Nearly the whole of Fan's remaining time before going to Kingston was
passed at Dawson Place. Her happiness was perfect, like the sunshine she
had found resting on that dear spot on her return to it, pure, without
stain of cloud. For into Mary's vexed heart something new seemed to have
come, something strange to her nature, a novel meekness, a sweetness
that did not sour, so that their harmony continued unbroken to the end.
And, oddly enough, or not oddly perhaps, since she was not “logical,”
she seemed now greatly to sympathise with Fan's growing anxiety about
the lost Constance. Not one trace of the petty jealous feeling which had
caused so much trouble in the past remained; she was heartily ashamed of
it now, and was filled with remorse when she recalled her former unkind
and capricious behaviour.
At length Fan went on her visit, not without a pang of regret at parting
so soon again, even for a short time, from the friend she had recovered.
She was anxious to hear that “strange story” about her father which the
lawyer had promised to relate; apart from that, she did not anticipate
much pleasure from her stay at Kingston.
The Travers' house was at a little distance from the town, and stood
well back on the road, screened from sight by trees and a high brick
wall. It was a large, low, old-fashioned, rambling house, purchased by
its owner many years before, when he had a numerous family with him, and
required plenty of house-room; but its principal charm to Fan was the
garden, covering about four acres of ground, well stocked with a great
variety of shrubs and flowers, and containing some trees of noble
growth.
Mrs. Travers was not many years younger than her husband; and yet
she did not look old, although her health was far from good, her
more youthful appearance being due to a false front of glossy
chestnut-coloured hair, an occasional visit to the rouge-pot, and other
artificial means used by civilised ladies to mitigate the ravages
of time. In other things also she offered a striking contrast to her
husband, being short and stout, or fat; she was also a dressy dame, and
burdened her podgy fingers and broad bosom with too much gold and too
many precious stones--yellow, blue, and red; and her silk dresses were
also too bright-hued for a lady of her years and figure. Her favourite
strong blues and purples would have struck painfully on the refined
colour-sense of an aesthete. On the other hand, to balance these
pardonable defects, she was kind-hearted; not at all artificial in her
manner and conversation, or unduly puffed up with her position, as one
might have expected her to be from her appearance; and, to put her
chief merit last, she reverenced her husband, and believed that in all
things--except, perhaps, in those small matters sacred to femininity,
which concerned her personal adornment--“he knew best.” She was
consequently prepared to extend a warm welcome to her young visitor,
and, for her husband's sake, to do as much to make her visit pleasant
as if she had been the lawful daughter of her husband's late friend and
client, Colonel Eden.
Nevertheless, after the days she had spent with Mary, Fan did not find
Mrs. Travers' society exhilarating. The lady had given up walking,
except a very little in the garden, but on most days she went out for
carriage exercise in the morning, after Mr. Travers had gone to town. At
two o'clock the ladies would lunch, after which Fan would be alone until
the five o'clock tea, when her hostess would reappear in a gay dress,
and a lovely carmine bloom on her cheeks--the result of her refreshing
noonday slumbers. After tea they would spend an hour together in the
garden talking and reading. Mrs. Travers, having bad eyesight, accepted
Fan's offer to read to her. She read nothing but periodicals--short
social sketches, smart paragraphs, jokes, and occasionally a tale, if
very short, so that Fan found her task a very light one. She had
_The World, Truth, The Whitehall Review, The Queen_ and _The Lady's
Pictorial_ every week; and in the last-named paper Fan read out a little
sketch--one of a series called “Eastern Idylls”--which she liked better
than anything else for its graceful style and delicate pathos. So much
did it please her, that she looked up the back numbers of the paper, and
read all the sketches in them, each relating some little domestic East
End incident or tale, pathetic or humorous, or both, with scenes and
characters lightly drawn, yet with such skilful touches, and put so
clearly before the mind, that it was impossible not to believe that
these pictures were from life.
At half-past six Mr. Travers would return from town, and at seven they
dined, sitting long at table; and afterwards, if there were friends,
there would be a rubber of whist. It was a quiet almost sleepy
existence, and Fan began to look forward with a little impatience to the
end of her fortnight, when she would be able to return to her friend.
For Mary's last words had been, “I shall not leave London without
you.” But she first wished to hear the “strange story” Mr. Travers
had promised to tell, but about which he had spoken no word since her
arrival. Every day she was reminded of it, for in the dining-room was
the portrait of her father, painted, life-size, by a Royal Academician,
and showing a gentleman aged about thirty-five years, with a handsome
oval face, grey eyes, thin straight nose, and hair and well-trimmed
moustache and Vandyke beard of a deep golden brown, the moustache not
altogether hiding the pleasant, somewhat voluptuous mouth. And it seemed
to Fan when she looked at it and the grey eyes gazed back into hers, and
the pleasant lips seemed to smile on her, that she had never seen among
living men a more beautiful and lovable face.
The sixth day of her visit was Sunday. Mr. Travers breakfasted alone
with her, his wife not having risen yet, and after breakfast he asked
her if she wished to go to church.
“Not unless you are going or wish me to go,” returned Fan.
“Then, Miss Eden, let us stay at home, and have a morning to ourselves
in the garden. We have not yet had much time to talk, as I am generally
rather tired in the evenings. And besides, what I wish to talk to you
about is one of _my_ secrets, and it could not be mentioned before
another.”
They were out in the garden sitting in the shade, when he surprised her
by saying, “Are you at all superstitious, Miss Eden?”
“I am not quite sure that I understand you,” replied Fan, with a little
hesitation. “Do you mean religious, Mr. Travers?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But superstition is undoubtedly a word of many
meanings, and some people give it a very wide one, as your question
implies. I used the word in a more restricted sense--in the sense in
which we say that believers in dreams, presentiments, and apparitions
are superstitious. My belief was--I am not sure whether I can say
_is_--that your father was infected with superstitions of this kind.
But I must tell you the whole story, and then you will understand what
I mean when I say that it is a strange one. He was one of several
children; and, by the way, that reminds me that--but let that pass.”
“Do you mean--have I--has my brother many relations--uncles, aunts, and
cousins, Mr. Travers?” said Fan, a little eagerly.
“Well,” he answered, smiling a little and stroking his chin, “yes. Your
half-brother's mother had two married sisters, both with large families;
but I do not think that Mr. Arthur Eden is intimate with them. I think I
have heard him say as much.”
Fan, noting that he cautiously confined himself to her brother's
relations on the mother's side, grew red, and secretly resolved never to
ask such a question again, even of Arthur.
The other continued: “Being one of several children, and not the eldest,
his income was a small one for a young man of rather expensive habits
and in the army. He was in difficulties on several occasions, and it
was at that period that our acquaintance ripened into a very close
friendship--as warm a friendship as can exist between two men living
totally different lives, moving in different social worlds, and with a
considerable difference in their ages.
“When about thirty-eight years old he married a lady with a considerable
fortune, which was not in any way settled on herself, and consequently
became his. It was not a happy marriage, and after the birth of their
son--their only child--and Mrs. Eden not being in good health, she went
to live at Winchester, where she had relations and where her son was
educated; and for several years husband and wife lived apart. His wife
died about fourteen years after her marriage, and, I am glad to say, he
was with her during her last illness, but afterwards he returned to his
old life in London, and went very much into society. Finally his health
failed; and when he discovered that his malady, although a slow, was an
incurable one, his habits and disposition changed, and he grew morbid, I
think--possibly from brooding too much on his condition.
“Up to this time he had paid no attention to religion; now it became the
sole subject of his thoughts. He attended a ritualistic church in the
neighbourhood of Oxford Street, and gave up the house he had occupied
before, and took another only a few doors removed from the church, so as
to be able to attend all the services, one of which was held daily at a
very early hour of the morning. In this church, confession and penances,
and other things in which the ritualists imitate the Roman Catholics,
are in use, and the vicar, or priest as he is called, gained a great
influence over Colonel Eden's mind.
“He had at this time entirely given up going into society, but his
intimacy with me, which had lasted so many years, continued to the end.
Shortly before he died, and about three years and a half to four years
ago, he told me that he had had a strange dream, which he persisted in
regarding as of the supernatural order. This dream came to him on three
consecutive nights, and after several conversations with his priest and
confessor on the subject, and being encouraged by him in the belief that
it was something more than a mere wandering of the disordered fancy, he
consulted me about it. It was then that for the first time he told me
the story of Margaret Affleck, a girl in a humble position in life who
had engaged his affections some fourteen years before, and from whom he
had parted after a few months' acquaintance. He assured me that he had
all but forgotten this affair; that when parting from her he had given
her some money as a compensation for the trouble he had brought on her;
while, on her side, she had told him that she would not be disgraced,
but that she would marry a young man in her own class, who was willing
and anxious to take her.
“At all events, during those fourteen years he had never seen nor heard
anything of her. Then comes the dream. He dreamt that he was in the
church for early matins, and that he heard a voice calling 'Father,
father!' to him, and on looking round saw a poor girl in ragged clothes,
and with a pale, exceedingly sad face, and that he had no sooner looked
on her than he knew that she was his child, and the child of Margaret
Affleck. She was crying piteously, and wringing her hands and imploring
him to deliver her from her misery; and in his struggling efforts to go
to her he woke.
“This dream, as I said, returned to him night after night, and so preyed
on his mind that he interpreted it as a command from some Superior Power
to seek out this lost child and save her. I tried my best to argue him
out of his delusion, for I was convinced that it was nothing more; but
seeing him so determined, and so fully persuaded in his own mind that
unless he made atonement his sins would not be forgiven, I gave way,
and had inquiries made in various directions. I advertised for Margaret
Affleck; for I could not, of course, advertise for a child of whose
existence there was not any evidence. But though we advertised a
great many times both in the London and Norfolk papers--Colonel Eden
remembered that the girl belonged to Norfolk--we could not find the
right person. Colonel Eden, however, still clung to the belief that
the daughter he believed in would eventually be found, and he even
contemplated adding a clause to his will, in which everything was left
unconditionally to his son, to make provision for her. This intention
was not carried out, but shortly before his death he told me that he had
left a sealed letter for his son, who was abroad at the time, informing
him of the dream, or revelation, and asking him to continue the search,
and to provide generously for the child when she should be found. He
never for a moment seemed to doubt that she would be found; but his
belief was that we would find in her not, my dear girl, one like
yourself--fresh and unsullied as the flower in your hand, beautiful in
spirit as in person.”
“What did he believe you would find? Will you please tell me, Mr.
Travers?” said Fan, a tremor in her voice.
“He believed when he had that dream that you were in the lowest depths
of poverty--in misery, and exposed to all the dangers and temptations
which surround a destitute young girl, motherless perhaps, and
friendless, and homeless, in London. Dear child, I cannot tell you
all or what he feared,” he finished, putting his hand lightly on her
shoulder.
There were tears in her eyes, and she averted her face to hide the rush
of crimson to her cheeks.
Mr. Travers continued: “The news of Colonel Eden's death reached Arthur
in Mexico, and he came home at once. He showed me the letter I have
mentioned, and asked me to advise him what to do. But from the first
he had taken the same view of the matter which I had taken, and which I
suppose that ninety-nine men out of every hundred would take, and I must
say that he did not do much to find the girl, nor was there anything to
be done after our advertisements had failed. The rest of the story you
know, Miss Eden. When I last saw your brother I told him that after
making your acquaintance, if I found you what he had painted, I should
in all probability tell you this story, and he made no objection. I fear
it has given you pain, still it was best that you should know it. And
perhaps now you will not think that your brother was wrong in opening
his heart to me.”
“No, I think he was right, and I am very, very grateful to you for
telling me about my father.” After a while she continued: “But, Mr.
Travers, I hardly know what to say about the dream. I have heard and
read of such things, and--I was just what he imagined--just like the
girl he saw in his dream. And when my life was so miserable, if I had
known where to find him--if mother could have told me--I should have
gone to him to ask him to save me. But--how can I say it? Don't you
think, Mr. Travers, that if dreams and warnings were sent to us--if good
spirits could let us know things in that way and tell us what to do,
that it would happen oftener? ... There are always so many in distress
and danger, and sometimes so little is needed to save one--a few pence,
a few kind words--and yet how many fall, how many die! Even in the
Regent's Canal how many poor women throw their lives away--and nothing
saves them.... I am not glad to hear that it was a dream that first made
my father wish to find mother--and me. I should have preferred to hear
that he thought of her--of us, before he fell into such bad health, and
when he was strong and happy.... Do you think his dream was sent from
heaven, Mr. Travers?”
“I am not prepared to express an opinion as to that, Miss Eden,” he
replied, with a grave smile. “But I have been listening to your words
with great interest and a little surprise. Most young ladies, I fancy,
would have been deeply impressed with such a narrative, and they would
readily and gladly have adopted the view that some supernatural agency
had been concerned in the matter. You, strange to say, do not seem to
look on yourself as a special favourite of the powers above, and think
that others have as much right as yourself to be rescued miraculously
from perils and sufferings. Well--you have not a romantic mind, Miss
Eden.”
“No, I don't think I have--I have had the same thing said to me two or
three times before,” replied Fan naïvely. “But I wish you would tell
me more about my father when he was healthy and happy. Was he really as
handsome as he looks in the portrait? It seems so life-like that when I
am looking at it I can hardly realise that he is not somewhere living on
the earth, that I shall never hold his hand and hear his voice.”
The old lawyer was quite ready to gratify her curiosity on the point,
and told her a great deal about her father's life. “There is one thing
I omitted to mention before,” he said at the end. “Your brother would
gladly do anything in his power to make you happy; at the same time he
wishes you to understand that in providing for you he is only carrying
out his father's intentions, and that you will owe it to your father,
and not to him.”
“But I shall still feel the same gratitude to my brother, Mr. Travers.”
“Well, no harm can come of that, and--we cannot help our feelings. Just
now it is your brother's fancy to leave you in ignorance of the amount
of your income, which I think you will find sufficient. For a year or
so you have as it were _carte blanche_ to do what you like in the way
of spending, and if you should exceed your income by fifty or a hundred
pounds I don't think anything alarming will happen. And now, Miss Eden,
is there nothing I can do for you? Nothing you would like to ask my
advice about?”
“Oh yes, thank you, there is one thing,” and she told him all about her
friend Constance, and her anxiety to find her.
Mr. Travers made a note of the matter. “There will be no difficulty in
finding them,” he said. “I shall have inquiries made to-morrow. I hope,”
he added with a smile, “you are not going to become a convert to Mr.
Merton Chance's doctrines.”
“Oh no,” she replied laughing. “My only wish is to find Mrs. Chance.
Mrs. Churton once said, when she was a little vexed with me, that it was
like pouring water on a duck's back to give me religious instruction.
I am sure that if Mr. Chance ever speaks to me about his new beliefs I
shall have my feathers well oiled.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Travers had been keeping the luncheon back, and watching
them engaged in that long conversation from her seat at the window. The
good woman had been the wife of her husband for a great many years, but
she had not yet outlived that natural belief that a wife has to “know
everything” her husband knows; and she had guessed that those two were
discussing secret matters which they had no intention of imparting to
her. A woman has a faculty about such things which corresponds to scent
in the terrier; the little mystery is there--the small rodent lurks
behind the wainscot; she is consumed with a desire to get at it--to
worry its life out; and if it refuse to leave its hiding-place she
cannot rest and be satisfied. It was her nature; and though she asked no
questions, knowing that her husband was not to be caught in that way, he
did not fail to remark the slight frost which had fallen on her manner
and her polite and distant tone towards their guest. Well aware of
the cause, and too old to be annoyed, it only gave him a little secret
amusement. He had warned the girl, and that was enough. The little chill
would pass off in time, and no harm would result.
It did not pass off quickly, however, but lasted three or four days,
during which time Mrs. Travers was somewhat distant in her manner, and
declined Fan's offer to read to her; and Fan remarked the change, but
was at a loss to account for it. But one day, after lunch, when they
rose from the table, she said, “Oh, Mrs. Travers, do you know that
the _Pic_. is in the drawing-room? I have been anxiously waiting since
Saturday to know what the last 'Eastern Idyll' is about.”
“And why have you not read it, Miss Eden?” said the other, a little
stiffly.
“I thought that you would perhaps let me read it to you--I did not wish
to read it first.”
The good woman smiled and consented. Her sight was not good, and the
sketches were always printed in a painfully small type; and besides,
they seemed different to her when the girl read them; her low musical
voice, so clear and penetrating, yet pathetic, had seemed to interpret
the writer's feeling so well. And so the frost melted, and she became
more kind and friendly than ever.
Mr. Travers, much to his own surprise, failed to discover Fan's lost
friends. One thing he had done was to send a clerk to the office of
the paper with the singular title to ask for Mr. Chance's address. The
answer he received from a not over-polite gentleman he met there was,
“We don't know nothing about Mr. Merton Chance in this horfice, and
don't want to, nether.”
Mr. Travers had to confess that he could not find Merton Chance.