On the very next day Miss Starbrow was herself again apparently, and
the old life was resumed just where it had been broken off. But although
outwardly things went on in the old way, and her mistress was not
unkind, and she had her daily walk, her reading, sewing, and embroidery
to fill her time, the girl soon perceived that something very precious
to her had been lost in the storm, and she looked and waited in vain for
its recovery. In spite of those reassuring well-remembered words Mary
had spoken to her, the old tender affection and confidence, which had
made their former relations seem so sweet, now seemed lost. Mary was not
unkind, but that was all. She did not wish Fan to read to her, or give
her any assistance in dressing, or to remain long in her room, but
preferred to be left alone. When she spoke, her words and tone were not
ungentle, but she no longer wished to talk, and after a few minutes she
would send her away; and then Fan, sad at heart, would go to her own
room--that large back room where her bed had been allowed to remain, and
where she worked silent and solitary, sitting before her own fire.
One day, just as she came in from her morning walk, a letter was left
by the postman, and Fan took it up to her mistress, glad always of an
excuse to go to her--for now some excuse seemed necessary.
Miss Starbrow, sitting moodily before her fire in her bedroom, took it;
but the moment she looked at the writing she started as if a snake had
bitten her, and flung the letter into the fire. Then, while watching it
blaze up, she suddenly exclaimed:
“I was a fool to burn it before first seeing what was in it!”
Before she finished speaking Fan darted her hand into the flame, and
tossing the burning letter on the rug, stamped out the fire with her
foot. The envelope and the outer leaf of the letter were black and
charred, but the inner leaf, which was the part written on, had not
suffered.
“Thanks, Fan; that was clever,” said Miss Starbrow, taking it; and then
proceeded to read it, holding it far from her face as if her eyesight
had suddenly fallen into decay.
Dear Pollie [ran the letter], When I saw that girl back in your
house I knew that it would be all over between us. It is a terrible
thing for me to lose you in that way, but there is no help for it now;
I know that you will not forgive me. But I don't wish you to think of
me worse than I deserve. You know as well as I do that since you took
Fan into the house you have changed towards me, and that without
quite throwing me over you made it as uncomfortable for me as you
could. As things did not improve, I became convinced that as long as
you had her by you it would continue the same, so I resolved to get
her out of the way. I partially succeeded, and she would have been
kept safely shut up for a few days, and then sent to a distant part
of the country, to be properly taken care of. That is the whole of my
offence, and I am very sorry that my plan failed. Nothing more than
that was intended; and if you have imagined anything more you have
done me an injustice. I am bad enough, I suppose, but not so bad as
that; and I hate and always have hated that girl, who has been my
greatest enemy, though perhaps unintentionally. That is all I have to
say, except that I shall never forget how different it once was--how
kind you could be, and how happy you often made me before that
miserable creature came between us.
Good-bye for ever,
JACK.
Miss Starbrow laughed bitterly. “There, Fan, read it,” she said. “It is
all about you, and you deserve a reward for burning your fingers. Coward
and villain! why has he added this infamous lie to his other crimes? It
has only made me hate and despise him more than ever. If he had had the
courage to confess everything, and even to boast of it, I should not
have thought so meanly of him.”
The wound was bleeding afresh. Her face had grown pale, and under her
black scowling brows her eyes shone as if with the reflected firelight.
But it was only the old implacable anger flashing out again.
Fan, after reading the letter for herself, and dropping it with
trembling fingers on to the fire, turned to her mistress. Her face had
also grown very pale, and her eyes expressed a new and great trouble.
“Why do you look at me like that?” exclaimed Miss Starbrow, seizing her
by the arm. “Speak!”
Fan sank down on to her knees, and began stammeringly, “Oh, I can't bear
to think--to think--”
“To think what?--Speak, I tell you!”
“_Did_ I come between you?--oh, Mary, are you sorry--”
“Hush!” and Miss Starbrow pushed her angrily from her. “Sorry! Never
dare to say such a thing again! Oh, I don't know which is most hateful
to me, his villainy or your whining imbecility. Leave me--go to your
room, and never come to me unless I call you.”
Fan went away, sad at heart, and cried by herself, fearing now that the
sweet lost love would never again return to brighten her life. But after
this passionate outburst Miss Starbrow was not less kind and gentle than
before. Once at least every day she would call Fan to her room and speak
a few words to her, and then send her away. The few words would even be
cheerfully spoken, but with a fictitious kind of cheerfulness; under
it all there was ever a troubled melancholy look; the clouds which had
returned after the rain had not yet passed away. To Fan they were very
much, those few daily words which served to keep her hope alive, while
her heart hungered for the love that was more than food to her.
Even in her sleep this unsatisfied instinct of her nature and perpetual
craving made her dreams sad. But not always, for on more than one
occasion she had a very strange sweet dream of Mary pressing her lips
and whispering some tender assurance to her; and this dream was so
vivid, so like reality, that when she woke she seemed to feel still on
face and hands the sensation of loving lips and other clasping hands,
so that she put out her hands to return the embrace. And one night from
that dream she woke very suddenly, and saw a light in the room--the
light of a small shaded lamp moving away towards the door, and Mary,
in a white wrapper, with her dark hair hanging unbound on her back, was
carrying it.
“Mary, Mary!” cried the girl, starting up in bed, and holding out her
arms.
The other turned, and for a little while stood looking at her; no ghost
nor somnambulist was she in appearance, with those bright wakeful eyes,
the curious smile that played about her lips, and the rich colour,
perhaps from confusion or shame at being detected, surging back into
her lately pale face. She did not refuse the girl's appeal, or try any
longer to conceal her feelings. Setting the lamp down she came to the
bedside, and taking Fan in her arms, held her in a long close embrace.
When she had finished caressing the girl she remained standing for some
time silent beside the bed, her eyes cast down as if in thought, and
an expression half melancholy but strangely tender and beautiful on her
face.
Presently she bent down over the girl again and spoke.
“Don't fret, dearest, if I seem bad-tempered and strange. I love you
just the same; I have come here more than once to kiss you when you were
asleep. Do you remember how angry you made me when you asked if you
had come between that man and me, and if I were sorry? You _did_ come
between us, Fan, in a way that his wholly corrupt soul would never
understand. But you could not have done me a greater service than
that--no, not if you had spilt your heart's blood for me. You have
repaid me for all that I have done, or ever can do for you, and have
made me your debtor besides for the rest of my life.”
That midnight interview with her mistress had thereafter a very bright
and beautiful place in Fan's memory, and still thinking of it she would
sometimes lie awake for hours, wishing and hoping that Mary would come
to her again in one of her tender moods. But it did not happen again;
for Mary was not one to recover quickly from such a wound as she
had suffered, and she still brooded, wrapped up in her own thoughts,
dreaming perhaps of revenge. And in the meantime bitter blustering March
wore on to its end, the sun daily gaining power; and then, all at once,
it was April, with sunshine and showers; and some heavenly angel passed
by and touched the brown old desolate elms in Kensington Gardens with
tenderest green; and as by a miracle the baskets of the flower-girls in
Westbourne Grove were filled to overflowing with spring flowers--pale
primroses that die unmarried; and daffodils that come before the swallow
dares, shining like gold; and violets dim, but sweeter than the lids of
Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath.