CHAPTER XX. ALL IS WELL.

There was now no occasion to fly a step farther. Neither of them

feared any one but Watho. They left her there, and went back. A great

cloud came over the sun, and rain began to fall heavily, and Nycteris

was much refreshed, grew able to see a little, and with Photogen's

help walked gently over the cool wet grass.

They had not gone far before they met Fargu and the other huntsmen.

Photogen told them he had killed a great red wolf, and it was Madam

Watho. The huntsmen looked grave, but gladness shone through.

"Then," said Fargu, "I will go and bury my mistress."

But when they reached the place, they found she was already buried--in

the maws of sundry birds and beasts which had made their breakfast of

her.

Then Fargu, overtaking them, would, very wisely, have Photogen go to

the king, and tell him the whole story. But Photogen, yet wiser than

Fargu, would not set out until he had married Nycteris; "for then," he

said, "the king himself can't part us; and if ever two people couldn't

do the one without the other, those two are Nycteris and I. She has

got to teach me to be a brave man in the dark, and I have got to look

after her until she can bear the heat of the sun, and he helps her to

see, instead of blinding her."

They were married that very day. And the next day they went together

to the king, and told him the whole story. But whom should they find

at the court but the father and mother of Photogen, both in high

favour with the king and queen. Aurora nearly died for joy, and told

them all how Watho had lied, and made her believe her child was dead.

No one knew anything of the father or mother of Nycteris; but when

Aurora, saw in the lovely girl her own azure eyes shining through

night and its clouds, it made her think strange things, and wonder how

even the wicked themselves may be a link to join together the good.

Through Watho, the mothers, who had never seen each other, had changed

eyes in their children.

The king gave them the castle and lands of Watho, and there they lived

and taught each other for many years that were not long. But hardly

had one of them passed, before Nycteris had come to love the day best,

because it was the clothing and crown of Photogen, and she saw that

the day was greater than the night, and the sun more lordly than the

moon; and Photogen had come to love the night best, because it was the

mother and home of Nycteris.

"But who knows," Nycteris would say to Photogen, "that, when we go

out, we shall not go into a day as much greater than your day as your

day is greater than my night?"

THE BUTCHER'S BILLS.

CHAPTER I. HUSBAND AND WIFE.

I am going to tell a story of married life. My title will prepare the

reader for something hardly heroic; but I trust it will not be found

lacking in the one genuine and worthy interest a tale ought to

have--namely, that it presents a door through which we may walk into

one region or another of the human heart, and there find ourselves not

altogether unacquainted or from home.

There was a law among the Jews which forbade the yoking together of

certain animals, either because, being unequal in size or strength,

one of them must be oppressed, or for the sake of some lesson thus

embodied to the Eastern mind--possibly for both reasons. Half the

tragedy would be taken out of social life if this law could be applied

to human beings in their various relations. I do not say that this

would be well, or that we could afford to lose the result of the

tragedy thus occasioned. Neither do I believe that there are so many

instances of unequal yoking as the misprising judgments of men by men

and women by women might lead us to imagine. Not every one declared by

the wisdom of acquaintance to have thrown himself or herself away must

therefore be set down as unequally yoked. Or it may even be that the

inequality is there, but the loss on the other side. How some people

could ever have come together must always be a puzzle until one knows

the history of the affair; but not a few whom most of us would judge

quite unsuited to each other do yet get on pretty well from, the

first, and better and better the longer they are together, and that

with mutual advantage, improvement, and development. Essential

humanity is deeper than the accidents of individuality; the common is

more powerful than the peculiar; and the honest heart will always be

learning to act more and more in accordance with the laws of its

being. It must be of much more consequence to any lady that her

husband should be a man on whose word she can depend than that he

should be of a gracious presence. But if instead of coming nearer to a

true understanding of each other, the two should from the first keep

falling asunder, then something tragic may almost be looked for.

Duncan and Lucy Dempster were a couple the very mention of whose

Christian names together would have seemed amusing to the friends who

had long ceased to talk of their unfitness. Indeed, I doubt if in

their innermost privacy they ever addressed each other except as Mr.

and Mrs. Dempster. For the first time to see them together, no one

could help wondering how the conjunction could have been effected.

Dempster was of Scotch descent, but the hereditary high cheek-bone

seemed to have got into his nose, which was too heavy a pendant for

the low forehead from which it hung. About an inch from the end it

took a swift and unexpected curve downwards, and was a curious and

abnormal nose, which could not properly be assorted with any known

class of noses. A long upper lip, a large, firm, and not quite ugly

mouth, with a chin both long and square, completed a face which, with

its low forehead, being yet longer than usual, had a particularly

equine look. He was rather under the middle height, slender, and well

enough made--altogether an ordinary mortal, known on 'Change as an

able, keen, and laborious man of business. What his special business

was I do not know. He went to the city by the eight o'clock omnibus

every morning, dived into a court, entered a little square, rushed up

two flights of stairs to a couple of rooms, and sat down in the back

one before an office table on a hair-seated chair. It was a dingy

place--not so dirty as it looked, I daresay. Even the windows, being

of bad glass, did, I believe, look dirtier than they were. It was a

place where, so far as the eye of an outsider could tell, much or

nothing might be doing. Its occupant always wore his hat in it, and

his hat always looked shabby. Some people said he was rich, others

that he would be one day. Some said he was a responsible man, whatever

the epithet may have been intended to mean. I believe he was quite as

honest as the recognized laws of his trade demanded--and for how many

could I say more? Nobody said he was avaricious--but then he moved

amongst men whose very notion was first to make money, after that to

be religious, or to enjoy themselves, as the case might be. And no one

either ever said of him that he was a good man, or a generous. He was

about forty years of age, looking somehow as if he had never been

younger. He had had a fair education--better than is generally

considered necessary for mercantile purposes--but it would have been

hard to discover any signs of it in the spending of his leisure. On

Sunday mornings he went with his wife to church, and when he came home

had a good dinner, of which now and then a friend took his share. If

no stranger was present he took his wine by himself, and went to sleep

in his easy chair of marone-coloured leather, while his wife sat on

the other side of the fire if it was winter, or a little way off by

the open window if it was summer, gently yawned now and then, and

looked at him with eyes a little troubled. Then he went off again by

the eight o'clock omnibus on Monday morning, and not an idea more or

less had he in his head, not a hair's-breadth of difference was there

in his conduct or pursuits, that he had been to church and had spent

the day out of business. That may, however, for anything I know, have

been as much the clergyman's fault as his. He was the sort of man you

might call machine-made, one in whom humanity, if in no wise

caricatured, was yet in no wise ennobled.

His wife was ten years younger than he--hardly less than

beautiful--only that over her countenance seemed to have gathered a

kind of haze of commonness. At first sight, notwithstanding, one could

not help perceiving that she was china and he was delft. She was

graceful as she sat, long-necked, slope-shouldered, and quite as tall

as her husband, with a marked daintiness about her in the absence of

the extremes of the fashion, in the quality of the lace she wore on

her black silk dress, and in the wide white sleeves of fine cambric

that covered her arms from the shoulder to the wrist. She had a

morally delicate air, a look of scrupulous nicety and lavender-stored

linen. She had long dark lashes; and when they rose, the eyelids

revealed eyes of uncommon beauty. She had good features, good teeth,

and a good complexion. The main feeling she produced and left was of

ladyhood--little more.

Sunday afternoon came fifty-two times in the year. I mention this

because then always, and nearly then only, could one calculate on

seeing them together. It came to them in a surburb of London, and the

look of it was dull. Doubtless Mr. Dempster's dinner and his repose

after it were interesting to him, but I cannot help thinking his wife

found it dreary. She had, however, got used to it. The house was a

good old one, of red brick, much larger than they required, but not

expensive, and had a general look of the refinement of its mistress.

In the summer the windows of the dining-room would generally be open,

for they looked into a really lovely garden behind the house, and the

scent of the jasmine that crept all around them would come in

plentifully. I wonder what the scent of jasmine did in Duncan

Dempster's world. Perhaps it never got farther than the general

ante-chamber of the sensorium. It often made his wife sad--she could

not tell why. To him I daresay it smelt agreeable, but I can hardly

believe it ever woke in him that dreamy sensation it gave her--of

something she had not had enough of, she could not say what. When the

heat was gone off a little he would walk out on the lawn, which was

well kept and well watered, with many flowering shrubs about it. Why

he did so, I cannot tell. He looked at nothing in particular, only

walked about for a few minutes, no doubt derived some pleasure of a

mild nature from something, and walked in again to tea. One might have

expected he would have cultivated the acquaintance of his garden a

little, if it were only for the pleasure the contrast would give him

when he got back to his loved office, for a greater contrast could not

well have been found than between his dingy dreary haunt on

weekdays--a place which nothing but duty could have made other than

repugnant to any free soul--and this nest of greenery and light and

odour. Sweet scents floated in clouds invisible about the place;

flower eyes and stars and bells and bunches shone and glowed and

lurked all around; his very feet might have learned a lesson of that

which is beyond the sense from the turf he trod; but all the time, if

he were not exactly seeing in his mind's eye the walls and tables of

his office in the City square, his thoughts were not the less brooding

over such business as he there transacted. For Mr. Dempster's was not

a free soul. How could it be when all his energies were given to

making money? This he counted his _calling_--and I believe actually

contrived to associate some feeling of duty with the notion of leaving

behind him a plump round sum of money, as if money in accumulation and

following flood, instead of money in peaceful current, were the good

thing for the world! Hence the whole realm of real life, the universe

of thought and growth, was a high-hedged park to him, within which he

never even tried to look--not even knowing that he was shut out from

it, for the hedge was of his own growing. What shall ever wake such a

man to a sense of indwelling poverty, or make him begin to hunger

after any lowliest expansion? Does a reader retort, "The man was

comfortable, and why should he be troubled?" If the end of being, I

answer, is only comfort in self, I yield. But what if there should be

at the heart of the universe a Thought to which the being of such men

is distasteful? What if to that Thought they look blots in light, ugly

things? May there not lie in that direction some possible reason why

they should bethink themselves? Dempster, however, was not yet a

clinker out of which all the life was burned, however much he looked

like one. There was in him that which might yet burn--and give light

and heat.

On the Sunday evenings Mrs. Dempster would have gladly gone to church

again, if only--though to herself she never allowed this for one of

her reasons--to slip from under the weight of her husband's presence.

He seldom spoke to her more than a sentence at a time, but he did like

to have her near him, and I suppose held, through the bare presence,

some kind of dull one-sided communication with her; what did a woman

know about business? and what did he know about except business? It is

true he had a rudimentary pleasure in music--and would sometimes ask

her to play to him, when he would listen, and after his fashion enjoy.

But although here was a gift that might be developed until his soul

could echo the music of the spheres, the embodied souls of Handel or

Mendelssohn were to him but clouds of sound wrapped about kernels--let

me say of stock or bonds.

For a year or so after their marriage it had been the custom that, the

first thing after breakfast on Monday morning, she should bring him

her account-book, that they might together go over her week's

expenses. She must cultivate the business habits in which, he said, he

found her more than deficient. How could he endure in a wife what

would have been preposterous in a clerk, and would have led to his

immediate dismissal? It was in his eyes necessary that the same strict

record of receipt and expenditure should be kept in the household as

in the office; how else was one to know in what direction things were

going? he said. He required of his wife, therefore, that every

individual thing that cost money, even to what she spent upon her own

person, should be entered in her book. She had no money of her own,

neither did he allow her any special sum for her private needs; but he

made her a tolerably liberal weekly allowance, from which she had to

pay everything except house-rent and taxes, an arrangement which I

cannot believe a good one, as it will inevitably lead some

conscientious wives to self-denial severer than necessary, and on the

other hand will tempt the vulgar nature to make a purse for herself by

mean savings off everybody else. It was especially distasteful to Mrs.

Dempster to have to set down every little article of personal

requirement that she bought. It would probably have seemed to her but

a trifle had they both been young when they married, and had there

been that tenderness of love between them which so soon sets

everything more than right; but as it was, she could never get over

the feeling that the man was strange to her. As it was she would have

got over this. But there was in her a certain constitutional lack of

precision, combined with a want of energy and a weakness of will, that

rendered her more than careless where her liking was not interested.

Hence, while she would have been horrified at playing a wrong note or

singing out of tune, she not only had no anxiety, for the thing's own

sake, to have her accounts correct, but shrunk from every effort in

that direction. Now I can perfectly understand her recoil from the

whole affair, with her added dislike to the smallness of the thing

required of her; but seeing she did begin with doing it after a

fashion, it is not so easy to understand why, doing it, she should not

make a consolation of doing it with absolute exactness. Not even her

dread of her husband's dissatisfaction--which was by no means

small--could prevail to make her, instead of still trusting a memory

that constantly played her false, put down a thing at once, nor

postpone it to a far less convenient season. Hence it came that her

accounts, though never much out, never balanced; and the weekly audit,

while it grew more and more irksome to the one, grew more and more

unsatisfactory to the other. For to Mr. Dempster's dusty eyes

exactitude wore the robe of rectitude, and before long, precisely and

merely from the continued unsatisfactory condition of her accounts, he

began, in a hidden corner of his righteous soul, to reflect on the

moral condition of his wife herself as unsatisfactory. Now such it

certainly was, but he was not the man to judge it correctly, or to

perceive the true significance of her failing. In business, while

scrupulous as to the requirements of custom and recognized right, he

nevertheless did things from which her soul would have recoiled like

"the tender horns of cockled snails;" yet it was to him not merely a

strange and inexplicable fact that she should _never_ be able to show

to a penny, nay, often not to a shilling or eighteenpence, how the

week's allowance went, but a painful one as indicating something

beyond perversity. And truly it was no very hard task he required of

her, for, seeing they had no children, only three servants, and saw

little company, her housekeeping could not be a very heavy or involved

affair. Perhaps if it had been more difficult she would have done it

better, but anyhow she hated the whole thing, procrastinated, and

setting down several things together, was _sure_ to forget some

article or mistake some price; yet not one atom more would she

distrust her memory the next time she was tempted. But it was a small

fault at worst, and if her husband had loved her enough to understand

the bearings of it in relation to her mental and moral condition he

would have tried to content himself that at least she did not exceed

her allowance; and would of all things have avoided making such a

matter a burden upon the consciousness of one so differently educated,

if not constituted, from himself. It is but fair to add on the other

side that, if she had loved him after anything like a wifely ideal,

which I confess was not yet possible to her, it would not have been

many weeks before she had a first correct account to show him.

Convinced, at length, that accuracy was not to be had from her, and

satisfying himself with dissatisfaction, he one morning threw from him

the little ruled book, and declared, in a wrath which he sought to

smother into dignified but hopeless rebuke, that he would trouble

himself with her no further. She burst into tears, took up the book,

left the room, cried a little, resolved to astonish him the next

Monday, and never set down another item. When it came, and breakfast

was over, he gave her the usual cheque, and left at once for town. Nor

had the accounts ever again been alluded to between them.

Now this might have been very well, or at least not very ill, if both

had done tolerably well thereafter--that is, if the one had continued

to attend to her expenditure as well as before, and the other, when he

threw away the account-book, had dismissed from his mind the whole

matter. But Dempster was one of those dangerous men--more dangerous,

however, to themselves than to others--who never forget, that is, get

over, an offence or disappointment. They respect themselves so much,

and, out of their respect for themselves, build so much upon success,

set so much by never being defeated but always gaining their point,

that when they are driven to confess themselves foiled, the confession

is made from the "poor dumb mouth" of a wound that cannot be healed.

It is there for ever--will be there at least until they find another

God to worship than their own paltry selves. Hence it came that the

bourn between the two spiritual estates yawned a little wider at one

point, and a mist of dissatisfaction would not unfrequently rise from

a certain stagnant pool in its hollow. The cause was paltry in one

sense, but nothing to which belongs the name of _Cause_ can fail to

mingle the element of awfulness even with its paltriness. Its worst

effect was that it hindered approximation in other parts of their

marching natures.

And as to Mrs. Dempster, I am sorry for the apparent justification

which what I have to confess concerning her must give to the severe

whims of such husbands as hers: from that very Monday morning she

began to grow a little careless about her expenditure--which she had

never been before. By degrees bill after bill was allowed to filch

from the provision of the following week, and when that was devoured,

then from that of the week after. It was not that she was in the least

more expensive upon herself, or that she consciously wasted anything;

but, altogether averse to housekeeping, she ceased to exercise the

same outlook upon the expenditure of the house, did not keep her

horses together, left the management more and more to her cook; while

the consciousness that she was not doing her duty made her more and

more uncomfortable, and the knowledge that things were going farther

and farther wrong, made her hate the idea of accounts worse and worse,

until she came at length to regard them with such a loathing as might

have fitted some extreme of moral evil. The bills which were supposed

by her husband to be regularly settled every week were at last months

behind, and the week's money spent in meeting the most pressing of its

demands, while what it could no longer cover was cast upon the growing

heap of evil for the time to come.

I must say this for her, however, that there was a small sum of money

she expected on the death of a crazy aunt, which, if she could but lay

hold of it without her husband's knowledge, she meant to devote to the

clearing off of everything, when she vowed to herself to do better in

the time to come.

The worst thing in it all was that her fear of her husband kept

increasing, and that she felt more and more uncomfortable in his

presence. Hence that troubled look in her eye, always more marked when

her husband sat dozing in his chair of a Sunday afternoon.

It was natural, too, that, although they never quarrelled, their

intercourse should not grow of a more tender character. Seldom was

there a salient point in their few scattered sentences of

conversation, except, indeed, it were some piece of news either had to

communicate. Occasionally the wife read something from the newspaper,

but never except at her husband's request. In general he enjoyed his

newspaper over a chop at his office. Two or three times since their

marriage--now eight years--he had made a transient resolve pointing at

the improvement of her mind, and to that end had taken from his great

glass-armoured bookcase some _standard_ work--invariably, I believe,

upon party-politics--from which he had made her read him a chapter.

But, unhappily, she had always got to the end of it without gaining

the slightest glimmer of a true notion of what the author was driving

at.

It almost moves me to pity to think of the vagueness of that

rudimentary humanity in Mr. Dempster which made him dream of doing

something to improve his wife's mind. What did he ever do to improve

his own? It is hard to understand how horses find themselves so

comfortable in their stables that, be the day ever so fine, the

country ever so lovely, the air ever so exhilarating, they are always

rejoiced to get back into their dull twilight: it is harder to me to

understand how Mr. Dempster could be so comfortable in his own mind

that he never wanted to get out of it, even at the risk of being

beside himself; but no doubt the dimness of its twilight had a good

deal to do with his content. And then there is that in every human

mind which no man's neighbour, nay, no man himself, can understand. My

neighbour may in his turn be regarding my mind as a gloomy place to

live in, while I find it no undesirable residence--though chiefly

because of the number of windows it affords me for looking out of it.

Still, if Dempster's dingy office in the City was not altogether a

sufficing type of the mind that used it, I consider it a very fairly

good one.

But wherein was Mrs. Dempster so very different from her husband as I

rudely fancy some of my readers imagining her? Whatever may have been

her reasons for marrying him--one would suppose they must have been

weighty--to do so she must have been in a very undeveloped condition,

and in that condition she still remained. I do not mean that she was

less developed than ninety-nine out of the hundred: most women affect

me only as valuable crude material out of which precious things are

making. How much they might be, must be, shall be! For now they stand

like so many Lot's-wives--so many rough-hewn marble blocks, rather, of

which a Divinity is shaping the ends. Mrs. Dempster had all the making

of a lovely woman, but notwithstanding her grace, her beauty, her

sweetness, her lark-like ballading too, she was a very ordinary woman

in that region of her which knew what she meant when she said "I." Of

this fact she had hardly a suspicion, however; for until aspiration

brings humility, people are generally pretty well satisfied with

themselves, having no idea what poor creatures they are. She saw in

her mirror a superior woman, regarded herself as one of the finer

works of creation. The worst was that from the first she had counted

herself superior to her husband, and in marrying him had felt not

merely that she was conferring a favour, which every husband would

allow, but that she was lowering herself without elevating him. Now it

is true that she was pleasanter to look at, that her manners were

sweeter, and her notions of the becoming far less easily satisfied

than his; also that she was a little less deficient in vague reverence

for certain forms of the higher than he. But I know of nothing in her

to determine her classification as of greater value than he, except

indeed that she was on the whole rather more honest. She read novels

and he did not; she passed shallow judgment, where he scorned to

judge; she read all the middling poetry that came in her way, and

copied books full of it; but she could no more have appreciated one of

Milton's or Shakspere's smallest poems than she could have laughed

over a page of Chinese. She liked to hear this and that popular

preacher, and when her husband called his sermons humbug, she heard it

with a shocked countenance; but was she better or worse than her

husband when, admiring them as she did, she permitted them to have no

more influence upon her conduct than if they had been the merest

humbug ever uttered by ambitious demagogue? In truth, I cannot see

that in the matter of worth there was much as yet to choose between

them.

It is hardly necessary, then, to say that there was little appreciable

approximation of any kind going on between them. If only they would

have read Dickens together! Who knows what might have come of it! But

this dull close animal proximity, without the smallest conscious

nearness of heart or mind or soul--and so little chance, from very

lack of wants, for showing each other kindnesses--surely it is a

killing sort of thing! And yet, and yet, there is always a

something--call it habit, or any poorest name you please--grows up

between two who are much together, at least when they neither quarrel

nor thwart each other's designs, which, tending with its roots towards

the deeper human, blossoms into--a wretched little flower indeed, yet

afar off partaking of the nature of love. The Something seldom reveals

its existence until they are parted. I suspect that with not a few,

Death is the love-messenger at the stroke of whose dart the stream of

love first begins to flow in the selfish bosom.

It is now necessary to mention a little break in the monotony of Mrs.

Dempster's life, which, but for what came afterwards, could claim no

record. One morning her page announced Major Strong, and possibly she

received the gentleman who entered with a brighter face than she had

ever shown her husband. The major had just arrived from India. He had

been much at her father's house while she was yet a mere girl, being

then engaged to one of her sisters, who died after he went abroad, and

before he could return to marry her. He was now a widower, a

fine-looking, frank, manly fellow. The expression of his countenance

was little altered, and the sight of him revived in the memory of Mrs.

Dempster many recollections of a happy girlhood, when the prospect of

such a life as she now led with tolerable content would have seemed

simply unendurable. When her husband came home she told him as much as

he cared to hear of the visitor she had had, and he made no objection

to her asking him to dine the next Sunday. When he arrived Mr.

Dempster saw a man of his own age, bronzed and big, with not much

waist left, but a good carriage and pleasant face. He made himself

agreeable at dinner, appreciated his host's wine, and told good

stories that pleased the business man as showing that he knew "what

was what." He accorded him his more particular approval, speaking to

his wife, on the ground that he was a man of the world, with none of

the army slang about him. Mr. Dempster was not aware that he had

himself more business peculiarities than any officer in her majesty's

service had military ones.

After this Major Strong frequently called upon Mrs. Dempster. They

were good friends, and did each other no harm whatever, and the

husband neither showed nor felt the least jealousy. They sang

together, occasionally went out shopping, and three or four times went

together to the play. Mr. Dempster, so long as he had his usual

comforts, did not pine in his wife's absence, but did show a little

more pleasure when she came home to him than usually when he came home

to her. This lasted for a few months. Then the major went back to

India, and for a time the lady missed him a good deal, which,

considering the dulness of her life, was not very surprising or

reprehensible.

CHAPTER II. AN ASTONISHMENT.

Now comes the strange part of my story.

One evening the housemaid opened the door to Mr. Dempster on his

return from the city; and perhaps the fact that it was the maid, and

not the page as usual, roused his observation, which, except in

business matters, was not remarkably operative. He glanced at the

young woman, when an eye far less keen than his could not have failed

to remark a strangely excited expression on her countenance.

"Where is the boy?" he asked.

"Just run to the doctor's, sir," she answered.

Then first he remembered that when he left in the morning his wife had

not been feeling altogether well, but he had never thought of her

since.

"How is your mistress?" he said.

"She's rather poorly, sir, but--but--she's as well as could be

expected."

"What does the fool mean?" said Dempster to himself, and very nearly

said it aloud, for he was not over polite to any in his service. But

he did not say it aloud. He advanced into the hall with deliberation,

and made for the stair.

"Oh, please sir," the maid cried in a tone of perturbation, when,

turning from shutting the door, she saw his intention, "you can't go

up to mis'ess's room just at this minute, sir. Please go in the

dining-room, sir."

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning angrily upon the girl, for of

all things he hated mystery.

Like every one else in the house, and office both, she stood in awe of

him, and his look frightened her.

"Please go in the dining-room," she gasped entreatingly.

"What!" he said and did turn towards the dining-room, "is your

mistress so ill she can't see me?"

"Oh, no, sir!--at least I don't know exactly. Cook's with her, sir.

She's over the worst, anyhow."

"What on earth do you mean, girl? Speak out, will you? What is the

matter with your mistress?"

As he spoke he stepped into the room, the maid following him. The same

moment he spied a whitish bundle of something on the rug in front of

the fire.

"What do you mean by leaving things like that in the dining-room?" he

went on more angrily still.

"Please, sir," answered the girl, going and lifting the bundle

carefully, "it's the baby!"

"The baby!" shouted Mr. Dempster, and looked at her from head to foot.

"What baby?" Then bethinking himself that it must belong to some

visitor in the drawing-room with his wife, he moderated his tone.

"Make haste; take it away!" he said. "I don't want babies here!

There's a time and a place for everything!--What _are_ you about?"

For, instead of obeying her master and taking it away, the maid was

carefully looking in the blanket for the baby. Having found it and

turned aside the covering from its face, she came nearer, and holding

up the little vision, about the size and colour of a roll of red wax

taper, said:--

"Look at it, sir! It's your own, and worth looking at."

Never before had she dared speak to him so!

I will not venture to assert that Mr. Dempster turned white, but his

countenance changed, and he dropped into the chair behind him, feeling

less of a business man than had been his consciousness for the last

twenty years. He was hit hard. The absolutely Incredible had hit him.

Babies might be born in a day, but surely not without previous

preparation on the part of nature at least, if not on that of the

mother; and in this case if the mother had prepared herself, certainly

she had not prepared him for the event. It was as if the treasure of

Nature's germens were tumbling all together. His head swam. He could

not speak a word.

"Yes, sir," the maid went on, relieved of her trepidation in

perceiving that her master too was mortal, and that her word had such

power over him--proud also of knowing more of his concerns than he did

himself, "she was took about an hour and a half ago. We've kep'

sendin' an' sendin' after the doctor, but he ain't never been yet;

only cook, she knows a deal an' she says she's been very bad, sir. But

the young gentleman come at last, bless him! and now she's doin' as

well as could be expected, sir--cook says."

"God bless me!" said the astonished father, and relapsed into the

silence of bewilderment.

Eight years married with never a glimmer of offspring--and now, all at

once, and without a whisper of warning, the father of a "young

gentleman!" How could it be other than perplexing--discomposing,

indeed!--yet it was right pleasant too. Only it would have been more

pleasant if experience could have justified the affair! Nature--no,

not Nature--or, if Nature, then Nature sure in some unnatural mood,

had stolen a march upon him, had gone contrary to all that had ever

been revealed of her doings before! and why had she pitched on

him--just him, Duncan Dempster, to exercise one of her more grotesque

and wayward moods upon?--to play at hide-and-seek with after this

fashion? She had not treated him with exactly proper respect, he

thought, or, rather vaguely felt.

"Business is business," he remarked, under his breath, "and this

cannot be called proper business behaviour. What is there about me to

make game of? Really, my wife ought--"

What his wife ought or ought not to have done, however, had not yet

made itself clear to him, and his endeavour to excogitate being in

that direction broken off, gave way to the pleasure of knowing himself

a father, or perhaps more truly of having an heir. In the strength of

it he rose, went to the cellaret, and poured himself out a glass of

his favourite port, which he sat down to drink in silence and

meditation. He was rather a picture just then and there, though not a

very lovely one, seated, with his hat still on his head, in the middle

of the room, upon a chair half-way between the dining-table and the

sideboard, with his glass of wine in his hand. He was pondering partly

the pleasure, but still mainly the peculiarity of his position. A

bishop once told me that, shortly after he had been raised to the

episcopal dignity, a friend's horses, whose driver had tumbled off the

box drunk, ran away with him, and upset the carriage. He crept out of

the window over his head, and the first thought that came to him as he

sat perched on the side of the carriage, while it was jumbled along by

the maddened horses, was, "What do bishops do in such circumstances?"

Equally perplexing was the question Dempster had to ask himself: how

husbands who, after being married eight years, suddenly and

unexpectedly received the gift of a first-born, were in the habit of

comporting themselves! He poured himself out another glass, and with

it came the reflection, both amusing and consoling, that his brother,

who was confidently expecting his tidy five figures to crown the

earthly bliss of one or more of his large family some day, would be

equally but less agreeably surprised. "Serve him right!" he said to

himself. "What business have they to be looking out for my death?" And

for a moment the heavens appeared a little more just than he was

ordinarily in the habit of regarding them. He said to himself he would

work harder than ever now. There would now be some good in making

money! He had never given his mind to it yet, he said: now the world

should see what he could do when he did give his mind to it!

Hitherto gathering had been his main pleasure, but with the thought of

his money would now not seldom be mingled the thought of the little

thing in the blanket! He began to find himself strangely happy. I use

the wrong phrase--for the fact is, he had never yet found himself at

all; he knew nothing of the person except a self-painted and immensely

flattered portrait that hung in the innermost chamber of his heart--I

mean the innermost chamber he knew anything of: there were many

chambers there of which he did not even know the doors. Yet a few

minutes as he sat there, and he was actually cherishing a little pride

in the wife who had done so much better for him than he had at length

come to expect. If not a good accountant, she was at least a good

wife, and a very fair housekeeper: he had no doubt she would prove a

good mother. He would gladly have gone to her at once, to let her know

how much he was pleased with her behaviour. As for that little bit of

red clay--"terra cotta," he called it to himself, as he looked round

with a smile at the blanket, which the housemaid had replaced on the

rug before the fire--who could imagine him a potentate upon

'Change--perhaps in time a director of European affairs! He was not in

the way of joking--of all things about money; the very thought, of

business filled him from top to toe with seriousness; but he did make

that small joke, and accompany it with a grim smile.

He was startled from his musing by the entrance of the doctor, who had

in the meantime arrived and seen the lady, and now came to look at the

baby. He congratulated Mr. Dempster on having at length a son and

heir, but warned him that his wife was far from being beyond danger

yet. The whole thing was entirely out of the common, he said, and she

must be taken the greatest possible care of. The words woke a gentle

pity in the heart of the man, for by nature all men have some

tenderness for women in such circumstances, but they did not trouble

him greatly--for such dangers belonged to their calling, their

_business_ in life, and, doubtless, if she had attended to that

business earlier she would have found it easier.

"Did you ever know such a thing before, doctor?" he asked, with the

importance of one honoured by a personal visit from the Marvellous.

"Never in my own practice," answered the doctor, whom the cook had

instructed in the wonders of the case, "but I have read of such a

thing." And Mr. Dempster swelled like a turkey-cock.

It was several days before he was allowed to see the mother. Perhaps

had she expressed a strong desire to see him, it might have been

risked sooner, but she had neither expressed nor manifested any. He

kissed her, spoke a few stupid words in a kind tone, asking her how

she did, but paying no heed to her answer, and turned aside to look,

at the baby.

Mrs. Dempster recovered but slowly, and not very satisfactorily. She

did not seem to care much about the child. She tried to nurse him, but

was not very successful. She took him when the nurse brought him, and

yielded him again with the same indifference, showing neither pleasure

to receive nor unwillingness to part with him. The nurse did not fail

to observe it and remark upon it: _she_ had never seen a mother care

so little for her child! there was little of the mother in _her_ any

way! it was no wonder she was so long about it. It troubled the father

a little that she should not care for his child: some slight

fermentation had commenced in the seemingly dead mass of human

affection that had lain so long neglected in his being, and it seemed

strange to him that, while he was living for the child in the City,

she should be so indifferent to him at home. For already he had begun

to keep his vow, already his greater keenness in business was remarked

in the City. But it boded little good for either that the gift of God

should stir up in him the worship of Mammon. More sons are damned by

their fathers' money than by anything else whatever outside of

themselves.

There was the excuse to be made for Mrs. Dempster that she continued

far from strong--and her husband made it: he would have made it more

heartily if he had himself ever in his life known what it was to be

ill. By degrees she grew stronger, however, until, to persons who had

not known her before, she would have seemed in tolerable health. For a

week or two after she was again going about the house, she continued

to nurse the baby, but after that she became unable to do so, and

therewith began to neglect him entirely. She never asked to see him,

and when the nurse brought him would turn her head aside, and tell her

to take it away. So far from his being a pleasure to her, the very

sight of the child brought the hot dew upon her forehead. Her husband

frowned and wondered, but, unaccustomed to open his mind either to her

or to any one else, not unwisely sought to understand the thing before

speaking of it, and in the meantime commenced a genuine attempt to

make up to the baby for his mother's neglect. Almost without a notion

how even to take him in his arms, he would now send for him the moment

he had had his tea, and after a fashion, ludicrous in the eyes of the

nurse, would dandle and caress him, and strut about with him before

his wife, glancing up at her every now and then, to point the lesson

that such was the manner in which a parent ought to behave to a child.

In his presence she never made any active show of her dislike, but her

look seemed all the time fixed on something far away, as if she had

nothing to do with the affair.

CHAPTER III. ANOTHER ASTONISHMENT.

But a second and very different astonishment awaited Mr. Dempster.

Again one evening, on his return from the City, he saw a strange look

on the face of the girl who opened the door--but this time it was a

look of fear.

"Well?" he said, in a tone at once alarmed and peremptory.

She made no answer, but turned whiter than before.

"Where is your mistress?" he demanded.

"Nobody knows, sir," she answered.

"Nobody knows! What would you have me understand by such an answer?"

"It's the bare truth, sir. Nobody knows where she is."

"God bless me!" cried the husband. "What does it all mean?"

And again he sunk down upon a chair--this time in the hall, and stared

at the girl as if waiting further enlightenment.

But there was little enough to be had. Only one point was clear: his

wife was nowhere to be found. He sent for every one in the house, and

cross-questioned each to discover the last occasion on which she had

been seen. It was some time since she had been missed; how long before

that she had been seen there was no certainty to be had. He ran to the

doctor, then from one to another of her acquaintance, then to her

mother, who lived on the opposite side of London. She, like the rest,

could tell him nothing. In her anxiety she would have gone back with

him, but he was surly, and would not allow her. It was getting towards

morning before he reached home, but no relieving news awaited him.

What to think was as much a perplexity to him as what to do. He was

not in the agony in which a man would have been who thoroughly loved

his wife, but he cared enough about her to feel uncomfortable; and the

cries of the child, who was suffering from some ailment, made him

miserable: in his perplexity and dull sense of helplessness he

wondered whether she might not have given the baby poison before she

went. Then the thing would make such a talk! and, of all things,

Duncan Dempster hated being talked about. How busy people's brains

would be with all his affairs! How many explanations of the mystery

would be suggested on 'Change! Some would say, "What business had a

man like him with a fine lady for a wife? one so much younger than

himself too!" He could remember making the same remark of another,

before he was married. "Served him right!" they would say. And with

that the first movement of suspicion awoke in him--purely and solely

from his own mind's reflection of the imagined minds of others. While

in his mind's ear he heard them talking, almost before he knew what

they meant the words came to him: "There was that Major Strong, you

know!"

"She's gone to him!" he cried aloud, and, springing from the bed on

which he had thrown himself, he paced the chamber in a fury. He had no

word for it but hers that he was now in India! They had only been

waiting till--By heaven, that child was none of his! And therewith

rushed into his mind the conviction that everything was thus

explained. No man ever yet entertained an unhappy suspicion, but

straightway an army of proofs positive came crowding to the service of

the lie. It is astounding with what manifest probability everything

will fall in to prove that a fact which has no foundation whatever!

There is no end to the perfection with which a man may fool himself

while taking absolute precautions against being fooled by others.

Every fact, being a living fact, has endless sides and relations; but

of all these, the man whose being hangs upon one thought, will see

only those sides and relations which fall in with that thought.

Dempster even recalled the words of the maid, "It's mis'ess's," as

embodying the girl's belief that it was not master's. Where a man,

whether by nature jealous or not, is in a jealous condition, there is

no need of an Iago to parade before him the proofs of his wrong. It

was because Shakespere would neither have Desdemona less than perfect,

nor Othello other than the most trusting and least suspicious of men,

that he had to invent an all but incredible villain to effect the

needful catastrophe.

But why should a man, who has cared so little for his wife, become

instantly, upon the bare suspicion, so utter a prey to consuming

misery? There was a character in his suffering which could not be

attributed to any degree of anger, shame, or dread of ridicule. The

truth was, there lay in his being a possibility of love to his wife

far beyond anything his miserably stunted consciousness had an idea

of; and the conviction of her faithlessness now wrought upon him in

the office of Death, to let him know what he had lost. It magnified

her beauty in his eyes, her gentleness, her grace; and he thought with

a pang how little he had made of her or it.

But the next moment wrath at the idea of another man's child being

imposed upon him as his, with the consequent loss of his precious

money, swept every other feeling before it. For by law the child was

his, whoever might be the father of it. During a whole minute he felt

on the point of tying a stone about its neck, carrying it out, and

throwing it into the river Lea. Then, with the laugh of a hyena, he

set about arranging in his mind the proofs of her guilt. First came

eight childless years with himself; next the concealment of her

condition, and the absurd pretence that she had known nothing of it;

then the trouble of mind into which she had fallen; then her strange

unnatural aversion to her own child; and now, last of all, conclusive

of a guilty conscience, her flight from his house. He would give

himself no trouble to find her; why should he search after his own

shame! He would neither attempt to conceal nor to explain the fact

that she had left him--people might say what they pleased--try him for

murder if they liked! As to the child she had so kindly left to

console him for her absence, he would not drown him, neither would he

bring him up in his house; he would give him an ordinary education,

and apprentice him to a trade. For his money, he would leave it to a

hospital--a rich one, able to defend his will if disputed. For what

was the child? A monster--a creature that had no right to existence!

Not one of those who knew him best would have believed him capable of

being so moved, nor did one of them now know it, for he hid his

suffering with the success of a man not unaccustomed to make a mask of

his face. There are not a few men who, except something of the nature

of a catastrophe befall them, will pass through life without having or

affording a suspicion of what is in them. Everything hitherto had

tended to suppress the live elements of Duncan Dempster; but now, like

the fire of a volcano in a land of ice, the vitality in him had begun

to show itself.

Sheer weariness drove him, as the morning began to break, to lie down

again; but he neither undressed nor slept, and rose at his usual hour.

When he entered the dining-room, where breakfast was laid as

usual--only for one instead of two--he found by his plate, among

letters addressed to his wife, a packet directed to himself. It had

not been through the post, and the address was in his wife's hand. He

opened it. A sheet of paper was wrapped around a roll of unpaid

butcher's bills, amounting to something like eighty pounds, and a note

from the butcher craving immediate settlement. On the sheet of paper

was written, also in his wife's hand, these words: "I am quite

unworthy of being your wife any longer;" that was all.

Now here, to a man who had loved her enough to understand her, was a

clue to the whole--to Dempster it was the strongest possible

confirmation of what he had already concluded. To him it appeared as

certain as anything he called truth, that for years, while keeping a

fair face to her husband--a man who had never refused her anything--he

did not recall the fact that almost never had she asked or he offered

anything--she had been deceiving him, spending money she would not

account for, pretending to pay everything when she had been ruining

his credit with the neighbourhood, making him, a far richer man than

any but himself knew, appear to be living beyond his means, when he

was every month investing far more than he spent. It was injury upon

injury! Then, as a last mark of her contempt, she had taken pains that

these beggarly butcher's bills should reach him from her own hand! He

would trouble himself about such a woman not a moment longer!

He went from breakfast to his omnibus as usual, walked straight to his

office, and spent the day according to custom. I need hardly say that

the first thing he did was to write a cheque for the butcher. He made

no further inquiry after her whatever, nor was any made of him there,

for scarcely one of the people with whom he did business had been to

his house, or had even seen his wife.

In the suburb where he lived it was different; but he paid no heed to

any inquiry, beyond saying he knew nothing about her. To her relatives

he said that if they wanted her they might find her for themselves.

She had gone to please herself, and he was not going to ruin himself

by running about the world after her.

Night after night he came home to his desolate house; took no comfort

from his child; made no confession that he stood in need of comfort.

But he had a dull sensation as if the sun had forsaken the world, and

an endless night had begun. The simile, of course, is mine--the

sensation only was his; _he_ could never have expressed anything that

went on in the region wherein men suffer.

A few days made a marked difference in his appearance. He was a hard

man; but not so hard as people had thought him; and besides, _no_ man

can rule his own spirit except he has the spirit of right on his side;

neither is any man proof against the inroads of good. Even Lady

Macbeth was defeated by the imagination she had braved. Add to this,

that no man can, even by those who understand him best, be labelled as

a box containing such and such elements, for the humanity in him is

deeper than any individuality, and may manifest itself at some crisis

in a way altogether beside expectation.

His feeling was not at first of an elevated kind. After the grinding

wrath had abated, self-pity came largely to the surface--not by any

means a grand emotion, though very dear to boys and girls in their

first consciousness of self, and in them pardonable enough. On the

same ground it must be pardoned in a man who, with all his experience

of the world, was more ignorant of the region of emotion, and more

undeveloped morally, than multitudes of children: in him it was an

indication that the shell was beginning to break. He said to himself

that he was old beside her, and that she had begun to weary of him,

and despise him. Gradually upon this, however, supervened at intervals

a faint shadow of pity for her who could not have been happy or she

would not have left him.

Days and weeks passed, and there was no sign of Mrs. Dempster. The

child was not sent out to nurse, and throve well enough. His father

never took the least notice of him.

CHAPTER IV. WHAT IT MEANT.

Some of my readers, perhaps all of them, will have concluded that Mrs.

Dempster was a little out of her mind. Such, indeed, was the fact, and

one not greatly to be wondered at, after such a peculiar experience as

she had had. Some small degree of congestion, and the consequent

pressure on some portion of the brain, had sent certain faculties to

sleep, and, perhaps, roused others into morbid activity. That it is

impossible to tell where sanity ends and insanity begins, is a trite

remark indeed; but like many things which it is useless to say, it has

the more need to be thought of. If I yield to an impulse of which I

know I shall be ashamed, is it not the act of a madman? And may not

the act lead to a habit, and at length to a despised, perhaps feared

and hated, old age, twisting at the ragged ends of a miserable life?

However certain it is that mental disorder had to do with Mrs.

Dempster's departure from her home, it is almost as certain she would

never have gone had it not been for the unpaid bills haunting her

consciousness, a combination of demon and ghost. The misery had all

the time been growing upon her, and must have had no small share in

the subversion of her microcosm. When that was effected, the evil

thing that lay at the root of it all rose and pounced upon her. Wrong

is its own avenger. She had been doing wrong, and knowingly for years,

and now the plant of evil was blossoming towards its fruit. If one say

the evil was but a trifle, I take her judgment, not his, upon that.

She had been lazy towards duty, had persistently turned aside from

what she knew to be her business, until she dared not even look at it.

And now that the crisis was at hand, as omened by that letter from the

butcher, with the sense of her wrong-doing was mingled the terror of

her husband. What would he think, say, and do? Not yet had she, after

all these years, any deep insight into his character; else perhaps she

might have read there that, much as he loved money, the pleasure of

seeing signal failure follow the neglect of his instructions would

quite compensate him for the loss. What the bills amounted to, she had

not an idea. Not until she had made up her mind to leave her home

could she muster the courage to get them together. Then she even

counted up the total and set down the sum in her memory--which sum

thereafter haunted her like the name of her devil.

As to the making up of her mind--she could remember very little of

that process--or indeed of the turning of her resolve into action. She

left the house in the plainest dress her wardrobe could afford her,

and with just one half-crown in her pocket. Her design was to seek a

situation, as a refuge from her husband and his wrath. It was a

curious thing, that, while it gave her no trouble to leave her baby,

whom indeed she had not that day seen, and to whom for some time she

had ceased to be necessary, her only notion was to get a place as

nurse.

At that time, I presume, there were few or no such offices for

engaging servants as are now common; at all events, the plan Mrs.

Dempster took, when she had reached a part of London she judged

sufficiently distant for her purpose, was to go from shop to shop

inquiring after a situation. But she met with no prospect of success,

and at last, greatly in need of rest and refreshment, went into a

small coffee shop. The woman who kept it was taken by her appearance,

her manners, and her evident trouble, and, happening to have heard of

a lady who wanted a nurse, gave her the address. She went at once, and

applied for the place. The lady was much pleased with her, and agreed

to take her, provided she received a satisfactory character of her.

For such a demand Mrs. Dempster was unprepared; she had never thought

what reference she could give, and, her resources for deception easily

exhausted, gave, driven to extremity, the name and address of her

mother. So met the extremes of loss and salvation! She returned to the

coffee shop, and the lady wrote at once to the address of the young

woman's late mistress, as she supposed.

The kindness of her new friend was not exhausted; she gave her a share

of her own bed that night. Mrs. Dempster had now but two shillings,

which she offered her, promising to pay her the rest out of the first

wages she received. But the good woman would take no more than one of

them, and that in full payment of what she owed her, and Mrs. Dempster

left the shop in tears, to linger about the neighbourhood until the

hour should arrive at which the lady had told her to call again.

Apparently she must have cherished the hope that her mother, divining

her extremity, would give her the character she could honestly claim.

But as she drew near the door which she hoped would prove a refuge,

her mother was approaching it also, and at the turning of a corner

they ran into each other's arms. The elderly lady had a hackney coach

waiting for her in the next street, and Mrs. Dempster, too tired to

resist, got into it at once at her mother's desire. Ere they reached

the mother's house, which, as I have said, was a long way from Mr.

Dempster's, the daughter told everything, and the mother had perceived

more than the daughter could tell: her eyes had revealed that all was

not right behind them. She soothed her as none but a mother can,

easily persuading her she would make everything right, and undertaking

herself to pay the money owing to the butcher. But it was soon evident

that for the present there must be no suggestion of her going back to

her husband; for, imagining from something, that her mother was taking

her to him, she jumped up and had all but opened the door of the cab

when her mother succeeded in mastering her. As soon as she was

persuaded that such had never been the intention, she was quiet. When

they reached the house she was easily induced to go to bed at once.

Her mother lived in a very humble way, with one servant, a trustworthy

woman. To her she confided the whole story, and with her consulted as

to what had better be done. Between them they resolved to keep her,

for a while at least, in retirement and silence. To this conclusion

they came on the following grounds: First, the daughter's terror and

the mother's own fear of Mr. Dempster; next, it must be confessed, the

resentment of both mistress and servant because of his rudeness when

he came to inquire after her; third, the evident condition of the poor

creature's mind; and last, the longing of the two women to have her to

themselves, that they might nurse and cosset her to their hearts'

content.

They were to have more of this indulgence, however, than, for her

sake, they would have desired, for before morning she was very ill.

She had brain fever, in fact, and they had their hands full,

especially as they desired to take every precaution to prevent the

neighbourhood from knowing there was any one but themselves in the

house.

It was a severe attack, but she passed the crisis favourably, and

began to recover. One morning, after a quieter night than usual, she

called her mother, and told her she had had a strange dream--that she

had a baby somewhere, but could not find him, and was wandering about

looking for him.

"Wasn't it a curious dream, mamma?" she said. "I wish it were a true

one. I knew exactly what my baby was like, and went into house after

house full of children, sure that I could pick him out of thousands. I

was just going up to the door of the Foundling Hospital to look for

him there when I woke."

As she ceased, a strange trouble passed like a cloud over her forehead

and eyes, and her hand, worn almost transparent by the fever followed

it over forehead and eyes. She seemed trying to recall something

forgotten. But her mother thought it better to say nothing.

Each of the two nights following she had the same dream.

"Three times, mother," she said. "I am not superstitious, as you know,

but I can't help feeling as if it must mean something. I don't know

what to make of it else--except it be that I haven't got over the

fever yet. And, indeed, I am afraid my head is not quite right, for I

can't be sure sometimes, such a hold has my dream of me, that I

haven't got a baby somewhere about the world. Give me your hand,

mother, and sing to me."

Still her mother thought it more prudent to say nothing, and do what

she could to divert her thoughts; for she judged it must be better to

let her brain come right, as it were, of itself.

In the middle of the next night she woke her with a cry.

"O, mother, mother! I know it all now. I am not out of my mind any

more. How I came here I cannot tell--but I know I have a husband and a

baby at Hackney--and--oh, such a horrible roll of butcher's bills!"

"Yes, yes, my dear! I know all about it," answered her mother. "But

never mind; you can pay them all yourself now, for I heard only

yesterday that your aunt Lucy is dead, and has left you the hundred

pounds she promised you twenty years ago."

"Oh, bless her!" cried Mrs. Dempster, springing out of bed, much to

the dismay of her mother, who boded a return of the fever. "I must go

home to my baby at once. But tell me all about it, mamma. How did I

come here? I seem to remember being in a carriage with you, and that

is the last I know."

Then, upon condition that she got into bed at once, and promised not

to move until she gave her leave, her mother consented to tell her all

she knew. She listened in silence, with face flushed and eyes glowing,

but drank a cooling draught, lay down again, and at daybreak was fast

asleep. When she awoke she was herself again.

CHAPTER V. WHAT CAME OF IT.

Meantime, things were going, as they should, in rather a dull fashion

with Duncan Dempster. His chariot wheels were gone, and he drove

heavily. The weather was good; he seldom failed of the box-seat on the

omnibus; a ray of light, the first he had ever seen there, visited his

table, reflected from a new window on the opposite side of a court

into the heart of his dismal back office; and best of all, business

was better than usual. Yet was Dempster not cheerful. He was not,

indeed, a man an acquaintance would ever have thought of calling

cheerful; but in grays there are gradations; and however differently a

man's barometer may be set from those of other people, it has its ups

and downs, its fair weather and foul. But not yet had he an idea how

much his mental equilibrium had been dependent upon the dim

consciousness of having that quiet uninterested wife in the

comfortable house at Hackney. It had been stronger than it seemed, the

spidery, invisible line connecting that office and that house, along

which had run twice a day the hard dumpling that dwelt in Mr.

Dempster's bosom. Vaguely connected with that home after all must have

been that endless careful gathering of treasure in the city; for now,

though he could no more stop making money than he could stop

breathing, it had not the same interest as formerly. Indeed, he had

less interest than before in keeping his lungs themselves going. But

he kept on doing everything as usual.

Not one of the men he met ever said a word to him about his wife. The

general impression was that she had left him for preferable society,

and no one wondered at her throwing aside such "a dry old stick," whom

even the devoted slaves of business contemned as having nothing in him

but business.

A further change was, however, in progress within him. The first sign

of it was that he began to doubt whether his wife had indeed been

false to him--had forsaken him in any other company than that of

Death. But there was one great difficulty in the way of the

conclusion. It was impossible for him to imagine suicide as proceeding

from any cause but insanity, and what could have produced the disorder

in one who had no cares or anxieties, everything she wanted, and

nothing to trouble her, a devoted husband, and a happy home? Yet the

mere idea made him think more pitifully, and so more tenderly of her

than before. It had not yet occurred to him to consider whether he

might not have had something to do with her conduct or condition.

Blame was a thing he had never made acquaintance with--least of all in

the form of self-blame. To himself he was simply all right--the poised

centre of things capable of righteous judgment on every one else. But

it must not be forgotten how little he knew about his own affairs at

all; his was a very different condition from that of one who had

closed his eyes and hardened his heart to suspicions concerning

himself. His eyes had never yet been opened to anything but the order

of things in the money world--its laws, its penalties, its

rewards--those he did understand. But apparently he was worth

troubling. A slow dissatisfaction was now preying upon him--a sense of

want--of not having something he once had, a vague discomfort, growing

restless. This feeling was no doubt the worse that the birth of the

child had brought such a sudden rush of fresh interest into his

occupation, which doubt concerning that birth had again so suddenly

checked; but even if the child should prove after all his own, a

supposition he was now willing to admit as possibly a true one, he

could never without his mother feel any enthusiasm about him, even

such enthusiasm as might be allowed to a man who knew money from

moonshine, and common sense from hysterics. Yet once and again, about

this time, the nurse coming into the room after a few minutes'

absence, found him bending over the sleeping infant, and, as she

described him, "looking as if he would have cried if he had only known

how."

One frosty evening in late autumn the forsaken husband came from

London--I doubt if he would now have said "home"--as usual, on the top

of the omnibus. His was a tough nature physically, as well as morally,

and if he had found himself inside an omnibus he would have thought he

was going to die. The sun was down. A green hue rose from the horizon

half-way to the zenith, but a pale yellow lingered over the vanished

sun, like the gold at the bottom of a chrysolite. The stars were

twinkling small and sharp in the azure overhead. A cold wind blew in

little gusts, now from this side, now from that, as they went steadily

along. The horses' hoofs rang loud on the hard road. The night got

hold of him: it was at this season, and on nights like these, that he

had haunted the house of Lucy's father, doing his best to persuade her

to make him, as he said, a happy man. It now seemed as if then, and

then only, he had been a happy man. Certainly, of all his life, it was

the time when he came nearest to having a peep out of the upper

windows of the house of life. He had been a dweller in the lower

regions, a hewer of wood to the god of the cellar; and after his

marriage, he had gone straight down again to the temple of the earthy

god--to a worship whose god and temple and treasure caves will one day

drop suddenly from under the votary's feet, and leave him dangling in

the air without even a pocket about him--without even his banker's

book to show for his respectability.

The night, I say, recalled the lovely season of his courtship, and

again, in the mirror of loss, he caught a glimpse of things beyond

him. Ah, if only that time and its hopes had remained with him! How

different things would have been now! If Lucy had proved what he

thought her!--remained what she seemed--the gentle, complaisant,

yielding lady he imagined her, promising him a life of bliss! Alas,

she would not even keep account of five pounds a week to please him!

He never thought whether he, on his part, might not have, in some

measure, come short of her expectations in a husband; whether she, the

more lovely in inward design and outward fashion, might not have

indulged yet more exquisite dreams of bliss which, by devotion to his

ideal of life, he had done his part in disappointing. He only thought

what a foolishness it all was; that thus it would go on to the end of

the book; that youth after youth would have his turn of such a wooing,

and such a disappointment. Sunsets, indeed! The suns of man's

happiness never did anything but set! Out of money even--and who could

say there was any poetry in that?--there was not half the satisfaction

to be got that one expected. It was all a mess of expectations and

disappointments mashed up together--nothing more. That was the

world--on a fair judgment.

Such were his reflections till the driver pulled up for him to get

down at his own gate. As he got down the said driver glanced up

curiously at the row of windows on the first floor, and as soon as Mr.

Dempster's back was turned, pointed to them with the butt-end of his

whip, and nodded queerly to the gentleman who sat on his other side.

"That's more'n I've seen this six weeks," he said. "There's something

more'n common up this evenin', sir."

There was light in the drawing-room--that was all the wonder; but at

those windows Mr. Dempster himself looked so fixedly that he had

nearly stumbled up his own door-steps.

He carried a latch-key now, for he did not care to stand at the door

till the boy answered the bell; people's eyes, as they passed, seemed

to burn holes in the back of his coat.

He opened the street door quietly, and went straight up the stair to

the drawing-room. Perhaps he thought to detect some liberty taken by

his servants. He was a little earlier than usual. He opened that door,

took two steps into the room, and stood arrested, motionless. With his

shabby hat on his head, his shabby greatcoat on his back--for he

grudged every penny spent on his clothes--his arms hanging down by his

sides, and his knees bent, ready to tremble, he looked not a little

out of keeping in the soft-lighted, dainty, delicate-hued

drawing-room. Could he believe his eyes? The light of a large lamp was

centred upon a gracious figure in white--his wife, just as he used to

see her before he married her! That was the way her hair would break

loose as she ran down the stair to meet him!--only then there was no

baby in her lap for it to full over like a torrent of unlighted water

over a white stone! It was a lovely sight.

He had stood but a moment when she looked up and saw him. She started,

but gave no cry louder than a little moan. Instantly she rose.

Turning, she laid the baby on the sofa, and flitted to him like a

wraith. Arrived where he stood yet motionless, she fell upon her knees

and clasped his. He was far too bewildered now to ask himself what

husbands did in such circumstances, and stood like a block.

"Husband! husband!" she cried, "forgive me." With one hand she hid her

face, although it was bent to the ground, and with the other held up

to him a bit of paper. He took it from the thin white fingers; it

might explain something--help him out of this bewilderment, half

nightmare, half heavenly vision. He opened it. Nothing but a

hundred-pound note! The familiar sight of bank paper, however, seemed

to restore his speech.

"What does this mean, Lucy? Upon my word! Permit me to say--"

He was growing angry.

"It is to pay the butcher," she said, with a faltering voice.

"Damn the butcher!" he cried. "I hope you've got something else to say

to me! Where have you been all this time?"

"At my mother's. I've had a brain fever, and been out of my mind. It

was all about the butcher's bill."

Dempster stared. Perhaps he could not understand how a woman who would

not keep accounts should be to such a degree troubled at the result of

her neglect.

"Look at me, if you don't believe me," she cried, and as she spoke she

rose and lifted her face to his.

He gazed at it for a moment--pale, thin, and worn; and out of it shone

the beautiful eyes, larger than before, but shimmering uncertain like

the stars of a humid night, although they looked straight into his.

Something queer was suddenly the matter with his throat--something

he had never felt before--a constriction such as, had he been

superstitious, he might have taken for the prologue to a rope. Then

the thought came--what a brute he must be that his wife should have

been afraid to tell him her trouble! Thereupon he tried to speak, but

his throat was irresponsive to his will. Eve's apple kept sliding up

and down in it, and would not let the words out. He had never been so

served by members of his own body in his life before! It was positive

rebellion, and would get him into trouble with his wife. There it was!

Didn't he say so?

"Can't you forgive me, Mr. Dempster?" she said, and the voice was so

sweet and so sad! "It is my own money. Aunt Lucy is dead, and left it

me. I think it will be enough to pay all my debts; and I promise

you--I do promise you that I will set down every halfpenny after this.

Do try me once again--for baby's sake."

This last was a sudden thought. She turned and ran to the sofa.

Dempster stood where he was, fighting the strange uncomfortable

feeling in his throat. It would not yield a jot. Was he going to die

suddenly of choking? Was it a judgment upon him? Diphtheria, perhaps!

It was much about in the City!

She was back, and holding up to him their sleeping child.

The poor fellow was not half the brute he looked--only he could _not_

tell what to do with that confounded lump in his throat! He dared not

try to speak, for it only choked him the more. He put his arms round

them both, and pressed them to his bosom. Then, the lump in his throat

melted and ran out at his eyes, and all doubt vanished like a mist

before the sun. But he never knew that he had wept. His wife did, and

that was enough.

The next morning, for the first time in his life, he lost the eight

o'clock omnibus.

The following Monday morning she brought her week's account to him. He

turned from it testily, but she insisted on his going over it. There

was not the mistake of a halfpenny. He went to town with a smile in

his heart, and that night brought her home a cheque for ten pounds

instead of five.

One day, in the middle of the same week, he came upon her sitting over

the little blue-and-red-ruled book with a troubled countenance. She

took no notice of his entrance.

"Do leave those accounts," he said, "and attend to me."

She shook her head impatiently, and made him no other answer. One

moment more, however, and she started up, threw her arms about his

neck, and cried triumphantly,

"It's buttons!--fourpence-halfpenny I paid for buttons!"

PORT IN A STORM

"Papa," said my sister Effie, one evening as we all sat about the

drawing-room fire. One after another, as nothing followed, we turned

our eyes upon her. There she sat, still silent, embroidering the

corner of a cambric hand-kerchief, apparently unaware that she had

spoken.

It was a very cold night in the beginning of winter. My father had

come home early, and we had dined early that we might have a long

evening together, for it was my father's and mother's wedding-day, and

we always kept it as the homeliest of holidays. My father was seated

in an easy-chair by the chimney corner, with a jug of Burgundy near

him, and my mother sat by his side, now and then taking a sip out of

his glass.

Effie was now nearly nineteen; the rest of us were younger. What she

was thinking about we did not know then, though we could all guess

now. Suddenly she looked up, and seeing all eyes fixed upon her,

became either aware or suspicious, and blushed rosy red.

"You spoke to me, Effie. What was it, my dear?"

"O yes, papa. I wanted to ask you whether you wouldn't tell us,

to-night, the story about how you--"

"Well, my love?"

"--About how you--"

"I am listening, my dear."

"I mean, about mamma and you."

"Yes, yes. About how I got your mamma for a mother to you. Yes. I paid

a dozen of port for her."

We all and each exclaimed _Papa_! and my mother laughed.

"Tell us all about it," was the general cry.

"Well, I will," answered my father. "I must begin at the beginning,

though."

And, filling his glass with Burgundy, he began.

"As far back as I can remember, I lived with my father in an old

manor-house in the country. It did not belong to my father, but to an

elder brother of his, who at that time was captain of a seventy-four.

He loved the sea more than his life; and, as yet apparently, had loved

his ship better than any woman. At least he was not married.

"My mother had been dead for some years, and my father was now in very

delicate health. He had never been strong, and since my mother's

death, I believe, though I was too young to notice it, he had pined

away. I am not going to tell you anything about him just now, because

it does not belong to my story. When I was about five years old, as

nearly as I can judge, the doctors advised him to leave England. The

house was put into the hands of an agent to let--at least, so I

suppose; and he took me with him to Madeira, where he died. I was

brought home by his servant, and by my uncle's directions, sent to a

boarding-school; from there to Eton, and from there to Oxford.

"Before I had finished my studies, my uncle had been an admiral for

some time. The year before I left Oxford, he married Lady Georgiana

Thornbury, a widow lady, with one daughter. Thereupon he bade farewell

to the sea, though I dare say he did not like the parting, and retired

with his bride to the house where he was born--the same house I told

you I was born in, which had been in the family for many generations,

and which your cousin now lives in.

"It was late in the autumn when they arrived at Culverwood. They were

no sooner settled than my uncle wrote to me, inviting me to spend

Christmas-tide with them at the old place. And here you may see that

my story has arrived at its beginning.

"It was with strange feelings that I entered the house. It looked so

old-fashioned, and stately, and grand, to eyes which had been

accustomed to all the modern commonplaces! Yet the shadowy

recollections which hung about it gave an air of homeliness to the

place, which, along with the grandeur, occasioned a sense of rare

delight. For what can be better than to feel that you are in stately

company, and at the same time perfectly at home in it? I am grateful

to this day for the lesson I had from the sense of which I have

spoken--that of mingled awe and tenderness in the aspect of the old

hall as I entered it for the first time after fifteen years, having

left it a mere child.

"I was cordially received by my old uncle and my new aunt. But the

moment Kate Thornbury entered I lost my heart, and have never found it

again to this day. I get on wonderfully well without it, though, for I

have got the loan of a far better one till I find my own, which,

therefore, I hope I never shall."

My father glanced at my mother as he said this, and she returned his

look in a way which I can now interpret as a quiet satisfied

confidence. But the tears came in Effie's eyes. She had trouble before

long, poor girl! But it is not her story I have to tell.--My father

went on:

"Your mother was prettier then than she is now, but not so beautiful;

beautiful enough, though, to make me think there never had been or

could again be anything so beautiful. She met me kindly, and I met her

awkwardly."

"You made me feel that I had no business there," said my mother,

speaking for the first time in the course of the story.

"See there, girls," said my father. "You are always so confident in

first impressions, and instinctive judgment! I was awkward because, as

I said, I fell in love with your mother the moment I saw her; and she

thought I regarded her as an intruder into the old family precincts.

"I will not follow the story of the days. I was very happy, except

when I felt too keenly how unworthy I was of Kate Thornbury; not that

she meant to make me feel it, for she was never other than kind; but

she was such that I could not help feeling it. I gathered courage,

however, and before three days were over, I began to tell her all my

slowly reviving memories of the place, with my childish adventures

associated with this and that room or outhouse or spot in the grounds;

for the longer I was in the place the more my old associations with it

revived, till I was quite astonished to find how much of my history in

connection with Culverwood had been thoroughly imprinted on my memory.

She never showed, at least, that she was weary of my stories; which,

however interesting to me, must have been tiresome to any one who did

not sympathize with what I felt towards my old nest. From room to room

we rambled, talking or silent; and nothing could have given me a

better chance, I believe, with a heart like your mother's. I think it

was not long before she began to like me, at least, and liking had

every opportunity of growing into something stronger, if only she too

did not come to the conclusion that I was unworthy of her.

"My uncle received me like the jolly old tar that he was--welcomed me

to the old ship--hoped we should make many a voyage together--and that

I would take the run of the craft--all but in one thing.

"'You see, my boy,' he said, 'I married above my station, and I don't

want my wife's friends to say that I laid alongside of her to get hold

of her daughter's fortune. No, no, my boy; your old uncle has too much

salt water in him to do a dog's trick like that. So you take care of

yourself--that's all. She might turn the head of a wiser man than ever

came out of our family.'

"I did not tell my uncle that his advice was already too late; for

that, though it was not an hour since I had first seen her, my head

was so far turned already, that the only way to get it right again,

was to go on turning it in the same direction; though, no doubt, there

was a danger of overhauling the screw. The old gentleman never

referred to the matter again, nor took any notice of our increasing

intimacy; so that I sometimes doubt even now if he could have been in

earnest in the very simple warning he gave me. Fortunately, Lady

Georgiana liked me--at least I thought she did, and that gave me

courage.

"That's all nonsense, my dear," said my mother. "Mamma was nearly as

fond of you as I was; but you never wanted courage."

"I knew better than to show my cowardice, I dare say," returned my

father. "But," he continued, "things grew worse and worse, till I was

certain I should kill myself, or go straight out of my mind, if your

mother would not have me. So it went on for a few days, and Christmas

was at hand.

"The admiral had invited several old friends to come and spend the

Christmas week with him. Now you must remember that, although you look

on me as an old-fashioned fogie--"

"Oh, papa!" we all interrupted; but he went on.

"Yet my old uncle was an older-fashioned fogie, and his friends were

much the same as himself. Now, I am fond of a glass of port, though I

dare not take it, and must content myself with Burgundy. Uncle Bob

would have called Burgundy pig-wash. He could not do without his port,

though he was a moderate enough man, as customs were. Fancy, then, his

dismay when, on questioning his butler, an old coxen of his own, and

after going down to inspect in person, he found that there was

scarcely more than a dozen of port in the wine-cellar. He turned white

with dismay, and, till he had brought the blood back to his

countenance by swearing, he was something awful to behold in the dim

light of the tallow candle old Jacob held in his tattooed fist. I will

not repeat the words he used; fortunately, they are out of fashion

amongst gentlemen, although ladies, I understand, are beginning to

revive the custom, now old, and always ugly. Jacob reminded his honour

that he would not have more put down till he had got a proper cellar

built, for the one there was, he had said, was not fit to put anything

but dead men in. Thereupon, after abusing Jacob for not reminding him

of the necessities of the coming season, he turned to me, and began,

certainly not to swear at his own father, but to expostulate sideways

with the absent shade for not having provided a decent cellar before

his departure from this world of dinners and wine, hinting that it was

somewhat selfish, and very inconsiderate of the welfare of those who

were to come after him. Having a little exhausted his indignation, he

came up, and wrote the most peremptory order to his wine-merchant, in

Liverpool, to let him have thirty dozen of port before Christmas Day,

even if he had to send it by post-chaise. I took the letter to the

post myself, for the old man would trust nobody but me, and indeed

would have preferred taking it himself; but in winter he was always

lame from the effects of a bruise he had received from a falling spar

in the battle of Aboukir.

"That night I remember well. I lay in bed wondering whether I might

venture to say a word, or even to give a hint to your mother that

there was a word that pined to be said if it might. All at once I

heard a whine of the wind in the old chimney. How well I knew that

whine! For my kind aunt had taken the trouble to find out from me what

room I had occupied as a boy, and, by the third night I spent there,

she had got it ready for me. I jumped out of bed, and found that the

snow was falling fast and thick. I jumped into bed again, and began

wondering what my uncle would do if the port did not arrive. And then

I thought that, if the snow went on falling as it did, and if the wind

rose any higher, it might turn out that the roads through the hilly

part of Yorkshire in which Culverwood lay, might very well be blocked

up.

"The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will my uncle do then, poor thing?

He'll run for his port,

But he will run short,

And have too much water to drink, poor thing!

"With the influences of the chamber of my childhood crowding upon me,

I kept repenting the travestied rhyme to myself, till I fell asleep.

"Now, boys and girls, if I were writing a novel, I should like to make

you, somehow or other, put together the facts--that I was in the room

I have mentioned; that I had been in the cellar with my uncle for the

first time that evening; that I had seen my uncle's distress, and

heard his reflections upon his father. I may add that I was not

myself, even then, so indifferent to the merits of a good glass of

port as to be unable to enter into my uncle's dismay, and that of his

guests at last, if they should find that the snow-storm had actually

closed up the sweet approaches of the expected port. If I was

personally indifferent to the matter, I fear it is to be attributed to

your mother, and not to myself."

"Nonsense!" interposed my mother once more. "I never knew such a man

for making little of himself and much of other people. You never drank

a glass too much port in your life."

"That's why I'm so fond of it, my dear," returned my father. "I

declare you make me quite discontented with my pig-wash here.

"That night I had a dream.

"The next day the visitors began to arrive. Before the evening after,

they had all come. There were five of them--three tars and two

land-crabs, as they called each other when they got jolly, which,

by-the-way, they would not have done long without me.

"My uncle's anxiety visibly increased. Each guest, as he came down to

breakfast, received each morning a more constrained greeting.--I beg

your pardon, ladies; I forgot to mention that my aunt had

lady-visitors, of course. But the fact is, it is only the

port-drinking visitors in whom my story is interested, always excepted

your mother.

"These ladies my admiral uncle greeted with something even approaching

to servility. I understood him well enough. He instinctively sought to

make a party to protect him when the awful secret of his cellar should

be found out. But for two preliminary days or so, his resources would

serve; for he had plenty of excellent claret and Madeira--stuff I

don't know much about--and both Jacob and himself condescended to

manoeuvre a little.

"The wine did not arrive. But the morning of Christmas Eve did. I was

sitting in my room, trying to write a song for Kate--that's your

mother, my dears--"

"I know, papa," said Effie, as if she were very knowing to know that.

"--when my uncle came into the room, looking like Sintram with Death

and the Other One after him--that's the nonsense you read to me the

other day, isn't it; Effie?"

"Not nonsense, dear papa," remonstrated Effie; and I loved her for

saying it, for surely _that_ is not nonsense.

"I didn't mean it," said my father; and turning to my mother, added:

"It must be your fault, my dear, that my children are so serious that

they always take a joke for earnest. However, it was no joke with my

uncle. If he didn't look like Sintram he looked like t'other one.

"'The roads are frozen--I mean snowed up,' he said. 'There's just one

bottle of port left, and what Captain Calker will say--I dare say I

know, but I'd rather not. Damn this weather!--God forgive me!--that's

not right--but it is trying--ain't it, my boy?'

"'What will you give me for a dozen of port, uncle?' was all my

answer.

"'Give you? I'll give you Culverwood, you rogue.'

"'Done,' I cried.

"'That is,' stammered my uncle, 'that is,' and he reddened like the

funnel of one of his hated steamers, 'that is, you know, always

provided, you know. It wouldn't be fair to Lady Georgiana, now, would

it? I put it to yourself--if she took the trouble, you know. You

understand me, my boy?'

"'That's of course, uncle,' I said.

"'Ah! I see you're a gentleman like your father, not to trip a man

when he stumbles,' said my uncle. For such was the dear old man's

sense of honour, that he was actually uncomfortable about the hasty

promise he had made without first specifying the exception. The

exception, you know, has Culverwood at the present hour, and right

welcome he is.

"'Of course, uncle,' I said--'between gentlemen, you know. Still, I

want my joke out, too. What will you give me for a dozen of port to

tide you over Christmas Day?'

"'Give you, my boy? I'll give you--'

"But here he checked himself, as one that had been burned already.

"'Bah!' he said, turning his back, and going towards the door; 'what's

the use of joking about serious affairs like this?'

"And so he left the room. And I let him go. For I had heard that the

road from Liverpool was impassable, the wind and snow having continued

every day since that night of which I told you. Meantime, I had never

been able to summon the courage to say one word to your mother--I beg

her pardon, I mean Miss Thornbury.

"Christmas Day arrived. My uncle was awful to behold. His friends were

evidently anxious about him. They thought he was ill. There was such a

hesitation about him, like a shark with a bait, and such a flurry,

like a whale in his last agonies. He had a horrible secret which he

dared not tell, and which yet _would_ come out of its grave at the

appointed hour.

"Down in the kitchen the roast beef and turkey were meeting their deserts.

Up in the store-room--for Lady Georgiana was not above housekeeping, any

more than her daughter--the ladies of the house were doing their part;

and I was oscillating between my uncle and his niece, making myself

amazingly useful now to one and now to the other. The turkey and the beef

were on the table, nay, they had been well eaten, before I felt that my

moment was come. Outside, the wind was howling, and driving the snow with

soft pats against the window-panes. Eager-eyed I watched General

Fortescue, who despised sherry or Madeira even during dinner, and would

no more touch champagne than he would _eau sucrée_, but drank port after

fish or with cheese indiscriminately--with eager eyes I watched how the

last bottle dwindled out its fading life in the clear decanter. Glass

after glass was supplied to General Fortescue by the fearless cockswain,

who, if he might have had his choice, would rather have boarded a

Frenchman than waited for what was to follow. My uncle scarcely ate at

all, and the only thing that stopped his face from growing longer with

the removal of every dish was that nothing but death could have made it

longer than it was already. It was my interest to let matters go as far

as they might up to a certain point, beyond which it was not my interest

to let them go, if I could help it. At the same time I was curious to

know how my uncle would announce--confess the terrible fact that in his

house, on Christmas Day, having invited his oldest friends to share with

him the festivities of the season, there was not one bottle more of port

to be had.

"I waited till the last moment--till I fancied the admiral was opening

his mouth; like a fish in despair, to make his confession. He had not

even dared to make a confidante of his wife in such an awful dilemma.

Then I pretended to have dropped my table-napkin behind my chair, and

rising to seek it, stole round behind my uncle, and whispered in his

ear:

"'What will you give me for a dozen of port now, uncle?'

"'Bah!' he said, 'I'm at the gratings; don't torture me.'

"'I'm in earnest, uncle.'

"He looked round at me with a sudden flash of bewildered hope in his

eye. In the last agony he was capable of believing in a miracle. But

he made me no reply. He only stared.

"'Will you give me Kate? I want Kate,' I whispered.

"'I will, my boy. That is, if she'll have you. That is, I mean to say,

if you produce the true tawny.'

"'Of course, uncle; honour bright--as port in a storm,' I answered,

trembling in my shoes and everything else I had on, for I was not more

than three parts confident in the result.

"The gentlemen beside Kate happening at the moment to be occupied,

each with the lady on his other side, I went behind her, and whispered

to her as I had whispered to my uncle, though not exactly in the same

terms. Perhaps I had got a little courage from the champagne I had

drunk; perhaps the presence of the company gave me a kind of mesmeric

strength; perhaps the excitement of the whole venture kept me up;

perhaps Kate herself gave me courage, like a goddess of old, in some

way I did not understand. At all events I said to her:

"'Kate,'--we had got so far even then--'my uncle hasn't another bottle

of port in his cellar. Consider what a state General Fortescue will be

in soon. He'll be tipsy for want of it. Will you come and help me to

find a bottle or two?'

"She rose at once, with a white-rose blush--so delicate I don't

believe any one saw it but myself. But the shadow of a stray ringlet

could not fall on her cheek without my seeing it.

"When we got into the hall, the wind was roaring loud, and the few

lights were flickering and waving gustily with alternate light and

shade across the old portraits which I had known so well as a

child--for I used to think what each would say first, if he or she

came down out of the frame and spoke to me.

"I stopped, and taking Kate's hand, I said--

"'I daren't let you come farther, Kate, before I tell you another

thing: my uncle has promised, if I find him a dozen of port--you must

have seen what a state the poor man is in--to let me say something to

you--I suppose he meant your mamma, but I prefer saying it to you, if

you will let me. Will you come and help me to find the port?'

"She said nothing, but took up a candle that was on a table in the

hall, and stood waiting. I ventured to look at her. Her face was now

celestial rosy red, and I could not doubt that she had understood me.

She looked so beautiful that I stood staring at her without moving.

What the servants could have been about that not one of them crossed

the hall, I can't think.

"At last Kate laughed and said--'Well?' I started, and I dare say took

my turn at blushing. At least I did not know what to say. I had

forgotten all about the guests inside. 'Where's the port?' said Kate.

I caught hold of her hand again and kissed it."

"You needn't be quite so minute in your account, my dear," said my

mother, smiling.

"I will be more careful in future, my love," returned my father.

"'What do you want me to do?' said Kate.

"'Only to hold the candle for me,' I answered, restored to my seven

senses at last; and, taking it from her, I led the way, and she

followed, till we had passed through the kitchen and reached the

cellar-stairs. These were steep and awkward, and she let me help her

down."

"Now, Edward!" said my mother.

"Yes, yes, my love, I understand," returned my father.

"Up to this time your mother had asked no questions; but when we stood

in a vast, low cellar, which we had made several turns to reach, and I

gave her the candle, and took up a great crowbar which lay on the

floor, she said at last--

"'Edward, are you going to bury me alive? or what _are_ you going to

do?'

"'I'm going to dig you out,' I said, for I was nearly beside myself

with joy, as I struck the crowbar like a battering-ram into the wall.

You can fancy, John, that I didn't work the worse that Kate was

holding the candle for me.

"Very soon, though with great effort, I had dislodged a brick, and the

next blow I gave into the hole sent back a dull echo. I was right!

"I worked now like a madman, and, in a very few minutes more, I had

dislodged the whole of the brick-thick wall which filled up an archway

of stone and curtained an ancient door in the lock of which the key

now showed itself. It had been well greased, and I turned it without

much difficulty.

"I took the candle from Kate, and led her into a spacious region of

sawdust, cobweb, and wine-fungus.

"'There, Kate!' I cried, in delight.

"'But,' said Kate, 'will the wine be good?'

"'General Fortescue will answer you that,' I returned, exultantly.

'Now come, and hold the light again while I find the port-bin.'

"I soon found not one, but several well-filled port-bins. Which to

choose I could not tell. I must chance that. Kate carried a bottle and

the candle, and I carried two bottles very carefully. We put them down

in the kitchen with orders they should not be touched. We had soon

carried the dozen to the hall-table by the dining-room door.

"When at length, with Jacob chuckling and rubbing his hands behind us,

we entered the dining-room, Kate and I, for Kate would not part with

her share in the joyful business, loaded with a level bottle in each

hand, which we carefully erected on the sideboard, I presume, from the

stare of the company, that we presented a rather remarkable

appearance--Kate in her white muslin, and I in my best clothes,

covered with brick-dust, and cobwebs, and lime. But we could not be

half so amusing to them as they were to us. There they sat with the

dessert before them but no wine-decanters forthcoming. How long they

had sat thus, I have no idea. If you think your mamma has, you may ask

her. Captain Calker and General Fortescue looked positively white

about the gills. My uncle, clinging to the last hope, despairingly,

had sat still and said nothing, and the guests could not understand

the awful delay. Even Lady Georgiana had begun to fear a mutiny in the

kitchen, or something equally awful. But to see the flash that passed

across my uncle's face, when he saw us appear with _ported arms_! He

immediately began to pretend that nothing had been the matter.

"'What the deuce has kept you, Ned, my boy?' he said. 'Fair Hebe,' he

went on, 'I beg your pardon. Jacob, you can go on decanting. It was

very careless of you to forget it. Meantime, Hebe, bring that bottle

to General Jupiter, there. He's got a corkscrew in the tail of his

robe, or I'm mistaken.'

"Out came General Fortescue's corkscrew. I was trembling once more

with anxiety. The cork gave the genuine plop; the bottle was lowered;

glug, glug, glug, came from its beneficent throat, and out flowed

something tawny as a lion's mane. The general lifted it lazily to his

lips, saluting his nose on the way.

"'Fifteen! by Gyeove!' he cried. 'Well, Admiral, this _was_ worth

waiting for! Take care how you decant that, Jacob--on peril of your

life.'

"My uncle was triumphant. He winked hard at me not to tell. Kate and I

retired, she to change her dress, I to get mine well brushed, and my

hands washed. By the time I returned to the dining-room, no one had

any questions to ask. For Kate, the ladies had gone to the

drawing-room before she was ready, and I believe she had some

difficulty in keeping my uncle's counsel. But she did.--Need I say

that was the happiest Christmas I ever spent?"

"But how did you find the cellar, papa?" asked Effie.

"Where are your brains, Effie? Don't you remember I told you that I

had a dream?"

"Yes. But you don't mean to say the existence of that wine-cellar was

revealed to you in a dream?"

"But I do, indeed. I had seen the wine-cellar built up just before we

left for Madeira. It was my father's plan for securing the wine when

the house was let. And very well it turned out for the wine, and me

too. I had forgotten all about it. Everything had conspired to bring

it to my memory, but had just failed of success. I had fallen asleep

under all the influences I told you of--influences from the region of

my childhood. They operated still when I was asleep, and, all other

distracting influences being removed, at length roused in my sleeping

brain the memory of what I had seen. In the morning I remembered not

my dream only, but the event of which my dream was a reproduction.

Still, I was under considerable doubt about the place, and in this I

followed the dream only, as near as I could judge.

"The admiral kept his word, and interposed no difficulties between

Kate and me. Not that, to tell the truth, I was ever very anxious

about that rock ahead; but it was very possible that his fastidious

honour or pride might have occasioned a considerable interference with

our happiness for a time. As it turned out, he could not leave me

Culverwood, and I regretted the fact as little as he did himself. His

gratitude to me was, however, excessive, assuming occasionally

ludicrous outbursts of thankfulness. I do not believe he could have

been more grateful if I had saved his ship and its whole crew. For his

hospitality was at stake. Kind old man!"

Here ended my father's story, with a light sigh, a gaze into the

bright coals, a kiss of my mother's hand which he held in his, and

another glass of Burgundy.

IF I HAD A FATHER.

A DRAMA.

ACT I.

SCENE.--_A Sculptor's studio_. ARTHUR GERVAISE _working at a clay

figure and humming a tune. A knock_.

_Ger._ Come in. (_Throws a wet cloth over the clay. Enter_ WARREN _by

the door communicating with the house_.) Ah, Warren! How do you do?

_War._ How are you, Gervaise? I'm delighted to see you once more. I

have but just heard of your return.

_Ger._ I've been home but a fortnight. I was just thinking of you.

_War._ I was certain I should find you at work.

_Ger._ You see my work can go on by any light. It is more independent

than yours.

_War._ I wish it weren't, then.

_Ger._ Why?

_War._ Because there would be a chance of our getting you out of your

den sometimes.

_Ger._ Like any other wild beast when the dark falls--eh?

_War._ Just so.

_Ger._ And where the good?

_War._ Why shouldn't you roar a little now and then like other honest

lions?

_Ger._ I doubt if the roaring lions do much beyond roaring.

_War._ And I doubt whether the lion that won't even whisk his tail,

will get food enough shoved through his bars to make it worth his

while to keep a cage in London.

_Ger._ I certainly shall not make use of myself to recommend my work.

_War._ What is it now?

_Ger._ Oh, nothing!--only a little fancy of my own.

_War._ There again! The moment I set foot in your study, you throw the

sheet over your clay, and when I ask you what you are working

at--"Oh--a little fancy of my own!"

_Ger._ I couldn't tell it was you coming.

_War._ Let me see what you've been doing, then.

_Ger._ Oh, she's a mere Lot's-wife as yet!

_War._ (_approaching the figure_). Of course, of course! I understand

all that.

_Ger._ (_laying his hand on his arm_). Excuse me: I would rather not

show it.

_War._ I beg your pardon.--I couldn't believe you really meant it.

_Ger._ I'll show you the mould if you like.

_War._ I don't know what you mean by that: you would never throw a wet

sheet over a cast! (GER. _lifts a painting from the floor and sets it

on an easel_. WAR. _regards it for a few moments in silence_.) Ah! by

Jove, Gervaise! some one sent you down the wrong turn: you ought to

have been a painter. What a sky! And what a sea! Those blues and

greens--rich as a peacock's feather-eyes! Superb! A tropical night!

The dolphin at its last gasp in the west, and all above, an abyss of

blue, at the bottom of which the stars lie like gems in the mineshaft

of the darkness!

_Ger._ _You_ seem to have taken the wrong turn, Warren! _You_ ought to

have been a poet.

_War._ Such a thing as that puts the slang out of a fellow's bend.

_Ger._ I'm glad you like it. I do myself, though it falls short of my

intent sadly enough.

_War._ But I don't for the life of me see what _this_ has to do with

_that_. You said something about a mould.

_Ger._ I will tell you what I meant. Every individual aspect of nature

looks to me as if about to give birth to a human form, embodying that

of which itself only dreams. In this way landscape-painting is, in my

eyes, the mother of sculpture. That Apollo is of the summer dawn; that

Aphrodite of the moonlit sea; this picture represents the mother of my

Psyche.

_War._ Under the sheet there?

_Ger._ Yes. You shall see her some day; but to show your work too

soon, is to uncork your champagne before dinner.

_War._ Well, you've spoiled my picture. I shall go home and scrape my

canvas to the bone.

_Ger._ On second thoughts, I will show you my Psyche. (_Uncovers the

clay_. WAR. _stands in admiration. Enter_ WATERFIELD _by same door_.)

_Wat_. Ah, Warren! here you are before me! Mr. Gervaise, I hope I see

you well.

_War._ Mr. Waterfield--an old friend of yours, Gervaise, I believe.

_Ger._ I cannot appropriate the honour.

_Wat_. I was twice in your studio at Rome, but it's six months ago,

Mr. Gervaise. Ha! (_using his eye-glass_) What a charming figure! A

Psyche! Wings suggested by--Very skilful! Contour lovely! Altogether

antique in pose and expression!--Is she a commission?

_Ger._ No.

_Wat_. Then I beg you will consider her one.

_Ger._ Excuse me; I never work on commission--at least never in this

kind. A bust or two I have done.

_Wat_. By Jove!--I _should_ like to see your model!--This is perfect.

Are you going to carve her?

_Ger._ Possibly.

_Wat_. Uncommissioned?

_Ger._ If at all.

_Wat_. Well, I can't call it running any risk. What lines!--You will

let me drop in some day when you've got your model here?

_Ger._ Impossible.

_Wat_. You don't mean--?

_Ger._ I had no model.

_Wat_. No model? Ha! ha!--You must excuse me! (GER. _takes up the wet

sheet_.) I understand. Reasons. A little mystery enhances--eh?--is

convenient too--balks intrusion--throws the drapery over the

mignonette. I understand. (GER. _covers the clay_.) Oh! pray don't

carry out my figure. That _is_ a damper now!

_Ger._ I am not fond of acting the showman. You must excuse me: I am

busy.

_Wat_. Ah well!--some other time--when you've got on with her a bit.

Good morning. Ta, ta, Warren.

_Ger._ Good morning. This way, if you please. (_Shows him out by the

door to the street_.) How did the fellow find his way here?

_War._ I am the culprit, I'm sorry to say. He asked me for your

address, and I gave it him.

_Ger._ How long have you known him?

_War._ A month or two.

_Ger._ Don't bring him here again.

_War._ Don't say I _brought_ him. I didn't do that. But I'm afraid

you've not seen the last of him.

_Ger._ Oh yes, I have! Old Martha would let in anybody, but I've got a

man now.--William!