MISS WENTWORTH'S RUDENESS
Miss Strong was growing a little tired of waiting. Indeed, she was
beginning to wonder if Mr. Paxton was about to fail in still another
something he had undertaken. She loitered near the gates of the pier,
looking wistfully at every one who entered. The minutes went by, and
yet "he cometh not," she said.
It was not the pleasantest of nights for idling by the sea. A faint,
but chilly, breeze was in the air. There was a suspicion of mist. Miss
Strong was growing more and more conscious that the night was raw and
damp. To add to the discomfort of her position, just inside the gates
of Brighton pier is not the most agreeable place for a woman to have
to wait at night--she is likely to find the masculine prowler
conspicuously in evidence. Miss Strong had moved away from at least
the dozenth man who had accosted her, when she referred to her watch.
"I'll give him five minutes more, and then, if he doesn't come, I'm
off."
Scarcely had she uttered the words than she saw Mr. Paxton coming
through the turnstile. With a feeling of no inconsiderable relief she
moved hastily forward. In another moment they were clasping hands.
"Cyril! I'm glad you've come at last! But how late you are!"
"Yes; I've been detained."
The moment he opened his mouth it struck her that about his manner
there was something odd. But, as a wise woman in her generation, she
made no comment. Together they went up the pier.
Now that he had come Mr. Paxton did not seem to be in a conversational
mood. They had gone half-way up; still he evinced no inclination to
speak. Miss Strong, however, excused him. She understood the cause of
his silence--or thought she did. Her heart was heavy--on his account,
and on her own. Her words, when they came, were intended to convey the
completeness of her comprehension.
"I am so sorry."
He turned, as if her words had startled him.
"Sorry?"
"I know all about it, Cyril."
This time it was not merely a question of appearance. It was an
obvious fact that he was startled. He stood stock still and stared at
her. Stammering words came from his lips.
"You know all about it? What--what do you mean?"
She seemed to be surprised at his surprise. "My dear Cyril, you forget
that there are papers."
"Papers?"
Still he stammered.
"Yes, papers--newspapers. I've had every edition, and of course I've
seen how Eries have fallen.
"Eries? Fallen? Oh!--of course!--I see!"
She was puzzled to perceive that he appeared positively relieved, as
though he had supposed and feared that she had meant something
altogether different. He took off his hat to wipe his brow, although
the night was very far from being unduly warm. He began walking again,
speaking now glibly enough, with a not unnatural bitterness.
"They have fallen, sure enough--just as surely as if, if I had gone a
bear, they would have risen. As you were good enough to say last
night, it was exactly the sort of thing which might have been
expected."
"I am so sorry, Cyril."
"What's the use of being sorry?"
His tone was rough, almost rude. But she excused him still.
"Is it very bad?"
Then a wild idea came to him--one which, at the moment, seemed to him
almost to amount to inspiration. In the disordered condition of his
faculties--for, temporarily, they were disordered--he felt, no doubt
erroneously enough, that in the girl's tone there was something
besides sympathy, that there was contempt as well--contempt for him as
for a luckless, helpless creature who was an utter and entire failure.
And he suddenly resolved to drop at least a hint that, while she was
despising him as so complete a failure, even now there was, actually
within his grasp, wealth sufficient to satisfy the dreams of avarice.
"I don't know what you call very bad; as regards the Eries it is about
as bad as it could be. But----"
He hesitated and stopped.
"But what?" She caught sight of his face. She saw how it was working.
"Cyril, is there any good news to counteract the bad? Have you had a
stroke of luck?"
Yet he hesitated, already half regretting that he had said anything at
all. But, having gone so far, he went farther.
"I don't want you to reckon on it just at present, but I think it
possible that, very shortly, I may find myself in possession of a
larger sum of money than either of us has dreamed of."
"Cyril! Do you mean it?"
Her tone of incredulity spurred him on.
"Should I be likely to say such a thing if I did not mean it? I mean
exactly what I said. To be quite accurate, it is possible, nay,
probable, that before very long I shall be the possessor of a quarter
of a million of money. I hope that will be enough for you. It will for
me."
"A quarter of a million! Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds,
Cyril!"
"It sounds a nice little sum, doesn't it? I hope that it will feel as
nice when it's mine!"
"But, Cyril, I don't understand. Is it a new speculation you are
entering on?"
"It is a speculation--of a kind." His tone was ironical, though she
did not seem to be conscious of the fact. "A peculiar kind. Its
peculiarity consists in this, that, though I may not be able to lay my
hands on the entire quarter of a million, I can on an appreciable
portion of it whenever I choose."
"What is the nature of the speculation? Is it on the Stock Exchange?"
"That, at present, is a secret. It is not often that I have kept a
secret from you; you will have to forgive me, Daisy, if I keep one
now."
Something peculiar in his tone caught her ear. She glanced at him
sharply.
"You are really in earnest, Cyril? You do mean that there is a
reasonable prospect of your position being improved at last?"
"There is not only a reasonable prospect, there is a practical
certainty."
"In spite of what you have lost in Eries?"
"In spite of everything." A ring of passion came into his voice.
"Daisy, don't ask me any more questions now. Trust me! I tell you that
in any case a fortune, or something very like one, is within my
grasp."
He stopped, and she was silent. They went and stood where they had
been standing the night before--looking towards the Worthing lights.
Each seemed to be wrapped in thought. Then she said softly, in her
voice a trembling--
"Cyril, I am so glad."
"I am glad that you are glad."
"And I am so sorry for what I said last night."
"What was it you said that is the particular occasion of your sorrow?"
She drew closer to his side. When she spoke it was as if, in some
strange way, she was afraid.
"I am sorry that I said that if luck went against you to-day things
would have to be over between us. I don't know what made me say it. I
did not mean it. I thought of it all night; I have been thinking of it
all day. I don't think that, whatever happens, I could ever find it in
my heart to send you away."
"I assure you, lady, that I should not go unless you sent me!"
"Cyril!" She pressed his arm. Her voice sank lower. She almost
whispered in his ear, while her eyes looked towards the Worthing
lights. "I think that perhaps it would be better if we were to get
married as soon as we can--better for both of us."
Turning, he gripped her arms with both his hands.
"Do you mean it?"
"I do; if you do the great things of which you talk or if you don't.
If you don't there is my little fortune, with which we must start
afresh, both of us together, either on this side of the world or on
the other, whichever you may choose."
"Daisy!" His voice vibrated with sudden passion. "Will you come with
me to the other side of the world in any case?"
"What--even if you make your fortune?"
"Yes; even if I make my fortune!"
She looked at him with that something on her face which is the best
thing that a man can see. And tears came into her eyes. And she said
to him, in the words which have been ringing down the ages--
"Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God; where thou diest,
will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more
also, if aught but death part thee and me!"
It may be that the words savoured to him of exaggeration; at any rate,
he turned away, as if something choked his utterance. She, too, was
still.
"I suppose you don't want a grand wedding."
"I want a wedding, that's all I want. I don't care what sort of a
wedding it is so long as it's a wedding. And"--again her voice sank,
and again she drew closer to his side--"I don't want to have to wait
for it too long."
"Will you be ready to marry me within a month?"
"I will."
"Then within a month we will be married."
They were silent. His thoughts, in a dazed sort of fashion, travelled
to the diamonds which were in somebody else's Gladstone bag. Her
thoughts wandered through Elysian fields. It is possible that she
imagined--as one is apt to do--that his thoughts were there likewise.
All at once she said something which brought him back from what seemed
to be a waking dream. She felt him start.
"Come with me, and let's tell Charlie."
The suggestion was not by any means to Mr. Paxton's taste. He
considered for a few seconds, seeming to hesitate. She perceived that
her proposition had not been received with over-much enthusiasm.
"Surely you don't mind our telling Charlie?"
"No"--his voice was a little surly--"I don't mind."
Miss Charlotte Wentworth, better known to her intimates as Charlie,
was in some respects a young woman of the day. She was thirty, and she
wrote for her daily bread--wrote anything, from "Fashions" to
"Poetry," from "Fiction" to "Our Family Column." She had won for
herself a position of tolerable comfort, earning something over
five-hundred a year with satisfactory regularity. To state that is
equivalent to saying that, on her own lines, she was a woman of the
world, a citizen of the New Bohemia, capable of holding something more
than her own in most circumstances in which she might find herself
placed, with most, if not all, of the sentiment which is supposed to
be a feminine attribute knocked out of her. She was not bad-looking;
dressed well, with a suggestion of masculinity; wore pince-nez, and
did whatsoever it pleased her to do. Differing though they did from
each other in so many respects, she and Daisy Strong had been the
friends of years. When Mrs. Strong had died, and Daisy was left alone,
Miss Wentworth had insisted on their setting up together, at least
temporarily, a joint establishment, an arrangement from which there
could be no sort of doubt that Miss Strong received pecuniary
advantage. Mr. Paxton was not Miss Wentworth's lover--nor, to be
frank, was she his; the consequence of which was that her brusque,
outspoken method of speech conveyed to his senses--whether she
intended it or not--a suggestion of scorn, being wont to touch him on
just those places where he found himself least capable of resistance.
When the lovers entered, Miss Wentworth, with her person on one chair
and her feet on another, was engaged in reading a magazine which had
just come in. Miss Strong, desiring to avoid the preliminary
skirmishing which experience had taught her was apt to take place
whenever her friend and her lover met, plunged at once into the heart
of the subject which was uppermost in her mind.
"I've brought you some good news--at least I think it is good news."
Miss Wentworth looked at her--a cross-examining sort of look--then at
Mr. Paxton, then back at the lady.
"Good news? One always does associate good news with Mr. Paxton. The
premonition becomes a kind of habit."
The gentleman thus alluded to winced. Miss Strong did not appear to
altogether relish the lady's words. She burst out with the news of
which she spoke, as if with the intention of preventing a retort
coming from Mr. Paxton.
"We are going to be married."
Miss Wentworth displayed a possibly intentional mental opacity.
"Who is going to be married?"
"Charlie! How aggravating you are! Cyril and I, of course."
Miss Wentworth resumed her reading.
"Indeed! Well, it's no affair of mine. Of course, therefore, I should
not presume to make any remark. If, however, any one should invite me
to comment on the subject, I trust that I shall be at the same time
informed as to what is the nature of the comment which I am invited to
make."
Miss Strong went and knelt at Miss Wentworth's side, resting her
elbows on that lady's knees.
"Charlie, won't you give us your congratulations?"
Miss Wentworth replied, without removing her glance from off the open
page of her magazine--
"With pleasure--if you want them. Also, if you want it, I will give
you eighteenpence--or even half a crown."
"Charlie! How unkind you are!"
Miss Wentworth lowered her magazine. She looked Miss Strong straight
in the face. Tears were in the young lady's eyes, but Miss Wentworth
showed not the slightest sign of being moved by them.
"Unfortunately, as it would seem, though I am a woman, I do
occasionally allow my conduct to be regulated by the dictates of
common sense. When I see another woman making a dash towards suicide I
don't, as a rule, give her a helping push, merely because she happens
to be my friend; preferentially, if I can, I hold her back, even
though it be against her will. I have yet to learn in what respect
Mr. Paxton--who, I gladly admit, is personally a most charming
gentleman--is qualified to marry even a kitchen-maid. Permit me to
finish. You told me last night that Mr. Paxton was going a bull on
Eries; that if they fell one he would be ruined. In the course of the
day they have fallen more than one; therefore, if what you told me was
correct, he must be ruined pretty badly. Then, without any sort of
warning, you come and inform me that you intend to marry the man who
is doubly and trebly ruined, and you expect me to offer my
congratulations on the event offhand! On the evidence which is at
present before the court it can't be done."
"Why shouldn't I marry him, even if he is ruined?"
"Why, indeed? I am a supporter of the liberty of the female subject,
if ever there was one. Why, if you wished to, shouldn't you marry a
crossing-sweep? I don't know. But, on the other hand, I don't see on
what grounds you could expect me to offer you my congratulations if
you did."
"Cyril is not a crossing-sweep."
"No; he has not even that trade at his finger-ends."
"Charlie!" Mr. Paxton made as if to speak. Miss Strong motioned him to
silence with a movement of her hand. "As it happens, you are quite
wrong. It is true that Cyril lost by Eries, but he has more than made
up for that loss by what he has gained in another direction. Instead
of being ruined, he has made a fortune."
"Indeed! Pray, how did he manage to do that? I always did think that
Mr. Paxton was a remarkable man. My confidence in him is beginning to
be more than justified. And may I, at the same time, ask what is Mr.
Paxton's notion of a fortune?"
"Tell her, Cyril, all about it."
Thus suffered at last to deliver his soul in words, Mr. Paxton evinced
a degree of resentment which, perhaps, on the whole, was not
unjustified.
"I fail to see that there is any necessity for me to justify myself in
Miss Wentworth's eyes, who, on more than one occasion, has shown an
amount of interest in my affairs which was only not impertinent
because it happened to be feminine. But since, Daisy, you appear to be
anxious that Miss Wentworth should be as satisfied on the subject of
my prospects and position as you yourself are, I will do the best I
can. And therefore Miss Wentworth, I would explain that my notion of a
fortune is a sum equivalent to some ten or twenty times the amount you
yourself are likely to be able to earn in the whole of your life."
"That ought to figure up nicely. And do you really mean to say, Mr.
Paxton, that you have lost one fortune and gained another in the
course of a single day?"
"I do."
"How was it done? I wish you would put me in the way of doing it for
myself."
"Surely, Miss Wentworth, a woman of your capacity is qualified to do
anything she pleases without prompting, and solely on her own
initiative!"
"Thanks, Mr. Paxton, it's very kind of you to say such pretty things,
but I am afraid you estimate my capacity a thought too highly." Miss
Wentworth turned in her seat, so as to have the gentleman within her
range of vision. "You understand, Mr. Paxton, very well how it is.
Daisy is a lonely child. She belongs to the order of women who were in
fashion before the commercial instinct became ingrained in the
feminine constitution. She wants looking after. There are only Mr.
Franklyn and myself to look after her. Satisfy me that, after all
liabilities are settled, there is a substantial balance on the right
side of your account, and I will congratulate you both."
"That, at the moment, I cannot do. But I will do this. I will
undertake, in less than a fortnight, to prove myself the possessor of
possibly something like a quarter of a million, and certainly of a
hundred thousand pounds."
"A quarter of a million! A hundred thousand pounds! Such figures warm
one's blood. One will almost begin to wonder, Mr. Paxton, if you can
have come by them honestly."
The words were uttered lightly. Mr. Paxton chose to take them as if
they had been meant in earnest. His cheeks flushed. His eyes flamed
fire. He stood up, so beside himself with rage that it was a second or
two before he could regain sufficient self-control to enable him to
speak.
"Miss Wentworth, how dare you say such a thing! I have endured more
from you than any man ought to endure from any woman. But when you
charge me with dishonesty it is too much, even from you to me. You
take advantage of your sex to address to me language for which, were
the speaker a man, I would thrash him within an inch of his life."
Miss Strong, with white face, looked from one to the other.
"Cyril, she didn't mean what you think. Tell him, Charlie, that you
didn't mean what he thinks."
Through her glasses Miss Wentworth surveyed the angry man with shrewd,
unfaltering eyes.
"Really, Mr. Paxton puts me in a difficult position. He is so quick to
take offence where none was intended, that one hardly knows what to
think. Surely, when a man shows such heat and such violence in
resenting what only a distorted imagination could twist into an actual
imputation of dishonesty, it suggests that his own conscience can
scarcely be quite clear."
Mr. Paxton seemed struggling as if to speak, and then to put a bridle
on his tongue. The truth is, that he was only too conscious that he
was in no mood to be a match in argument--or, for the matter of that,
in retort either--for this clear-sighted lady. He felt that, if he was
not careful, he would go too far; that he had better take himself away
before he had made a greater exhibition of himself than he had
already. So he contented himself with what was meant as an assumption
of dignity.
"That is enough. Between you and me nothing more need, or can, be
said. I have the honour, Miss Wentworth, of wishing you goodnight."
She showed no symptoms of being crushed. On the contrary, she retained
her coolness, and also her powers of exasperation.
"Good-night, Mr. Paxton. Shall I ring the bell, Daisy, or will you
show Mr. Paxton to the door?"
Miss Strong darted at her a look which, on that occasion at any rate,
was not a look of love, and followed Mr. Paxton, who already had
vanished from the room. Finding him in the hall, she nestled up to his
side.
"I am sorry, Cyril, that this should have happened. If I had had the
least suspicion of anything of the kind, I never would have asked you
to come."
Mr. Paxton wore, or attempted to wear, an air of masculine
superiority.
"My dear Daisy, I have seldom met Miss Wentworth without her having
insulted me. On this occasion, however, she has gone too far. I will
never, willingly, darken her door again. I hope you will not ask me;
but if you do I shall be compelled to decline."
"It's my door as well as hers. But it won't be for long. Still, I
don't think she meant what you thought she did--she couldn't be so
absurd! It's a way she has of talking; she often says things without
considering the construction of which they are capable."
"It is only the fact of her being a woman, my dear Daisy, which gives
her the impunity of which she takes undue advantage."
"Cyril, you mustn't brand all women because of one. We are not all
like that. Do you suppose that I am not aware that the person, be it
man or woman, who imagines you to be capable of dishonesty either does
not know you, or else is stark, raving mad? Do you think that I could
love you without the absolute certainty of knowing you to be a man of
blameless honour? I don't suppose you are an angel--I'm not one
either, though perhaps you mightn't think it, sir! And I take it for
granted that you have done plenty of things which you would rather
have left undone--as I have too! But I do know that, regarded from the
point of view of any standard, whether human or Divine, in all
essentials you are an honest man, and that you could be nothing else."
The eulogium was a warm one--it made Mr. Paxton feel a trifle queer.
"Thank you, darling,"
So he murmured, and he kissed her.
"You will meet me again to-morrow night to tell me how the fortune
fares?"
He tried to avoid doing so; but the effort only failed--he had to
wince. He could only hope that she did not notice it.
"I will, my darling--on the pier."
"And mind you're punctual!"
"I promise you I'll be punctual to a second."