Rowland was able to carry out the programme which he had made for
himself. He was a man to whom pieces of what is called luck are apt to
come. Luck goes rather against the more serious claims of deserving, and
is a thing which many of us would like to ignore--but it is hard to
believe there is not something in it. One man who is just as worthy as
another gets little that he wants, while his neighbour gets much; one
who is just as unworthy as another gets all the blows while his fellow
sinner escapes. Mr. Rowland had always been a lucky man. The things he
desired seemed to drop into his mouth. That white house on the
peninsula looking down upon Clyde, with its noble groups of trees, its
fine woods behind, its lochs and inlets, and the great noble estuary at
its foot, proved as soon as he set his heart upon it procurable. Had you
or I wanted it, it would have been hopeless. Even he, though his luck
was so great and he possessed that golden key which opens so many doors,
was not able to move the noble proprietor to a sale; but he was
permitted to rent it upon a long lease which was almost as satisfactory.
“I should have preferred to buy it outright and settle it upon you,
Evelyn,” he said to his wife as they sat at breakfast in their London
hotel, and he read aloud the lawyer’s letter about this coveted
dwelling. “But when one comes to think of it, you might not care for a
big house in Scotland after I am out of the way. It was to please me, I
know, that you fixed on Scotland first. And then you might find it a
trouble to keep up if you were alone.”
“There is no occasion for thinking what I should do when I am alone,
thank heaven,” said Mrs. Rowland; “there is little likelihood of that.”
“We must be prepared for everything,” he said with a beaming face, which
showed how little the possibility weighed upon him. “However, perhaps it
is just as well. Now, my dear, I will tell you what I am going to do. I
am going up to the North to see after it all. You shall stay comfortably
here and see the pictures and that sort of thing, and I shall run up and
prepare everything for you, settle about Rosmore on the longest term I
can get, look after the furniture a bit: well--I should like, you know,
to look after the children a bit, too.”
“To be sure you would,” she said cheerfully. “You know I wanted you to
have them here to meet us; but I understand very well, my dear James,
that you would rather have your first day with them alone.”
“It’s not that,” he said rising and marching about the room--“it’s not
that. I’d rather see you with them, and taking to them than anything
else in the world--but--perhaps I’d better go first and see how the land
lies. You don’t mind my leaving you--for a few days.” He said this with
a sort of timid air which sat strangely on the otherwise self-confident
and consciously fortunate man, so evidently inviting an expression of
regret, that Evelyn could scarcely restrain a smile.
“I do mind very much,” she said: and he was so genial, so kind, even so
amusing in his simplicity, that it was strictly true. “I don’t like at
all to be left alone in London; but still I understand it perfectly, and
approve--though I’d rather you stayed with me.”
“Oh, if you approve,” he said with a sort of shame-faced laugh of
satisfaction, “that is all I want; and you may be sure I’ll not stay a
moment longer than I can help. I never saw such a woman for
understanding as you are. You know what a man means before he says a
word.”
It was on his wife’s lips to tell him that he said innumerable words of
which he was unaware, about quite other matters, on every kind of
subject, but all showing the way his thoughts were tending, but she
forbore; for sweet as it is to be understood, it is not so sweet to be
shown how you betray yourself and lay bare your secrets unwittingly to
the eye of day. It was not difficult to divine that his mind was now
very much taken up by the thought of his children, not merely in the way
of love and desire to see them, but from an overmastering anxiety as to
how they would bear his wife’s inspection, and what their future place
in his life would be. In his many thoughts on the subject, he had
decided that he must see them first and judge of that. During the three
months in which he had been seeing with Evelyn’s eyes and perceiving
with her mind, various things had changed for James Rowland. He was not
quite aware of the agency, nor even that a revolution had taken place in
him, but he was conscious of being more and more anxious about the
effect which everything would produce on her, and specially, above all
other things, of the effect that his children would produce. And he had
said and done many things to make this very visible. For his own part he
thought he had concealed it completely, and even that she gave him
credit for too much feeling in imputing to him that eagerness to see
them, to take his boy and his girl into his arms, which she had just
said was so natural. He preferred to leave that impression on her mind.
The feelings she imputed to him would have been her feelings, she felt
sure, had she been coming home to her children after so long a
separation. He could not say even to himself that this was his feeling.
He had done without them for a very long time, perhaps he could have
gone on doing without them. But what would Evelyn say to them? Would
they be fit for her notice? Would they shock and startle her? What
manner of beings would they seem in her eyes? It was on the cards that
did she show any distaste for them, their father, who was their father
after all, might resent it secretly or openly--for the claims of blood
are strong; but at the present moment this was not at all in his
thoughts. His thoughts were full of anxiety to know how they would
please her, whether they were worthy to be brought at all into her
presence. Mrs. Rowland would fain have assured him that his anxiety was
unnecessary, and that, whatever his children were, they would be her
first duty; but she was too understanding to do even this. All that she
could do to help him in the emergency, was to accept his pretext and
give him her approval, and tell him it was the most natural thing in the
world. Useless to say that she was anxious too, wondering how the
experiment would turn out. Whether the lowly upbringing would be so
great a disadvantage as she feared, or whether the more primitive laws
of that simpler social order would develop the better faculties, and
suppress the conventional, as many a theorist believes. She was no
theorist, but only a sensible woman who had seen a good deal of the
world, and I fear that she did not believe in that suppression of the
conventional. But whatever it was, she was anxious, as was natural, on a
matter which would have so large an influence upon her entire life.
“I’ll tell you what you can do to amuse yourself,” he said, “when you’re
tired of the pictures and all that. Go to Wardour Street, Evelyn, and if
you see anything that strikes your fancy, buy it. Buying is a great
amusement. And we shall want all sorts of handsome things. Yes, I know.
I’d put it into the best upholsterer’s hands and tell him to spare no
expense. But that’s not your way: I’ve learnt as much as that. And then
there are carpets and curtains and things. Buy away--buy freely. You
know what is the right thing. What’s the name of the people in Regent
Street, eh? Well go there--buy him up if you please--the whole shop. _I_
don’t care for those flimsy green and yellow things. I like solid,
velvet and damask, and so forth. But what does that matter if you do? I
like what you like.”
“Do you want me to ruin you, James?” she said.
He laughed with that deep laugh of enjoyment which moneyed men bring out
of the profoundness of their pockets and persons. “If it pleases you,”
he said. He was not afraid. That she should ruin him, was a very good
joke. He had no desire for an economical wife. He wanted her to be
extravagant, to get every pretty thing that struck her fancy. He had a
vision of himself standing in the drawing-room which looked out upon the
Clyde, and saying to everybody, “It’s my wife’s taste. I don’t pretend
to know about this sort of thing, except that it costs a lot of money.
It’s she that’s responsible.” And this anticipation pleased him to the
bottom of his heart.
He went away next day, taking the train to Glasgow, not without sundry
expressions of contempt for the arrangement of the Scotch trains, and
the construction of the railways. “We do things better in India,” he
said. He was very compunctious about going away, very sorry to leave
her, very anxious that she should have everything that was possible to
amuse her while he was gone; and exceedingly proud, yet distressed, that
she should insist upon coming to the railway with him. It was such an
early start for her, it would tire her, it was too much trouble, he
said, with a beaming countenance. But when the train started, and Mr.
Rowland was alone, he became suddenly very grave. He had not consented
to her wish to have the children to meet them in London, because of the
fancies that had seized him. If he could only have gone on paying
largely for the children, knowing nothing but that they were happy and
well, he would on the whole have been very thankful to make such an
arrangement. But not only would it have been impossible to do so, but
his wife would not have permitted it. She it was who talked of duty in
respect to them, who planned everything that would have to be done. For
his part, he would have been quite content to let well alone. But how
often it happens that you cannot do that, but are compelled to break up
rational arrangements and make fictitious ones, visibly altering
everything for the worse. Rowland in his prophetic soul felt that this
was what he was about to do. He was going to take his children out of
the sphere they belonged to, to transport them to another with which
they had nothing to do. And his mind altogether was full of
compunctions. He had not after all shown their photographs or their
letters to his wife. It would be less dreadful, he thought, that they
should burst upon her in their native vulgarity and commonness all at
once, than that she should be able to divine what like they were, and
look forward to the meeting with horror. Naturally he exaggerated the
horror Evelyn would be likely to feel, as he depreciated her acuteness
and power of divining the motive which made him so certain that he could
not find the photographs. Evelyn knew the situation, indeed, almost as
well, perhaps in some ways better, than he did. She divined what was to
be expected from the two young people brought up upon a very liberal
allowance by the aunt whose husband had been a working engineer in the
foundry. She was sincerely sorry for them, as well as a little for
herself, wondering how they would meet her, feeling it almost impossible
that there should not be a little grudge and jealousy, a determination
to make a stand against her, and to feel themselves injured and
supplanted. She followed her husband in her mind with a little anxiety,
hoping that he would not show himself too enlightened as to their
deficiencies. And then there would be their aunt to reckon with, the
mother’s sister, the second mother. How would she bear it if the young
people whom she thought perfect failed to please their father? It would
be thought to be the stepmother’s fault even before the stepmother
appeared on the scene.
Evelyn returned to her hotel after seeing her husband off, with a
countenance not less grave than his, and a strong consciousness that the
new troubles were about to begin. She had shaken off her old ones. As
for that familiar distress of not having any money, it had disappeared
like last year’s snow. It is a curious sensation to be exhorted to be
extravagant when you have never had money to spend during your whole
life, and there are few ladies who would not like to try that kind of
revolution. Evelyn felt it exhilarating enough for a short time, though
she had no extravagance in her; but she soon grew tired of the attempt
to ruin her husband which gave him so much pleasure. She bought a few
things both in Wardour Street and in the shop in Regent Street to which
he had alluded, finding with a little trouble things that were not
flimsy and diaphanous. But very soon she got tired, and by the third day
it was strongly impressed upon her that to be alone, even with unlimited
capacity of buying, is a melancholy thing. She had said to herself when
she came to London that to recall herself to the recollection of old
friends was the last thing she would desire to do. There was too much
sorrow in her past: she did not want to remind herself of the time when
she, too, used to come to London for the season, to do as everybody did,
and go where everybody went. That was so long ago, and everything was so
changed. But it is strange how the firmest resolution can be overset in
a moment by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one
bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the
hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best
sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the
season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had
been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about his
children, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff,
she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in
appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every
justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland
wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased?
had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and
had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much
concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own
satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility
that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be
expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her
that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and
gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had
occurred--to be sure, it was the first time he had communicated his
sentiments to her by way of writing, and probably he had no such freedom
in expressing himself that way as by word of mouth. Whatever the fact
might be, Evelyn felt herself cast down, she scarcely knew why. She
vaguely devined that there was no satisfaction in his own mind, and to
be thrust away from his confidence in this respect would be very painful
to her, as well as making an end of all attempts on her part for the
good of the children.
Evelyn was in this melancholy mood, sitting alone, and with everything
suspended in her life, feeling a little as if she had been brought away
from India where she had at least a definite known plan and work, to be
stranded on a shore which had grown cold, unknown, and inhospitable to
her, when in the newspaper which she had languidly taken up she saw
suddenly the name of an old friend. She had said to herself that she
would not seek to renew acquaintance with her old friends: but it is one
thing to say that when one feels no need of them, and another to reflect
when you are lonely and in low spirits, that there is some one in the
next street, round the next corner, who would probably receive you with
a smile of delight, fall upon your neck, and throw open to you the doors
of her heart. Evelyn represented to herself when she saw this name that
here was one of whom she would have made an exception in any
circumstances, one who would certainly have sought her out in her
trouble, and would rejoice in her well-being. She half resisted, half
played with the idea for half the morning--at one time putting it away,
at another almost resolved to act upon it. And at length the latter
inclination carried the day. Part of the reluctance arose from the fact
that she did not know how to introduce herself. Would any one in London
have heard of the wedding far away at an obscure station in India? Would
any one imagine that it was she who was the bride? She took out her new
card with Mrs. James Rowland upon it, in a curious shamefacedness, and
wrote Evelyn Ferrars upon it with an unsteady hand. But she had very
little time to entertain these feelings of uncertainty. It was so like
Madeline to come flying with her arms wide open all the length of the
deep London drawing-room against the light, with that shriek of welcome.
Of course she would shriek. Evelyn knew her friend’s ways better, as it
proved, than she knew that friend herself.
“So it is you! At last! I meant to go out this very day on a round of
all the hotels to find you; but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come,
for you knew where to find me.”
“At last!” said Evelyn astonished. “How did you know I was in London at
all?”
“Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a
great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride
without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your
wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did.
They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after
waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.”
“Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a
very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an
air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had
not the most distant idea of offending.
“Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more
perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue
your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in
respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that
never happens to us poor people at home.”
“I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but,
Madeline, that is not what interests me most. There are so many things
I should like to hear of.”
“Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if
I were you I wouldn’t inquire--not now, when everything is so changed.”
“What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised.
Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some
mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to
screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The
pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there--don’t see him. It
would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well
off?”
“Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell
what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.
“Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your
place.”
At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking
beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an
ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first
glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen
before--and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even
when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly
a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn
Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”
Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know.
She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had
known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting,
and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby
hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.
“Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened
I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You
know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you
back to your chair.”
A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.
Oh, heaven and earth, was this _he_? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and
horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to
foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in
it. _He!_ The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then
something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of
cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it----is it? I
did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.
“Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am
getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the
least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my
congratulations. I am not in such good case myself,--nobody is likely to
congratulate me.”
“I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better
than you have been.”
“That’s very true. I may be congratulated so far. I should offer to
call at your hotel on Mr. Rowland, but I fear my strength is not to be
trusted. I am more glad than I can tell you to have seen you looking so
well and happy, after so many years. Lady Leighton, I think I will now
accept your kind offer to ring for my man.” He put out the grey
tremulous hand again, and enfolded that of Evelyn in it. “I am very
glad, very glad,” he said with emphasis, in a low but firm tone, Lady
Leighton having turned away to ring the bell, “to have seen you again,
and so well, and so young, and I don’t doubt so happy. My wife is dead,
and I am a wreck as you see----”
“I am very sorry, very sorry.”
“I knew you would be: while I am glad to have seen you so well. And I
have two children whom I shall have to leave to the tender mercies of
the world. Ah, we have trials in our youth that we are tragical about;
but believe me these are the real tragedies of life,” he said.
And then there came something almost more painful still. His servant
came into the room and put on his coat and buttoned him into it as if he
had been a child, then raised him smartly from his chair, drew an arm
within his own, and led him away. The two ladies heard them go slowly
shuffling downstairs, the master leaning upon the servant. Evelyn had
grown as pale as marble. She remembered now to have seen an invalid
chair standing at the door. And this was he who had filled her young
life with joy, and afterwards with humiliation and pain. “Oh,” she
cried, “and that is he, that is he!”
“I wish I could have spared you the sight,” said Lady Leighton, “but
when he saw your card--he looked at it, when I dropped it out of my
hand: people ill like that are so inquisitive--I knew how it would be.
Well, you must have seen him sooner or later. It is as well to get it
over. He is a wreck, as he says. And oh the contrast, Evelyn! He could
not but see it--you so young-looking, so happy and well off. What a
lesson it is.”
“I don’t want to be a lesson,” said Evelyn, with a faint smile. “Don’t
make any moral out of me. He was a man always so careful of himself.
What has he done to be so broken down?”
“Can you ask me what he has done, Evelyn? He has thought of nothing but
himself and his own advantage all his life. Don’t you think we all
remember----”
“I hope that you will forget--with all expedition,” cried Evelyn
quickly. “I have no stone to cast at him. I am very very sorry.” The
moisture came into her kind eyes. Her pity was so keen that it felt like
a wound in her own heart.
“Oh, Evelyn, I would give the world this had not happened. I did all I
could to keep you from seeing he was there. Such a shock for you without
any warning! I know, I know that a woman never forgets.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Rowland, hastily, “that has nothing to do with it. I
never was sentimental like you; and a spectacle like that is not one to
call up tender recollections, is it? But I am very sorry. And he has
children, to make him feel it all the more.”
“Yes,” said Lady Leighton doubtfully, “he has children. I must tell you
that he still has a way of working on the feelings. Oh, poor man, I
would not say a word that was unkind; but now that he has nothing but
his troubles to give him an interest, he likes, perhaps, to make the
most of his troubles. I wish you had not had this shock to begin with,
dear Evelyn, your first day at home.”