The unbroken greyness out of doors, and the gusty wind sending the dead
curled-up leaves whirling through the chilly air, or racing over the
pavement of Dawson Place, made Miss Starbrow's dining-room look very
warm and pleasant one morning early in the month of October. The
fire burning brightly in the grate, and the great white and yellow
chrysanthemums in the blue pot on the breakfast-table, spoke of autumn
and coming cold; and the fire and the misty flowers in their colours
looked in harmony with the lady's warm terra-cotta red dressing-gown,
trimmed with slaty-grey velvet; in harmony also with her face, so richly
tinted and so soft in its expression, as she sat there leisurely sipping
her coffee and reading a very long letter which the morning post had
brought her. The letter was as follows:
DEAR MARY,--We have now been here a whole week, and I have more to tell
you than I ever put in one letter before. Why do we always say that time
flies quickly when we are happy? I am happiest in the country, and yet
the days here seem so much longer than in town; and I seem to have lived
a whole month in one week, and yet it has been such an exceedingly happy
one. How fresh and peaceful and _homelike_ it all seemed to me when we
arrived! It was like coming back to my birthplace once more, and having
all the sensations of a happy childhood returning to me. My _happy_
childhood began so late!
But I must begin at the beginning and tell you everything. At first it
was a little distressing. In the house, I mean, for out of doors there
could be no change. You can't imagine how beautiful the woods look in
their brown and yellow foliage. And the poor people I used to visit all
seemed so glad to see me again, and all called me “Miss Affleck,” which
made it like old times. But Mrs. Churton received us almost as if
we were strangers, and I could see that she had not got over the
unhappiness both Constance and I had caused her. She was not unkind
or cold, but she was not _motherly_; and while she studied to make us
comfortable, she spoke little, and did not seem to take any interest in
our affairs, and left us very much to ourselves. It seemed so unnatural.
And one morning, when we had been three days in the house, she was not
well enough to go out after breakfast, and Constance offered to go and
do something for her in the village. She consented a little stiffly, and
when we were left alone together I felt very uncomfortable, and at last
sat down by her and took her hand in mine. She looked surprised but said
nothing, which made it harder for me; but after a moment I got courage
to say that it grieved me to see her looking so sad and ill, and that
during all the time since I left Eyethorne I had never ceased to think
of her and to remember that she had made me look on her as a mother.
Then she began to cry; and afterwards we sat talking together for a long
time--quite an hour, I think--and I told her all about our hard life in
town, and she was astonished and deeply pained to hear what Constance
had gone through. For she knew nothing about it; she only knew that her
daughter had married Merton and was a widow and poor. I am so glad I
told her, though it made her unhappy at first, because it has made such
a difference. When Constance at last came in and found us still sitting
there together, Mrs. Churton got up and put her arms round her and
kissed her, but was unable to speak for crying. Since then she has been
so different to both of us; and when she questioned me about spiritual
things she seemed quite surprised and pleased to find that I was not an
infidel, and no worse than when I was with her. I think that in her
own heart she sets it down to Constance not having exerted herself to
convert me, thinking, I suppose, that it would have been very easy to
have done so. There is no harm in her thinking that, only it is not
true. Now she even speaks to Constance on such subjects, and tries to
win her back to her old beliefs; and although Constance does not say
much, for she knows how useless it would be, she listens very quietly to
everything, and without any sign of impatience.
With so much to make me happy, will you think me very greedy and
discontented if I say that I should like to be still happier? I confess
that there are several little, or big, things I still wish and hope for
every day, and without them I cannot feel altogether contented. I must
name two or three of them to you, but I am afraid to begin with the most
important. I must slowly work up to that at the end. Arthur has not yet
returned to England, and I am so anxious to see him again; but he says
nothing definite in his letters about returning. I have just had a
letter from him, which I shall show you when I see you, for he speaks
of you in it. After all I have told him about you he must feel that he
knows you very well.
Another thing. Since we have been here Constance has read me the first
chapters of the book she is writing. It is a very beautiful story, I
think; but it will be her first book, and as her name is unknown, she
is afraid that the publishers will not have it. That is one thing that
troubles me, for she says she must make her living by writing, and I am
almost as anxious as she is herself about it.
Another thing is about you, Mary. Why, when we love each other so
much--for you can't deny that you love me as much as I do you, and I
know how much that is--why must we keep apart just now, when you can so
easily get into a train and come to me? To _us_ I should say, for I know
how glad Constance would be to have you here. Dear Mary, will you come,
if only for a fortnight--if only for a week? You remember that you
wanted to go to the seaside or somewhere with me. Well, if you will come
and join us here we might afterwards all go to Sidmouth for a short (or
long) stay; for you and I together would be able to persuade Constance
to go with us. My wish is so strong that it has made me believe you will
come, and I have even spoken to Constance and Mrs. Churton about it, and
they would give you a nice room; and you would be my guest, Mary; and if
you should object to that, then you could pay Mrs. Churton for yourself.
I have a great many other things to say to you, but shall not write
them, in the hope that you will come to hear them from my lips. Only one
thing I must mention, because it might vex you, and had therefore best
be written. You must not think because I go back to the subject that I
have any doubt about Tom being in the wrong in that quarrel you told me
about; but I must say again, Mary, that if he was in the wrong, it is
for you rather than for him to make the first advance. I would rather
people offended me sometimes than not to have the pleasure of forgiving.
Forgive me, dearest Mary, for saying this; but I can say it better than
another, since no one in the world knows so well as I do how good you
are.
And now, dearest Mary, good-bye, and come--come to your loving
FRANCES EDEN.
She had read this letter once, and now while sipping her second cup
of coffee was reading it again, when the door opened and Tom Starbrow
walked into the room.
“Good-morning, Mary,” he said, coming forward and coolly sitting down at
some distance from her.
She had not heard him knock, and his sudden appearance made her start
and the colour forsake her cheeks; but in a moment she recovered
her composure, and returned, “Good-morning, Tom, will you have some
breakfast?”
“No, thanks. I breakfasted quite early at Euston. I came up by a night
train, and might have been here an hour or two ago, but preferred to
wait until your usual getting-up hour.”
“I suppose you got my letter in America?”
“Yes, I am here in answer to your letter.”
“It was very good of you to come so soon, especially as it was entirely
about my private affairs.”
“I could not know that, Mary. That high and mighty letter of yours told
me nothing except what I knew already--that I have a sister. In the
postscript you said you wished to consult me about something, and had
things to tell me. Your letter reached me in Canada. I was just
getting ready to return to New York, and had made up my mind to go to
California; then down the Pacific coast to Chili, and from there over
the Andes, and across country to Buenos Ayres on the Atlantic side, and
then by water to Brazil, and afterwards home. After getting your letter
I came straight to England.”
“I should think that after coming all that distance you might at least
have shaken hands with your sister.”
“No, Mary, the time to shake hands has not yet come; that you must know
very well. You did not say in your letter what you had to tell me, but
only that you had _something_ to tell me; remembering what we parted
in anger about, and knowing that you know how deeply I feel on that
subject, I naturally concluded that you wished to see me about it. I do
not wish to be trifled with.”
“I am not accustomed to trifle with you or with anyone,” retorted his
sister with temper. “If your imagination is too lively, I am not to
blame for it. I asked you to come and see me on your return to England,
not to rush back in hot haste from America as if on a matter of life and
death. It is quite a new thing for you to be so impetuous.”
“Is that all you have to say to me then--have you brought me here only
to talk to me in the old strain?”
“I have--I _had_ a great many things to say to you, but was in no hurry
to say them; and since you have come in this very uncomfortable frame
of mind I think it best to hold my peace. My principal object in writing
was to show you that I did not wish to be unfriendly.”
He got up from his chair, looking deeply disappointed, even angry, and
moved restlessly about for a minute or two. Near the door he paused
as if in doubt whether to go away at once without more words or not.
Finally he returned and sat down again. “Mary,” he said, “you have not
treated me well; but I am now here in answer to your letter. Perhaps
I was mistaken in its meaning, but I have no wish to make our quarrel
worse than it is. Let me hear what you have to say to me; and if you
require my advice or assistance, you shall certainly have it. If I
cannot feel towards you as I did in the good old times, I shall, at any
rate, not forget that you are my sister.”
“That's a good old sensible boy,” she returned, smiling. “But, Tom,
before we begin talking I should like you to read this letter, which I
was reading when you came in so suddenly. Probably you noticed that I
took what you said just now very meekly; well, that was the effect of
reading this letter, it is written in such a gentle soothing spirit. If
you will read it it might have the same quieting effect on your nerves
as it did on mine.”
He took the letter without a smile, glanced at a sentence here and
there, and looked at the name at the end. “Pooh!” he exclaimed, “do you
really wish me to wade through eight closely-written pages of this sort
of stuff--the outpourings of a sentimental young lady? I see nothing in
it except the very eccentric handwriting, and the fact that this
Frances Eden--girl or woman--doesn't put the gist of the matter into a
postscript.”
“You needn't sneer. And you won't read it? Frances Eden is Fan.”
“Fan--your Fan! Fan Affleck! Is she married then?”
“No, only changed her name to Eden--it was her father's name. Give me
the letter back.”
“Not till I have read it,” he calmly returned. “Mary,” he said at last,
looking up, “this letter more than justifies what I have said to you
dozens of times. No sweeter spirit ever existed.”
“All that about the outpourings of a sentimental girl or woman?”
“I could never have said that if I had read the letter.”
“And the eccentric writing--you admire that now, I suppose?”
“I do. I never saw more beautiful writing in my life.”
Mary laughed.
“You needn't laugh,” he said. “If I were you I should feel more inclined
to cry. Tell me honestly now, from your heart, do you feel no remorse
when you remember how you treated that girl--the girl who wrote you this
letter; that I first saw in this room, standing there in a green dress
with a great bunch of daffodils in her hand, and looking shyly at me
from under those dark eyelashes? I thought then that I had never seen
such tender, beautiful eyes in my life. Come, Mary, don't be too proud
to acknowledge that you acted very harshly--very unjustly.”
“No, Tom, I acted justly; she brought it on herself. But I did not act
mercifully, and I will tell you why. When I threatened to cast her off
I spoke in anger--I had good reasons to be angry with her--but I should
not have done it; I should only have taken her away from those Churton
people, and kept her in London, or sent her elsewhere. But my words
brought that storm from you on my head, and that settled it; after that
I could not do less than what I had threatened to do.”
“If that is really so I am very sorry,” he said. “But all's well that
ends well; only I must say, Mary, that it was unkind of you to receive
me as you did and tease me so before telling me that you were in
correspondence with the girl once more.”
“You are making a great mistake, I only tease those I like; but as for
you, you have not even apologised to me yet, and I should not think of
being so friendly with you as to tease you.”
He laughed, and going to her side caught her in his strong arms and
kissed her in spite of her resistance.
The resistance had not been great, but presently she wiped the cheek he
had kissed, and said with a look of returning indignation, “I should
not have allowed you to kiss me if I had remembered that you have never
apologised for the insulting language you used to me at Ravenna, when
you called me a demon.”
“Did I call you a demon at Ravenna?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Then, Mary, I am heartily ashamed of myself and beg your pardon now.
There can be no justification, but at the same time--”
“You wish to justify yourself.”
“No, no, certainly not; but I was scarcely myself at that moment, and
you certainly did your best to vex me about Fan and other matters.”
“What do you mean by other matters?”
“You know that I am alluding to Mr. Yewdell, and the way you treated
him. I could not have believed it of you. I began to think that I had
the most--well, capricious woman in all Europe for a sister.”
“Poor man!”
“No, it is not poor man in this case, but poor woman. For you
contemptuously flung away the best chance of happiness that ever came to
you. I dare say that you have had offers in plenty--you have some money,
and therefore of course you would get offers--but not from Yewdells.
That could not happen to you more than once in your life. A
better-hearted fellow, a truer man--”
“Call him a Nature's nobleman at once and have done with it.”
“Yes, a Nature's nobleman; you couldn't have described him better. A man
I should have been proud to call a brother, and who loved you not for
your miserable pelf, for that was nothing to him, but for yourself, and
with a good honest love. And he would have made you happy, Mary, not by
giving way to you as you might imagine from his unfailing good temper
and gentleness, but by being your master. For that is what you want,
Mary--a man that will rule you. And Yewdell was that sort of man, gentle
but firm--”
“Oh, do be original, Tom, and say something pretty about a steel hand
under a silk glove.”
“Ah, well, you may scoff if you like, but perhaps you regret now that
you went so far with him. A mercenary man, or even a mean-spirited man,
would have put up with it perhaps, and followed you still. He respected
himself too much to do that. He paid you the greatest compliment a
man has it in his power to pay a woman, and you did not know how to
appreciate it. You scorned him, and he turned away from you for ever. If
you were to go to him now, though you cast yourself on your knees before
him, to ask him to renew that offer, he would look at you with stony
eyes and pass on--”
“Stony fiddlesticks! That just shows, Tom, how well you know your own
sex. Why, Mr. Yewdell and I are the best friends in the world, and he
writes to me almost every week, and very nice letters, only too long, I
think.”
Her brother stared at her and almost gasped with astonishment.
“Well, I am surprised and glad,” he said, recovering his speech at last.
“It was worth crossing the Atlantic only to hear this.”
“Don't make any mistake, Tom. I am no more in love with him now than
when we were in Italy together.”
“All right, Mary. In future I shall do nothing but abuse him, and then
perhaps it will all come right in the end. And now about this letter
from Fan. Will you go down to that place where she is staying?”
“I don't know, I should like to go. I have not yet made up my mind.”
“Do go, Mary; and then I might run down and put up for a day or two at
the 'Cow and Harrow,' or whatever the local inn calls itself, to have a
stroll with you among those brown and yellow woods she writes about.”
She did not answer his words. He was standing on the hearthrug watching
her face, and noticed the change, the hesitancy and softness which had
come over it.
“You are fonder now than ever of this girl,” he said. “She draws you to
her. Confess, Mary, that she has great influence over you, and that she
is doing you good.”
Her lips quivered a little, and she half averted her face.
“Yes, she draws me to her, and I cannot resist her. But I don't know
about her doing me good, unless it be a good of which evil may come.”
“What do you mean, Mary? There is something on your mind. Don't be
afraid to confide in me.”
She got up and came to his side; she could not speak sitting there with
his eyes on her.
“Do you remember the confession I made to you when we were at Naples?
When you spoke to me about Yewdell, and I said that I never wished to
marry? I confessed that I had allowed myself to love a man, knowing
him to be no good man. But in spite of reason I loved him, and did not
believe him altogether bad--not too bad to be my husband. Then something
happened--I found out something about him which killed my love, or
changed it to hatred rather. I despised myself for having given him my
heart, and was free again as if I had never seen him. I even thought
that I might some day love someone else, only that the time had not yet
come. But what will you think of the sequel? I did not tell you when I
discovered his true character that Fan was living with me, and knew
the whole affair--knew all that I knew--and that--she was very deeply
affected by it. Now, since Fan and I have been thrown together once
more, she has accidentally met this man again, and has persuaded herself
that he has repented of his evil courses, and she has forgiven him,
and become friendly with him, and, what is worse, has set her heart on
making me forgive him.”
“It is heavenly to forgive, Mary.”
“Yes, very likely; in _her_ case it might be right enough; she is only
acting according to her--”
“Fanlights,” interrupted her brother. “But to what does all this tend?
If you feel inclined to forgive this man his past sins you can do so, I
suppose, without throwing yourself into his arms.”
“The trouble is, Tom, that I can't separate the two things. No sooner
did Fan begin to speak to me again of him, telling me about his new
changed life, and insinuating that it would be a gracious and noble
thing in me to forgive him, than all the old feeling came back to me.
I have fought against it with my whole strength, but what is reason
against a feeling like that! And then most unhappily I met him by
chance, and--and I gave him my hand and forgave him, and even called
him by his Christian name as I had been accustomed to do. And now I feel
that--I cannot resist him.”
“Good heavens, Mary, are you such a slave to a feeling as that! Who is
this man--what is he like, and how does he live?”
“He is a gentleman, and was in the army, but is now on the Stock
Exchange, and winning his way, I hear, in the world. He is about
thirty-five, tall, very good-looking--_I_ think; and he is also a
cultivated man, and has a very fine voice. Even before I had that
feeling for him I liked him more than any man I ever knew. Perhaps,” she
added with a little anxious laugh, “the reason I loved him was because I
knew that--if I ever married him--he--would rule me.”
Her brother considered for some time. “I remember what you told me,
Mary. You said that this man had proved himself a scoundrel, but you
sometimes use extravagant language. Now there are a great many bad
things a man may do, and yet not be hopelessly bad. Passion gets the
mastery, the moral feelings may for a time appear obliterated; but in
time they revive--like that feeling of yours; and one who has seemed a
bad man may settle down at last into a rather good fellow. Confide in
me, Mary--I will not judge harshly. Let me hear the very worst you know
of him.”
She shook her head, smiling a little.
“You will not? Then how am I to help you, and why have you told me so
much?”
“My trouble is that you can't help me, Tom. My belief is that no man who
is worth anything ever changes. His circumstances change and he adapts
himself to them, but that is all on the surface. Can you imagine your
Mr. Yewdell something vile, degenerate, weak--a gambler, a noisy fool, a
braggart, a tippler--”
“Good heavens, no!”
She laughed. “Nor can I imagine the man we are talking of a good man;
nor can I believe that there is any change in him. If I had thought
that--if I had taken Fan's views, I should not have forgiven him. Then
I should not have been in danger. As it is--” She did not finish the
sentence.
“As it is you are in danger, and deliberately refuse to let me help
you.” Then in a kind of despair, he added, “I know how headstrong
you are, and that the slightest show of opposition only makes matters
worse--what _can_ I do?”
“Nothing,” she answered in a very low voice. “But, Tom, you must know
that it was hard for me to write you that letter, and that it has been
harder still to make this confession. Can't you see what I mean? Well, I
mean that I find it very refreshing to have a good talk with you. I
hope you are not going to disappear into space again as soon as our
conversation is over.”
“No,” he returned with a slight laugh, and a glance at her downcast
eyes, “I am an idle man just now, and intend making a long stay in
London.”