Returned from her visit, Miss Starbrow appeared for a time to have
recovered her serenity, and proceeded to change her dress for dinner,
softly humming an air to herself as she moved about the room. “Poor
Fan,” she said, “how barbarous of me to treat her in that way--to say
that I almost hated her! No wonder she refused to forgive me; but her
resentment will not last long. And she does not know--she does not
know.” And then suddenly, all the colour fading from her cheeks again,
she burst into a passion of weeping, violent as a tropical storm when
the air has been overcharged with electricity. It was quickly over, and
she dressed herself, and went down to her solitary dinner. After sitting
for a few minutes at the table, playing with her spoon, she rose and
ordered the servant to take the dinner away--she had no appetite. The
lamps were lighted in the drawing-room, and for some time she moved
about the floor, pausing at times to take up a novel she had been
reading from the table, only to throw it down again. Then she would go
to the piano, and without sitting down, touch the keys lightly. She was
and she was not in a mood to play. She was not in voice, and could not
sing. And at last she went away to a corner of the room which was most
in shadow, and sat down on a couch, and covered her eyes with her hand
to shut out the lamplight. “If he knew how it is with me to-night he
would certainly be here,” she said. “And then it would all be over soon.
But he does not know--thank God!... Oh, what a fool I was to call him
'Jack'! That was the greatest mistake I made. But there is no help for
it now--he knows what I feel, and nothing, nothing can save me. Nothing,
if he were to come now. I wish he would come. If he knows that I am at
his mercy why does he not come? No, he will not come. He is satisfied;
he has got so much to-day--so much more than he had looked to get for
a long time to come. He will wait quietly now for fear of overdoing it.
Until Christmas probably, and then he will send a little gift, perhaps
write me a letter. And that is so far off--three months and a half--time
enough to breathe and think.”
Just then a visitor's knock sounded loud at the door, and she started
to her feet, white and trembling with agitation. “Oh, my God! he has
come--he has guessed!” she exclaimed, pressing her hand on her throbbing
breast.
But it was a false alarm. The visitor proved to be a young gentleman
named Theed, aged about twenty-one, who was devoted to music and
sometimes sang duets with her. She would have none of his duets
to-night. She scarcely smiled when receiving him, and would scarcely
condescend to talk to him. She was in no mood for talking with this
immature young man--this boy, who came with his prattle when she wished
to be alone. It was very uncomfortable for him.
“I hope you are not feeling unwell, Miss Starbrow,” he ventured to
remark.
“Feeling sick, the Americans say,” she corrected scornfully. “Do I look
it?”
“You look rather pale, I think,” he returned, a little frightened.
“Do I?” glancing at the mirror. “Ah, yes, that is because I am out of
rouge. I only use one kind; it is sent to me from Paris, and I let it
get too low before ordering a fresh supply.”
He laughed incredulously.
Miss Starbrow looked offended. “Are you so shortsighted and so innocent
as to imagine that the colour you generally see on my face is natural,
Mr. Theed? What a vulgar blowzy person you must have thought me! If I
had such a colour naturally, I should of course use _blanc de perle_ or
something to hide it. There is a considerable difference--even a very
young man might see it, I should think--between rouge and the crude
blazing red that nature daubs on a milkmaid's cheeks.”
He did not quite know how to take it, and changed the conversation, only
to get snubbed and mystified in the same way about other things,
until he was made thoroughly miserable; and in watching his misery she
experienced a secret savage kind of pleasure.
No sooner had he gone than she sat down to the piano, and began singing,
song after song, as she had never sung before--English, German, French,
Italian--songs of passion and of pain--Beethoven's _Kennst du das Land_,
and Spohr's _Rose softly blooming_, and Blumenthal's _Old, Old Story_,
and then _Il Segreto_ and _O mio Fernando_ and _Stride la vampa_, and
rising to heights she seldom attempted, _Modi ab modi_ and _Ab fors'
è lui che l'anima_; pouring forth without restraint all the long-pent
yearing of her heart, all the madness and misery of a desire which might
be expressed in no other way; until outside in the street the passers-by
slackened their steps and lingered before the windows, wondering at that
strange storm of melody. And at last, as an appropriate ending to such
a storm, Domencio Thorner's _Se solitaria preghi la sera_--that perfect
echo of the heart's most importunate feeling, and its fluctuatons, when
plangent passion sinks its voice like the sea, rocking itself to
rest, and nearly finds forgetful calm; until suddenly the old pain
revives--the pain that cannot keep silence, the hunger of the heart,
the everlasting sorrow--and swells again in great and greater waves of
melody.
There could be no other song after that. She shut the piano with a bang,
which caused the servants standing close to the door outside to jump and
steal hurriedly away on tiptoe to the kitchen.
Only ten o'clock! How was she to get through this longest evening of her
life? So early, but too late now to expect anyone; and as it grew later
that faintness of her heart, that trembling of her knees, which had
made her hold on to a chair for support--that shadow which his expected
coming had cast on her heart--passed off, and she was so strong and so
full of energy that it was a torture to her.
Alone there, shut up in her drawing-room, what could she do with her
overflowing strength? She could have scaled the highest mountain in the
world, and carried Mr. Whymper up in her arms; and there was nothing to
do but to read a novel, and then go to bed. She rose and angrily pushed
a chair or two out of the way to make a clear space, and then paced the
floor up and down, up and down, like some stately caged animal of the
feline kind, her lustrous eyes and dry pale lips showing the dull rage
in her heart. When eleven struck she rang the bell violently for the
servants to turn off the gas, and went to her room, slamming the doors
after her. After partly undressing she sat pondering for some time, and
then rose suddenly with a little laugh, and got her writing-case and
took paper and pen, and sat herself down to compose a letter. “Your time
has passed, Jack,” she said. “I shall never make that mistake again. No,
I shall not bide your time. I shall use the opportunity you have given
me--poor fool!--and save myself. I shall write to Tom and confess my
weakness to him, and then all danger will be over. Poor old Tom, I
deserved all he said and more, and can easily forgive him to-night. And
then, Captain Jack, you can 'God-bless-you-for-that-Mary' me as much
as you like, and shed virtuous tears, and toil on in the straight and
narrow path until your red moustache turns white; and all the angels
in heaven may rejoice over your repentance if they like. _I_ shall not
rejoice or have anything more to do with you.” But though the pen was
dashed spitefully into the ink many times, the ink dried from it again,
and the letter was not written; and at last she flung the pen down and
went to bed.
There was no rest to be got there; she tossed and turned from side
to side, and flung her arms about this way and that, and finding the
bedclothes too oppressive kicked them off. At length the bedroom clock
told the hour of twelve in its slow soft musical language. And still
she tossed and turned until it struck one. She rose and drew aside the
window-curtains to let the pale starlight shine into the room, and then
going back to bed sat propped up with the pillows. “Must I really wait
all that time,” she said, “sitting still, eating my own heart--wait
through half of September, October, November, December--only to put my
neck under the yoke at last? Only to give myself meekly to one I shall
never look upon, even if I look on him every hour of every day to the
end of my days, without remembering the past? without remembering to
what a depth I have fallen--despising myself without recalling all the
hatred and the loathing I have felt for my lord and master! Oh, what
a poor weak, vile thing I am! No wonder I hate and despise women
generally, knowing what I am myself--a woman! Yes, a very woman--the
plaything, the creature, the slave of a man! Let him only be a man and
show his manhood somehow, by virtue or by vice, by god-like deeds or
by crimes, be they black as night, and she _must_ be his slave. Yes,
I know, 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned'; but did _he_ know,
Congreve, or whoever it was, what a poor contemptible thing that fury
is? A little outburst of insanity, such as scores of miserable wretches
experience any day at Hanwell, and are strapped down, or thrust into a
padded room, have cold water dashed over them, until the fit is passed.
No doubt she will do any mad thing while it lasts, things that no man
would do, but it is quickly over, this contemptible short-lived fury;
and then she is a woman again, ready to drag herself through the mire
for her tyrant, ready to kiss the brutal hand that has smitten her--to
watch and wait and pine and pray for a smile from the lying bestial
lips, as the humble Christian prays for heaven! A woman--oh, what a poor
thing it is!”
The clock struck two. The sound started her, and changed the current
of her thoughts. “Even now it is not too late to write,” she said. “The
pillar-boxes are cleared at three o'clock, the letter would be re-posted
to him to-morrow, and if he is in America he would get it in eight or
nine days.” She got out of bed, lit a candle, and sat down again to her
letter, and this time she succeeded in writing it, but it was not the
letter she had meant to write.
MY DEAR TOM [the letter ran],--If you are willing to let bygones
be bygones I shall be very glad. I told you when we parted that I
would never speak to you again, but I of course meant not until you
made some advance and expressed sorrow for what you said to me; but I
have altered my mind now, as I have a perfect right to do. At the
same time I wish you to understand that I do not acknowledge having
been in the wrong. On the contrary, I still hold, and always shall,
that no one has any right to assume airs or authority over me, and
dictate to me as you did. I should not suffer it from a husband, if I
ever do such a foolish thing as to marry, certainly not from a
brother. The others always went on the idea that they could dictate
to me with impunity, but I suppose they see their mistake now, when I
will not have anything to do with them, and ignore them altogether.
You were always different and took my part, I must say, and I have
never forgotten it, and it was therefore very strange to have you
assuming that lofty tone, and interfering in my private affairs. For
that is what it comes to, Tom, however you may try to disguise it and
make out that it was a different matter. I do not wish to be
unfriendly with you, as if you were no better than the other
Starbrows; and I should be so glad if it could be the same as it was
before this unhappy quarrel. For though I will never be dictated to
by anyone about _anything_, it is a very good and pleasant thing
to have someone in the world who is not actuated by mercenary motives
to love and trust and confide in.
If you have recovered from the unbrotherly temper you were in by
this time, and have made the discovery that you were entirely to
blame in that affair, and as unreasonable as even the best of men
can't help being sometimes, I shall be very glad to see you on your
return to England.
I hope you are enjoying your travels, and that you find the
_Murracan_ language easier to understand, if not to speak, than
the French or German; also I sincerely hope that one effect of your
trip will be to make you detest the Yankees as heartily as I do.
Your loving Sister,
Mary Starbrow.
P.S.--Do not delay to come to me when you arrive, as I am most
anxious to consult you about something, and shall also have some news
which you will perhaps be pleased to hear. You will probably find me
at home in London.
She had written the letter rapidly, and then, as if afraid of again
changing her mind about it, thrust it unread into the envelope, and
directed it to her brother's London agent, to be forwarded immediately.
Then she went to the window and raised the sash to look out and listen.
There was no sound at that hour except the occasional faintly-heard
distant rattling of a cab. Only half-past two! What should she do to
pass the time before three o'clock? Smiling to herself she went back
to the table, and still pausing at intervals to listen, wrote a note to
Fan.
Darling Fan,--I am so sorry--so very sorry that I grieved you to-day--I
mean yesterday--with my unkind words, and again ask your forgiveness. I
know that you will forgive me, dearest, and perhaps you forgave me before
closing your eyes in sleep, for you must be sleeping now. But when I
meet you to-morrow--I mean to-day--and see forgiveness in your sweet
eyes, I shall be as glad as if I had hoped for no such sweet thing.
Since I parted from you I have felt very unhappy about different
things--too unhappy to sleep. It is now forty minutes past two, and
if this letter is posted by three you will get it in the morning. I
have my bedroom window open so as to hear if a policeman passes; but
if one should not pass I will just slip an ulster over my nightdress
and run to the pillar-box myself Good-night, darling--I mean
good-morning.
MARY.
P.S.--It has been raining, I fancy, as the pavement looks wet, and
it seems cold too; but as a little penance for my unkindness to you,
I shall run to the post with bare feet. But be not alarmed, child; if
inflammation of the lungs carries me off in three weeks' time I shall
not be vexed with you, but shall look down smilingly from the sky,
and select one of the prettiest stars there to drop it down on your
forehead.
That little penance was not required; before many minutes had
elapsed the slow, measured, elephantine tread of the perambulating
night-policeman woke the sullen echoes of Dawson Place, and if there
were any evil-doers lurking thereabouts, caused them to melt away into
the dim shadows. Taking her letters, a candle, and a shilling which she
had in readiness, Miss Starbrow ran down to the door, opened it softly
and called the man to her, and gave him the letters to post and the
shilling for himself. And then, feeling greatly relieved and very
sleepy, she went back to bed, and tossed no more.