saw a face I knew at one of the windows. It came with me all the way,
and showed me the profound loveliness of the early morning light falling
upon the still woods. The splitter is better. I stayed with him two
hours, and he told me a little story that would have delighted St.
Charity's heart. I may, perhaps, tell it to her when I see her in
Melbourne; and there is something else I must tell her also--the full
reason for my visit to England. Yes, darling, it may pain you, but your
letter makes me feel that it is unworthy of us both to hold it back.
But this is my first reply to a letter of Liebe's, and therefore there
must be nothing in it to pain her. And I may be with her for a little
in a day or two. How I long to set out, so that I may hasten back! My
first reply to you, dearest. What have I to say? Oh, I have a great
and solemn secret to whisper in your ear. Don't let Dustiefoot hear it;
and be sure you do not tell it to the pert Fairacre birds, who do
nothing but chatter from morning to night. The secret is this. Oh,
little-leaf-of-my-heart, I love you--I love you--I love you! Did I ever
tell you before what a darling you are, and how entirely I worship you?
But that I could not tell you adequately--no one could! Oh, my own, do
you know what your love means to me--how it has gladdened my life as I
never expected it to be gladdened? I told you once that I had suffered;
but some sorrows have power to make strong and build up, while others
seem to eat up what should go to the woof of calm daily happiness. That
was the sort of sorrow I have had; yet I felt and acknowledged that I
myself was to blame, as most of us are in the misfortunes that fall on
us apart from bereavement. But the darkness is over. Already I see the
gold of dawn which is to broaden into the perfect day of our happiness.
'Darling, does it not seem in some ways as if we could not be really
separated any more? Now and henceforth you are part of my inmost life.
Each sight and sound of Nature is more vivid--more beautiful since I
knew you. Here are some lines that I keep crooning very often when I am
alone:
'"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares and delicate fears,
A heart the fountain of sweet tears,
And love and thought and joy."
'Yes, love and thought and joy. How grateful I am that the unspeakable
gift of your love was given to me before time and bitter memories robbed
me of the capacity of joy! It does happen in life that people are
sometimes so crushed and made desolate that, when the possibility of
happiness is restored to them, it comes too late. It is not only that
Joy is so prone to put his hand to his lips bidding adieu, but that
often, when he approaches, his sovereignty is over. If necessary, we
can endure our lives and do our work in the world without the possession
of vivid personal joy. But, ah! when it comes, and our hearts are still
fresh and young enough to bound at its approach, what is there that we
would barter for its possession?
'Belovedest, did I not see tears glisten in your sweet eyes when we
parted? Do not allow too many sad thoughts to nestle in your heart when
I am not near to chase them afar. There is but a step between being
dejected for individual reasons and harbouring melancholy forebodings
relative to wider issues. It is good to remember that the problems of
life do not crowd pell-mell into our daily path in the way that they do
into our minds, and that in the end we have not to solve inextricable
riddles in order to do our best in the world. There is one maxim you
quoted out of "Wilhelm Meister" I would have you, Liebe, keep in mind
all the time I am away--"Remember to live." Do not let spectres come
between you and the sunshine you love so well. By this I do not mean
try to drive solemn thoughts from you. Ever-belovedest, I love to think
of you too well as you are--to recall how in the most mirth-provoking
mood a sudden seriousness would often fall upon your face. No, I would
not have Liebe different from her dear self by the twentieth part of the
petal of a milk-white fairy rose. Her quick moods and rippling fancies
are all too precious to me. All I plead for is that she should drive
sombre dreams to the far ends of the earth; that she should let no
reflection of the shadow that has burdened part of my life throw any
darkness on hers. Keep all your buoyant fancies, darling, and your
tender sparkling gaiety, for my sake.
'I have often felt that the exacting routine of labour to which men must
school themselves, brings in its train something wooden and inflexible,
even when their work makes constant demands on their sympathies. I
suppose it is because of this that a woman's more inward and leisured
habit of thought exercises so deep a fascination. She has time to keep
all these things and ponder them in her heart, so that she comes to have
a kind of second sight, a sensitive delicacy of perception, which, with
most men, is either undeveloped or swallowed in the grind of daily life.
A woman sees a thousand things that from their duller, or, let us say,
more preoccupied eyes, are almost wholly obscured. To achieve anything
in the world, a man has to learn to be hard on himself, and that often
produces a certain hardness in other respects. It would seem that to
work long and constantly, even though the work is what interests us
most, begets a certain strain of insensibility. Thus I often smile when
I think that though I could draw separately, and in skeleton form, all
the bones of a swallow's wing, I learned the full poetry of its flight
through your bright eyes. But what is the use of my talking, or rather
writing, in this way, when Liebe persists in making the most adorably
comic little faces at me, and making up a wicked little story about what
happened to someone who had an evil habit of writing in a didactic,
reasonable strain? After all, your chrysanthemums will not be out
before I return. But there will be roses, and mind you wear great
clusters of them on the day the _Paquerette_ steams into Glenelg. Dear
day, filled with soft-footed hours! Is that one of Liebe's phrases, and
will she inflict penalties on me for using it without leave? So she
may; only I must draw up a list of the penalties.'
Here followed a page or two of the ardent nothings that come so readily
to a lover's pen. Then there was a break, and the rest was dated that
day, 'Scott's Hotel, Melbourne,' deeply regretting Stella's absence from
town, explaining how the prompt acceptance by a friend of Morrison's of
a medical partnership at Minjah-Millowie had occurred in time to permit
Langdale taking his passage by the out-going French boat, which enabled
him to set out at once, and he was incredibly anxious to get away, so
that he might be back in February.
'And now,' he wrote, 'I am going to tell you, Stella, what that business
is, because ever since I got your precious letter I felt it was
impossible I should conceal it from you; my only reason for doing so was
that your keenly sensitive, apprehensive nature might dwell on the bare
possibility that there may still be a barrier to our marriage; but with
the exquisite trust and love you have shown, no consideration has force
enough to make me keep this back from you, only it must not be included
in this, my reply to Liebe's first letter. Are you satisfied that I am
not so calmly reasonable after all, and that I may even be infected with
a little superstition? No, not superstition, but "delicate fears." I
shall not say farewell, but merely what we said that night after our
most memorable ride--"Auf baldige Wiedersehen."'
After reading this, with beating temples, Laurette turned once more to
the enclosure. There were four thin sheets of foreign paper, the last
being but half written. As Langdale wrote a firm, rather heavy hand, he
had written on one side only. It was a trifling circumstance, and yet
it was of material service to Laurette in carrying out the plan that
eventually took shape in her unscrupulous little brain.
'At the age of twenty-two, while still a medical student in London, just
a year after my father's death, I met a lady a good many years older
than myself, who fascinated me greatly. She was an Italian, and very
beautiful. Still, infatuated as I was, I shrank from the idea of
marrying her. But, under circumstances which I need not now detail, I
married her four months after we first met. The marriage turned out a
disastrous failure. After three years we agreed to live apart. A year
later I knew that she had proved unfaithful to me. I had sufficient
evidence to secure a divorce, but partly because I shrank from the
exposure--only a few of my most intimate friends knew of the
union--partly because she had fallen into very bad health, and besought
me to spare her, as she had not long to live, I desisted. She gave my
lawyer a written acknowledgment of her guilt, duly attested, resigned my
name, and left England for Brussels, where some of her friends lived.
On these conditions I settled an income on her, which she named as being
adequate, and was to be paid by my lawyer half-yearly.
'The letter I opened in the Home Field that day was from my lawyer. He
wrote to say that the last receipt he had received for this half-yearly
payment was evidently a forgery, that he had caused inquiries to be made
through a trusted agent, and found that the lady to whom the money was
payable had died, but that the fact was concealed by a relative who
endeavoured to make capital out of the imposition. He found that the
lady who died was buried under the name of the one with whom she lived,
and an application was for a second time made for the annuity, with a
statement that the difference of writing was caused by illness. But a
request that an interview should be granted to one who knew both ladies
was denied. No doubt could exist in my lawyer's mind, nor in my own, as
to the facts of the matter. But you will understand, Stella, that it is
one of the points on which one is satisfied with nothing less than legal
indisputable proof. It was my intention to possess this before doing
more than asking leave to write to you. I cannot but be glad that the
course of events led to my departing from this resolution. The
assurance of your love is too precious. But you have been so loyally
trustful, you have shown such entire confidence in me, it seems to me
now I should have frankly told you the position. But I shrank horribly
from marring the first glow of our happiness with this sordid story.
And then there are some misfortunes in life that men are more sensitive
about than many forms of evil-doing. And yet, my own, now that I have
won the treasure of your love, I feel more than ever thankful that in
this early, ill-judged, ill-fated bond I was the betrayed, and not the
betrayer. It hurts me horribly that the bloom of your gladness must be
touched with the thought of a life which closed so darkly stained. And
yet, Stella, it is best you should know all now--that our happy reunion
on my return should not be spoilt by going back to this. It will then
be the past for both of us. From the moment I resolved to tell you I
felt a relief, for the conviction haunted me that I should not have
yielded to your generous wish in the matter, saying that I had been
surprised out of my secret. Do not be too sorry, Herzblaettchen. Think
chiefly of what carries so much joy for both. Think of the day on which
the _Paquerette_ will gaily sail into port.'
After this came some lines that had been blotted out, but so quickly
dried that the words were readable:
'Will you forgive me if I say that one of the memories which gives me
the most unalloyed happiness is your timorous confession that you felt
you could have moved or spoken after your accident when I reached you,
only you wished to know how it would really "affect me"?
'Yours, Stella, with the profoundest respect and love,
'ANSELM LANGDALE.'
Laurette's head throbbed with swiftly succeeding and conflicting
thoughts as she reached the close. It was apparent at once that the
first letter must be kept back, if only on account of its allusion to
Stella's imagined absence from Melbourne. And the other, the enclosure,
which, taken by itself, would begin with such strange abruptness?
'Chance--chance,' says Ste. Beuve in one of his critical essays, 'if we
wish to be truthful, we shall never allow enough room for you, nor shall
we ever make deep enough incisions in any philosophy of history.'
Probably Laurette herself could hardly say how far the form of this
statement, the way in which it was written on one side only of the
paper, and the suggestive air of the effaced lines, helped her to work
the scheme which she put into execution with unshrinking completeness.
She sat for an hour or two reading and re-reading the words, regarding
the statement from all sides with concentrated intentness. Her eyes
glittered strangely, and a brilliant flush reinforced the _soupcon_ of
rouge which lent point to her complexion. It was characteristic that
though, on first reading Langdale's little narrative, no doubt entered
her mind as to the death of the unfortunate woman whose life had made
his run with so dark a current for some years, yet the moment she
decided on her plan of campaign, she convinced herself that the news was
illusory.
'People never die when it adds to their friends' happiness,' she said to
herself, with the decision of one who argues from the knowledge of
experience. 'Well, Stella won't run such a fearful risk if I can help
it.'
She destroyed the letter there and then, setting fire to it in the
grate, and watching it till the last scrap was reduced to a thin black
cinder. Her next step was to ring for Sarah, the parlour-maid who had
admitted Dr. Langdale and brought her his card.
'Sarah, I want you to get ready to go to Wandalong, Mrs. Morton's place,
you know, by the early train to-morrow. She needs a little extra help,
and I must spare you for a few weeks at any cost. Your wages will be
fifteen shillings a week as long as you are there.' Then she sent a
telegram to her sister:
'Feel sure you need more help. Sarah goes to you to-morrow for a
month.'
'I must run no risk of servants' tattle,' she thought, with forced calm.
Then she sat down and wrote two notes--both brief. The first was
addressed to a Mrs. Anson, and ran:
'DEAR ROSE,
'What an age it is since we met! Can you imagine that your grief and
undeserved misfortune have changed your friends? As it seems useless to
expect you to come to me, unless some pressure is brought to bear, I
shall send the carriage for you at ten to-morrow morning, and you must
spend the day with me. I shall take care we have no visitors and no
interruptions. You see I am determined to take no excuse.'
The next note ran:
'DEAR STELLA,
'As I know the Carters are dying to have you a little longer, I write to
say that I shall not grudge your remaining till we call for you
to-morrow evening on our way to the theatre. Just demi-toilette and a
few flowers. They say the comedy company is in splendid form.'
After that Laurette set about her task of manipulating the enclosure.
Sarah left by the early train, and at half-past ten Mrs. Anson came.
She was the wife of a man who had been high up in the Civil Service, but
who had, six months previously, been convicted of defalcating the public
funds, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Mrs. Anson was a
gentle, sensitive woman, who since her misfortune shrank into retirement
as much as possible, yet felt a melancholy pleasure in being so warmly
remembered by an old friend. Laurette, on her part, was all chastened
sympathy and delicate attention, kissing her sweet Rose on each cheek,
and holding her hands in a gentle, detaining clasp.
'You have hurt your hand, dear?' said Mrs. Anson in a tone of concern,
noticing that the forefinger of Laurette's right hand was tied up.
'Oh, a mere bagatelle--a little cut with the bread-knife. I gave my
nursery governess a holiday yesterday, and saw to the little one's
dinner myself.'
'You are always doing someone a kindness,' murmured Mrs. Anson, suddenly
struck with the thought that hitherto she had hardly given Laurette
credit for all her good qualities.
'Well, my dear, it would be a poor world if we did not help each other
with little deeds of kindness,' replied Laurette, not only without a
blush, but with a little glow of virtuous self-complacency. Then she
sat and chatted about all the people her friend had known intimately in
days not long gone by. Some who had married, and some who expected to
marry, but did not, and all equally repentant. No little tale of social
disaster lost its piquancy on Laurette's lips. Indeed, at her best, she
had a gift for heightening effects, and shading, which many an artist in
journalism might envy. The hours passed very agreeably. There were
callers, but Laurette was denied to them. She had promised herself a
treat for the day, and she was not going to be cheated out of it. There
was so much insincerity and hollowness in the world. 'As I grow older,
I sometimes long to turn my back on it all,' she said, with a gentle
little sigh. Poor Mrs. Anson, though far from being a bitter or envious
woman, yet could not wholly escape a slight tinge of the gratification
sometimes experienced by the unfortunate when the reflection is forced
on them that the disparities of life are, after all, not so great as
they appear on the surface.
As they sat over afternoon tea, several letters were brought in to
Laurette. One of them seemed to distress her.
'Oh, how very thoughtless of me not to have written that note as I
promised!' she cried, with a little gesture of despair. 'Rose, dear,
will you excuse me while I pen a note that I should have sent away last
night? Thanks, so much.'
She opened a little morocco writing-case that was on a small table near
her. Presently she uttered a sharp ejaculation of pain.
'Who would have thought that such a slight cut would be so painful?' she
cried.
'But the cut appears to be on the front of the finger,' said Mrs. Anson.
'You see the moment you attempt to write the pen presses against the
wound.'
'Oh, how very provoking!' cried Laurette, knitting her brows prettily.
'Is it anything I can do for you, Laurette? Pray let me, if it is!'
'Oh, thank you, dear,' said Laurette, her face brightening. 'It is only
an old friend like you I could have as an amanuensis in the matter. It
is something to be enclosed in a friend's letter in corroboration. A
matrimonial quarrel--only more serious than the average run. A wretched
affair--jealousy, estrangement, broken hearts. I must not burden you
with a knowledge of names; secrets are so often a nuisance. One is so
afraid of betraying them, and of course, if it comes to being questioned
downright, one tries to tell a fib and fails. I shall be able to put
the beginning and sign my name.'
Mrs. Anson was more and more convinced that Laurette was one of those
people who must be well known before they get credit for all the minor
deeds of charity, and little merciful acts of an unstrained quality,
they scatter on their way through life. She sat down and wrote, to
Laurette's dictation, in her elegant, careful handwriting, with a
sincere wish that what she wrote would effect its kindly purpose.
After her visitor was gone, Laurette looked over the shipping news in
the _Age_, and found that the _Salagie_ had not left Williamstown till
eleven o'clock on the previous night. Dr. Langdale's name was safe in
the passenger list; but what if the delay had led to a chance encounter
between himself and Stella? If she and Dora had gone shopping in
Collins Street, as not infrequently happens with young ladies, late in
the afternoon! Laurette put the conjecture from her. She was somehow
upheld by the thought that her efforts at putting crooked things
straight would not be so ruthlessly crushed by an overruling Providence.
Laurette thoroughly believed that this power was always on the side of
the strongest battalions, and as matched against Stella, Laurette felt
that at this juncture she was as one armed and lying in ambush to trap
an unsuspecting foe. As some of the lowest organisms in which nerves
cannot exist are yet somehow sensitive to light, so even the least noble
natures, when contriving a great baseness against a fellow-creature, are
often dimly conscious of remorse. But few have ever practised
treacherous artifices with less compunction than visited Laurette at
this crisis.
She had never known anything of those delicate instincts of morality
which are motive powers in many minds that have received far less moral
culture. She had many impulses of generosity and kindness, but they
were rudimentary florets that never blossomed into habit. Of principles
she knew nothing beyond a determination to make the best of her
opportunities--to get all she could out of life. She would never
transgress the rules of outward decorum, nor know anything of the better
aspirations of human nature. She was now threatened with social
extinction, and her insatiable thirst for pleasure and ease, and the
footing she had gained in society, urged her to make a desperate
struggle, using such means as lay within her grasp, as little checked by
any feeble glimmering of conscience as a street urchin when he sucks an
orange and throws the rind away.
And yet, with all this, she had an inimitable trick of assigning, even
to herself, virtuous motives to the shadiest of her shady little
intrigues. 'It is not only Stella who must be protected from an
entanglement with a married man,' she reflected, 'but then there is Ted,
and there is Talbot, whose movements I must watch. A husband and father
must not be left to the wiles of a wretched little actress at a crisis.
I shall have that fifteen hundred pounds after all, for, if I know
anything of Stella Courtland, the letter she is to get to-morrow morning
will set fire to her pride in a way that will put things in a new light.
And her jealousy--I had no idea she had so much of it till her brother
got engaged--to find he hurried away without even seeing her--and to a
living wife! It must succeed!' she said half aloud, as she went over
the main features of the affair.
*CHAPTER XXXIX.*
'Then you did not care very much for the play last night, Miss Stella?'
said Mr. Tareling at breakfast on the following morning. 'Tell me what
you objected to most.'
'I had no choice of dislike,' answered Stella. 'I thought the whole of
it was overgrown with the scurf of commonness--the sort of thing that
gets acted because of the permanent stupidity of our kind.'
'Goodness! I feel quite annoyed that I enjoyed it so much,' said
Laurette, with mock humility.
'I wouldn't if I were you,' answered her husband with a laugh. 'In a
democratic country you are always right if you are on the side of the
majority. But come now, Miss Stella, weren't you a little touched by
the despair of the lovers? There was a big woman in a purple satin
dress near me who mopped her eyes till her handkerchief dripped. You
_must_ have found their despair pathetic.'
'Despair!' echoed Stella. 'Why, a marionette wouldn't be imposed upon
by such a paltry device! They were engaged in the first act. It would
never do to let them be married in the second--in fact, the play would
not come into being--and what would then become of the worthy fathers of
families who are supported by the drama? So of course there must be a
misunderstanding through six or seven scenes. Oh yes, it might melt a
heart of stone, to see a middle-aged female, rouged up to the eyes,
weeping bitterly without shedding any tears! Did you see how she held
her handkerchief so as not to brush the powder off her nose?'
'I am sorry I didn't show you my big woman in the purple satin. She
wept for herself and both the lovers,' said Tareling, looking very much
amused.
'But I suppose you will admit that misunderstandings do come between
people--and--why, even your Shakespeare makes a man smother his wife
because of groundless jealousy,' said Laurette, who had taken up a
morning paper and glanced over it.
'Yes, and with such a fiend incarnate as Iago to poison his mind he
could not have been Othello without being driven into madness.'
Laurette was glancing over the paper, but there was something restless
and nervous in her manner.
'Then what would you consider a sufficient reason for an estrangement in
a modern play?'