"No, my dear, I'm not going to play the tragedy parent and talk about
cursing and all that sort of thing. I'm only a plain matter-of-fact
Englishman, leading too busy a life to be bothered. You write to me,
and call me my dear father and talk of affection--my affectionate
daughter; but how do I know that you are not still under the influence
of the man whom you have chosen for your husband? How do I know that he
has not said to you that you had better try and make it up with the old
man, because the old man's money may be useful one of these days? Mind,
I don't say that you have so base and sordid an idea; but I give him the
credit of being moved in this spirit. I am glad to hear that you are
well, and of course I wish you to be perfectly happy; but you proved to
me that you thought you could run alone, so I feel that my
responsibility as a father has ceased. I can't reproach myself with any
lapses. I did my duty by you; with your liking to the front. I chose
you a husband--a good fellow, who would have made you happy; but you
chose to flirt with a scoundrel and let him delude you even to making a
disgraceful elopement, so you must take your course. Let him see this
letter by all means, and thoroughly gauge my opinion of him. If he
amends, and behaves well to you, perhaps some day I may accede to what
you propose, and receive you both here. But he will have to alter a
good deal first. I have no enmity against you, Heaven forbid! for I do
not forget that you are my child; but, once for all, I will not have him
here, and you may let him know at once that, as to what little money I
have, that goes to my hospital, unless Clive Reed happens to want it,
and that will alter the case.
"There; this is a very long letter, but as it is the first I have
written to you since your marriage, I may as well say in it all I have
to say, and this is one very particular part, so keep it in mind. If in
the future Jessop Reed behaves badly to you--that is to say, more badly
than you can bear, come home. There is your bedroom, and your little
drawing-room, too, just as you left them. They shall be kept so, ready
for you, and I shall cut all the past out of our lives again as of old;
but mind this, Jessop Reed does not have you back again, lord or no
lord. I'll buy a yacht first and live upon the high seas.
"There! that is all I have to say as your father."
Janet let the letter fall in her lap, and sat in her commonly-furnished
room at Norwood, hot and red of eye. No tears came to her relief, for
their source seemed to have long been dried-up. Every word had combined
with its fellows to form for her the old saying in the ballad: "As you
have made your bed, so on it you must lie."
Her father had been correct enough. She had fought against making any
advances in her great despair; but Jessop had insisted, and actually
brutally used the very words about the old man's money, with the
addition that he had been trapped into marrying a beggar, and he must
make the best of it.
"I must have been mad," she sighed, as she laid the letter on the table
and looked at the clock on the chimney-piece; but it was a cheap French
affair under a glass shade, and one which doubtless considered that so
long as it looked attractive its duty was done. The hour hand pointed
to six, and the minute hand to three.
Janet sighed, and looked at her watch, but she had not wound it up.
At that moment a sleepy-looking servant-girl entered the room.
"Want me to sit up any longer, ma'am?"
"No; you can go to bed."
"I don't think master means to come home to-night, ma'am, again. He
took his best clothes with him o' Chewsday."
"I'm afraid not," said Janet quietly. "He is very busy now."
"I'll sit up if you like, mum. I don't think it's no use for both to
sit up again to-night."
"No. Go and get a good long night's rest, Mary."
"Yes, mum, thankye, mum," said the girl, with a yawn. "But won't you
come, too?"
"Presently. I'll sit up till twelve."
"Twelve, mum?" said the girl, staring. "Why, it's 'most one now."
"Then go to bed. I'll come soon."
"Don't ketch me gettin' married and settin' up for no husbands,"
muttered the girl. "I'd soon let my gentleman know what the key of the
street meant."
Left alone, Janet again read the letter she had received from her
father, though she hardly needed this, for she pretty well knew it by
heart. Then, laying it on the table again for her husband to see, she
sat thinking of what might have been, and contrasted the brothers, her
brow wrinkling up as she felt that day by day she was sounding some
deeper depth, and finding but a fresh meanness in Jessop's nature.
"But it was only right after all," she told herself; and she went over
again the scene in Guildford Street, the hot jealous blood rising to her
cheeks, as she thought of Lyddy and her acts and words.
"I could never have forgiven that. Poor father does not believe he was
guilty, or else looks upon the offence with the eyes of a man."
She started up listening, for a cab had stopped at the gate, and her
first impulse was to go to the door; but she sank back wearily, and
listened for the clang of the gate and the rattle of the latch-key in
the door.
She had not long to wait, and she was preparing herself for her
husband's coming, when the door was shut loudly. There was a scuffling
sound in the little hall, and as she turned pale with alarm, dreading
some new trouble, there was a strange voice. The door was flung open,
and, supported by his friend Wrigley, Jessop Reed staggered into the
room.
Both men were in evening dress, Wrigley's faultless, his glass in his
eye, and the flower in his button-hole unfaded, while Jessop's shirt
front was crumpled and wine-stained, and his flushed face told of the
number of times the glass had been raised to his lips. As he entered
the little drawing-room he made a staggering lurch towards a chair, and
would have fallen, as his hat did, but for the tight hold which Wrigley
kept of his arm.
"Now, then," he cried resentfully; "what's the matter? Don't get
hauling a man all over the room like that."
"Really I am very sorry," said Wrigley, guiding Jessop into the chair
and taking off his hat, "but the fact is, Mrs Reed, Jessop here was
quite out of order when I met him this evening to attend a dinner at the
Crystal Palace."
"Yes. Dinner at Crystal Palace. But that'll do. You leave my wife
alone, Mr Solicitor."
"Yes, yes, dear boy. Let me get you up to bed."
"What for? I'm all right."
"You will be after a night's rest, my dear Jessop. There's nothing much
the matter, Mrs Reed. Pray don't be alarmed. The wine was rather bad,
too. I really think I drank more of it than he did."
Janet was standing looking from one to the other with her eyes full of
the misery and despair in her breast. Miserable as her life had been,
full of bickering and quarrel, reproach and neglect, she had never yet
seen her husband like this; and for a few moments she was ready to
believe in his companion's words.
"Have you a little soda-water in the house?" said Wrigley.
"Yes; bring some soda-water and the brandy," cried Jessop, with an
idiotic laugh which contradicted all that his friend had said.
Janet's anger was rising now.
"We have no soda-water or brandy," she replied.
"Never mind, Mrs Reed. Let me get him up to his room."
"You sit down and hold your tongue," cried Jessop, with tipsy sternness.
"I'm master of my own house."
"Of course, dear boy. I beg your pardon, I'm sure."
"Granted! I'll let you see I'm not going to be dictated to by haughty,
ill-tempered women. Madam, my friend wants some soda and brandy. Get
it at once."