OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE.
'It's really very annoying, this letter from Selah,' Herbert Le
Breton murmured to himself, as he carefully burnt the compromising
document, envelope and all, with a fusee from his oriental silver
pocket match-case. 'I had hoped the thing had all been forgotten
by this time, after her long silence, and my last two judiciously
chilly letters--a sort of slow refrigerating process for poor
shivering naked little Cupid. But here, just at the very moment
when I fancied the affair had quite blown over, comes this most
objectionable letter, telling me that Selah has actually betaken
herself to London to meet me; and what makes it more annoying
still, I wanted to go up myself this week to dine at home with
Ethel Faucit. Mother's plan about Ethel Faucit is exceedingly
commendable; a girl with eight hundred a year, cultivated tastes,
and no father or other encumbrances dragging after her. I always
said I should like to marry a poor orphan. A very desirable young
woman to annex in every way! And now, here's Selah Briggs--ugh!
how could I ever have gone and entangled myself in my foolish days
with a young woman burdened by such a cognomen!--here's Selah
Briggs must needs run away from Hastings, and try to hunt me up on
her own account in London. If I dared, I wouldn't go up to see her
at all, and would let the thing die a natural death of inanition--sine
Cerere et Baccho, and so forth--(I'm afraid, poor girl, she'll be
more likely to find Bacchus than Ceres if she sticks in London);
but the plain fact is, I don't dare--that's the long and the short
of it. If I did, Selah'd be tracking me to earth here in Oxford,
and a nice mess that'd make of it! She doesn't know my name, to
be sure; but as soon as she called at college and found nobody of
the name of Walters was known there, she'd lie in wait for me about
the gates, as sure as my name's Herbert Le Breton, and sooner or
later she'd take it out of me, one way or the other. Selah has as
many devils in her as the Gergesene who dwelt among the tombs, I'll
be sworn to it; and if she's provoked, she'll let them all loose in
a legion to crush me. I'd better see her and have it out quietly,
once for all, than try to shirk it here in Oxford and let myself
in at the end for the worse condemnation.'
Under this impression, Herbert Le Breton, leaning back in his
well-padded oak armchair, ordered his scout to pack his portmanteau,
and set off by the very first fast train for Paddington station.
He would get over his interview with Selah Briggs in the afternoon,
and return to Epsilon Terrace in good time for Lady Le Breton's
dinner. Say what you like of it, Ethel Faucit and eight hundred a
year, certe redditum, was a thing in no wise to be sneezed at by
a judicious and discriminating person.
Herbert left his portmanteau in the cloakroom at Paddington, and
drove off in a hansom to the queer address which Selah had given
him. It was a fishy lodging of the commoner sort in a back street
at Notting Hill, not far from the Portobello Road. At the top of the
stairs, Selah stood waiting to meet him, and seemed much astonished
when, instead of kissing her, as was his wont, he only shook her
hand somewhat coolly. But she thought to herself that probably
he didn't wish to be too demonstrative before the eyes of the
lodging-house people, and so took no further notice of it.
'Well, Selah,' Herbert said, as soon as he entered the room, and
seated himself quietly on one of the straight-backed wooden chairs,
'why on earth have you come to London?'
'Goodness gracious, Herbert,' Selah answered, letting loose the
floodgates of her rapid speech after a week's silence, 'don't you
go and ask me why I've done it. Ask me rather why I didn't go and
do it long ago. Father, he's got more and more aggravating every
day for the last twelve-month, till at last I couldn't stand him any
longer. Prayer meetings, missionary meetings, convention meetings,
all that sort of thing I could put up with somehow; but when it
came to private exhortations and prayer over me with three or four
of the godliest neighbours, I made up my mind not to put up with
it one day longer. So last week I packed up two or three little
things hurriedly, and left a note behind to say I felt I was too
unregenerate to live in such spiritual company any longer; and
came straight up here to London, and took these lodgings. Emily
Lucas, she wrote to me from Hastings--she's the daughter of the
hairdresser in our street, you know, and I told her to write to me
to the Post-office. Emily Lucas wrote to me that there was weeping
and gnashing of teeth, and swearing almost, when they found out
I'd really left them. And well there might be, indeed, for I did
more work for them (mostly just to get away for a while from the
privileges) than they'll ever get a hired servant to do for them in
this world, Herbert.' Herbert moved uneasily on his chair, as he
noticed how glibly she called him now by his Christian name instead
of saying 'Mr. Walters.' 'And Emily says,' Selah went on, without
stopping to take breath for a second, 'that father put an advertisement
at once into the "Christian Mirror"--pah, as if it was likely
I should go buying or reading the "Christian Mirror," indeed--to
say that if "S. B." would return at once to her affectionate and
injured parents, the whole past would be forgotten and forgiven.
Forgotten and forgiven! I should think it would, indeed! But he
didn't ask me whether their eternal bothering and plaguing of me
about my precious soul for twenty years past would also be forgotten
and forgiven! He didn't ask me whether all their meetings, and
conventions, and prayers, and all the rest of it, would be forgotten
and forgiven! My precious soul! In Turkey they say the women have
no souls! I often wished it had been my happy lot to be born in
Turkey, and then, perhaps, they wouldn't have worried me so much
about it. I'm sure I often said to them, "Oh don't bother on account
of my poor unfortunate misguided little soul any longer. It's lost
altogether, I don't doubt, and it doesn't in the least trouble me.
If it was somebody else's, I could understand your being in such
a fearful state of mind about it; but as it's only mine, you know,
I'm sure it really doesn't matter." And then they'd only go off
worse than ever,--mother doing hysterics, and so forth--and say I
was a wicked, bad, abominable scoffer, and that it made them horribly
frightened even to listen to me. As if I wasn't more likely to
know the real value of my own soul than anybody else was!'
Herbert looked at her curiously and anxiously as she delivered
this long harangue in a voluble stream, without a single pause
or break; and then he said, in his quiet voice, 'How old are you,
Selah?'
'Twenty-two,' Selah answered, carelessly. 'Why, Herbert?'
'Oh, nothing,' Herbert replied, turning away his eyes from her keen,
searching gaze uncomfortably. He congratulated himself inwardly
on the lucky fact that she was fully of age, for then at least he
could only get into a row with her, and not with her parents. 'And
now, Selah, do you know what I strongly advise you?'
'To get married at once,' Selah put in promptly.
Herbert drew himself up stiffly, and looked at her cautiously
out of the corner of his eyes. 'No,' he said slowly, 'not to get
married, but to go back again for the present to your people at
Hastings. Consider, Selah, you've done a very foolish thing indeed
by coming here alone in this way. You've compromised yourself,
and you've compromised me. Indeed, if it weren't for the lasting
affection I bear you'--he put this in awkwardly, but he felt it
necessary to do so, for the flash of Selah's eyes fairly cowed him
for the moment--'I wouldn't have come here at all this afternoon
to see you. It might get us both into very serious trouble,
and--and--and delay the prospect of our marriage. You see, everything
depends upon my keeping my fellowship until I can get an appointment
to marry on. Anything that risks loss of the fellowship is really
a measurable danger for both of us.'
Selah looked at him very steadily with her big eyes, and Herbert
felt that he was quailing a little under their piercing, withering
inquisition. By Jove, what a splendid woman she was, though, when
she was angry! 'Herbert,' she said, rising from her chair and
standing her full height imperiously before him, 'Herbert, you're
deceiving me. I almost believe you're shilly-shallying with me.
I almost believe you don't ever really mean to marry me.'
Herbert moved uneasily upon his wooden seat. What was he to do?
Should he make a clean breast of it forthwith, and answer boldly,
'Well, Selah, you have exactly diagnosed my mental attitude'?
Or should he try to put her off a little with some meaningless
explanatory platitudes? Or should he--by Jove, she was a very
splendid woman!--should he take her in his arms that moment, kiss
her doubts and fears away like a donkey, and boldly and sincerely
promise to marry her? Pooh! not such a fool as all that comes to!
not even with Selah before him now; for he was no boy any longer,
and not to be caught by the mere vulgar charms of a flashy,
self-asserting greengrocer's daughter.
'Selah,' he said at last, after a long pause, 'I strongly advise
you once more to return to Hastings for the present. You'll find
it better for you in the end. If your people are quite unendurable--as
I don't doubt they are from what you tell me--you could look about
meanwhile for a temporary appointment, say as'--he checked himself
from uttering the word 'shop girl,' and substituted for it, 'draper's
assistant.'
Selah looked at him angrily. 'What fools you men are about such
things!' she said in a voice of utter scorn. 'When do you suppose
I ever learnt the drapery? Or who do you suppose would ever give me
a place in a shop of that sort without having learnt the drapery?
I dare say you think it takes ten years to make one of you fine
gentlemen at college, with your Greek and your Latin, but that the
drapery, or the millinery, or the confectionery, comes by nature!
However, that's not the question now. The question's simply
this--Herbert Walters, do you or don't you mean to marry me?'
'I must temporise,' Herbert thought to himself, placidly. 'This
girl's quite too unreservedly categorical! She eliminates modality
with a vengeance!' 'Well, Selah,' he said in his calmest and most
deliberate manner, 'we must take a great many points into consideration
before deciding on that matter.' And then he went on to tell her
what seemed to him the pros and cons of an immediate marriage.
Couldn't she get a place meanwhile of some sort? Couldn't she let
him have time to look about him? Couldn't she go back just for
a few days to Hastings, until he could hear of something feasible
for either of them? Selah interrupted him more than once with
forcible interjectional observations such as 'bosh!' and 'rubbish!'
and when he had finished she burst out once more into a long and
voluble statement.
For more than an hour Herbert Le Breton and Selah Briggs fenced
with one another, each after their own fashion, in the little fishy
lodgings; and at every fresh thrust, Herbert parried so much the
worse that at last Selah lost patience utterly, and rose in the
end to the dignity of the situation. 'Herbert Walters,' she said,
looking at him with unspeakable contempt, 'I see through your
flimsy excuses now, and I feel certain you don't mean to marry me!
You never did mean to marry me! You wanted to amuse yourself by
making love to a poor girl in a country town, and now you'd like
to throw her overboard and leave her alone to her own devices.
I knew you meant that when you didn't write to me; but I wouldn't
condemn you unheard; I gave you a chance to clear yourself. I see
now you were trying to drop the acquaintance quietly, and make it
seem as if I had backed out of it as well as you.'
Herbert felt the moment for breaking through all reserve had finally
arrived. 'You admirably interpret my motives in the matter, Selah,'
he said coldly. 'I don't think it would be just of me to interfere
with your prospects in life any longer. I can't say how long it
may be before I am able to afford marriage; and, meanwhile, I'm
preventing you from forming a natural alliance with some respectable
and estimable young man in your own station. I should be sorry to
stand in your way any further; but if I could offer you any small
pecuniary assistance at any time, either now or hereafter, you know
I'd be very happy indeed to do so, Selah.'
The angry girl turned upon him fiercely. 'Selah!' she cried in a
tone of crushing contempt. 'What do you mean by calling me Selah,
sir? How dare you speak to me by my Christian name in the same
breath you tell me you don't mean to marry me? How dare you have
the insolence and impertinence to offer me money! Never say another
word to me as long as you live, Herbert Walters; and leave me now,
for I don't want to have anything more to say to you or your money
for ever.'
Herbert took up his hat doubtfully. 'Selah!--Selah!--Miss Briggs,
I mean,' he said, falteringly, for at that moment Selah's face was
terrible to look at. 'I'm very sorry, I can assure you, that this
interview--and our pleasant acquaintance--should unfortunately
have had such a disagreeable termination. For my own part'--Herbert
was always politic--'I should have wished to part with you in no
unfriendly spirit. I should have wished to learn your plans for
the future, and to aid you in forming a suitable settlement in life
hereafter. May I venture to ask, before I go, whether you mean
to remain in London or to return to Hastings? As one who has been
your sincere friend, I should at least like to know what are your
movements for the immediate present. How long do you mean to stop
here, and when you leave these rooms where do you think you will
next go to?'--'Confoundedly awkward,' he thought to himself, 'to
have her prowling about and dogging one's footsteps here in London.'
Selah read through his miserable transparent little pretences at
once with a woman's quick instinctive insight. 'Ugh!' she cried,
pushing him away from her, figuratively, with a gesture of disgust,
'do you think, you poor suspicious creature, I want to go spying
you or following you all over London? Are you afraid, in your sordid
little respectable way, that I'll come up to Oxford to pry and peep
into that snug comfortable fellowship of yours? Do you suppose I'm
so much in love with you, Herbert Walters, that I can't let you go
without wanting to fawn upon you and run after you ever afterwards!
Pah! you miserable, pitiable, contemptible cur and coward, are you
afraid even of a woman! Go away, and don't be frightened. I never
want to see you or speak to you again as long as I live, you
wretched, lying, shuffling hypocrite. I'd rather go back to my own
people at Hastings a thousand times over than have anything more to
do with you. They may be narrow-minded, and bigoted, and ignorant,
and stupid, but at least they're honest--they're not liars and
hypocrites. Go this minute, Herbert Walters, go away this minute,
and don't stand there fiddling and quivering with your hat like
a whipped schoolboy, but go at once, and take my eternal loathing
and contempt for a parting present with you!'
Herbert held the door gingerly ajar for half a second, trying to
think of a neat and appropriate epigram, but at that particular
moment, for the life of him, he couldn't hit on one. So he closed
the door after him quietly, and walking out alone into the street,
immediately nailed a passing hansom. 'I didn't come out of that
dilemma very creditably to myself, I must admit,' he thought with
a burning face, as he rolled along quickly in the hansom; 'but
anyhow, now I'm well out of it. The coast's all clear at last for
Ethel Faucit. It's well to be off with the old love before you're
on with the new, as that horrid vulgar practical proverb justly
though somewhat coarsely puts it. Still, she's a perfectly magnificent
creature, is Selah; and by Jove, when she got into that towering
rage (and no wonder, for I won't be unjust to her in that respect),
her tone and attitude would have done credit to any theatre. I should
think Mrs. Siddons must have looked like that, say as Constance.
Poor girl, I'm really sorry for her; from the very bottom of my
heart, I'm really sorry for her. If it rested with me alone, hang
me if I don't think I would positively have married her. But after
all, the environment, you know, the environment is always too strong
for us!'
Meanwhile, in the shabby lodgings near the Portobello Road, poor
Selah, the excitement once over, was lying with her proud face
buried in the pillows, and crying her very life out in great sobs
of utter misery. The daydream of her whole existence was gone for
ever: the bubble was burst; and nothing stood before her but a
future of utter drudgery. 'The brute, the cur, the mean wretch,'
she said aloud between her sobs; 'and yet I loved him. How beautifully
he talked, and how he made me love him. If it had only been a common
everyday Methodist sweetheart, now! but Herbert Walters! Oh, God,
how I hate him, and how I did love him!'
When Herbert reached his mother's house in Epsilon Terrace, Lady Le
Breton met him anxiously at the door. 'Herbert,' she said, almost
weeping, 'my dear boy, what on earth should I do if it were not
for you! You're the one comfort I have in all my children. Would
you believe it--no, you won't believe it--as I was walking back
here this afternoon with Mrs. Faucit (Ethel's aunt, of all people
in the world), what do you think I saw, in our own main street,
too, but a young man, decently dressed, in his shirt sleeves. No
coat, I assure you, but only his shirt sleeves. Imagine my horror
when he came up to us--Mrs. Faucit, too, you know--and said to me
out loud, in the most unconcerned voice, "Well, mother!" I couldn't
believe my eyes. Herbert, but I solemnly declare to you it was
positively Ronald! You really could have knocked me down with a
feather. Disgraceful, wasn't it, perfectly disgraceful!'
'How on earth did he come so?' asked Herbert, almost smiling in
spite of himself.
'Why, do you know, Herbert,' Lady Le Breton answered somewhat
obliquely, 'a few days since, I met him wheeling along a barrow full
of coals for a dirty, grimy, ragged little girl from some alley or
gutter somewhere. I believe they call the place the Mews--at the
back of the terrace, you remember. He pretended the child wasn't
big enough to wheel the coals, which was absurd, of course, or else
her parents wouldn't have sent her; but I'm sure he really did it
on purpose to annoy me. He never does these things when I'm not by
to see; or if he does, I never see him. Now, that was bad enough in
all conscience, wasn't it? but to-day what he did was still more
outrageous. He met a poor man, as he calls him, in Westbourne
Grove, who was one of his Christian brethren (is that the right
expression?) and who declared he was next door to starving. So
what must Ronald do, but run into a pawnbroker's--I shouldn't have
thought he could ever have heard of such a place--and sell his
coat, or something of the sort, and give the man (who was doubtless
an impostor) all the money. Then he positively walked home in his
shirt sleeves. I call it a most unchristian thing to do--and to
walk straight into my very arms, too, as I was coming along with
Mrs. Faucit.'
Herbert offered at once such condolences as were in his power. 'And
are the Faucits coming to night?' he asked eagerly.
Lady Le Breton kissed him again gently on the forehead. 'Oh,
Herbert,' she said warmly, 'I can't tell you what a comfort you
always are to me. Oh yes, the Faucits are coming; and do you know,
Herbert, my dear boy, I'm quite sure that old Mr. Faucit, the uncle,
wouldn't at all object to the match, and that Ethel's really very
much disposed indeed to like you immensely. You've only to follow
up the advantage, my dear boy, and I don't for a moment think she'd
ever refuse you. And I've been talking to Sir Sydney Weatherhead
about your future, too, and he tells me (quite privately, of course)
that, with your position and honours at Oxford, he fully believes
he can easily push you into the first good vacant post at the
Education Office; only you must be careful to say nothing about it
beforehand, or the others will say it's a job, as they call it.
Oh, Herbert, I really and truly can't tell you what a joy and a
comfort you always are to me!'