Doctor Phillips did not meet Margaret and her husband until luncheon
time and then they were full of an encounter which they had had during
their morning walk.
“Only fancy, Doctor!” exclaimed Margaret, with more animation than
she had displayed of late, “Arthur and I have been shopping in Regent
Street, and whom do you think we met?”
“I give it up, my dear,” replied the doctor, helping himself to cold
beef. “I am not good at guessing riddles.”
“Ralph and Elinor! They had just come from some exhibition of pictures
in New Bond Street, and I never saw them so pleased with each other
before. Ralph was looking actually ‘spooney’, and Elinor was positively
radiant.”
“_Souvent femme varie_,” quoted Doctor Phillips, shrugging his
shoulders.
“Oh! but, Doctor, it made Arthur and me so glad to see them. Elinor is
very fond of Ralph, you know, although she has shewn it so little. And
so I have no doubt is he of her, and there would never have been any
unpleasantness between them, if it had not been for that horrid girl,
Harriet Brandt.”
“It is not like you, my dear Margaret, to condemn anyone without a
hearing. Perhaps you have not heard the true case of Miss Harriet
Brandt. Although I am glad that Ralph has disentangled himself from
her, I still believe that he behaved very badly to both the young
ladies, and whilst I am glad to hear that Miss Leyton smiles upon him
again, I think it is more than he deserves!”
“And I agree with you, Doctor,” interposed Colonel Pullen, “I have
never seen this Miss Brandt, but I know what a fool my brother is with
women, and can quite understand that he may have raised her hopes just
to gratify his own vanity. I have no patience with him.”
“Well! for Miss Leyton’s sake let us hope that this will be his last
experience of dallying with forbidden pleasures. But what will you say
when I tell you that one of my visitors this morning has been the young
lady in question--Miss Brandt!”
“Harriet Brandt!” exclaimed Margaret, “but why--is she ill?”
“Oh! no! Her trouble is mental--not physical.”
“She is not still hankering after Ralph, I hope.”
“You are afraid he might not be able to resist the bait! So should I
be. But she did not mention Captain Pullen. Her distress was all about
herself!”
“Oh! do tell me about it, Doctor, if it is not a secret! You know I
have a kind of interest in Harriet Brandt!”
“When she does not interfere with the prospects of your family,”
observed the doctor, drily, “exactly so! Well, then, the poor girl is
in great trouble, and I had very little consolation to give her! She
has left Madame Gobelli’s house. It seems that the old woman insulted
her terribly and almost turned her out.”
“Oh! that awful Baroness!” cried Margaret; “it is only what might have
been expected! We heard dreadful stories about her at Heyst. She has an
uncontrollable temper and, when offended, a most vituperative tongue.
Her ill-breeding is apparent at all times, but it must be overwhelming
when she is angry. But how did she insult Miss Brandt?”
“You remember what I told you of the girl’s antecedents! It appears
that the Baroness must have got hold of the same story, for she cast it
in her teeth, accusing her moreover of having caused the death of her
son.”
“Madame Gobelli’s son? What! Bobby--Oh! you do not mean to say that
Bobby--is _dead_?”
“Yes! There was but one son, I think! He died yesterday, as I
understood Miss Brandt. And the mother in her rage and grief turned
upon the poor girl and told her such bitter truths, that she rushed
from the house at once. Her visit to me this morning was paid in
order to ascertain if such things were true, as the Baroness, very
unjustifiably I think, had referred her to me for confirmation.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“What could I tell her? At first I declined to give an opinion, but she
put such pertinent questions to me, that unless I had lied, I saw no
way of getting out of it. I glossed over matters as well as I could,
but even so, they were bad enough. But I impressed it upon her that she
must not think of marrying. I thought it the best way to put all idea
of catching Captain Pullen out of her mind. Let him once get safely
married, and she can decide for herself with regard to the next. But
at all hazards, we must keep Ralph out of her way, for between you
and me and the post, she is a young woman whom most men would find it
difficult to resist.”
“Oh! yes! she and Ralph must not meet again,” said Margaret,
dreamingly. Her thoughts had wandered back to Bobby and Heyst, and all
the trouble she had encountered whilst there. What despair had attacked
her when she lost her only child, and now Madame Gobelli--the woman she
so much disliked--had lost her only child also.
“Poor Madame Gobelli!” she ejaculated, “I cannot help thinking of her!
Fancy Bobby being--_dead_! And she used to make him so unhappy, and
humiliate him before strangers! How she must be suffering for it now!
How it must all come back upon her! Poor Bobby! Elinor will be sorry to
hear that he is gone! She used to pity him so, and often gave him fruit
and cakes. Fancy his being dead! I cannot believe it.”
“It is true, nevertheless! But it is the common lot, Margaret! Perhaps,
as his mother used to treat him so roughly, the poor lad is better off
where he is.”
“Oh! of course, I have no doubt of that! But he was all she had--like
me!” said Margaret, with her eyes over-brimming. Her husband put his
arms round her, and let her have her cry out on his shoulder.
Then, as he wiped her tears away she whispered,
“Arthur, I should like to go and see her--the Baroness, I mean! I can
sympathise so truly with her, I might be able to say a few words of
comfort!”
“Do as you like, my darling,” replied Colonel Pullen, “that is, if you
are sure that the woman won’t insult you, as she did Miss Brandt!”
“Oh! no! no! I am not in the least afraid! Why should she? I shall only
tell her how much I feel for her own our common loss----”
She could not proceed, and the doctor whispered to the Colonel.
“Let her do as she wishes! The best salve for our own wounds is to try
and heal those of others.”
Margaret rose and prepared to leave the room.
“I shall go at once,” she said, “I suppose there is no chance of my
meeting Harriet Brandt there!”
“I think not! She told me she had left the Red House for good and all,
but she did not say where she was staying! Though, after all, I think
she is in most want of comfort of the two.”
“Oh! no!” replied Margaret, faintly, “there is no grief like that
of--of--” She did not finish her sentence, but left the room hastily in
order to assume her walking things.
“Will she ever get over the loss of her child?” demanded Colonel
Pullen, gloomily. The doctor regarded him with a half-amused surprise.
“My dear fellow, though it is useless to preach the doctrine to a
bereaved mother, the loss of an innocent baby is perhaps the least
trying in the category of human ills. To rear the child, as thousands
do, to be unloving, or unsympathetic, or ungrateful, is a thousand
times worse. But it is too soon for your dear wife to acknowledge it.
Let her go to this other mother and let them cry together. It will do
her all the good in the world!”
And the doctor, having finished his luncheon, put on his top-coat and
prepared to make a round of professional calls.
Margaret came back ready for her visit.
“I shall not offer to go with you, darling,” said the Colonel, “because
my presence would only be inconvenient. But mind you keep the cab
waiting, or you may find some difficulty in getting another in that
district. What address shall I give the driver?”
“First to our florist in Regent Street that I may get some white
flowers.”
In another minute she was off, and in about an hour afterwards, she
found herself outside the Red House, which looked gloomier than ever,
with all the blinds drawn down. Margaret rang the front door bell,
which was answered by Miss Wynward.
“Can I see Madame Gobelli?” commenced Margaret, “I have just heard the
sad news, and came to condole with her!”
Miss Wynward let her into the hall and ushered her into a side room.
“You will excuse my asking if you are a friend of her ladyship’s,” she
said.
“I can hardly call myself a friend,” replied Margaret, “but I stayed
with her in the same hotel at Heyst last summer, and I knew the dear
boy who is dead. I was most grieved to hear of his death, and naturally
anxious to enquire after the Baroness. But if she is too upset to see
me, of course I would not think of forcing my presence upon her!”
“I don’t think her ladyship would object to receiving any friend, but I
am not sure if she would recognise you!”
“Not recognise me? It is not three months since we parted.”
“You do not understand me! Our dear boy’s death was so sudden--I have
been with him since he was five years old, so you will forgive my
mentioning him in such a fashion--that it has had a terrible effect
upon his poor mother. In fact she is paralysed! The medical men think
the paralysis is confined to the lower limbs, but at present they are
unable to decide definitely, as the Baroness has not opened her lips
since the event occurred.”
“Oh! poor Madame Gobelli!” cried Margaret, tearfully, “I felt sure she
loved him under all her apparent roughness and indifference!”
“Yes! I have been with them so long, that I know her manner amounted at
times to cruelty, but she did not mean it to be so! She thought to make
him hardy and independent, instead of which it had just the opposite
effect! But she is paying bitterly for it now! I really think his death
will kill her, though the doctors laugh at my fears!”
“I--I--too have lost my only child, my precious little baby,” replied
Margaret, encouraged by the sympathetic tenderness in the other woman’s
eyes, “and I thought also at first that I must die--that I could not
live without her--but God is so good, and there is such comfort in
the thought that whatever we may suffer, our darlings have missed all
the bitterness and sin and disappointments of this world, that at
last--that is, sometimes--one feels _almost_ thankful that they are
safe with Him!”
“Ah! Madame Gobelli has not your hope and trust, Madam!” said Miss
Wynward, “if she had, she would be a better and happier woman. But I
must tell you that she is in the same room as Bobby! She will not be
moved from there, but lies on the couch where we placed her when she
fell, stricken with the paralysis, gazing at the corpse!”
“Poor dear woman!” exclaimed Margaret.
“Perhaps you would hardly care to go into that room!”
“Oh! I should like it! I want to see the dear boy again! I have brought
some flowers to put over him!”
“Then, what name shall I tell her ladyship?”
“Mrs. Pullen, say Margaret Pullen whose little baby died at Heyst--then
I think she will remember!”
“Will you take a seat, Mrs. Pullen, whilst I go upstairs and see if I
can persuade her to receive you?”
Margaret sat down, and Miss Wynward went up to the chamber which had
once been Bobby’s. On the bed was stretched the body of the dead boy,
whilst opposite to it lay on a couch a woman with dry eyes, but palsied
limbs, staring, staring without intermission at the silent figure which
had once contained the spirit of her son. She did not turn her head as
Miss Wynward entered the room.
“My lady,” she said, going up to her, “Mrs. Pullen is downstairs and
would like to see you! She told me to say that she is Margaret Pullen
whose baby died in Heyst last summer, and she knew Bobby and has
brought some flowers to strew over his bed. May she came up?”
But she received no answer. Madame Gobelli’s features were working, but
that was the only sign of life which she gave.
“Mrs. Pullen is so very sorry for your loss,” Miss Wynward went on,
“she cried when she spoke of it, and as she has suffered the same, I
am sure she will sympathise with you. May I say that you will see her?”
Still there was no response, and Miss Wynward went down again to
Margaret.
“I think you had better come up without waiting for her consent,” she
said, “if seeing you roused her, even to anger, it would do her good.
Do you mind making the attempt?”
“No,” replied Margaret, “but if the Baroness gets very angry, you must
let me run away again. I am quite unequal to standing anything like a
scene!”
“You will have but to quit the room. Whatever her ladyship may say
she cannot move from her couch. She attacked poor Miss Brandt most
unwarrantably last evening, but that was in the first frenzy of her
grief. She is quite different now!”
“Poor woman!” again ejaculated Margaret, as she followed Miss Wynward,
not without some inward qualms, to the presence of Madame Gobelli. But
when she caught sight of the immovable figure on the couch, all her
fear and resentment left her, overcome by a mighty compassion. She
went straight up to the Baroness and bending down tenderly kissed her
twitching face.
“Dear Madame,” she said, “I am--we all are--so truly sorry for your
grievous loss. It reminds me of the bitter time, not so long ago, you
may remember, when I lost my darling little Ethel, and thought for the
while that my life was over! It is so hard, so unnatural, to us poor
mothers, to see our children go before ourselves! I can weep with you
tear for tear! But do remember--try to remember--that he is safe--that
though you remain here with empty arms for a while, death can no more
take your boy from you, than a veil over your face can take God’s light
from you. He is there, dear Madame Gobelli--just in the next room with
the door closed between you, and though I know full well how bitter
it is to see the door closed, think of the time when it will open
again--when you and I will spring through it and find, not only our
dear Bobby and Ethel, but Christ our Lord, ready to give them back into
our arms again!”
The Baroness said nothing, but two tears gathered in her eyes and
rolled down her flabby cheeks. Margaret turned from her for a minute
and walking up to the bed, knelt down beside it in prayer.
“Dear Christ!” she said, “Thou Who knowest what our mothers’ hearts are
called upon to bear, have pity on us and give us Thy Peace! And open
our eyes that we may gather strength to realise what our dear children
have escaped by being taken home to Thee--the sin, the trouble, the
anxiety, the disappointment--and make us thankful to bear them in their
stead, and give us grace to look forward to our happy meeting and
reunion in the Better Land.”
Then she rose and bent over the dead boy.
“Dear Bobby!” she murmured, as she kissed the cold brow, and placed the
white blossoms in his hands and round his head. “Good-bye! I know how
happy you must be now, in company with the spirits of all those whom we
have loved and who have gone home before us--how grateful you must feel
to the dear Redeemer Who has called you so early--but don’t forget your
poor mother upon earth! Pray for her, Bobby,--never cease to ask our
dear Lord to send her comfort and peace and joy in believing. For His
own dear sake. Amen!”
When she turned again, the Baroness’s cheeks were wet with tears and
she was stretching forth her arms towards her.
“Oh!” she gasped, as Margaret reached her side, “I am a godless
woman--I am a godless woman!”
“No! no! my dear friend, we are none of us godless,” replied Margaret,
“we may think we are, but God knows better! We may forsake Him, but He
never forsakes us! We should never be saved if we waited till we wanted
to be so. It is _He_ Who wants _us_--that is our great safeguard! He
wanted our two dear children--not to spite us, but to draw us after
them. Try to look at it in that light, and then Bobby’s death will
prove your greatest gain.”
“I am a godless woman,” repeated the Baroness, “and this is my
punishment!” pointing to the bed. “I loved him best of all! My ’eart is
broken!”
“So much the better, if it was a hard heart,” rejoined Margaret,
smiling. “Who was it that said, ‘If your heart is broken, give the
pieces to Christ and He will mend it again’? Never think of Bobby, dear
Madame Gobelli, except as with Christ--walking with Him, talking with
Him, learning of Him and growing in grace and the love of God daily!
Never disassociate the two memories, and in a little while you would
hate yourself if you could separate them again. God bless you! I must
go back to my husband now!”
“You will come again?” said the Baroness.
“I am afraid I shall have no time! We sail for India on Saturday, but I
shall not forget you. Good-bye, Bobby,” she repeated, with a last look
at the corpse, “remember your mother and me in your prayers.”
As Miss Wynward let her out of the Red House, she remarked,
“I could never have believed that anyone could have had so much
influence over her ladyship as you have, Mrs. Pullen. I hope you will
come again.”
“I shall not be able to do so. But Madame Gobelli will have you to talk
to her! You live here altogether, do you not?”
“I have lived here for many years, but I am on the point of leaving.
Bobby was my only tie to the Red House, or I should have gone long ago.”
“But now that the Baroness is so helpless surely you will delay your
departure until she no longer needs you.”
“I shall not leave her until she has secured a better woman in my
stead. But to tell you the truth, I am going to be married, Mrs.
Pullen, and I consider my first duty is towards my future husband and
his parents who are very old!”
“Oh! doubtless! May I ask his name?”
“Captain Hill! He lives in the next house to this--Stevenage! You are
surprised, perhaps, that a man who has been in the army should marry a
poor governess like myself. That is his goodness. I know that I am worn
and faded and no longer young--thirty-three on my last birthday--but
he is good enough to care for me all the more for the troubles I have
passed through. Mine has been a chequered life, Mrs. Pullen, but I have
told Captain Hill everything, and he still wishes to make me his wife!
I ought to be a happy woman for the future, ought I not?”
“Indeed yes,” said Margaret, heartily, “and I sincerely hope that you
may be so! But I can’t help thinking of poor Madame Gobelli! Is the
Baron good to her?”
“Pretty well!” answered Miss Wynward, “but he is very stolid and
unsympathetic! It is strange to think that her heart must have been
bound up in that boy, and yet at times she was positively cruel to him!”
“It has all been permitted for some good purpose,” said Margaret, as
she bade her farewell, “perhaps her remorse and self-accusation are the
only things which would have brought her down upon her knees.”
She returned home considerably saddened by what she had seen, but in
three days she was to accompany her husband to India, and in the bustle
of preparation, and the joy of knowing that she was not to be separated
from him again, her heart was comforted and at peace. Never once during
that time did she give one thought to Harriet Brandt. Miss Wynward had
hardly mentioned her name, and no one seemed to know where she had
gone. The girl had passed out of their lives altogether.
Margaret only regretted one thing in leaving England--that she had not
seen Anthony Pennell again. Colonel Pullen had called twice at his
chambers, but had each time found him from home. Margaret wanted to put
in a good word for the Baroness with him. She thought perhaps that he
might see her, after a while, and speak a few words of comfort to her.
But she was obliged to be content with writing her wishes in a farewell
letter. She little knew how hardened Anthony Pennell felt, at that
moment, against anyone who had treated the woman he loved in so harsh a
manner.
Harriet Brandt spent the time, after her lover had left her to think
over and decide upon their mutual fate, in walking up and down the
room. She was like a restless animal; she could not stay two moments
in the same place. Even when night fell, and the inhabitants of the
Langham Hotel had retired to rest, she still kept pacing up and down
the room, without thinking of undressing herself or seeking repose,
whilst her conscience wrestled in warfare with her inclinations. Her
thoughts took her far, far back to the earliest remembrance of which
her mind was capable. She thought of her hard, unfeeling, indifferent
father--of her gross, flabby, sensual mother--and shuddered at the
remembrance! What had _she_ done?--she said to herself--wherein had
_she_ sinned, that she should have been cursed with such progenitors?
How had they _dared_ to bring her into the world, an innocent yet
hapless child of sin--the inheritor of their evil propensities--of
their lust, their cruelty, their sensuality, their gluttony--and worst
of all, the fatal heritage that made her a terror and a curse to her
fellow-creatures? How dared they? _How dared they?_ Why had God’s
vengeance not fallen upon them before they had completed their cruel
work, or having accomplished it, why did He not let her perish with
them--so that the awful power with which they had imbued her, might
have been prevented from harming others?
Harriet thought of little Caroline; of her two nurses; of Sister
Theodosia--of Mrs. Pullen’s baby; of Bobby Bates; until she felt as
though she should go mad. No! no! she would never bring that curse upon
her Beloved; he must go far away, he must never see her again, or else
she would destroy herself in order that he might escape!
But if she persuaded Anthony to consent to her wishes--if she insisted
upon a total separation between them, what would become of her? What
should she do? She had no friends in England; Madame Gobelli had
turned against her--she was all alone! She would live and die alone.
How should she ever get to know people, or to obtain an entrance to
Society. She would be a pariah to the end of her life! And if she
did surmount all these obstacles, what would be the result, except
a repetition of what had gone before? Strangers would come to know
her--to like her--would grow more intimate, and she would respond to
their kindness--with the same result. They would droop and fail, die
perhaps, like Bobby and the baby--find out that she was the cause, and
shun her ever after.
“Oh! God!” cried Harriet in her perplexity and anguish, “I am accursed!
My parents have made me not fit to live!”
She passed that night through the agonies of Death--not the death
that overtakes the believer in a God and a Future--but the darkness
and uncertainty that enwraps the man who knows he is full of sin and
yet has no knowledge that His Lord has paid his debt to the uttermost
farthing--the doubt and anxiety that beset the unbeliever when he is
called upon to enter the dark Valley. The poor child saw her destiny
entangling her as in a net--she longed to break through it, but saw no
means of escape--and she rebelled against the cruel lot that heredity
had marked out for her.
“Why am _I_ to suffer?” she exclaimed aloud; “I have youth and health
and good looks, and money--everything, the world would say, calculated
to make my life a pleasant one, and yet, I am tortured by this awful
thought--that I must keep aloof from everybody, that I am a social
leper, full of contagion and death! Doctor Phillips said that the more
I loved a person, the more I must keep away from him! It is incredible!
unheard-of! Could he have had any motive in saying such a thing?”
The remembrance of her flirtation with Ralph Pullen recurred to her
mind, and she seized it, as a drowning man clutches at a straw.
“Was it a plant, after all? Did the old man want to put me off the
track of Captain Pullen? Margaret Pullen is staying in the house--he
said so--had she asked him to get rid of me if possible? After all,
am I torturing myself by believing the story of my fatal power to be
true, when it was only a ruse to get rid of me? The Baroness said
the same thing, but she was mad about poor Bobby and would have said
anything to annoy me--and, after all, what does it amount to? The
baby died in teething--heaps of babies do--and Bobby was consumptive
from the first--I have heard Miss Wynward say so, and would have died
anyway, as he grew to be a man and had larger demands made upon his
physical strength. And for the others--what happened to them, happens
to all the world. It is _fortune de guerre_; people drop every day like
rotten sheep;--everyone might accuse himself of causing the death of
his neighbour. I have been frightening myself with a chimera. Anthony
said so, and he must know better than I! And I can’t give up Tony--_I
can’t, I can’t, I can’t!_ It is of no use thinking of it! Besides, he
wouldn’t let me! He would never leave me alone, until I had consented
to marry him, so I may as well do it at the first as at the last.”
But the tide of triumphant feeling would be succeeded by a wave of
despondency, which threatened to upset all her casuistry.
“But if--_if_--it should be true, and Anthony should--should--Oh! God!
Oh! God! I dare not think of it! I will kill myself before it shall
occur.”
When the morning dawned it found her quite undecided--lamenting her
unfortunate fate one instant, and declaring that she could never give
up her lover the next. She tore off her clothes and took a cold bath,
and re-robed herself, but she was looking utterly ill and exhausted
when Pennell burst in upon her at eleven o’clock.
“Well, darling,” he exclaimed, “and have you made up your mind by this
time? Which death am I to die?--suffocated in your dear embrace, or
left to perish of cold and hunger outside?”
“O! Tony,” she cried, throwing herself into his arms, “I don’t know
what to say! I have not closed my eyes all night, trying to decide what
will be for the best. And I am as far off as ever--only I can never,
_never_ consent to do anything that shall work you harm!”
“Then I shall decide for you,” exclaimed her lover, “and that is that
you make me and yourself happy, and forget all the rubbish these people
have been telling you! Depend upon it, whatever they may have said was
for their own gratification, and not yours, and that they would be
quick enough to accept the lot that lies before you, were it in their
power!”
“I have been so lonely and friendless all my life,” said Harriet,
sobbing in his arms, “and I have longed for love and sympathy so much,
and now that they have come to me, it is hard, Oh! _so_ hard, to have
to give them up.”
“So hard, Hally, for _me_, remember, as well as yourself, that we will
not make the attempt. Now, I want you to place yourself in my hands,
and start for Paris to-night!”
“To-night?” she cried, lifting such a flushed, startled, happy face
from his breast, that he had no alternative but to kiss it again.
“Yes! to-night! What did I tell you yesterday--that I should come with
the ring and the license in my pocket! I am as good as my word, and
better--for I have given notice to the registrar of marriages in my
district, that he is to be ready for us at twelve o’clock to-day. Am I
not a good manager?”
“Tony! Tony! but I have not made up my mind!”
“I have made it up for you, and I will take no refusal! I have
calculated it all to a nicety! Married at twelve--back here at one for
lunch--a couple of hours to pack up, and off by the four o’clock train
for Dover--sleep at the Castle Warden, and cross to-morrow to Paris!
How will that do, Mrs. Pennell, eh?”
“Oh! ought I to do it, ought I to do it?” exclaimed Harriet, with a
look of despair.
“If you don’t I’ll shoot myself. I swear it!”
“No! no! darling, don’t say that! It is of you alone that I am
thinking! God forgive me if I am doing wrong, but I feel that I cannot
refuse you! Take me and do with me as you think best.”
After which it came to pass, that Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Pennell started
in very high spirits for Dover, by the four o’clock train that
afternoon.