In London once more! It was Fan's birth-place, the home she had known
continuously up till one short year ago; yet now on her return how
strange, how foreign to her soul, how even repelling it seemed! The
change had come so unexpectedly and in such unhappy circumstances, and
the contrast was so great to that peaceful country life and all its
surroundings, which had corresponded so perfectly with her nature. To
Constance, who knew little of London except from reading, the contrast
seemed equally great, but it affected her in a different and much
pleasanter way. To Fan town and town-life could be repelling because,
owing to her past experiences, and to something in her mental character,
she was able vividly to realise her present position. Even when the
brilliant May sun shone on her, and the streets and parks were thronged
with fashionable pleasure-seekers, and London looked not unbeautiful,
she realised it. For all that made town-life pleasant and desirable was
now beyond her reach. It was sweet when Mary loved her and gave her a
home; but in all this vast world of London there was no second Mary
who would find her and take her to her heart. Now she might sink into
a state of utter destitution, and she would be powerless to win help or
sympathy, or even a hearing, from any one of the countless thousands of
fellow-creatures that would pass her in the streets, all engrossed with
their own affairs, so accustomed to the sight of want and suffering that
it affected them not at all. To find some work which she might be able
to do, and for which the payment would be sufficient to provide her
with food, clothing, and shelter, was the most she could hope. She could
dream of no wonderful second deliverance in the long years of humble
patient drudgery that awaited her--no impossible good fortune passing
over the heads of thousands as deserving as herself to light on hers and
give a new joy and glory to her life.
To Constance, with her more vigorous intellect and ardent imagination,
no such dreary prospect could present itself. The thunderous noise
and shifting panorama of the streets, the interminable desert of brick
houses, and even the smoke-laden atmosphere only served to exhilarate
her mind. These things continually reminded her that she was now where
she had long wished to be, in the great intellectual laboratory, where
thousands of men and women once as unknown and poor as herself had made
a reputation. Not without great labour and pains certainly; but what
others had done she could do; and with health and energy, and a bundle
of carefully-prepared manuscripts in her box to begin with, she could
feel no serious anxiety about the future.
During their second day in town they managed after much searching to
find cheap furnished apartments--a bed and small sitting-room--on the
second floor of a house in a monotonous street of yellow brick houses in
the monotonous yellow brick wilderness of West Kensington. Their search
for rooms would not have occupied them very long if Constance had been
as easily satisfied as her companion; but although in most of the places
they visited she found the bedrooms “good enough,” wretched as they were
compared with her own fragrant and spotless bower at Wood End House, she
was not so readily pleased with the sitting-room. That, at all events,
must not wear so mean and dingy a look as one usually has to put up with
when the rent is only ten shillings a week; and beyond that sum they
were determined not to go. The reason of this fastidiousness about
a sitting-room presently appeared. Fan was told the secret of the
engagement with Merton Chance; also that Merton was now for the first
time about to be informed of the step Constance had taken without first
consulting him, and asked to visit her at her lodgings. Constance felt
just a little hurt at the way her news was received, for Fan said little
and seemed unsympathetic, almost as if her friend's happiness had been a
matter of indifference to her.
Next day, after moving into their new quarters, Constance wrote her
letter, addressing it to the Foreign Office, posting it herself in the
nearest pillar-box, and then settled herself down to wait the result. It
was weary waiting, she found, when the next morning's post brought her
no answer, and when the whole day passed and no Merton came, and no
message. She was restless and anxious, and in a feverish state of
anxiety, fearing she knew not what; but outwardly she bore herself
calmly; and remembering with some resentment still how little her
engagement had seemed to rejoice her friend, she proudly held her peace.
But she would not leave the house, for the lover might come at any
moment, and it would not do to be out of the way when he arrived. She
remained indoors, pretending to be much occupied with her writing, while
Fan went out for long walks alone. The next day passed in like manner,
the two friends less in harmony and less together than ever; and when
still another morning came and brought no letter, Fan began to feel
extremely unhappy in her mind, for now the long-continued strain was
beginning to tell on her friend, robbing her cheeks of their rich
colour, and filling her hazel eyes with a great unexpressed trouble.
But on that day about three o'clock, while Constance sat at her window,
which commanded a view of the street, she saw a hansom-cab arrive at the
door, and the welcome form of her lover spring rapidly out and run up
the steps. He had come to her at last! But why had he left her so
long to suffer? She heard his steps bounding up the stairs, and stood
trembling with excitement, her hand pressed to her wildly-beating heart.
One glance at his face was enough to show her that her fears had been
idle, that her lover's heart had not changed towards her; the next
moment she was in his arms, feeling for the first time his kisses on her
lips. After the excitement of meeting was over, explanations followed,
and Merton informed her that he had only just received her letter,
and greatly blamed himself for not having sent her his new address
immediately after having left the Foreign Office.
“Left the Foreign Office! Do you mean for good?” asked Constance in a
kind of dismay.
“I hope for good,” he replied, smiling at her serious face. “The
uncongenial work I had to do there has chafed me for a long time. It
interfered with the real and serious business of my life, and I threw
it up with a light heart. I must be absolutely free and master of my own
time before I can do, and do well, the work for which I am fitted.”
“But, dear Merton, you told me that your work was so light there, and
that the salary you had relieved you from all anxiety, and left you free
to follow the bent of your own mind in literary work.”
“Did I? That was one of my foolish speeches then. However light any work
may be, if it occupies you during the best hours of the day, it must to
some extent take the freshness out of you. And to look at the matter in
a practical way, I consider that I am a great gainer, since by resigning
a salary of £250 a year I put myself in a position to make five hundred.
I hope before very long to make a thousand.”
His news had given a considerable shock to Constance, but he seemed so
confident of success, laughing gaily at her doubts, that in a little
while he succeeded in raising her spirits, and she began to believe
that this exceedingly clever young man had really done a wise thing in
throwing up an appointment which would have secured him against actual
want for the whole term of his life.
After a while she ventured to speak of her own plans and hopes. He
listened with a slight smile.
“I have not the slightest doubt that you could make your living in that
way,” he said; “for how many do it who are not nearly so gifted as you
are! But, Connie, if I understand you rightly, you wish to begin making
money at once, and that is scarcely possible, as you have not been
doggedly working away for years to make yourself known and useful to
editors and publishers.”
He then went very fully into this question, and concluded with a comical
description of the magazine editor as a very unhappy spider, against
whose huge geometric web there beats a continuous rain of dipterous
insects of every known variety, besides innumerable nondescripts. The
poor spider, unable to eat and digest more than about half a dozen to a
dozen flies every month, was forced to spend his whole time cutting and
dropping his useless captures from the web. As a rule Merton did not
talk in this strain: the editors had cut away too many of his own
nondescript dipterous contributions to their webs for him to love them;
but for some mysterious reason it suited him just now to take the side
of the enemy in the old quarrel of author _versus_ editor.
“Do you think then that I have made a mistake in coming to London?” she
asked despondingly.
He smiled and drew her closer to him. “Connie, dear, I am exceedingly
glad you did come, for there is no going back, you say; and now that you
are here there is only one thing to do to smooth the path for us, and
that is--to consent to marry me at once.”
This did not accord with her wishes at all. To consent would be to
confess herself beaten, and that dream of coming to London and keeping
herself, for a time at all events, by means of her own work, had been
so long and so fondly cherished, and she wished so much to be allowed to
make the trial. But he pleaded so eloquently that in the end he overcame
her reluctance.
“I will promise to do what you wish,” she said, “if after you have
thought it over for a few days you should still continue in the same
mind. But, Merton, I hope you will not think me too careful and anxious
if I ask you whether it does not seem imprudent, when you have just
given up your salary and are only beginning to work at something
different, to marry a penniless girl? You have told me that you have no
money, and that you cannot look to your relations for any assistance.”
“By no money I simply meant no fortune. Of course we could not get
married without funds, and just now I have a couple of hundreds standing
to my credit in the bank. If we are careful, and content to begin
married life in apartments, we need not spend any more than I am
spending now by myself.”
He omitted to say that this money was all that was left of a legacy of
£500 which had come to him from an aunt, and that he had been spending
it pretty freely. His words only gave the impression that he knew the
value of money, and was not one to act without careful consideration.
They were still discussing this point when Fan came in, and after
shaking hands with their visitor sat down in her hat and jacket. Merton,
after expressing his regret that she had lost her protectress, proceeded
to make some remarks about Miss Starbrow's eccentric temper. Nothing
which that lady did, he said, surprised him in the least. Fan sat with
eyes cast down; she looked pale and fatigued, and her face clouded at
his words; then murmuring some excuse, she rose and went to her bedroom.
“I must warn you, Merton,” said Constance, “that Fan can't endure to
hear anything said in dispraise of Miss Starbrow. I have discovered that
it is the one subject about which she is capable of losing her temper
and quarrelling with her best friend.”
“Is that so?” he returned, laughingly. “Then she must be as eccentric
as Miss Starbrow herself. But what does the poor girl intend doing--she
must do something to live, I suppose?”
Constance told him all about Fan's projects. “Why do you smile?” she
said. “You do not approve, I suppose?”
“You are mistaken, Connie. I neither approve nor disapprove. She does
not ask us to shape her future life for her, and we owe her thanks for
that.”
“Yes, but still you are a little shocked that she has not set her mind
on something a little higher.”
“Not at all. On the contrary. It is really disgusting to find how many
there are who take 'Excelsior' for their motto. In a vast majority of
cases they get killed by falling over a precipice, or smothered in
the snow, or crawl back to the lower levels to go through life as
frost-bitten, crippled, pitiful objects. You can see scores of these
would-be climbers any day in the streets of London, and know them by
their faces. If you are not a real Whymper it is better not to be in
the crowd of foolish beings who imagine themselves Whympers, but to rest
content, like Fan, in the valley below. I am very glad not to be asked
for advice, but if you ask my opinion I can say, judging from what
I have seen of Fan, that I believe she has made a wise choice. Her
capabilities and appearance would make her a very nice shop-girl.”
“Oh, you have too poor an opinion of her!” exclaimed Constance.
Nevertheless she could not help thinking that he was perhaps right. It
was very pleasant to listen to him, this eloquent lover of hers, to see
how
With a Réaumur's skill his curious mind
Classed the insect tribes of human kind.
It was impossible to doubt that _he_, at any rate, would know very well
where to set his foot on those perilous heights to which he aspired.
Later in the evening the lovers went out for a walk, from which
Constance came home looking very bright and happy. The girls slept
together, and after going to bed that night there was a curious
little scene between them, in which Fan's part was a very passive
one. “Darling, we have talked so little since we have been here,” said
Constance, putting her arm round her friend, “and now I have got so many
things to say to you.” And as Fan seemed anxious to hear her story,
she began to talk first about Merton's wish for an early marriage, but
before long she discovered that her companion had fallen asleep. Then
she withdrew her arm and turned away disgusted, all the story of her
happiness untold. “I verily believe,” she said to herself, “that I have
credited Fan with a great deal more sensibility than she possesses. To
drop asleep like a plough-boy the moment I begin to talk to her--how
little she cares about my affairs! I think Merton must be right in what
he said about her. She is very keen and wideawake about her shop, and
seems to think and care for nothing else.” Much more she thought in her
vexation, and then glanced back at the face at her side, so white and
pure and still, framed in its unbound golden hair, so peaceful and
yet with a shade of sadness mingling with its peacefulness; and having
looked, she could not withdraw her eyes. “How beautiful she looks,”
said Constance, relenting a little. And then, “Poor child, she must have
overtired herself to-day.... And perhaps it is not strange that she has
shown herself so cold about my engagement. She thinks that Merton is
taking me away from her. She is grieving secretly at the thought of
losing me, as she lost her bitter, cruel-hearted Mary. Oh, dearest, I am
not so fantastical as that woman, and you shall never lose me. Married
or single, rich or poor, and wherever you may be, in or out of a shop,
my soul shall cleave to you as it did at Eyethorne, and I shall love
you as I love no other woman--always, always.” And bending she lightly
kissed the still white face; but Fan slept soundly and the light kiss
disturbed her not.