SELFISH YEARNINGS AND UNSELFISH LOVE.
What but pure accident could have brought David Sheldrake and Lily
together on this day? There was nothing singular in the meeting, and
setting aside the presumption (as hitherto borne out by his actions)
that Mr. Sheldrake was Alfred's friend, Hampton Court is open to all
the world and his wife, and the chestnut-trees in Bushy Park have a
wide renown. They are beautiful through all the year, in and out of
blossom; their leaves have shaded many thousands of lovers, and will
shade many thousands more; and the story that is as old as the hills
has been whispered and acted over and over again to the noble branches
that break the sunlight and the moonlight fantastically. And what was
there to prevent Mr. Sheldrake having an eye for the beautiful?
It was to all appearance the most natural occurrence in the world, and
Lily certainly had no suspicion that the meeting was pre-arranged.
If it had been, where was the harm? Alfred saw none, and if he
had----Well, if he had, it is difficult to determine how he would have
acted. Men are to be found who are at once so selfish and so weak that
they bring a moral blindness upon themselves. In the pursuit of their
own selfish ends they are incapable of seeing in their actions a
possible evil result to those whom they love. Their minds are mirrors
reflecting from within, in which they see nothing but themselves and
their own troubles and desires.
The holiday commenced most happily, and Lily's heart's hopes were as
bright as the clouds above her. The day was an event in her life of
even routine. She was as blithe as a bird. As she walked, she felt as
if she would like to dance, and as she could not do that, she hummed
her favourite songs, and pressed Alfred's arm to her side, and showed
her grateful spirit in a hundred little affectionate ways. Every
little incident afforded her pleasure, and strangers looked admiringly
at her bright face. When she and Alfred arrived at Hampton Court, she
was in the gayest of spirits. She chatted merrily on all sorts of
subjects, and drank in the goodness and the beauty of nature with a
spirit of exceeding thankfulness. She was girl and woman in one. It
would have done any person good to see her roaming about the grounds
and gardens, admiring this and that as a child might have done. So
childlike was she in her womanliness that every now and then she would
set Alfred's remarks to favourite airs, and sing them again and again
in a dozen different ways.
"I am as happy as a bird," she said; "and I have you to thank for it,
dear, and that makes me happier still."
In this way did her affectionate nature pay exorbitant interest for
Alfred's small outlay of kindness. As she pressed his arm to her
breast, and held it there, Alfred thrilled with amazement at her
goodness; he looked into her sparkling eyes, which were dewy with joy.
"Do you know what, Lil?"
"What, dear?"
"I am glad you are my sister."
Her heart laughed as he said the words.
"And glad that you love me, Lil," he added.
"What would life be without love, dear Alf?"
She did not know (although she might have guessed, as she was aware
that he had a heart-secret) what a tender chord her words touched.
What would life be without love? Ah! think of it, all, and believe
that it is the richest dower woman can bring to man, the richest gift
man can give to woman! Love, faith, and charity: all the rest is
dross. Out from the branches flew a bird, and after it another. Lily's
eyes followed them. Up, up into the clouds, which seemed fit
dwelling-place for the graceful things, until they were lost to sight.
But Lily did not miss them; for in the clouds she saw her hopes
reflected. She was in harmony with the peacefulness and beauty of
everything around and about her. Every blade that sprang from the
earth, every leaf that thrilled to the whisper of the wind, every
glint of light imprismed in the brown and green lattice-work of the
trees, every bright bit of colour that dwelt in cloud and flower,
contributed to her happiness. Such times as these are Forget-me-nots.
So they strolled through the gardens, and into courtyards so still and
quiet that they appeared scarcely to belong to the busy world. They
went into the picture-gallery, because Alfred said it was the proper
thing to do, but a gloom fell upon Lily when she was in the rooms.
They were sad and sombre, and there was something dispiriting in the
manner in which the few persons who were at the palace walked about
and looked at the pictures. They walked with soft footfalls, and spoke
with bated breath, and wore a solemn expression on their countenances,
which seemed to say, "we are walking among the dead!" One might not
inaptly have imagined, indeed, that at night, when no profane footstep
disturbed the silence, the palace was a palace of ghosts and shades
that rose from the floor, and started from frame and wainscot, to play
their parts in the shadowy world to which they belonged. The
excitement and pleasure of the day rendered Lily more than usually
susceptible to outward influences. Every nerve in her was quivering
with susceptibility, and the contrast between the ghostly rooms and
the bright landscape without sensibly affected her. She hurried Alfred
through the rooms nervously, but the eyes of a Puritan, that glared at
her sternly from the wall, arrested her attention and frightened her.
The face was sunless; even about the lips and eyes there was no trace
of gentleness or sweetness. The cruelly hard lines in the face of this
man spoke of severity, austerity, absolutism, and declared, "Life is
bitter; it is a battle of brute forces, and he who wins by strength of
character, by dogmatism, by harshness, achieves a moral victory, and
proves himself worthy. There is but one course--bend all the forces of
your will, all the power of your strength, to crush those whose ways
are not your ways, whose belief is not your belief. There is not room
for all; some have no business here. To be human is not to be humane."
Lily's heart grew faint as she gazed at this stern face, and it was
only by a strong effort that she wrested her attention from it. She
was glad when she was out in the sunshine and among the flowers again,
and her lightheartedness soon returned. Alfred's mood was more
subdued. Lily did not notice when they started from home that his
gaiety was forced, and that he seemed to be playing a part; but it was
so. His cheerfulness was only assumed. Notwithstanding the outward
evidences of prosperity he displayed, he was in trouble again. In
immediate trouble, that is. For, like a very numerous class, so long
as his circumstances were easy for to-day, he was easy in his mind. He
rarely looked beyond; sufficient for the day was the good thereof. But
to-morrow comes inevitably, and it came to Alfred, and brought trouble
to his door.
Nearly all his racing speculations had gone against him. The race for
the Goodwood Cup, the winner of which he was so confident of having
"spotted," as the phrase is, had proved disastrous to him. The
acceptance for seventy-five pounds which he had given to Con Staveley
would soon be due, and he had not the means to meet it. He had
borrowed the money of Mr. Sheldrake, and he had given that gentleman
he did not know what documents as security, security of the frailest,
as his friend took care to tell him.
"It is a mere matter of form," Mr. Sheldrake had said; "for as you
have no property, and are worth nothing, these bills and I O Us are
worth almost as much as waste paper. But I trust to your honour, Alf;
I know you'll not let me in. But although I am partial to you, my boy,
and like you, and all that, I should be bound to declare, if you
pushed me to it, that it is for Lily's sake only I assist you. You
don't mind my saying this, do you? It is because I like her, and want
her to think well of me--not without deserving it, Alf; I think I
deserve it--that I'm disposed to stick to you. You'll have a slice of
luck one day, my boy. That tip of yours for the Cup was a bad one; but
better luck next time, that's my motto. How much did you lose? O, that
wasn't a great deal" (making light of what was a serious sum to
Alfred); "you'll soon pull that up. Of course you'll be able to meet
that little bill of Staveley's? If I didn't think it was all right, I
wouldn't tell you what he said yesterday. He swore that if the bill
wasn't paid (what put it in his head that it wouldn't be, puzzles me)
he wouldn't hold me accountable, but would come down upon you, and
press the money out of you. He's as hard as nails upon some points, is
Con Staveley, and he's sore because I've been let in by so many of my
friends. He can't make out what makes me cotton to you so; but then he
hasn't seen Lily, has he, Alf? or he might alter his tone."
Of course Alfred said he would be able to meet Con Staveley's bill,
hoping that meanwhile the slice of luck (which, unfortunately for the
hopeful ones, is nearly always figurative) would be cut off Fortune's
pudding for him. But it wasn't; and pay-day was drawing near; and he
had been borrowing more money of Mr. Sheldrake, some of which he had
lost in racing as usual, and some of which he had spent upon himself,
and in other ways. So that altogether he was in a bad way, and
supposing that Mr. Sheldrake failed him, he did not know where to turn
for assistance to float him through his money scrapes. Of one thing he
was certain--it depended upon Lily whether Mr. Sheldrake continued to
be his friend. He extracted comfort from this thought; for as the word
of promise is often kept to the ear to break it to the hope, so he
cajoled himself into believing that Lily entertained a warm feeling
for Mr. Sheldrake; he believed it because it was vitally necessary to
him that it should be so. Still he would make sure. He had a favour to
ask of Mr. Sheldrake this very day, and Lily would be able to assist
him in obtaining it. Perhaps she would be able to put in a word for
him with that gentleman. He absolutely saw nothing wrong in the
thought. It was, however, with an uneasy feeling that he commenced the
conversation, and he was rather ashamed of himself for going
roundabout instead of coming straight to the point.
"I am so glad you are enjoying yourself, Lily."
He could find nothing better to say than this.
"I can't help it, Alfred; it would be ungrateful not to on such a day.
And I enjoy it all the more because you have brought me and because
you are with me. What beautiful places there are to come to, if one
has the time and the money!"
"Yes, and the money," repeated Alfred, with a groan. "Isn't it a
shame, Lily, that a fellow can't get as much as he wants?"
"That depends, Alf," answered Lily, with a touch of philosophy which
sounded all the prettier from her lips, because she was the last
person in the world who would be supposed to be given to
philosophising, "upon how much a fellow wants."
"Not much; not a great deal. There are hundreds of people who have
more than they know what to do with."
"I think," said Lily, in a musing tone, "one can do with a very little
and be very happy."
"You say so because you're a girl; if you were a man you would think
different."
"Perhaps," she said, with a readier mental acquiescence than the word
expressed.
"A man wants so many things," continued Alfred, with only one
interpretation of "man" in his mind, and that was himself, "that a
girl has no idea of. He has to move in the world, and do as others do,
if he doesn't want to look mean and shabby; it's hard lines on a
fellow when it comes to that. Now a girl's different; so long as she's
comfortable at home she's all right. There is no occasion for her to
knock about."
"Alfred," said Lily, looking into his face suddenly, "you speak as if
you were in trouble."
"And if I were, and if you could help me, Lily, would you?"
"Would I?" She took his hand and kissed it, as she had done once
before this morning. A wise man, or, rather, one who had learnt wisdom
(for the two definitions are not synonymous), who was strolling in the
gardens, saw the action, and thought, "How fond that girl is of that
young fellow!" naturally setting them down as sweethearts; and in his
superior wisdom smiled somewhat sneeringly at the hollowness of love's
young dream. "Would I! What would I not do for those I love!" It was
her heart that spoke. "Tell me your trouble, Alfred."
"Money," he replied curtly; "that's my trouble."
"Can I help you, dear? I earn some."
"And give it all to grandfather," he said bitterly; for he thought
of what better use he could make of Lily's earnings than his
grandfather, and how many fine chances of backing the right horses he
was throwing away for want of means.
"Yes," she said, in a surprised tone at his bitterness; "surely that's
right, Alf?"
"O, I suppose it is," he answered, in a rough, ungracious manner;
"whatever grandfather is mixed up with, and whatever he does, must be
right, of course."
"What is the matter with you and grandfather?" she asked in deep
anxiety; the brightness was beginning to die out of the day. "I can't
tell you how grieved I have been to see the way you behave to each
other. You do not love each other as you used to do. I was in hopes
this morning that it was all right between you again."
"How can I tell you what it is that makes him treat me as he does.
Lily, when I don't know myself? Directly you went out of the room this
morning, he began to nag me, and I couldn't stand it. He's always at
me with his eyes or his tongue."
Lily was exquisitely distressed. Alfred spoke as if his grandfather
were his enemy, and they were both necessary to her. She loved them
both--not equally; her love for Alfred was the stronger. If it were
placed distinctly before her that she would be compelled to choose
between them, she would have chosen Alfred. This contingency did not
present itself to her now, but she was sufficiently grieved at the
consciousness of the breach between the two persons upon whom until
lately she had bestowed all her love. Could she heal it? could she do
anything? she asked timidly.
"Whose fault is it, Alfred--yours or grandfather's?"
"Is it mine?" he demanded impetuously, in return. "Now I ask you,
Lily, do you think it is mine?"
"No, no," she replied, with generous and loving readiness; "I am sure
it is not."
And thus committed herself, almost instinctively, out of her love for
him.
"Well then," he said, feeling like a coward, "there it is. If I have a
new suit of clothes, grandfather preaches me a sermon. That's why I
didn't show him the chain the other day. I don't want to say anything
against him, but young men are not the same as they used to be. Now, I
put it to you, Lily: if you had anybody that you liked--I mean that
you cared for a bit--that--that--you were--very fond of----"
"Alfred!" cried Lily, looking at him with eager eyes.
"You know what I mean, Lily. If you were a man and had anybody that
you loved--there! now it's out!--wouldn't you like to look well in her
eyes?"
"O, yes, yes, Alfred! And have you some one like that? I thought so--I
thought so!"
"Yes, I have, Lily, and she is the dearest, prettiest, best girl in
the world, Lily. And it's because she's poor----"
"That's nothing, Alfred."
"That's nothing, of course, in her. But because she's poor I try to
make a little money so as to be nice, and make her a present now and
then, perhaps; and because of that, grandfather's always at me,
preaching--preaching--preaching. O Lily, you should see her! She is as
good as you are, and as pretty, upon my word, Lil."
"Prettier and better, I am sure, Alfred," said Lily, taking his hand
and caressing it. She would have liked to throw her arms round his
neck, but they were sitting in the gardens, and people's eyes were
upon them; so she was compelled to restrain the impulse, and to
content herself with caressing his hand and saying, "I am so glad! I
am so glad and that was your secret? You have got some one that you
love--my dear, my dearest! O, how happy you have made me! And you love
her very, very much?"
"With all my heart and soul, Lily." He spoke the truth.
"And she loves you? But what a question! As if she could help it!"
She looked into his handsome face with genuine admiration. How bright
the day was again! Earth, sky, air, grew lovelier in the light of her
happiness; for in the love her brother bore to this girl she saw her
own reflected.
"She loves me as well as I love her, Lily."
"I am sure of it--I am sure of it; she couldn't do otherwise. What is
her name?"
"Lizzie," answered Alfred, with gratified vanity.
"Lizzie! Lizzie! I shall have a sister; I love her already, my dear.
Of course," she said slyly, "you have her portrait?"
"How do you know, you puss?" he asked, with a laugh and a blush.
She echoed his laugh, and said, with an affectation of superior
wisdom,
"I could shut my eyes, and find it--there!" and she touched his
breast-pocket lightly.
"Here it is, Lil," he said, bashfully and proudly, taking Lizzie's
portrait from his pocket. "What do you think of her? But it doesn't do
her justice."
The accumulative sins that photographers are guilty of in "not doing
justice" must surely bring a heavy retribution upon them one of these
days. But in this instance they found a zealous champion in Lily, who
gazed at the portrait with admiring eyes, and kissed it again and
again.
"What a beautiful face! what lovely hair!" ("All her own, Lil,"
interpolated Alfred.) "I can tell that. And she has brown eyes, like
mine. And your portrait is in this locket round her neck. When shall I
see her really?"
"Soon; I have told her about you. But O, Lily, I am so unhappy with it
all! I am the most miserable wretch in the world, I do believe!"
"Unhappy!" exclaimed Lily, bewildered by these alternations of
feeling. "Miserable! I don't understand you, Alfred."
Indeed, she could not understand it. She judged from her own feelings;
to love and to be loved was, to her imagination, the highest condition
of happiness. Earth contained no brighter lot; and if in the Heaven
and future life we believe in and look forward to--all of us, I
hope--some such bliss as the bliss of pure love is to be ours, there
can be no better reward for living a good life.
"You asked me to tell you my troubles," said Alfred, a little sulkily,
"and I told you: money. But you seem to have forgotten it already."
"I did, for a moment, my dear," she replied remorsefully; "I forgot it
in my delight at the news you have told me for and in the
contemplation of your happiness."
"How can I be happy," he grumbled, "with such a trouble upon me? You
do not know what it is, and how it weighs me down. How can I show my
face to Lizzie when I am so pressed, and when I am in debt, and can't
pay?"
"And yet," she said, out of her own goodness and unselfishness, "you
have brought me here for a holiday to-day, and I have been thoughtless
enough to come, and put you to expense, when I ought to have guessed
you could not afford it!"
The very construction she placed upon it displayed him in a generous
light which he so little deserved, that he felt inwardly ashamed of
himself.
"How could you have guessed? I have kept my troubles to myself. Why
should I bother you with them? And it would be hard, indeed, if I
could not give you a little pleasure now and then. It isn't much I
give you, Lil--not as much as I should like to. Until I saw Lizzie, I
had no one to love but you, and now, when everything might be so
splendid with me, here am I stumped because I am hard-up. It's too
bad--that's what it is--it's too bad altogether; and just at the time
that I have got the tip for the Cesarewitch, and could make a thousand
pounds as safe as nails."
All this was Greek to Lily. She did not know what the "tip" or the
Cesarewitch was, but she was too anxiously interested in Alfred's main
trouble to go into details.
"Is it much money you want, Alfred?"
"No, not much, Lily."
"Why not ask grandfather----"
But he interrupted her with sudden vehemence.
"Lily!" he cried. "Grandfather must not know anything of this. Promise
me."
"I promise," she answered readily; "but why, Alfred?"
He dared not tell her the truth; he dared not say that his grandfather
suspected him, and suspected him with just cause; he himself did not
know whether it was suspicion or actual knowledge that caused his
grandfather to be doubtful of him. Then how could he tell her to what
purpose her earnings were devoted? If she knew that, not only would
she become acquainted with the shameful story of their father's crime,
but she might get to learn the story of the little iron box. For he
was guilty of the theft; it was he who had stolen the money,
intending, of course, to replace it, and not knowing why it was
hoarded up so carefully.
As he sat silent now in the light of the beautiful day, with his
trouble heavy upon him, and suffering from the remorse that is not
born of repentance, all the circumstances of the theft spread
themselves swiftly before him. The money had been stolen in just the
way his grandfather had surmised in the interview that took place
between them on the night of his mother's death. He had seen his
grandfather go often to the iron box, and he suspected that it
contained money. One day, when his grandfather was not at home, he
tried the cupboard in which the iron box was placed for safety, and
found it locked. Seeing a key upon the mantelshelf, and believing it
to be the key of the iron box, he ran out of the room with it, and
took an impression of it, and from the impression had a false key
made. Then, on the very night his grandfather had mentioned, he
watched the old man out of the house, and took the iron box from the
unlocked cupboard. He opened the box, and was taking the money from it
when he heard a sound from the bed behind him. Turning, he saw his
mother with her eyes open, as he thought, watching him. For a few
moments he could not stir, he was so dismayed; but a sigh from his
mother which was half a groan completely aroused him, and going to the
bed he found his mother asleep. Relieved, he completed the theft. This
scene was always before his eyes when he was in trouble; when his
money affairs were easy, and he had sufficient for the day, he rarely
thought of it. He had quite made up his mind that, supposing his
mother had been awake, he would have told her all--how that he had
used money belonging to his employers, not for the first time; that it
was imperative he should replace it; and that it was better to take
for a time these savings, hoarded up by his grandfather for a then
unknown purpose, rather than allow exposure to come. "Mother would
have given me right," he often thought, but he did not have the
opportunity of testing whether his thought was correct. All his life
he was never to know whether his mother had gone down to the grave
with the consciousness that her son, as well as her husband, was a
thief.