known that when I say a thing I mean it, and if I mean a thing I intend
to carry it out unaltered.' Then after a pause: 'And now I am sorry to
seem inhospitable, but under the painful circumstances--with death again
in this house, and with my child ill, I am obliged to recommend you to
return at once to York, and when there, not again to consult Mr.
Smithies. It is more than probable that this reliable man of business
of yours, whom you set to watch me, has sold you to that rascal Beaple
Yeo--or whatever his name be.'
'Oh, gracious goodness!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'To be sure I will
return to York. I wouldn't for the world incommode you in a house of
mourning. I know what it is; the servants off such heads as they have,
which are heads of hair and nothing else, and everything in confusion,
and only tongues going. I wouldn't stay with you at this most trying
time, Philip, not for worlds. I shall be off by the next train.'
Philip was left to himself.
His wife was either upstairs with the baby, or was below with the corpse
of one whom she had looked up to and loved as a mother. Surely it was
his place to go to her, draw her into the room where they could be by
themselves, put his arm about her, and let her rest her head on his
breast and weep, to the relief of her burdened heart.
But Philip made no movement to go to his wife.
She was alone, without a friend in the house. Her sister was away, her
baby was ill. A death entails many things that have to be considered,
arranged, and provided. Philip knew this. He sent word to the
registrar of the death; he did nothing more to assist Salome. He rang
the bell, and when after a long time a servant replied to the summons,
he gave orders that clean sheets should be put on the bed lately
occupied by Mrs. Sidebottom. He would, he said for awhile, sleep there.
Did it occur to Philip that there was cruelty in leaving his young wife
alone at night, with a sick baby, and with the body of the woman, who
had been to her as a mother, lying waiting for burial downstairs? Did
it occur to him that she might feel infinite desolation at night, if he
were away from her? He thought only of himself, of the wrong done to
him.
'She married me, and never told me who she was. She married me, lying
under a false name.'
Salome had not realized, indeed, had not perceived, how deep and fatal a
rift had been cloven in her relations with Philip. The fall of her
mother, the efforts to restore life, the arrival of the doctor, the
conviction struggled against but finally submitted to that life was
extinct, had concentrated and engrossed all her faculties. Then, when
she knew that death was again in the house, there sprang out of that
knowledge many imperious duties that exacted of Salome full attention
and much thought. Mrs. Sidebottom had volunteered no help. Upon Salome
everything depended. She had not the time to consider how Philip would
take the startling revelation made to him. Salome was not one to give
up herself to emotion. She braced herself to the discharge of the
duties that devolved on her. Quiet, very pale, and hollow-eyed, she
went about the house. From the nursery she found that the nurse had
escaped, deserting the baby, that she might talk over the events that
had occurred in the kitchen. The cook, Salome found, had made the
pastry with washing instead of baking powder, and the housemaid had
found too much to talk about to make the beds by four o'clock in the
afternoon.
Only, when everything in the house had been seen to, a woman provided to
attend to the dead, and all the trains off their lines set on them
again, only then could Salome sit down and write to her sister of their
common loss.
After this was done she wrote a few notes to friends, and then, lacking
stamps, came with the packet to Philip's door.
He was seated at his secretaire writing, or pretending to write, with
his brows bent, when he heard her distinct and gentle tap at the door.
He knew her tap, it was like that of no one else, and he called to her
to enter.
'My dear,' she said, 'I have not been able to come to you before. I
have had so much to do; and--dear, I have wanted to speak to you; but,
as you know, in such a case as this, personal wants must be set aside.
Have you any stamps? I require a foreign one.'
He hardly looked up from the desk, but signed with the quill that she
should shut the door. He was always somewhat imperious in his manner.
She shut the door, and came over to him, and laid the letters on his
desk.
'You will stamp them for me, dear?' she said, and rested her hand
lightly on his shoulder.
Then she saw how stern and set his face was, and a great terror came
over her.
'Oh, Philip!' she said; and then, 'I know what you are taking to heart,
but there is no changing the past, Philip.'
Sometimes we have seen the reflection of the sun in rippled waters out
of doors sent within on the ceiling. How it dances; is here and there;
now extinct, then once more it flashes out in full brilliancy. So was
it with the colour in Salome's face; it started to one cheek, burnt
there a moment, then went to the temples, then died away wholly, and in
another moment was full in her face, the next to leave it ashy pale.
Her voice also quivered along with the colour in her face, in rhythmic
accord. Philip withdrew his shoulder from the pressure of her hand, and
slowly stood up.
'I shall be obliged if you will take a chair,' said he formally, 'as I
desire an interview, but will undertake to curtail it as much as
possible, as likely to be painful to both.'
She allowed her hand to fall back, and then drew away a step. She would
not take a chair, as he had risen from his.
'Philip,' she said, 'I am ready to hear all you have to say.'
She spoke with her usual self-possession. She knew that they must have
an explanation about what had come out. There was always something in
her voice that pleased; it was clear and soft, and the words were spoken
with distinctness. In nothing, neither in dress, in movement, nor in
speech, was there any slovenliness in Salome. There was some
perceptible yet indefinable quality in her voice which at once reached
the heart.
Philip felt this, but put the feeling from him, as he had her hand.
'Salome,' said he, not looking at her, except momentarily, 'a cruel
trick has been played on me.'
'Philip,' said she quietly but pleadingly, 'that man, as I told you, is
my father, but I did not know it till yesterday. I had no idea but that
I was the daughter of those who had brought me here, and who gave
themselves out to be my parents. I will tell you what I know, but that
is not much. He--I mean that man--had married my mother, who was the
sister of her who is below, dead. He got into trouble somehow; I do not
know what kind of trouble it was, but it was, I suppose, a disgraceful
one, for he had to leave the country, and it was thought he would not
venture back to England. My real mother, grieved at the shame, died and
left us to her sister, who with her husband, Mr. Cusworth, cheerfully
undertook the care of us, adopted us as their own, and when they came
here shortly after, gave out that we were their children, partly to save
us the pain of knowing that our father had been a----well, what he was,
partly also to screen us from his pursuit should he return, and also, no
doubt, the more to attach us to themselves. As you know, shortly before
Mr. Cusworth, our reputed father, was to be taken into partnership, a
terrible accident happened and he was killed. Janet and I do not
remember him. Since then mamma--I mean my aunt--and we children lived
in this house with dear, kind, Uncle Jeremiah. Whether he knew the
truth about us I have not been told. We never had any doubt that she
whom we loved and respected as a mother was our real mother. Then, on
the occasion of the terrible flood and the death of Uncle Jeremiah' or
just after, he--I mean our father--reappeared suddenly, and without
having let mamma know that he was yet alive. He came here in great
destitution, wanted money, and even clothing. Mamma--you know whom I
mean, really aunt--she was in great straits what to do. She did not
venture openly to allow him to appear, and she suffered him to visit her
secretly through the lower garden-door, and to come to her sitting-room;
she gave him money and he went away. That was how her two hundred and
fifty pounds went, about which you asked so many questions, and which
she was afraid of your inquiring too much about. My father had then
assumed the name of Beaple Yeo. She also allowed him to take uncle's
great-coat and hat, which were laid out in the spare room for
distribution. You told her to dispose of them as she saw fit.'
Philip hastily raised his hand.
Mrs. Sidebottom had hit the right nail on the head in her explanation of
that mysterious visit to his house--and then he had scouted her
explanation. He lowered his hand again, and Salome, who had supposed
that he desired to speak, and had stopped, resumed what she was
relating. 'Mamma heard nothing more of him after that till yesterday,
when he reappeared. He was, he said, again in trouble, which meant,
this time, that he must leave the country to avoid imprisonment. But he
was not in a hurry to leave too hastily; he would wait till the
vigilance of the police was relaxed, nor would he go in the direction
they expected him to take. He had come, he said, to ascertain Janet's
address. He intended, he said, to go to her. My mother refused to give
it. I trust she remained firm in her refusal, but of that I am not
sure. He said that if I had not been married he would have carried me
off with him; it would not be so dull for him if he had a daughter as a
companion. Janet knew about him and her relationship to him. I did
not. When he came here first of all, Janet was in my mother's room, and
the matter could not be concealed from her.'
'Do you mean seriously to tell me that till yesterday you were ignorant
of all this?'
'Yes.'
'Ignorant when you married me that your name was Schofield, and not
Cusworth?'
'Of course, Philip; of course.' She spoke with a leap of surprise in
her tone and in her eyes. It was a surprise to her that he should for a
moment suppose it possible that she was capable of deceiving him, that
he could think her other than truthful.
'Then at that first visit you were told nothing; only Janet was let into
the secret?'
'Yes, dear Philip.'
'What! the giddy, light-hearted Janet was made a confidante in a matter
of such importance, and you the clear of intellect, prompt in action,
close of counsel, were left in the dark? It is incredible.'
'But it is true, Philip.'
Thereupon ensued silence.
She looked steadily at him with her frank eyes.
'Surely, Philip, you do not doubt my word? Mamma only told Janet because
the secret could not be kept from her. At that time my sister slept in
mamma's room, and spent the greater part of the day with her, so that it
was not possible to keep from her the sudden arrival of--of him.' She
shuddered at the thought of the man who was her father. She put her
hands over her face that burnt with an instantaneous blaze, but withdrew
them again directly, to say vehemently, 'But, Philip, surely it cannot
be. You do not doubt me?' She looked searchingly at him. '_Me!_'
He made no reply. His face was set. Not a muscle moved in it.
'Philip!' she said, with a catch of pain--a sudden spasm in her heart
and throat. 'Philip, the sense of degradation that has come on me since
I have known the truth has been almost more than I could bear Not
because of myself. What God sends me, that I shall find the strength to
bear. I am nobody, and if I find that I am the child of someone worse
than nobody--I must endure it. What crushes me is the sense of the
shame I have brought on you, Philip, and the sorrow that a touch of
dishonour should come to you through me. But I cannot help it. There
is no way out of it. It has come on us without fault of ours, and we
must bear it--bear it together. I'--she spread out her hands--'I would
lay down my life to save you from anything that might hurt you, that
might grieve your proud and honourable spirit. But, Philip, I can do
nothing. I cannot unmake the fact that I am his daughter and your
wife.'
'I shall never, never forgive that the truth was kept from me. The
marriage was a fraud practised on me.'
'My dear mother--you know whom I mean--acted with the kindest
intentions, but I cannot excuse her for not speaking.'
'Janet knew, as you tell me, and she said nothing.'
'Mamma urged her to remain silent.'
'I was sacrificed,' said Philip bitterly. 'Upon my word, this is a
family that transmits from one generation to another the fine art of
hoaxing the unsuspicious.'
'Philip!' A rush of indignant blood mantled her face, and then left it
again. She heaved a sigh, and said, 'If I had known before I married
you whose daughter I was I would on no account have taken you. I would
have taken no honest man for his own sake, no other for my own.'
'You know what Schofield was to me--to me above every man. I can recall
when I told you and Janet and your mother how he had embittered my life,
how he had ruined my father--and you all kept silence.'
'Philip, you are mistaken; I never heard that.'
'At all events your mother and Janet heard me--heard me when they knew I
was engaged to you, and they told me nothing. It was infamous,
unpardonable. They knew how I hated that man before I was married. They
knew that I would rather have become allied to a Hottentot than to such
an one as he. They let me marry you in ignorance--it was a fraud; and
how, I ask'--he raised his voice in boiling anger--'how can I trust
_you_ when you profess your ignorance?' He sprang to his feet and
walked across the room. 'I don't believe in your innocence. It was a
base, a vile plot hatched between you all, Schofield and the rest of
you. Here am I--just set on my feet and pushing my way in an honest
business, and find myself bound by an indissoluble bond to the daughter
of the biggest scoundrel on the face of the globe.'
Salome did not speak. To speak would be in vain.
He was furious; he had lost his trust in her.
She began to tremble, as she had trembled when Mrs. Sidebottom had seen
her on the stairs--a convulsive shivering extending from the shuddering
heart outwards to the extremities, so that every hair on her head
quivered, every fold in her gown.
'And now,' pursued Philip, 'the taint is transmitted to my child. It
might have been endurable had I stood alone. It is intolerable now.
These things run in the blood like maladies.'
She was nigh on fainting; she lifted one hand slightly in protest; but
he was too angry to attend to any protest.
'Can I doubt it? The clever swindler defrauded my father, and the
clever daughter uses the inherited arts and swindles the son. How do I
know but that the same falsehood, low, cunning, and base propensities
may not lurk inherent in my child, to break out in time and make me
curse the day that I gave to the world another edition of Beaple Yeo,
alias Schofield, bearing my hitherto untarnished name?'
Then she turned and walked to the door, with her hands extended as one
blind, stepping slowly, stiffly, as if fearful of stumbling over some
unseen obstacle. She went out, and he, looking sullenly after her, saw
of her only the white fingers holding the door, and drawing it ajar, and
trying vainly to shut it, pinching them in so doing, showing how dazed
she was--instinctively trying to shut the door, and too lost to what she
was about to see how to do it.
*CHAPTER XXXII.*
*THE FLIGHT OF EROS.*
The funeral of Mrs. Cusworth was over.
The blinds were drawn up at last.
When the service at the grave was concluded, Philip and Salome returned
to their home, if that may be called home from which the elements that
go to make up home--trust, sympathy, pity, forgiveness--have fled.
The sun streamed in at the windows, broke in with a rude impatience, as
the blinds mounted, and revelled on the floors again, and reflected
itself in glass and gilding and china, brought out into bloom again the
faded flowers on the carpets, and insisted on the bunches of roses and
jessamine and nondescripts on the wall-papers putting on their colours
and pretence of beauty.
But there was no sunshine streaming into the shadowed hearts of Philip
and Salome, because over both the hand of Philip held down the blinds.
Philip, always cold, uncommunicative, allowing no one to lay finger on
his pulse, resenting the slightest allusion to his life apart from
business--Philip had made no friend in Mergatroyd, only
acquaintances--drew closer about him the folds of reserve.
At one time much fuss was made about the spleen, but we have come now to
disregard it, to hold it as something not to be reckoned with; and
Philip regarded the heart as we do our spleens.
Philip was respected, but was not popular with his own class, and was
respected, but not popular, among the operatives of his mill. Some men,
however self-contained, are self-revealing in their efforts after
concealment. So was it with Philip.
Shrewd public opinion in Mergatroyd had gauged and weighed him before he
supposed that it was concerned about him. It pronounced him proud and
honest, and capable, through integrity of purpose, of doing a cruel,
even a mean, thing. He had been brought up apart from those modifying
forces which affect, or ought to affect, the conduct governed by
principle. Principle is a good thing as a direction of the course of
conduct, but principle must swerve occasionally to save it from becoming
a destructive force. In the solar system every planet has its orbit, but
every orbit has its deflections caused by the presence of fellow
planets. Philip as a child had never lain with his head on a gentle
bosom, from which, as from a battery, love had streamed, enveloping him,
vivifying, warming the seeds of good in him. He reckoned with his
fellow-men as with pieces of mechanism, to be used or thrown aside, as
they served or failed. He had been treated in that way himself, and he
had come to regard such a cold, systematic, material manner of dealing
with his brother men as the law of social life.
That must have been a strange experience--the coming to life of the
marble statue created by Pygmalion. How long did it take the veins in
the alabaster to liquefy? How long before the stony breast heaved and
pulsation came into the rigid heart? How long before light kindled in
the blank eye, and how long before in that eye stood the testimony to
perfect liquefication, a tear?
There must have been in Galatea from the outset great deficiency in
emotion, inflexibility of mind, absence of impulse; a stony way of
thinking of others, speaking of others, dealing with others; an
ever-present supposition that everyone else is, has been, or ought to
be--stone.
Philip had only recently begun to mollify under the influence of Salome.
But the change had not been radical. The softening had not extended far
below the surface, had not reached the hard nerves of principle.
In the society of his wife, Philip had shown himself in a light in which
no one else saw him. As the sun makes certain flowers expand, and these
flowers close the instant the sun is withdrawn, so was it with him. He
was cheerful, easy, natural with her, talked and laughed and showed her
attentions; but when he came forth into the outer world again he
exhibited no signs of having unfurled.
Now that his confidence in his wife was shaken, Philip was close,
undemonstrative, in her presence as in that of his fellows. He was not
the man to make allowances, to weigh degrees of fault. Allowances had
not been made for his shortcomings in his past life, and why should he
deal with Salome as he had not been dealt by? Fault is fault, whether
in the grain or in the ounce.
When Philip said the prayer of prayers at family devotions, and came to
the petition, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that
trespass against us,' he had no qualms of conscience, not a suspicion
that his conduct was ungenerous.
He forgave Salome--most certainly he forgave her. He bore no malice
against her for having deceived him. He was ready to make her an
allowance of forty pounds per annum for her clothing, and thirty pounds
for pocket or pin money. Should she fall ill, he would call in a
specialist regardless of expense; if she wanted to refurnish the
drawing-room he would not grudge the cost. Would a man be ready to do
all this unless he forgave a trespass against him? He could not take
her head, and lay it on his shoulder, and stroke the golden hair, and
kiss the tears from her eyes--but then he did not ask of Heaven to pet
and mollycoddle him, only to forgive him, and he did forgive Salome.
He saw that his wife's heart ached for her mother; that she felt keenly
the loss of her who had been to her the representative of all maternal
tenderness and consideration. That was natural and inevitable. But
everyone has to undergo some such partings; it is the lot of humanity,
and Salome must accommodate herself to her bereavement. He saw that she
was without an intimate friend in the place, to whom she could pour out
her heart, and of whom take counsel; but then, he also had been
friendless, till he came not to require a friend and to value human
sympathy. What he did not appreciate, she must learn to do without.
He saw that she was distressed and in agony of mind because he was
offended with her; but this afforded him no regret. She had sinned
against him and must accept the consequences. It was a law of nature
that sin should meet with punishment, and the sinner must accept his
chastisement as his due. What were the consequences in comparison with
the weight of her transgression?
Procrustes had a bed on which he tied travellers, and if their length
exceeded that of the bed he cut off their extremities; but if they were
shorter, he had them stretched to equal it. Philip had his iron bed of
principle, on which he extended himself, and to this he would fit his
poor, tender, suffering wife.
As he and Salome returned together from the funeral they hardly spoke to
each other on the way. Her hand was on his arm, trembling with grief and
mute, disregarded appeal. He knew that she was crying, because she
continually put her kerchief to her eyes. Tears are a matter of course
at funerals, as orange-blossoms are a concomitant of weddings. Mrs.
Cusworth, though not Salome's mother, had stood to her for eighteen
years in the relation of one; tears, therefore, thought Philip, were
proper on this occasion--very proper.
He did not blame her for crying--God forbid!
For his own part, Philip had regarded Mrs. Cusworth with dislike; he had
seen how commonplace, unintellectual a woman she was; but it was of
course right, quite right and proper, that Salome should see the good
side of the deceased.
Philip wore his stereotyped business face at the funeral, the face he
wore when going through his accounts, hearing a sermon, reprimanding a
clerk, paying his rates. He was somewhat paler than usual, but the most
attentive observer could not say that this was caused by feeling and was
not the effect of contrast to his new suit of glossy black mourning.
Not once did he draw the little hand on his arm close to his side and
press it. He let it rest there with as much indifference as if it were
his paletot.
On reaching the house, he opened the door with his latchkey, and stood
aside to allow Salome to enter. Then he followed, hung his hat on the
stand, and blew his nose. He had avoided blowing his nose at the grave
or in the street, lest it should give occasion to his being supposed to
affect a grief he did not feel; and Philip was too honest to pretend
what was unreal, and afraid to be thought to pretend.
He followed Salome upstairs.
On reaching the landing where was his study door, Salome turned to look
at him before ascending further. Her face was white, her eyes red with
weeping. Wondrously beautiful in colour and reflected light was her
ruddy gold hair bursting out from under the crape bonnet above her
pallid face.
She said nothing, but waited expectantly, with her brown eyes on his
face. He received the look with imperturbable self-restraint, opened
his door, and without a word went into his study.
Salome's bosom heaved, a great sob broke from it; and then she hastily
continued her ascent. She had made her final appeal, and it had been
rejected.
Mrs. Cusworth had died worth an inconsiderable sum, and that she had
left to Janet, as more likely to need it than Salome.