happy days that I spent at Whitsand! Tell me what you have been
doing. Is there any hope of the pier yet?’
‘Why, it’s as good as built!’ cried the other. ‘Didn’t you see the
advertisements, when we floated the company a month ago? I suppose you
don’t read that kind of thing. We shall begin at the works in early
spring.--Look here!’
He unrolled a large design, a coloured picture of Whitsand pier as it
already existed in his imagination. Not content with having the
mere structure exhibited, Crewe had persuaded the draughtsman to add
embellishments of a kind which, in days to come, would be his own
peculiar care; from end to end, the pier glowed with the placards of
advertisers. Below, on the sands, appeared bathing-machines, and
these also were covered with manifold advertisements. Nay, the very
pleasure-boats on the sunny waves declared the glory of somebody’s soap,
of somebody’s purgatives.
‘I’ll make that place one of the biggest advertising stations in
England--see if I don’t! You remember the caves? I’m going to have them
lighted with electricity, and painted all round with advertisements of
the most artistic kind.’
‘What a brilliant idea!’
‘There’s something else you might like to hear of. It struck me I would
write a Guide to Advertising, and here it is.’ He handed a copy of the
book. ‘It advertises _me_, and brings a little grist to the mill on
its own account. Three weeks since I got it out, and we’ve sold three
thousand of it. Costs nothing to print; the advertisements more than pay
for that. Price, one shilling.’
‘But how you do work, Mr. Crewe! It’s marvellous. And yet you look so
well,--you have really a seaside colour!’
‘I never ailed much since I can remember. The harder I work, the better
I feel.’
‘I, too, have always been rather proud of my constitution.’ Her eyes
dropped. ‘But then I have led a life of idleness. Couldn’t you make me
useful in some way? Set me to work! I am convinced I should be so much
happier. Let me help you, Mr. Crewe. I write a pretty fair hand, don’t
I?’
Crewe smiled at her, made a sound as if clearing his throat, grasped his
knee, and was on the very point of momentous utterance, when the door
opened. Turning his head impatiently, he saw, not the clerk whose duty
it was to announce people, but a lady, much younger than Mrs. Damerel,
and more fashionably dressed, who for some reason had preferred to
announce herself.
‘Why do you come in like that?’ Crewe demanded, staring at her. ‘I’m
engaged.’
‘Are you indeed?’
‘You ought to send in your name.
‘They said you had a lady here, so I told them another would make no
difference.--How do you do, Mrs. Damerel? It’s so long since I had the
pleasure of seeing you.’
Beatrice French stepped forward, smiling ominously, and eyeing first
Crewe then his companion with curiosity of the frankest impertinence.
Mrs. Damerel stood up.
‘We will speak of our business at another time, Mr. Crewe.’
Crewe, red with anger, turned upon Beatrice.
‘I tell you I am engaged--’
‘To Mrs. Damerel?’ asked the intruder airily.
‘You might suppose,’--he addressed the elder lady,--‘that this woman has
some sort of hold upon me--’
‘I’m sure I hope not,’ said Mrs. Damerel, ‘for your own sake.’
‘Nothing of the kind. She has pestered me a good deal, and it began in
this way.’
Beatrice gave him so fierce a look, that his tongue faltered.
‘Before you tell that little story,’ she interposed, ‘you had better
know what I’ve come about. It’s a queer thing that Mrs. Damerel should
be here; happens more conveniently than things generally do. I had
something to tell you about her. You may know it, but most likely you
don’t.--You remember,’ she faced the other listener, ‘when I came to see
you a long time ago, I said it might be worth while to find out who you
really were. I haven’t given much thought to you since then, but I’ve
got hold of what I wanted, as I knew I should.’
Crewe did not disguise his eagerness to hear the rest. Mrs. Damerel
stood like a statue of British respectability, deaf and blind to
everything that conflicts with good-breeding; stony-faced, she had set
her lips in the smile appropriate to one who is braving torture.
‘Do you know who she is--or not?’ Beatrice asked of Crewe.
He shuffled, and made no reply.
‘Fanny has just told me in a letter; she got it from her husband. Our
friend here is the mother of Horace Lord and of Nancy. She ran away
from her first husband, and was divorced. Whether she really married
afterwards, I don’t quite know; most likely not. At all events, she has
run through her money, and wants her son to set her up again.’
For a few seconds Mrs. Damerel bore the astonished gaze of her admirer,
then, her expression scarcely changing, she walked steadily to the door
and vanished. The silence was prolonged till broken by Beatrice’s laugh.
‘Has she been bamboozling you, old man? I didn’t know what was going on.
You had bad luck with the daughter; shouldn’t wonder if the mother would
suit you better, all said and done.’
Crewe seated himself and gave vent to his feelings in a phrase of pure
soliloquy: ‘Well, I’m damned!’
‘I cut in just at the right time, did I?--No malice. I’ve had my hit
back at her, and that’s enough.’
As the man of business remained absorbed in his thoughts, Beatrice took
a chair. Presently he looked up at her, and said savagely:
‘What the devil do you want?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then take it and go.’
But Beatrice smiled, and kept her seat.
CHAPTER 5
Nancy stood before her husband with a substantial packet in brown paper.
It was after breakfast, at the moment of their parting.
‘Here is something I want you to take, and look at, and speak about the
next time you come.’
‘Ho, ho! I don’t like the look of it.’ He felt the packet. ‘Several
quires of paper here.’
‘Be off, or you’ll miss the train.’
‘Poor little girl! _Et tu_!’
He kissed her affectionately, and went his way. In the ordinary
course of things Nancy would not have seen him again for ten days or a
fortnight. She expected a letter very soon, but on the fourth evening
Tarrant’s fingers tapped at the window-pane. In his hand was the brown
paper parcel, done up as when he received it.
Nancy searched his face, her own perturbed and pallid.
‘How long have you been working at this?’
‘Nearly a year. But not every day, of course. Sometimes for a week or
more I could get no time. You think it bad?’
‘No,’--puff--‘not in any sense’--puff--‘bad. In one sense, it’s good.
But’--puff--‘that’s a private sense; a domestic sense.’
‘The question is, dear, can it be sold to a publisher.’
‘The question is nothing of the kind. You mustn’t even try to sell it to
a publisher.’
‘Why not? You mean you would be ashamed if it came out. But I shouldn’t
put my own name to it. I have written it only in the hope of making
money, and so helping you. I’ll put any name to it you like.’
Tarrant smoked for a minute or two, until his companion gave a sign of
impatience. He wore a very good-humoured look.
‘It’s more than likely you might get the thing accepted--’
‘Oh, then why not?’ she interrupted eagerly, with bright eyes.
‘Because it isn’t literature, but a little bit of Nancy’s mind and
heart, not to be profaned by vulgar handling. To sell it for hard cash
would be horrible. Leave that to the poor creatures who have no choice.
You are not obliged to go into the market.’
‘But, Lionel, if it is a bit of my mind and heart, it must be a good
book. You have often praised books to me just on that account because
they were genuine.’
‘The books I praised were literature. Their authors came into the world
to write. It isn’t enough to be genuine; there must be workmanship. Here
and there you have a page of very decent English, and you are nowhere on
the level of the ordinary female novelist. Indeed--don’t take it ill--I
was surprised at what you had turned out. But--’
He finished the sentence in smoke wreaths.
‘Then I’ll try again. I’ll do better.’
‘Never _much_ better. It will never be literature.’
‘What does that matter? I never thought myself a Charlotte Bronte or a
George Eliot. But so many women make money out of novels, and as I
had spare time I didn’t see why I shouldn’t use it profitably. We want
money, and if it isn’t actually disgraceful--and if I don’t use my own
name--’
‘We don’t want money so badly as all that. I am writing, because I must
do something to live by, and I know of nothing else open to me except
pen-work. Whatever trash I turned out, I should be justified; as a man,
it’s my duty to join in the rough-and-tumble for more or less dirty
ha’pence. You, as a woman, have no such duty; nay, it’s your positive
duty to keep out of the beastly scrimmage.’
‘It seemed to me that I was _doing_ something. Why should a woman be
shut out from the life of the world?’
‘It seems to me that your part in the life of the world is very
considerable. You have given the world a new inhabitant, and you are
shaping him into a man.’
Nancy laughed, and reflected, and returned to her discontent.
‘Oh, every woman can do that.’
‘Not one woman in a thousand can bear a sound-bodied child; and not one
in fifty thousand can bring up rightly the child she has borne. Leisure
you must have; but for Heaven’s sake don’t waste it. Read, enjoy, sit
down to the feast prepared for you.’
‘I wanted to _do_ something,’ she persisted, refusing to catch his eye.
‘I have read enough.’
‘Read enough? Ha, then there’s no more to be said.’
His portentous solemnity overcame her. Laughter lighted her face, and
Tarrant, laying down his pipe, shouted extravagant mirth.
‘Am I to burn it then?’
‘You are not. You are to seal it with seven seals, to write upon it
_peche de jeunesse_, and to lay it away at the back of a very private
drawer. And when you are old, you shall some day bring it out, and we’ll
put our shaky heads together over it, and drop a tear from our dim old
eyes.--By-the-bye, Nancy, will you go with me to a music-hall to-morrow
night?’
‘A music-hall?’
‘Yes. It would do us both good, I think. I feel fagged, and you want a
change.--Here’s the end of March; please Heaven, another month shall see
us rambling in the lanes somewhere; meantime, we’ll go to a music-hall.
Each season has its glory; if we can’t hear the lark, let us listen to
the bellow of a lion-comique.--Do you appreciate this invitation? It
means that I enjoy your company, which is more than one man in ten
thousand can say of his wife. The ordinary man, when he wants to
dissipate, asks--well, not his wife. And I, in plain sober truth, would
rather have Nancy with me than anyone else.’
‘You say that to comfort me after my vexation.’
‘I say it because I think it.--The day after to-morrow I want you to
come over in the morning to see some pictures in Bond Street. And the
next day we’ll go to the theatre.’
‘You can’t afford it.’
‘Mind your own business. I remembered this morning that I was young, and
that I shall not be so always. Doesn’t that ever come upon you?’
The manuscript, fruit of such persevering toil, was hidden away, and
its author spoke of it no more. But she suffered a grave disappointment.
Once or twice a temptation flashed across her mind; if she secretly
found a publisher, and if her novel achieved moderate success (she might
alter the title), would not Tarrant forgive her for acting against his
advice? It was nothing more than advice; often enough he had told her
that he claimed no coercive right; that their union, if it were to
endure, must admit a genuine independence on both sides. But herein, as
on so many other points, she subdued her natural impulse, and conformed
to her husband’s idea of wifehood. It made her smile to think how little
she preserved of that same ‘genuine independence;’ but the smile had no
bitterness.
Meanwhile, nothing was heard of Horace. The winter passed, and June
had come before Nancy again saw her brother’s handwriting. It was on an
ordinary envelope, posted, as she saw by the office-stamp, at Brighton;
the greater her surprise to read a few lines which coldly informed
her that Horace’s wife no longer lived. ‘She took cold one evening a
fortnight ago, and died after three days’ illness.’
Nancy tried to feel glad, but she had little hope of any benefit to her
brother from this close of a sordid tragedy. She answered his letter,
and begged that, as soon as he felt able to do so, he would come and see
her. A month’s silence on Horace’s part had led her to conclude that he
would not come, when, without warning, he presented himself at her door.
It was morning, and he stayed till nightfall, but talked very little.
Sitting in the same place hour after hour, he seemed overcome with a
complete exhaustion, which made speech too great an effort and kept his
thoughts straying idly. Fanny’s name did not pass his lips; when Nancy
ventured an inquiry concerning her, he made an impatient gesture, and
spoke of something else.
His only purpose in coming, it appeared, was to ask for information
about the Bahamas.
‘I can’t get rid of my cough, and I’m afraid it may turn to something
dangerous. You said, I remember, that people with weak chests wintered
in the Bahamas.’
‘Lionel can tell you all about it. He’ll be here to-morrow. Come and
have a talk with him.’
‘No.’ He moved pettishly. ‘Tell me as much as you know yourself. I don’t
feel well enough to meet people.’
Looking at him with profound compassion, Nancy thought it very doubtful
whether he would see another winter. But she told him all she could
remember about Nassau, and encouraged him to look forward with pleasure
and hopefulness to a voyage thither.
‘How are you going to live till then?’
‘What do you mean?’ he answered, with a startled and irritated look.
‘I’m not so bad as all that.’
‘I meant--how are you going to arrange your life?’ Nancy hastened to
explain.
‘Oh, I have comfortable lodgings.’
‘But you oughtn’t to be quite alone.--I mean it must be so cheerless.’
She made a proposal that he should have a room in this little house,
and use it as a home whenever he chose; but Horace so fretted under the
suggestion, that it had to be abandoned. His behaviour was that of
an old man, enfeebled in mind and body. Once or twice his manner of
speaking painfully reminded Nancy of her father during the last days of
his life.
With a peevish sort of interest he watched his little nephew toddling
about the room, but did not address a word to the child.
A cab was sent for to convey him to the railway station. Nancy had known
few such melancholy days as this.
On the morning when, by agreement, she was to go into town to see her
brother, there arrived a note from him. He had been advised to try a
health-resort in Switzerland, and was already on the way. Sorry he could
not let Nancy know before; would visit her on his return. Thus, in the
style of telegraphy, as though he wrote in hot haste.
From Switzerland came two letters, much more satisfactory in tone and
contents. The first, written in July, announced a distinct improvement
of health. No details being supplied, Nancy could only presume that her
brother was living alone at the hotel from which he dated. The second
communication, a month later, began thus: ‘I think I forgot to tell you
that I came here with Mrs. Damerel. She will stay till the end of the
summer, and then, perhaps, go with me to the Bahamas, if that seems
necessary. But I am getting wonderfully well and strong. Mrs. Damerel is
kinder to me than any one in the world ever was. I shall tell you more
about her some day.’ The writer went on to describe a project he had
of taking a small farm in Devonshire, and living upon it as a country
gentleman.
Tarrant warned his wife not to build hopes upon this surprising report,
and a few weeks brought news that justified him. Horace wrote that he
had suffered a very bad attack, and was only now sufficiently recovered
to hold a pen. ‘I don’t know what we shall do, but I am in good hands.
No one was ever better nursed, night and day--More before long.’
Indeed, it was not long. A day or two after Nancy’s return from a
seaside holiday, Mary brought in a telegram. It came from Mrs. Damerel.
‘Your brother died at ten o’clock last night, suddenly, and without
pain. I am posting a letter he had written for you.’
When the promised letter arrived, it was found to bear a date two months
ago. An unwonted tenderness marked the opening words.
MY DEAREST SISTER--What I am going to write is not to be sent to you
at once. Sometimes I feel afraid that I can’t live very long, so I have
been making a will, and I want you to know why I have left you only half
of what I have to leave. The other half will go to some one who has an
equal claim on me, though you don’t know it. She has asked me to tell
you. If I get thoroughly well again, there will be no need of this
letter, and I shall tell you in private something that will astonish
you very much. But if I were to die, it will be best for you to learn in
this way that Mrs. Damerel is much more to us than our mother’s sister;
she is our own mother. She told me at the time when I was behaving like
an idiot at Bournemouth. It ought to have been enough to stop me. She
confessed that she had done wrong when you and I were little children;
that was how she came to marry again whilst father was still alive.
Though it seemed impossible, I have come to love her for her great
kindness to me. I know that I could trust you, dearest Nancy, to let her
share whatever you have; but it will be better if I provide for her
in my will. She has been living on a small capital, and now has little
left. What I can give her is little enough, but it will save her from
the worst extremities. And I beg you, dear sister, to forgive her fault,
if only for my sake, because she has been so loving to a silly and
useless fellow.
I may as well let you know about my wife’s death. She was consumptive,
but seemed to get much better at Bournemouth; then she wanted to go to
Brighton. We lived there at a boardinghouse, and she behaved badly, very
badly. She made acquaintances I didn’t like, and went about with them in
spite of my objections. Like an obstinate fool, I had refused to believe
what people told me about her, and now I found it all out for myself. Of
course she only married me because I had money. One evening she made
up her mind to go with some of her friends in a boat, by moonlight. We
quarrelled about it, but she went all the same. The result was that she
got inflammation of the lungs, and died. I don’t pretend to be sorry for
her, and I am thankful to have been released from misery so much sooner
than I deserved.
And now let me tell you how my affairs stand--
At the first reading, Nancy gave but slight attention to this concluding
paragraph. Even the thought of her brother’s death was put aside by
the emotions with which she learnt that her mother still lived. After
brooding over the intelligence for half a day, she resolved to question
Mary, who perhaps, during so long a residence in Grove Lane, had
learnt something of the trouble that darkened her master’s life. The
conversation led to a disclosure by Mary of all that had been confided
to her by Mr. Lord; the time had come for a fulfilment of her promise to
the dead man.
CHAPTER 6
Horace’s letter Nancy sent by post to her husband, requesting him to let
her know his thoughts about it in writing before they again met. Of her
own feeling she gave no sign. ‘I want you to speak of it just as if
it concerned a stranger, plainly and simply. All I need say is, that I
never even suspected the truth.’
Tarrant did not keep her long in suspense, and his answer complied in
reasonable measure with the desire she had expressed.
‘The disclosure has, of course, pained you. Equally, of course, you wish
it were not necessary to let me know of it; you are in doubt as to
how it will affect me; you perhaps fear that I shall--never mind about
phrasing. First, then, a word on that point. Be assured once for all
that nothing external to yourself can ever touch the feeling which I now
have for you. “One word is too often profaned;” I will say simply that I
hold you in higher regard that any other human being.
‘Try not to grieve, my dearest. It is an old story, in both senses.
You wish to know how I view the matter. Well, if a wife cannot love her
husband, it is better she should not pretend to do so; if she love
some one else, her marriage is at an end, and she must go. Simple
enough--provided there be no children. Whether it is ever permissible
for a mother to desert her children, I don’t know. I will only say that,
in you yourself, I can find nothing more admirable than the perfect love
which you devote to your child. Forsake it, you could not.
‘In short, act as feeling dictates. Your mother lives; that fact cannot
be ignored. In your attitude towards her, do not consult me at all;
whatever your heart approves, I shall find good and right. Only, don’t
imagine that your feeling of to-day is final--I would say, make no
resolve; they are worth little, in any concern of life.
‘Write to me again, and say when you wish to see me.
After reading this, Nancy moved about with the radiance of a great joy
on her countenance. She made no haste to reply; she let a day elapse;
then, in the silence of a late hour, took pen and paper.
‘When do I wish to see you? Always; in every moment of my day. And yet I
have so far conquered “the unreasonable female”--do you remember saying
that?--that I would rather never see you again than bring you to my
side except when it was your pleasure to be with me. Come as soon as you
can--as soon as you will.
‘My mother--how shall I word it? She is nothing to me. I don’t feel that
Nature bids me love her. I could pardon her for leaving my father; like
you, I see nothing terrible in that; but, like you, I _know_ that she
did wrong in abandoning her little children, and her kindness to Horace
at the end cannot atone for it. I don’t think she has any love for _me_.
We shall not see each other; at all events, that is how I feel about it
at present. But I am very glad that Horace made provision for her--that
of course was right; if he had not done it, it would have been my duty.
‘I had better tell you that Mary has known my mother’s story for a long
time--but not that she still lived. My father told her just before his
death, and exacted her promise that, if it seemed well, she would repeat
everything to me. You shall know more about it, though it is bad all
through. My dear father had reason bitterly to regret his marriage long
before she openly broke it.
‘But come and see me, and tell me what is to be done now that we are
free to look round. There is no shame in taking what poor Horace has
given us. You see that there will be at least three thousand pounds for
our share, apart from the income we shall have from the business.’
He was sure to come on the evening of the morrow. Nancy went out before
breakfast to post her letter; light-hearted in the assurance that her
husband’s days of struggle were over, that her child’s future no longer
depended upon the bare hope that its father would live and thrive by a
profession so precarious as that of literature, she gave little thought
to the details of the new phase of life before her. Whatever Tarrant
proposed would be good in her sight. Probably he would wish to live in
the country; he might discover the picturesque old house of which he
had so often spoken. In any case, they would now live together. He had
submitted her to a probation, and his last letter declared that he was
satisfied with the result.
Midway in the morning, whilst she was playing with her little boy,--rain
kept them in the house,--a knock at the front door announced some
unfamiliar visit. Mary came to the parlour, with a face of surprise.
‘Who is it?’
‘Miss. Morgan.’
‘What? Jessica?’
Mary handed an envelope, addressed to ‘Mrs. Tarrant.’ It contained a
sheet of paper, on which was written in pencil: ‘I beg you to see me, if
only for a minute.’
‘Yes, I will see her,’ said Nancy, when she had frowned in brief
reflection.
Mary led away the little boy, and, a moment after, introduced Jessica
Morgan. At the appearance of her former friend, Nancy with difficulty
checked an exclamation; Miss. Morgan wore the garb of the Salvation
Army. Harmonious therewith were the features shadowed by the hideous
bonnet: a face hardly to be recognised, bloodless, all but fleshless,
the eyes set in a stare of weak-minded fanaticism. She came hurriedly
forward, and spoke in a quick whisper.
‘I was afraid you would refuse to see me.’
‘Why have you come?’
‘I was impelled--I had a duty to perform.’
Coldly, Nancy invited her to sit down, but the visitor shook her head.
‘I mustn’t take a seat in your house. I am unwelcome; we can’t pretend
to be on terms of friendliness. I have come, first of all,’--her eyes
wandered as she spoke, inspecting the room,--‘to humble myself before
you--to confess that I was a dishonourable friend,--to make known with
my lips that I betrayed your secret--’
Nancy interrupted the low, hurrying, panting voice, which distressed her
ear as much as the facial expression that accompanied it did her eyes.
‘There’s no need to tell me. I knew it at the time, and you did me no
harm. Indeed, it was a kindness.’
She drew away, but Jessica moved after her.
‘I supposed you knew. But it is laid upon me to make a confession before
you. I have to ask your pardon, most humbly and truly.’
‘Do you mean that some one has told you to do this?’
‘Oh no!’ A gleam of infinite conceit shot over the humility of Jessica’s
countenance. ‘I am answerable only to my own soul. In the pursuit of an
ideal which I fear you cannot understand, I subdue my pride, and confess
how basely I behaved to you. Will you grant me your forgiveness?’
She clasped her gloveless hands before her breast, and the fingers
writhed together.
‘If it is any satisfaction to you,’ replied Nancy, overcome with wonder
and pity, ‘I will say those words. But don’t think that I take upon
myself--’
‘Only say them. I ask your pardon--say you grant it.’
Nancy uttered the formula, and with bowed head Jessica stood for a
minute in silence; her lips moved.
‘And now,’ she said at length, ‘I must fulfil the second part of
the duty which has brought me here.’ Her attitude changed to one of
authority, and her eyes fixed themselves on Nancy’s, regarding her with
the mild but severe rebuke of a spiritual superior. ‘Having acknowledged
my wrong-doing, I must remind you of your own. Let me ask you first of
all--have you any religious life?’
Nancy’s eyes had turned away, but at these words they flashed sternly
upon the speaker.
‘I shall let you ask no such question.’
‘I expected it,’ Jessica sighed patiently. ‘You are still in the
darkness, out of which _I_ have been saved.’
‘If you have nothing more to say than this, I must refuse to talk any
longer.’
‘There is a word I must speak,’ pursued Jessica. ‘If you will not heed
it now, it will remain in your memory, and bear fruit at the appointed
time. I alone know of the sin which poisons your soul, and the
experiences through which I have passed justify me in calling you to
repentance.’
Nancy raised her hand.
‘Stop! That is quite enough. Perhaps you are behaving conscientiously;
I will try to believe it. But not another word, or I shall speak as I
don’t wish to.’
‘It is enough. You know very well what I refer to. Don’t imagine that
because you are now a married woman--’
Nancy stepped to the door, and threw it open.
‘Leave the house,’ she said, in an unsteady tone. ‘You said you were
unwelcome, and it was true. Take yourself out of my sight!’
Jessica put her head back, murmured some inaudible words, and with a
smile of rancorous compassion went forth into the rain.
On recovering from the excitement of this scene, Nancy regretted her
severity; the poor girl in the hideous bonnet had fallen very low,
and her state of mind called for forbearance. The treachery for
which Jessica sought pardon was easy to forgive; not so, however, the
impertinent rebuke, which struck at a weak place in Nancy’s conscience.
Just when the course of time and favour of circumstances seemed to
have completely healed that old wound, Jessica, with her crazy malice
grotesquely disguised, came to revive the half-forgotten pangs, the
shame and the doubt that had seemed to be things gone by. It would have
become her, Nancy felt, to treat her hapless friend of years ago in a
spirit of gentle tolerance; that she could not do so proved her--and
she recognised the fact--still immature, still a backward pupil in the
school of life.--‘And in the Jubilee year I thought myself a decidedly
accomplished person!’
Never mind. Her husband would come this evening. Of him she could learn
without humiliation.
His arrival was later than of wont. Only at eleven o’clock, when with
disappointment she had laid aside her book to go to bed, did Tarrant’s
rap sound on the window.
‘I had given you up,’ said Nancy.
‘Yet you are quite good-tempered.’
‘Why not?’
‘It is the pleasant custom of wives to make a husband uncomfortable if
he comes late.’
‘Then I am no true wife!’ laughed Nancy.
‘Something much better,’ Tarrant muttered, as he threw off his overcoat.
He began to talk of ordinary affairs, and nearly half-an-hour elapsed
before any mention was made of the event that had bettered their
prospects. Nancy looked over a piece of his writing in an evening paper
which he had brought; but she could not read it with attention. The
paper fell to her lap, and she sat silent. Clearly, Tarrant would not
be the first to speak of what was in both their minds. The clock ticked;
the rain pattered without; the journalist smoked his pipe and looked
thoughtfully at the ceiling.
‘Are you sorry,’ Nancy asked, ‘that I am no longer penniless?’
‘Ah--to be sure. We must speak of that. No, I’m not sorry. If I get run
over, you and the boy--’
‘Can make ourselves comfortable, and forget you; to be sure. But for the
present, and until you do get run over?’
‘You wish to make changes?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘In one or two respects, perhaps. But leave me out of the question. You
have an income of your own to dispose of; nothing oppressively splendid,
I suppose. What do you think of doing?’
‘What do you advise?’
‘No, no. Make your own suggestion.
Nancy smiled, hesitated, and said at length:
‘I think we ought to take a house.’
‘In London?’
‘That’s as you wish.’
‘Not at all. As _you_ wish. Do you want society?’
‘In moderation. And first of all, yours.
Tarrant met her eyes.
‘Of my society, you have quite as much as is good for you,’ he answered
amiably. ‘That you should wish for acquaintances, is reasonable enough.
Take a house somewhere in the western suburbs. One or two men I know
have decent wives, and you shall meet them.’
‘But you? You won’t live with me?’
‘You know my view of that matter.’
Nancy kept her eyes down, and reflected.
‘Will it be known to everybody that we don’t live together?’
‘Well,’ answered Tarrant, with a laugh, ‘by way of example, I should
rather like it to be known; but as I know _you_ wouldn’t like it, let
the appearances be as ordinary as you please.’
Again Nancy reflected. She had a struggle with herself.
‘Just one question,’ she said at length. ‘Look me in the face. Are
you--ever so little--ashamed of me?’
He regarded her steadily, smiling.
‘Not in the least.’
‘You were--you used to be?’
‘Before I knew you; and before I knew myself. When, in fact, _you_ were
a notable young lady of Camberwell, and _I_--’
He paused to puff at his pipe.
‘And you?’
‘A notable young fool of nowhere at all.’
End of Project Gutenberg’s In the Year of Jubilee, by George Gissing