Act I

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STORIES OF SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES

THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE Elizabeth Gaskell

A MERE INTERLUDE Thomas Hardy

A FAITHFUL HEART George Moore

THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED Walter Besant

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE Henry James

_Elizabeth Gaskell_

THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE

(_Household Words_, Christmas 1858)

Mr and Mrs Openshaw came from Manchester to settle in London. He

had been, what is called in Lancashire, a salesman for a large

manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and opening a

warehouse in the city; where Mr Openshaw was now to superintend their

affairs. He rather enjoyed the change; having a kind of curiosity

about London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in his brief

visits to the metropolis. At the same time, he had an odd, shrewd

contempt for the inhabitants, whom he always pictured to himself as

fine, lazy people, caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy, and

lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such places; ruining good

English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The

hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalized him too,

accustomed as he was to the early dinners of Manchester folk and

the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he was pleased to go to

London, though he would not for the world have confessed it, even to

himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded

of him by the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him by a

considerable increase of salary. This, indeed, was so liberal that he

might have been justified in taking a much larger house than the

one he did, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to

Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show.

Inside, however, he furnished it with an unusual degree of comfort,

and, in the winter-time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires as

the grates would allow, in every room where the temperature was in

the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such

that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave

the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in

the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated; for their

master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to comfort;

while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed habits and

individual ways, in defiance of what any of his new neighbours might

think.

His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He

was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she soft and

yielding. They had two children; or rather, I should say, she had two;

for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs Openshaw's child by Frank

Wilson, her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who

could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the

broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep

up what he called the true Saxon accent.

Mrs Openshaw's Christian name was Alice, and her first husband had

been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain

in Liverpool; a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal

attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and

a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to

be very stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt,

her own uncle's second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came

home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to

her; secondly, attentive; and thirdly, desperately in love with her,

she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true, she

would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of

behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle

neither helped nor hindered the love affair, though it was going on

under his own eyes. Frank's stepmother had such a variable temper,

that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would

like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of

crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush

blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by

a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in the

world, except her uncle (who was at this time at sea), she went off

one morning and was married to him, her only bridesmaid being the

housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was that Frank and his wife

went into lodgings, and Mrs Wilson refused to see them, and turned

away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid, whom they accordingly took

into their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage he

was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at

their lodgings, smoking his pipe and sipping his grog; but he told

them, for quietness' sake, he could not ask them to his own house; for

his wife was bitter against them. They were not, however, very unhappy

about this.

The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank's vehement,

passionate disposition, which led him to resent his wife's shyness and

want of demonstrativeness as failures in conjugal duty. He was already

tormenting himself, and her too in a slighter degree, by apprehensions

and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching

absence at sea. At last, he went to his father and urged him to

insist upon Alice's being once more received under his roof; the more

especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her

husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself

expressed it, 'breaking up', and unwilling to undergo the excitement

of a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to

his wife. And before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of seeing his

wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house. To have

placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs Wilson's

powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however,

was that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as

housemaid had been filled up; and, even if it had not, she had

forfeited Mrs Wilson's good opinion for ever. She comforted her young

master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would

have a household of their own; of which, whatever service she might

be in meanwhile, she should be sure to form a part. Almost the last

action Frank did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see

Norah once more at her mother's house; and then he went away.

Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced.

She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him;

and although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was,

perhaps, more of peace than there had been for years, for Mrs Wilson

had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death

to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the

young creature expecting her first confinement in her husband's

absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come

and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain and attend on

Captain Wilson.

Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for

the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always glad to

remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed

it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into

the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less

property than people had been led by his style of living to expect;

and what money there was, was settled all upon his wife, and at her

disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank

was now first mate of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, would

be captain. Meanwhile he had left her rather more than two hundred

pounds (all his savings) in the bank.

It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the

Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in

India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship

having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain's

wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her

fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to

her inquiry at the shipping office, they told her that the owners had

given up hope of ever hearing more of the _Betsy-Jane_ and had sent in

their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone for ever,

she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the

dear friend, the sympathizing protector, whom she should never see

again;--first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom

she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself--her own sole

possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet--rather to the

scandal of Mrs Wilson who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had

always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought

it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she

saw; dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state, and the

helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction as if she liked

the excitement of the sorrowful story.

So passed away the first days of Alice's widowhood. By and by things

subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as if the young

creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to

be ailing, pining, and sickly. The child's mysterious illness turned

out to be some affection of the spine, likely to affect health but not

to shorten life--at least, so the doctors said. But the long, dreary

suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child,

is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suffered; no

one but God knew.

And so it fell out, that when Mrs Wilson, the elder, came to her one

day, in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution in

the value of the property that her husband had left her--a diminution

which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less

Alice--the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not

touch health or life could cause such grief; and she received the

intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the

little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother--who, after all,

loved it well--began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious

ears--saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and

to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now

all chance of this had passed away--Alice's heart was touched, and she

drew near to Mrs Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not

unlike to that of Ruth, entreated that, come what would, they might

remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was

arranged that Mrs Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing

it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with

Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs Wilson was herself a

Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town;

some connexions of her own, too, at that time required lodgings, for

which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook

the active superintendence and superior work of the household;

Norah--willing, faithful Norah--offered to cook, scour, do anything in

short, so that she might but remain with them.

The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with

them, and all went smoothly--with that one sad exception of the little

girl's increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, it is

not for words to tell!

Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one

succeeded to them. After some months, it became necessary to remove

to a smaller house; and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea

that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out

and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came

like the sweeping boom of a funeral-bell over her heart.

By and by, Mr Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life

as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up

through all the grades of employment in it, fighting his way through

the hard, striving Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of

character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to

self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German

scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman--understanding markets and the

bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade; and yet, with such

vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a

group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colour

would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring

muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself

with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must

be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and

overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language

than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee

in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee

motto--'England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs England.' Such

a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or

any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their

courting and matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and

was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was

in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as

encumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little

to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct,

and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. 'A pretty,

yea-nay kind of woman', would have been his description of her, if he

had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning,

that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of

character, which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active,

energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality with which

his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called

in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water

scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar

fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his theory about

everything based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly

original)--then he began to think: not that Alice had any particular

merit, but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings; his

restlessness wore away, and he began to consider himself as almost

settled for life in them.

Mr Openshaw had been too busy, all his days, to be introspective. He

did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and if he had

become conscious of its abstract existence he would have considered it

as a manifestation of disease in some part of him. But he was decoyed

into pity unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. That little

helpless child--always carried about by one of the three busy women

of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair

from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move--the great

grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving

to the small delicate face a look beyond its years--the soft plaintive

voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a

child--caught Mr Openshaw's attention in spite of himself. One day--he

half scorned himself for doing so--he cut short his dinner-hour to go

in search of some toy, which should take the place of those eternal

beads. I forget what he bought; but, when he gave the present (which

he took care to do in a short abrupt manner, and when no one was by

to see him), he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that

came over that child's face, and he could not help, all through that

afternoon, going over and over again the picture left on his memory,

by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl's face. When

he returned home, he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room

fire; and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was

habitual in those model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his

tea-things away--she had been silent as usual till then--she stood for

an instant with the door in her hand. Mr Openshaw looked as if he

were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but

was heartily wishing the woman would go, and not make any palaver of

gratitude. But she only said:

'I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much,' and was

gone, even before he could send her away with a 'There, my good woman,

that's enough!'

For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child. He even

hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flush of colour and

little timid smile of recognition, when he saw her by chance. But,

after all, this could not last for ever; and, having a second time

given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy

having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to the

child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the

mother. He was aware of this change of feeling--despised himself for

it--struggled with it; nay, internally yielded to it and cherished

it, long before he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word,

action, or look to escape him. He watched Alice's docile, obedient

ways to her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough

Norah (roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but, above

all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her

and her child. They spoke little to anyone else, or when anyone else

was by; but, when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and

cooed, and chattered so continually, that Mr Openshaw first wondered

what they could find to say to each other, and next became irritated

because they were always so grave and silent with him. All this time

he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child. His

thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before

her; and often he came back from his day's work loaded with the very

thing Alice had been longing for, but had not been able to procure.

One time, it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along

the streets; and, many an evening that following summer, Mr

Openshaw drew her along himself, regardless of the remarks of his

acquaintances. One day in autumn, he put down his newspaper, as Alice

came in with the breakfast, and said, in as indifferent a voice as he

could assume:

'Mrs Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our

horses together?'

Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he mean? He had

resumed the reading of his newspaper, as if he did not expect any

answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly

arranging his breakfast, without another word passing between them.

Just as he was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual,

he turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen,

where all the women breakfasted in the morning:

'You'll think of what I said, Mrs Frank' (this was her name with the

lodgers), 'and let me have your opinion upon it tonight.'

Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking

together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think

about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not to

think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his

tea. But Mr Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was going out

at the door, by pushing past her and calling out, 'Mrs Frank!' in an

impatient voice, at the top of the stairs.

Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to

his words.

'Well, Mrs Frank,' he said, 'what answer? Don't make it too long; for

I have lots of office work to get through tonight.'

'I hardly know what you meant, sir,' said truthful Alice.

'Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. You're not new

at this sort of work, and I am. However, I'll make it plain this time.

Will you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me,

and honour me, and all that sort of thing? Because, if you will, I

will do as much by you, and be a father to your child--and that's more

than is put in the prayer-book. Now, I'm a man of my word; and what I

say, I feel; and what I promise, I'll do. Now, for your answer!'

Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her reply was a

matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was done,

he became impatient.

'Well?' said he.

'How long, sir, may I have to think over it?'

'Three minutes!' (looking at his watch). 'You've had two already--that

makes five. Be a sensible woman, say Yes, and sit down to tea with me,

and we'll talk it over together; for, after tea, I shall be busy;

say No' (he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same

tone), 'and I shan't say another word about it, but pay up a year's

rent for my rooms tomorrow, and be off. Time's up! Yes or no?'

'If you please, sir--you have been so good to little Ailsie--'

'There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let's have our tea

together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took you

for.'

And this was Alice Wilson's second wooing.

Mr Openshaw's will was too strong, and his circumstances too good,

for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs Wilson in a

comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of

lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans was in

Norah's behalf.

'No,' said Mr Openshaw. 'Norah shall take care of the old lady as long

as she lives; and, after that, she shall either come and live with us,

or, if she likes it better, she shall have a provision for life--for

your sake, missus. No one who has been good to you or the child shall

go unrewarded. But even the little one will be better for some fresh

stuff about her. Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse; one who

won't go rubbing her with calf's-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting

good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors'

directions; which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah

won't; because they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I'm not

above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow,

and never change colour; but, set me in the operating room in the

infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would

hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it

were to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks

for the time when it comes--I don't say it ever will. But this I know,

Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor, if she can. Now, I

say, give the bairn a year or two's chance, and then, when the pack of

doctors have done their best--and, maybe, the old lady has gone--we'll

have Norah back or do better for her.'

The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. She was beyond

their power. But her father (for so he insisted on being called, and

also on Alice's no longer retaining the appellation of Mamma, but

becoming henceforward Mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner,

his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of humour,

added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, infused

a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, though

her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, and

Alice--never going beyond a smile herself--had the pleasure of seeing

her child taught to laugh.

As for Alice's own life, it was happier than it had ever been before.

Mr Openshaw required no demonstration, no expressions of affection

from her. Indeed, these would rather have disgusted him. Alice could

love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement

of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence

into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former married

life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her

husband's strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year

their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came

back to them as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post

she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of

the proud and happy father, who declared that if he found out that

Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him

nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day. Norah and

Mr Openshaw were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms; neither of

them fully recognizing or appreciating the other's best qualities.

This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now

removed to London.

They had been there about a year, when Mr Openshaw suddenly informed

his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had

asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and

see London. Mrs Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her

husband's. Years before she had married him, there had been a quarrel.

All she knew was, that Mr Chadwick was a small manufacturer in a

country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased that the

breach was to be healed, and began making preparations to render their

visit pleasant.

They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event to them,

that Mrs Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion--from

night-caps downwards; and as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she

might have been going into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is,

so large was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure

for London, she had formally called to take leave of all her

acquaintance; saying she should need every bit of the intermediate

time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination;

and, to complete the resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made

between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester,

on the last market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and

amethyst brooch, saying, 'Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew

a handsome thing when they saw it.'

For some time after Mr and Mrs Chadwick arrived at the Openshaws'

there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they

obtained an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty

demanded that Mrs Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting

the abode of her sovereign. On her return she hastily changed her

dress; for Mr Openshaw had planned that they should go to Richmond,

drink tea, and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o'clock,

Mr and Mrs Openshaw and Mr and Mrs Chadwick set off.

The housemaid and cook sat below, Norah hardly knew where. She was

always engrossed in the nursery in tending her two children, and in

sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. By and

by the housemaid Bessy tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her,

and they spoke in whispers.

'Nurse! there's someone downstairs wants you.'

'Wants me! who is it?'

'A gentleman--'

'A gentleman? Nonsense!'

'Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rang at the front-door

bell, and has walked into the dining-room.'

'You should never have let him,' exclaimed Norah. 'Master and missus

out--'

'I did not want him to come in; but, when he heard you lived here, he

walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, "Tell her

to come and speak to me." There is no gas lighted in the room, and

supper is all set out.'

'He'll be off with the spoons!' exclaimed Norah, putting the

housemaid's fear into words, and preparing to leave the room; first,

however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly and calmly.

Downstairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before she

entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, with

it in her hand, she went in, looking around her in the darkness for

her visitor.

He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked at each

other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes.

'Norah?' at length he asked.

'Who are you?' asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm and

incredulity. 'I don't know you'; trying, by futile words of disbelief,

to do away with the terrible fact before her.

'Am I so changed?' he said pathetically. 'I dare say I am. But, Norah,

tell me!' he breathed hard, 'where is my wife? Is she--is she alive?'

He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand; but she backed

away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if

he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed,

good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a

foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those

eager, beautiful eyes--the very same that Norah had watched not half

an hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them.

'Tell me, Norah--I can bear it--I have feared it so often. Is she

dead?' Norah still kept silence. 'She is dead!' He hung on Norah's

words and looks, as if for confirmation or contradiction.

'What shall I do?' groaned Norah. 'Oh, sir! why did you come? how

did you find me out? where have you been? We thought you dead, we did

indeed!' She poured out words and questions to gain time, as if time

would help her.

'Norah! answer me this question straight, by yes or no--Is my wife

dead?'

'No, she is not,' said Norah, slowly and heavily.

'Oh, what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But perhaps you don't

know. Why did you leave her? Where is she? Oh, Norah, tell me all

quickly!'

'Mr Frank!' said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her

terror lest her mistress should return at any moment and find him

there--unable to consider what was best to be done or said--rushing

at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state:

'Mr Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said

you had gone down, you and everyone else. We thought you were dead, if

ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child!

Oh, sir, you must guess it,' cried the poor creature at last, bursting

out into a passionate fit of crying, 'for indeed I cannot tell it. But

it was no one's fault. God help us all this night!'

Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands

in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, by physical pressure, the truth

could be wrung out.

'Norah.' This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. 'She has

married again!'

Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had

fainted.

There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr Frank's

mouth, chafed his hands, and--when mere animal life returned, before

the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts--she lifted him

up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs

of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy, into his

mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.

'Where is she? Tell me this instant.' He looked so wild, so mad, so

desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her

time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth,

and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the

sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity

him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he

must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity

stood clear before her.

'She is not here: that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say

exactly where she is' (which was true to the letter if not to the

spirit). 'Go away, and tell me where to find you tomorrow, and I will

tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and

then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?'

Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.

'I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man,

he must feel for me--poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years

a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife

and my home--dreaming of her by night, talking to her though she

could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put

together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who

salved over her wickedness to her, as you do to me!'

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.

'If you will leave the house now, I will come to you tomorrow and tell

you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping

upstairs. Oh, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet--a

little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We

have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought

for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard

thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her.

And now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush

it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father--Mr

Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do

anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats;

and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is

happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing

stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother

languishes. If she dies--well, I don't know; it is not everyone can

lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, Mr Frank, and see

your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away,

in God's name, just this one night; tomorrow, if need be, you can do

anything--kill us all if you will, or show yourself a great, grand

man, whom God will bless for ever and ever. Come, Mr Frank, the look

of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.'

She led him upstairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they

came near the nursery door. She had wellnigh forgotten the existence

of little Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light

fell over the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of the

room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie.

The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she

lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight

nightgown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked

wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she

slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes,

into which the big tears came swelling up slowly and dropped heavily

down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry

with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long

lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half an

hour before Frank stirred. And then--instead of going away--he sank

down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes.

Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She

could afford no more time, even for prayer, in her extremity of fear;

for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She took

him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the

other bed; he stopped. Intelligence came back into his face. His hands

clenched.

'His child?' he asked.

'Her child,' replied Norah. 'God watches over him,' she said

instinctively; for Frank's looks excited her fears, and she needed to

remind herself of the Protector of the helpless.

'God has not watched over me,' he said, in despair; his thoughts

apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. But Norah

had no time for pity. Tomorrow she would be as compassionate as her

heart prompted. At length she guided him downstairs, and shut the

outer door, and bolted it--as if by bolts to keep out facts.

Then she went back into the dining-room, and effaced all traces of his

presence, as far as she could. She went upstairs to the nursery and

sat there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all

this misery. It seemed to her very long before her master and mistress

returned; yet it was hardly eleven o'clock. She heard the loud,

hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs; and, for the first time, she

understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so

lately gone forth in lonely despair.

It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs Openshaw come in,

calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her

children.

'Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?' she whispered to Norah.

'Yes.'

Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes

of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! Then she

went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance,

but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper.

Norah saw her no more that night.

Beside having a door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened

out of Mr and Mrs Openshaw's room, in order that they might have

the children more immediately under their own eyes. Early the next

summer's morning, Mrs Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie's startled call

of 'Mother! mother!' She sprang up, put on her dressing-gown, and went

to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, and in a not unusual state

of terror.

'Who was he, mother? Tell me!'

'Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming, love. Waken

up quite. See, it is broad daylight.'

'Yes,' said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to her mother,

'but a man was here in the night, mother.'

'Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!'

'Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. A man with hair and a

beard. And he knelt down and said his prayers. Norah knows he was

here, mother' (half angrily, as Mrs Openshaw shook her head in smiling

incredulity).

'Well! we will ask Norah when she comes,' said Mrs Openshaw,

soothingly. 'But we won't talk any more about him now. It is not five

o'clock; it is too early for you to get up. Shall I fetch you a book

and read to you?'

'Don't leave me, mother,' said the child, clinging to her. So Mrs

Openshaw sat on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and telling her of what

they had done at Richmond the evening before, until the little girl's

eyes slowly closed and she once more fell asleep.

'What was the matter?' asked Mr Openshaw, as his wife returned to bed.

'Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man having been

in the room to say his prayers--a dream, I suppose.' And no more was

said at the time.

Mrs Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got up

about seven o'clock. But, by and by, she heard a sharp altercation

going on in the nursery--Norah speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most

unusual thing. Both Mr and Mrs Openshaw listened in astonishment.

'Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; never let

me hear you tell that story again!'

Ailsie began to cry.

Mr Openshaw opened the door of communication, before his wife could

say a word.

'Norah, come here!'

The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had been

heard, but she was desperate.

'Don't let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again,' he said

sternly, and shut the door.

Norah was infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning;

and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if

cross-examination was let alone.

Downstairs they went, Mr Openshaw carrying Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin

coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother's

hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast-table, and

then Mr and Mrs Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting their

visitors' appearance and making plans for the day. There was a pause.

Suddenly Mr Openshaw turned to Ailsie, and said:

'What a little goosy somebody is with her dreams, wakening up poor,

tired mother in the middle of the night, with a story of a man being

in the room.'

'Father! I'm sure I saw him,' said Ailsie, half-crying. 'I don't want

to make Norah angry; but I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I

had been asleep--and I wakened up quite wide awake, though I was so

frightened. I kept my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain.

A great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then looked

at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after

they had whispered a bit together.'

'Now, my little woman must be reasonable,' said Mr Openshaw, who was

always patient with Ailsie. 'There was no man in the house last night

at all. No man comes into the house, as you know, if you think; much

less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has

happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first

person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really

happened.'

'But, indeed, it was not a dream!' said Ailsie, beginning to cry.

Just then Mr and Mrs Chadwick came down, looking grave and

discomposed. All during breakfast-time they were silent and

uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and

the children had been carried upstairs, Mr Chadwick began, in an

evidently preconcerted manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain

that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs Chadwick had that

morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the

day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from

Buckingham Palace. Mr Openshaw's face contracted into hard lines; grew

like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang

the bell, even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by

the housemaid.

'Mary, was anyone here last night, while we were away?'

'A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.'

'To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay?'

'I'm sure I can't tell, sir. He came--perhaps about nine. I went up to

tell Norah in the nursery, and she came down to speak to him. She let

him out, sir. She will know who he was, and how long he stayed.'

She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not,

so she went away.

A minute afterwards Mr Openshaw made as though he were going out of

the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm.

'Do not speak to her before the children,' she said, in her low, quiet

voice. 'I will go up and question her.'

'No! I must speak to her. You must know,' said he, turning to his

uncle and aunt, 'my missus has an old servant, as faithful as ever

woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes,--but at the same time,

who does not speak truth, as even the missus must allow. Now,

my notion is, that this Norah of ours has been come over by some

good-for-nothing chap (for she's at the time o' life when they say

women pray for husbands--"any, good Lord, any") and has let him into

our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m'appen

many another thing beside. It's only saying that Norah is soft-hearted

and doesn't stick at a white lie--that's all, missus.'

It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face was

changed, as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through

all. She knew better than to oppose him; so she went upstairs, and

told Norah that her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would

take care of the children in the meanwhile.

Norah rose to go, without a word. Her thoughts were these:

'If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through me. He may

come--and then, just Lord have mercy upon us all! for some of us are

dead folk to a certainty. But _he_ shall do it; not me.'

You may fancy, now, her look of determination, as she faced her master

alone in the dining-room; Mr and Mrs Chadwick having left the

affair in their nephew's hands, seeing that he took it up with such

vehemence.

'Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?'

'Man, sir!' As if infinitely surprised; but it was only to gain time.

'Yes; the man that Mary let in; that she went upstairs to the nursery

to tell you about; that you came down to speak to; the same chap, I

make no doubt, that you took into the nursery to have your talk out

with; the one Ailsie saw, and afterwards dreamed about; thinking, poor

wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I'll be bound, was

further from his thoughts; the one that took Mrs Chadwick's brooch,

value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don't go off. I'm as sure as my name's

Thomas Openshaw that you knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think

you've been imposed on, and that's the truth. Some good-for-nothing

chap has been making up to you, and you've been just like all other

women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came

last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made

use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way

down! Come, now, Norah; it's no blame to you, only you must not be

such a fool again! Tell us,' he continued, 'what name he gave you,

Norah. I'll be bound, it was not the right one; but it will be a clue

for the police.'

Norah drew herself up. 'You may ask that question, and taunt me with

my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw.

You'll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of

theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy

you to prove, and deny), he'd be just as much above doing such a thing

as you yourself, Mr Openshaw--and more so, too; for I'm not at all

sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours

long, if every man had his own.' She meant, of course, his wife; but

he understood her to refer to his property in goods and chattels.

'Now, my good woman,' said he, 'I'll just tell you truly, I never

trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, and I thought you had

many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I'll have

the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if

you'll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now, the best thing

you can do is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man

comes to my house; asks for you; you take him upstairs; a valuable

brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are

honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed, you've told

me one lie already about him, saying no one was here last night. Now,

I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this,

or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my

good woman.'

'There's never the creature born that should get it out of me,' said

Norah. 'Not unless I choose to tell.'

'I've a great mind to see,' said Mr Openshaw, growing angry at the

defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again:

'Norah, for your missus' sake I don't want to go to extremities. Be a

sensible woman, if you can. It's no great disgrace, after all, to have

been taken in. I ask you once more--as a friend--who was this man that

you let into my house last night?'

No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no

answer. Norah's lips were set in determination not to speak.

'Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a

policeman.'

'You will not,' said Norah, starting forward. 'You shall not, sir!

No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know

this: ever since I was four-and-twenty, I have thought more of your

wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl, put

upon in her uncle's house, I have thought more of serving her than

of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody

ever cared for me. I don't cast blame on you, sir, but I say it's ill

giving up one's life to anyone; for, at the end, they will turn round

upon you, and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to

suspect me? Maybe, she is gone for the police? But I don't stay here,

either for police, or magistrate, or master. You're an unlucky lot.

I believe there's a curse on you. I'll leave you this very day. Yes!

I'll leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good ever will come to

you!'

Mr Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was

completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he

could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left

the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for

the police to this old servant of his wife's; for he had never for a

moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel

her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was,

consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a

state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get

nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the

night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment

his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to

Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and

left the house.

'This looks suspicious,' said Mr Chadwick. 'It is not the way in which

an honest person would have acted.'

Mr Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs Openshaw

turned round on Mr Chadwick, with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw

in her before.

'You don't know Norah, uncle! She is gone because she is deeply hurt

at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had seen her--that I had spoken to

her myself. She would have told me anything.' Alice wrung her hands.

'I must confess,' continued Mr Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower

voice, 'I can't make you out. You used to be a word and a blow,

and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for

suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus is a very good woman,

I grant; but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I

suppose. If you don't send for the police, I shall.'

'Very well,' replied Mr Openshaw, surlily. 'I can't clear Norah. She

won't clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash

my hands of it; for I am sure the woman herself is honest, and she's

lived a long time with my wife, and I don't like her to come to

shame.'

'But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will

be a good thing.'

'Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come,

Alice, come up to the babies; they'll be in a sore way. I tell you,

uncle,' he said, turning round once more to Mr Chadwick, suddenly and

sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice's wan, tearful, anxious

face, 'I'll have no sending for the police, after all. I'll buy my

aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day; but I'll not have Norah

suspected, and my missus plagued. There's for you!'

He and his wife left the room. Mr Chadwick quietly waited till he was

out of hearing, and then said to his wife, 'For all Tom's heroics, I'm

just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need'st know nought

about it.'

He went to the police-station and made a statement of the case. He was

gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed

to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be

immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they

suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance,

was her lover. When Mr Chadwick asked how they would find her out,

they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible

ways and means. He returned to his nephew's house with a very

comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a

penitent face.

'Oh, master, I've found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in

the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in

a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in

the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the

brooch! I am very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost!'

Her husband, muttering something very like 'Confound thee and thy

brooch too! I wish I'd never given it thee,' snatched up his hat, and

rushed back to the station, hoping to be in time to stop the police

from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the

errand.

Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she

had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done.

Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie's questions, showing

that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her father.

Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than

crazy as she ran upstairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl; leaving

all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not

stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see

the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She dreaded above

everything Mr Frank's return to claim his wife. She could not tell

what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to

witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger

motive for her departure, than her soreness about the suspicions

directed against her; although this last had been the final goad

to the course she took. She walked a way almost at headlong speed;

sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night

for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she

stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London

altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She

felt in her pocket for her purse as she drew near the Euston Square

station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head

aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, and

think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps.

Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find

out poor Mr Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before,

though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his

telling her, when she inquired for his address, almost as she had

pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant

from Euston Square. Thither she went: with what intention she scarcely

knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she

pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel,

or restrain, or assist, or do aught else but sympathize and weep. The

people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only

the day before; had gone out soon after arrival, leaving his luggage

in their care; but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit

down, and await the gentleman's return. The landlady--pretty secure in

the deposit of luggage against any probable injury--showed her into

a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly

worn out, and fell asleep--a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber,

which lasted for hours.

The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she

entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to

detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing

his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for

having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report

his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object was,

if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed

the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and

consequently did not care to return.

Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in, Then

started up. Someone was at the door. It would be Mr Frank; and she

dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair which had fallen over her

eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came in Mr Openshaw

and a policeman.

'This is Norah Kennedy,' said Mr Openshaw.

'Oh, sir,' said Norah, 'I did not touch the brooch; indeed I did not.

Oh, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of'; and very sick

and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr

Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay

her on the sofa; and, at Mr Openshaw's desire, he went for some wine

and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead

with weariness and exhaustion.

'Norah,' said Mr Openshaw, in his kindest voice, 'the brooch is found.

It was hanging to Mrs Chadwick's gown. I beg your pardon. Most truly

I beg your pardon, for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost

broken-hearted. Eat, Norah--or, stay, first drink this glass of wine,'

said he, lifting her head, and pouring a little down her throat.

As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting

for. She suddenly pushed Mr Openshaw away, saying, 'Oh, sir, you must

go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back, he will kill you.'

'Alas, Norah! I do not know who "he" is. But someone is gone away who

will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you

cared for.'

'I don't understand you, sir,' said Norah, her master's kind and

sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The

policeman had left the room at Mr Openshaw's desire, and they two were

alone.

'You know what I mean, when I say someone is gone who will never come

back. I mean that he is dead!'

'Who?' said Norah, trembling all over.

'A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning--drowned.'

'Did he drown himself?' asked Norah, solemnly.

'God only knows,' replied Mr Openshaw, in the same tone. 'Your name

and address at our house were found in his pocket; that, and his

purse, were the only things that were found upon him. I am sorry to

say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and identify him.'

'To what?' asked Norah.

'To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be

discovered for the suicide--if suicide it was. I make no doubt, he was

the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I

know.' He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and

bring back her senses, which he feared were wandering--so wild and sad

was her look.

'Master Openshaw,' said she, at last, 'I've a dreadful secret to tell

you--only you must never breathe it to anyone, and you and I must hide

it away for ever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see

I cannot. Yon poor man--yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr

Frank, my mistress's first husband!'

Mr Openshaw sat down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a

while, he signed to Norah to go on.

'He came to me the other night, when--God be thanked!--you were all

away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was

a brute, and thought more of your all coming home than of his sore

trial; I spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very

content and happy. I all but turned him away: and now he lies dead and

cold.'

'God forgive me!' said Mr Openshaw.

'God forgive us all!' said Norah. 'Yon poor man needs forgiveness,

perhaps, less than any one among us. He had been among the

savages--shipwrecked--I know not what--and he had written letters

which had never reached my poor missus.'

'He saw his child!'

'He saw her--yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start;

for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here,

as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he never

came in. Oh, sir, it must be him!'

Mr Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder

at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and

then said to Norah:

'I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent for a

few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your

love, and will come home tomorrow. You must go with me to the police

court; you must identify the body; I will pay high to keep names and

details out of the papers.'

'But where are you going, sir?'

He did not answer her directly. Then he said:

'Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I

have so injured--unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I

had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave as if he were my only

brother: and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife

till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful

secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days

are over. I know you will not, either.' He shook hands with her; and

they never named the subject again, the one to the other.

Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the

cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been

charged by her husband, in his letter, not to allude to the supposed

theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she

loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject,

only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for

unjust suspicion.

Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr Openshaw had been absent

during his uncle and aunt's visit, after he had once said that it was

unavoidable. He came back grave and quiet; and from that time forth

was curiously changed. More thoughtful, and perhaps less active;

quite as decided in conduct, but with new and different rules for the

guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice he could hardly be more kind

than he had always been; but he now seemed to look upon her as someone

sacred, and to be treated with reverence, as well as tenderness. He

throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was

settled upon her.

Long years after these events--a few months after her mother

died--Ailsie and her 'father' (as she always called Mr Openshaw)

drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was carried to

a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage.

There was a headstone, with F.W. and a date upon it. That was all.

Sitting by the grave, Mr Openshaw told her the story; and for the sad

fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, he shed the only

tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.

_Thomas Hardy_

A MERE INTERLUDE

(_The Bolton Weekly Journal_, 17 and 24 October 1885)

I

The traveller in school-books, who vouched in dryest tones for the

fidelity to fact of the following narrative, used to add a ring of

truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's

personality. People were wrong, he declared, when they surmised

that Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions or

character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hate--so

ran the general opinion. That she showed few positive qualities was

true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces

of active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still

waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early

maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a

mine.

She was the daughter of a small farmer in St Maria's, one of the Isles

of Lyonesse beyond Off-Wessex, who had spent a large sum, as there

understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland for

two years. At nineteen she was entered at the Training College for

Teachers, and at twenty-one nominated to a school in the country, near

Tor-upon-Sea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas examination

and holidays.

The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista

applied herself to her new duties as best she could, till an

uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her

bearing as she walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the

traits of a person who had something on her mind. A widow, by name

Mrs Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a

sitting-room and bedroom till the schoolhouse should be built, noticed

this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last ventured to

press her with a few questions.

'It has nothing to do with the place, nor with you,' said Miss

Trewthen.

'Then it is the salary?'

'No, nor the salary.'

'Then it is something you have heard from home, my dear.'

Baptista was silent for a few moments. 'It is Mr Heddegan,' she

murmured. 'Him they used to call David Heddegan before he got his

money.'

'And who is the Mr Heddegan they used to call David?'

'An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St Maria's, with no relations

whatever, who lives about a stone's throw from father's. When I was a

child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some day.

Now I am a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious to do

it. And father and mother say I can't do better than have him.'

'He's well off?'

'Yes--he's the richest man we know--as a friend and neighbour.'

'How much older did you say he was than yourself?'

'I didn't say. Twenty years at least.'

'And an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps?'

'No--he's not unpleasant.'

'Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement

if it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable here, in my little

house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so

cheerful, since my poor husband left me to wear his wings, as I've

been with 'ee as my lodger.'

The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the

sentiment. 'But here comes my perplexity,' she said. 'I don't like

keeping school. Ah, you are surprised--you didn't suspect it. That's

because I've concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate school. I don't

care for children--they are unpleasant, troublesome little things,

whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen

down dead. Yet I would even put up with them if it was not for the

inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly.

And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you

don't know what to teach, and what to leave untaught. I think father

and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress

if I dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by

marrying Mr Heddegan. Between us two, I like him better than school;

but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to marry him.'

These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till

at length the young girl's elderly friend and landlady threw in her

opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things considered,

she declared, the uncertainty of the school, the labour, Baptista's

natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take what fate

offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her father's old

neighbour and prosperous friend.

The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as

usual in her native isle, going by train into Off-Wessex and crossing

by packet from Pen-zephyr. When she returned in the middle of April

her face wore a more settled aspect.

'Well?' said the expectant Mrs Wace.

'I have agreed to have him as my husband,' said Baptista, in an

off-hand way. 'Heaven knows if it will be for the best or not. But I

have agreed to do it, and so the matter is settled.'

Mrs Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the

subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them.

Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time

to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending;

that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had given notice of

leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on she announced more

specifically that her marriage was to take place immediately after her

return home at the beginning of the month aforesaid.

She now corresponded regularly with Mr Heddegan. Her letters from him

were seen, at least on the outside, and in part within, by Mrs Wace.

Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional sentences

shown her by Baptista she would have perceived that the scratchy,

rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed conveyed little more

matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his preparations

for the same, with innumerable 'my dears' sprinkled in disconnectedly,

to show the depth of his affection without the inconveniences of

syntax.

II

It was the end of July--dry, too dry, even for the season, the

delicate green herbs and vegetables that grew in this favoured end of

the kingdom tasting rather of the watering-pot than of the pure

fresh moisture from the skies. Baptista's boxes were packed, and one

Saturday morning she departed by a waggonette to the station, and

thence by train to Pen-zephyr, from which port she was, as usual, to

cross the water immediately to her home, and become Mr Heddegan's wife

on the Wednesday of the week following.

She might have returned a week sooner. But though the wedding day had

loomed so near, and the banns were out, she delayed her departure till

this last moment, saying it was not necessary for her to be at home

long beforehand. As Mr Heddegan was older than herself, she said, she

was to be married in her ordinary summer bonnet and grey silk frock,

and there were no preparations to make that had not been amply made by

her parents and intended husband.

In due time, after a hot and tedious journey, she reached Pen-zephyr.

She here obtained some refreshment, and then went towards the pier,

where she learnt to her surprise that the little steamboat plying

between the town and the islands had left at eleven o'clock; the

usual hour of departure in the afternoon having been forestalled in

consequence of the fogs which had for a few days prevailed towards

evening, making twilight navigation dangerous.

This being Saturday, there was now no other boat till Tuesday, and it

became obvious that here she would have to remain for the three days,

unless her friends should think fit to rig out one of the island

sailing-boats and come to fetch her--a not very likely contingency,

the sea distance being nearly forty miles.

Baptista, however, had been detained in Pen-zephyr on more than one

occasion before, either on account of bad weather or some such reason

as the present, and she was therefore not in any personal alarm. But,

as she was to be married on the following Wednesday, the delay was

certainly inconvenient to a more than ordinary degree, since it would

leave less than a day's interval between her arrival and the wedding

ceremony.

Apart from this awkwardness she did not much mind the accident. It was

indeed curious to see how little she minded. Perhaps it would not be

too much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed

of her life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at

the postponement of her meeting with Heddegan. But her manner after

making discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, even to

passivity itself; as was instanced by her having, at the moment of

receiving information that the steamer had sailed, replied 'Oh', so

coolly to the porter with her luggage, that he was almost disappointed

at her lack of disappointment.

The question now was, should she return again to Mrs Wace, in the

village of Lower Wessex, or wait in the town at which she had arrived.

She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great;

moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically,

to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have

been a trifle humiliating.

Leaving, then, her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to

secure a respectable, or rather genteel, lodging in the popular

seaside resort confronting her. To this end she looked about the town,

in which, though she had passed through it half-a-dozen times, she was

practically a stranger.

Baptista found a room to suit her over a fruiterer's shop; where she

made herself at home, and set herself in order after her journey.

An early cup of tea having revived her spirits she walked out to

reconnoitre.

Being a schoolmistress she avoided looking at the schools, and having

a sort of trade connection with books, she avoided looking at the

booksellers; but wearying of the other shops she inspected

the churches; not that for her own part she cared much about

ecclesiastical edifices; but tourists looked at them, and so would

she--a proceeding for which no one would have credited her with any

great originality, such, for instance, as that she subsequently showed

herself to possess. The churches soon oppressed her. She tried the

Museum, but came out because it seemed lonely and tedious.

Yet the town and the walks in this land of strawberries, these

headquarters of early English flowers and fruit, were then, as always,

attractive. From the more picturesque streets she went to the town

gardens, and the Pier, and the Harbour, and looked at the men at work

there, loading and unloading as in the time of the Phoenicians.

'Not Baptista? Yes, Baptista it is!'

The words were uttered behind her. Turning round she gave a start,

and became confused, even agitated, for a moment. Then she said in her

usual undemonstrative manner, 'O--is it really you, Charles?'

Without speaking again at once, and with a half-smile, the newcomer

glanced her over. There was much criticism, and some resentment--even

temper--in his eye.

'I am going home,' continued she. 'But I have missed the boat.'

He scarcely seemed to take in the meaning of this explanation, in

the intensity of his critical survey. 'Teaching still? What a fine

schoolmistress you make, Baptista, I warrant!' he said with a slight

flavour of sarcasm, which was not lost upon her.

'I know I am nothing to brag of,' she replied. 'That's why I have

given up.'

'O--given up? You astonish me.'

'I hate the profession.'

'Perhaps that's because I am in it.'

'O no, it isn't. But I am going to enter on another life altogether. I

am going to be married next week to Mr David Heddegan.'

The young man--fortified as he was by a natural cynical pride and

passionateness--winced at this unexpected reply, notwithstanding.

'Who is Mr David Heddegan?' he asked, as indifferently as lay in his

power.

She informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of

Giant's Town, St Maria's Island--her father's nearest neighbour and

oldest friend.

'Then we shan't see anything more of you on the mainland?' inquired

the schoolmaster.

'O, I don't know about that,' said Miss Trewthen.

'Here endeth the career of the belle of the boarding-school your

father was foolish enough to send you to. A "general merchant's" wife

in the Lyonesse Isles. Will you sell pounds of soap and pennyworths

of tin tacks, or whole bars of saponaceous matter, and great tenpenny

nails?'

'He's not in such a small way as that!' she almost pleaded. 'He owns

ships, though they are rather little ones!'

'O, well, it is much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious

to stand still. I thought you would be a failure in education,' he

continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. 'You never showed

power that way. You remind me much of some of those women who think

they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the stage, because

they have a pretty face, and forget that what we require is acting.

But you found your mistake, didn't you?'

'Don't taunt me, Charles.' It was noticeable that the young

schoolmaster's tone caused her no anger or retaliatory passion;

far otherwise: there was a tear in her eye. 'How is it you are at

Pen-zephyr?' she inquired.

'I don't taunt you. I speak the truth, purely in a friendly way, as

I should to anyone I wished well. Though for that matter I might have

some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you've

been in. I hate a woman who is in such a hurry.'

'How do you mean that?'

'Why--to be somebody's wife or other--anything's wife rather than

nobody's. You couldn't wait for me, O, no. Well, thank God, I'm cured

of all that!'

'How merciless you are!' she said bitterly. 'Wait for you? What does

that mean, Charley? You never showed--anything to wait for--anything

special towards me.'

'O come, Baptista dear; come!'

'What I mean is, nothing definite,' she expostulated. 'I suppose you

liked me a little; but it seemed to me to be only a pastime on your

part, and that you never meant to make an honourable engagement of

it.'

'There, that's just it! You girls expect a man to mean business at the

first look. No man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any

definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is

meaning a vulgar mercenary marriage. However, I did at last mean an

honourable engagement, as you call it, come to that.'

'But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a

woman's position and credit, sooner than you think.'

'Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked

you to marry me.'

She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very

uncomfortable. Presently he said, 'Would you have waited for me if you

had known?' To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, 'Yes!'

They went still farther in silence--passing along one of the beautiful

walks on the outskirts of the town, yet not observant of scene or

situation. Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped

his fingers round the small of her arm--quite lightly, and without any

attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, 'Now I hold you, and my

will must be yours.'

Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, 'I have merely run

down here for a day or two from school near Trufal, before going off

to the north for the rest of my holiday. I have seen my relations at

Redrutin quite lately, so I am not going there this time. How little

I thought of meeting you! How very different the circumstances would

have been if, instead of parting again as we must in half-an-hour or

so, possibly for ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my

wife, on our honeymoon trip. Ha--ha--well--so humorous is life!'

She stopped suddenly. 'I must go back now--this is altogether too

painful, Charley! It is not at all a kind mood you are in today.'

'I don't want to pain you--you know I do not,' he said more gently.

'Only it just exasperates me--this you are going to do. I wish you

would not.'

'What?'

'Marry him. There, now I have showed you my true sentiments.'

'I must do it now,' said she.

'Why?' he asked, dropping the off-hand masterful tone he had hitherto

spoken in, and becoming earnest; still holding her arm, however, as if

she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will. 'It is never

too late to break off a marriage that's distasteful to you. Now I'll

say one thing; and it is truth: I wish you would marry me instead

of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me so

badly.'

'O, it is not possible to think of that!' she answered hastily,

shaking her head. 'When I get home all will be prepared--it is ready

even now--the things for the party, the furniture, Mr. Heddegan's new

suit, and everything. I should require the courage of a tropical lion

to go home there and say I wouldn't carry out my promise!'

'Then go, in Heaven's name! But there would be no necessity for you to

go home and face them in that way. If we were to marry, it would have

to be at once, instantly; or not at all. I should think your affection

not worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to Trufal

this evening, where we could be married by licence on Monday morning.

And then no Mr. David Heddegan or anybody else could get you away from

me.'

'I must go home by the Tuesday boat,' she faltered. 'What would they

think if I did not come?'

'You could go home by that boat just the same. All the difference

would be that I should go with you. You could leave me on the quay,

where I'd have a smoke, while you went and saw your father and mother

privately; you could then tell them what you had done, and that I

was waiting not far off; that I was a schoolmaster in a fairly good

position, and a young man you had known when you were at the Training

College. Then I would come boldly forward; and they would see that it

could not be altered, and so you wouldn't suffer a lifelong misery by

being the wife of a wretched old gaffer you don't like at all. Now,

honestly; you do like me best, don't you, Baptista?'

'Yes.'

'Then we will do as I say.'

She did not pronounce a clear affirmative. But that she consented

to the novel proposition at some moment or other of that walk was

apparent by what occurred a little later.

III

An enterprise of such pith required, indeed, less talking than

consideration. The first thing they did in carrying it out was to

return to the railway station, where Baptista took from her luggage a

small trunk of immediate necessaries which she would in any case have

required after missing the boat. That same afternoon they travelled up

the line to Trufal.

Charles Stow (as his name was), despite his disdainful indifference

to things, was very careful of appearances, and made the journey

independently of her though in the same train. He told her where she

could get board and lodgings in the city; and with merely a distant

nod to her of a provisional kind, went off to his own quarters, and to

see about the licence.

On Sunday she saw him in the morning across the nave of the

pro-cathedral. In the afternoon they walked together in the fields,

where he told her that the licence would be ready next day, and would

be available the day after, when the ceremony could be performed as

early after eight o'clock as they should choose.

His courtship, thus renewed after an interval of two years, was

as impetuous, violent even, as it was short. The next day came and

passed, and the final arrangements were made. Their agreement was to

get the ceremony over as soon as they possibly could the next morning,

so as to go on to Pen-zephyr at once, and reach that place in time for

the boat's departure the same day. It was in obedience to Baptista's

earnest request that Stow consented thus to make the whole journey

to Lyonesse by land and water at one heat, and not break it at

Pen-zephyr; she seemed to be oppressed with a dread of lingering

anywhere, this great first act of disobedience to her parents once

accomplished, with the weight on her mind that her home had to be

convulsed by the disclosure of it. To face her difficulties over the

water immediately she had created them was, however, a course more

desired by Baptista than by her lover; though for once he gave way.

The next morning was bright and warm as those which had preceded it.

By six o'clock it seemed nearly noon, as is often the case in that

part of England in the summer season. By nine they were husband and

wife. They packed up and departed by the earliest train after the

service; and on the way discussed at length what she should say on

meeting her parents, Charley dictating the turn of each phrase. In her

anxiety they had travelled so early that when they reached Pen-zephyr

they found there were nearly two hours on their hands before the

steamer's time of sailing.

Baptista was extremely reluctant to be seen promenading the streets

of the watering-place with her husband till, as above stated, the

household at Giant's Town should know the unexpected course of events

from her own lips; and it was just possible, if not likely, that some

Lyonessian might be prowling about there, or even have come across the

sea to look for her. To meet anyone to whom she was known, and to have

to reply to awkward questions about the strange young man at her side

before her well-framed announcement had been delivered at proper time

and place, was a thing she could not contemplate with equanimity. So,

instead of looking at the shops and harbour, they went along the coast

a little way.

The heat of the morning was by this time intense. They clambered up on

some cliffs, and while sitting there, looking around at St Michael's

Mount and other objects, Charles said to her that he thought he would

run down to the beach at their feet, and take just one plunge into the

sea.

Baptista did not much like the idea of being left alone; it was

gloomy, she said. But he assured her he would not be gone more than a

quarter of an hour at the outside, and she passively assented.

Down he went, disappeared, appeared again, and looked back. Then he

again proceeded, and vanished, till, as a small waxen object, she saw

him emerge from the nook that had screened him, cross the white fringe

of foam, and walk into the undulating mass of blue. Once in the water

he seemed less inclined to hurry than before; he remained a long time;

and, unable either to appreciate his skill or criticize his want of

it at that distance, she withdrew her eyes from the spot, and gazed at

the still outline of St Michael's--now beautifully toned in grey.

Her anxiety for the hour of departure, and to cope at once with the

approaching incidents that she would have to manipulate as best she

could, sent her into a reverie. It was now Tuesday; she would reach

home in the evening--a very late time they would say; but, as the

delay was a pure accident, they would deem her marriage to Mr Heddegan

tomorrow still practicable. Then Charles would have to be produced

from the background. It was a terrible undertaking to think of, and

she almost regretted her temerity in wedding so hastily that morning.

The rage of her father would be so crushing; the reproaches of her

mother so bitter; and perhaps Charles would answer hotly, and perhaps

cause estrangement till death. There had obviously been no alarm about

her at St Maria's, or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for

her. She had, in a letter written at the beginning of the week, spoken

of the hour at which she intended to leave her country schoolhouse;

and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such timing

she would run a risk of losing the Saturday boat. She had missed it,

and as a consequence sat here on the shore as Mrs Charles Stow.

This brought her to the present, and she turned from the outline of St

Michael's Mount to look about for her husband's form. He was, as far

as she could discover, no longer in the sea. Then he was dressing. By

moving a few steps she could see where his clothes lay. But Charles

was not beside them.

Baptista looked back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her

senses were the victim of some sleight of hand. Not a speck or spot

resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was

alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond

the scene of her husband's bathing a small area of water, the quality

of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the

coarse vegetation of some foul patch in a mead differs from the fine

green of the remainder. Elsewhere it looked flexuous, here it looked

vermiculated and lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to her in

a moment that two currents met and caused a turmoil at this place.

She descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow. The way

down was terribly long, and before reaching the heap of clothes it

occurred to her that, after all, it would be best to run first for

help. Hastening along in a lateral direction she proceeded inland till

she met a man, and soon afterwards two others. To them she exclaimed,

'I think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger. I cannot see

him as I could. Will you please run and help him, at once, if you will

be so kind?'

She did not think of turning to show them the exact spot, indicating

it vaguely by the direction of her hand, and still going on her way

with the idea of gaining more assistance. When she deemed, in her

faintness, that she had carried the alarm far enough, she faced about

and dragged herself back again. Before reaching the now dreaded spot

she met one of the men.

'We can see nothing at all, Miss,' he declared.

Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of

Charley's clothes. The other men whom she had besought to come had

disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had

not met them going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought

her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the quest.

Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand. Where Charley had

undressed was now sea. There could not be the least doubt that he was

drowned, and his body sucked under by the current; while his clothes,

lying within high-water mark, had probably been carried away by the

rising tide.

She remained in a stupor for some minutes, till a strange sensation

succeeded the aforesaid perceptions, mystifying her intelligence, and

leaving her physically almost inert. With his personal disappearance,

the last three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up,

also his image, in her mind's eye, waned curiously, receded far away,

grew stranger and stranger, less and less real. Their meeting and

marriage had been so sudden, unpremeditated, adventurous, that she

could hardly believe that she had played her part in such a reckless

drama. Of all the few hours of her life with Charles, the portion that

most insisted in coming back to memory was their fortuitous encounter

on the previous Saturday, and those bitter reprimands with which he

had begun the attack, as it might be called, which had piqued her to

an unexpected consummation.

A sort of cruelty, an imperiousness, even in his warmth, had

characterized Charles Stow. As a lover he had ever been a bit of a

tyrant; and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung

her into marriage with him at last. Still more alien from her life did

these reflections operate to make him; and then they would be chased

away by an interval of passionate weeping and mad regret. Finally,

there returned upon the confused mind of the young wife the

recollection that she was on her way homeward, and that the packet

would sail in three-quarters of an hour.

Except the parasol in her hand, all she possessed was at the station

awaiting her onward journey.

She looked in that direction; and, entering one of those

undemonstrative phases so common with her, walked quietly on.

At first she made straight for the railway; but suddenly turning she

went to a shop and wrote an anonymous line announcing his death by

drowning to the only person she had ever heard Charles mention as a

relative. Posting this stealthily, and with a fearful look around her,

she seemed to acquire a terror of the late events, pursuing her way to

the station as if followed by a spectre.

When she got to the office she asked for the luggage that she had left

there on the Saturday as well as the trunk left on the morning just

lapsed. All were put in the boat, and she herself followed. Quickly

as these things had been done, the whole proceeding, nevertheless,

had been almost automatic on Baptista's part, ere she had come to any

definite conclusion on her course.

Just before the bell rang she heard a conversation on the pier, which

removed the last shade of doubt from her mind, if any had existed,

that she was Charles Stow's widow. The sentences were but fragmentary,

but she could easily piece them out.

'A man drowned--swam out too far--was a stranger to the place--people

in boat--saw him go down--couldn't get there in time.'

The news was little more definite than this as yet; though it may as

well be stated once for all that the statement was true. Charley, with

the over-confidence of his nature, had ventured out too far for his

strength, and succumbed in the absence of assistance, his lifeless

body being at the moment suspended in the transparent mid-depths of

the bay. His clothes, however, had merely been gently lifted by the

rising tide, and floated into a nook hard by, where they lay out of

sight of the passers-by till a day or two after.

IV

In ten minutes they were steaming out of the harbour for their voyage

of four or five hours, at whose ending she would have to tell her

strange story.

As Pen-zephyr and all its environing scenes disappeared behind

Mousehole and St Clement's Isle, Baptista's ephemeral, meteor-like

husband impressed her yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a

trance-like state that she had been an hour on the little packet-boat

before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr Heddegan was

on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped from her left hand the

symbol of her wifehood.

'Hee-hee! Well, the truth is, I wouldn't interrupt 'ee. "I reckon she

don't see me, or won't see me," I said, "and what's the hurry? She'll

see enough o' me soon!" I hope ye be well, mee deer?'

He was a hale, well-conditioned man of about five and fifty, of the

complexion common to those whose lives are passed on the bluffs and

beaches of an ocean isle. He extended the four quarters of his face

in a genial smile, and his hand for a grasp of the same magnitude. She

gave her own in surprised docility, and he continued:

'I couldn't help coming across to meet 'ee. What an unfortunate thing

you missing the boat and not coming Saturday! They meant to have

warned 'ee that the time was changed, but forgot it at the last

moment. The truth is that I should have informed 'ee myself, but I was

that busy finishing up a job last week, so as to have this week free,

that I trusted to your father for attending to these little things.

However, so plain and quiet as it is all to be, it really do not

matter so much as it might otherwise have done, and I hope ye haven't

been greatly put out. Now, if you'd sooner that I should not be seen

talking to 'ee--if 'ee feel shy at all before strangers--just say.

I'll leave 'ee to yourself till we get home.'

'Thank you much. I am indeed a little tired, Mr Heddegan.'

He nodded urbane acquiescence, strolled away immediately, and minutely

inspected the surface of the funnel, till some female passengers of

Giant's Town tittered at what they must have thought a rebuff--for the

approaching wedding was known to many on St Maria's Island, though to

nobody elsewhere. Baptista coloured at their satire, and called

him back, and forced herself to commune with him in at least a

mechanically friendly manner.

The opening event had been thus different from her expectation,

and she had adumbrated no act to meet it. Taken aback she passively

allowed circumstances to pilot her along; and so the voyage was made.

It was near dusk when they touched the pier of Giant's Town, where

several friends and neighbours stood awaiting them. Her father had a

lantern in his hand. Her mother, too, was there, reproachfully glad

that the delay had at last ended so simply. Mrs Trewthen and her

daughter went together along the Giant's Walk, or promenade, to the

house, rather in advance of her husband and Mr Heddegan, who talked in

loud tones which reached the women over their shoulders.

Some would have called Mrs Trewthen a good mother; but though well

meaning she was maladroit, and her intentions missed their mark. This

might have been partly attributable to the slight deafness from which

she suffered. Now, as usual, the chief utterances came from her lips.

'Ah, yes, I'm so glad, my child, that you've got over safe. It is all

ready, and everything so well arranged, that nothing but misfortune

could hinder you settling as, with God's grace, becomes 'ee. Close to

your mother's door a'most, 'twill be a great blessing, I'm sure; and

I was very glad to find from your letters that you'd held your word

sacred. That's right--make your word your bond always. Mrs Wace seems

to be a sensible woman. I hope the Lord will do for her as he's doing

for you no long time hence. And how did 'ee get over the terrible

journey from Tor-upon-Sea to Pen-zephyr? Once you'd done with the

railway, of course, you seemed quite at home. Well, Baptista, conduct

yourself seemly, and all will be well.'

Thus admonished, Baptista entered the house, her father and Mr

Heddegan immediately at her back. Her mother had been so didactic that

she had felt herself absolutely unable to broach the subjects in the

centre of her mind.

The familiar room, with the dark ceiling, the well-spread table, the

old chairs, had never before spoken so eloquently of the times ere she

knew or had heard of Charley Stow. She went upstairs to take off her

things, her mother remaining below to complete the disposition of the

supper, and attend to the preparation of tomorrow's meal, altogether

composing such an array of pies, from pies of fish to pies of turnips,

as was never heard of outside the Western Duchy. Baptista, once alone,

sat down and did nothing; and was called before she had taken off her

bonnet.

'I'm coming,' she cried, jumping up, and speedily disapparelling

herself, brushed her hair with a few touches and went down.

Two or three of Mr Heddegan's and her father's friends had dropped in,

and expressed their sympathy for the delay she had been subjected

to. The meal was a most merry one except to Baptista. She had desired

privacy, and there was none; and to break the news was already a

greater difficulty than it had been at first. Everything around her,

animate and inanimate, great and small, insisted that she had come

home to be married; and she could not get a chance to say nay.

One or two people sang songs, as overtures to the melody of the

morrow, till at length bedtime came, and they all withdrew, her mother

having retired a little earlier. When Baptista found herself again

alone in her bedroom the case stood as before: she had come home with

much to say, and she had said nothing.

It was now growing clear even to herself that Charles being dead, she

had not determination sufficient within her to break tidings which,

had he been alive, would have imperatively announced themselves. And

thus with the stroke of midnight came the turning of the scale; her

story should remain untold. It was not that upon the whole she thought

it best not to attempt to tell it; but that she could not undertake so

explosive a matter. To stop the wedding now would cause a convulsion

in Giant's Town little short of volcanic. Weakened, tired, and

terrified as she had been by the day's adventures, she could not make

herself the author of such a catastrophe. But how refuse Heddegan

without telling? It really seemed to her as if her marriage with Mr

Heddegan were about to take place as if nothing had intervened.

Morning came. The events of the previous days were cut off from her

present existence by scene and sentiment more completely than ever.

Charles Stow had grown to be a special being of whom, owing to his

character, she entertained rather fearful than loving memory. Baptista

could hear when she awoke that her parents were already moving about

downstairs. But she did not rise till her mother's rather rough voice

resounded up the staircase as it had done on the preceding evening.

'Baptista! Come, time to be stirring! The man will be here, by

Heaven's blessing, in three-quarters of an hour. He has looked in

already for a minute or two--and says he's going to the church to see

if things be well forward.'

Baptista arose, looked out of the window, and took the easy course.

When she emerged from the regions above she was arrayed in her new

silk frock and best stockings, wearing a linen jacket over the former

for breakfasting, and her common slippers over the latter, not to

spoil the new ones on the rough precincts of the dwelling.

It is unnecessary to dwell at any great length on this part of the

morning's proceedings. She revealed nothing; and married Heddegan, as

she had given her word to do, on that appointed August day.

V

Mr Heddegan forgave the coldness of his bride's manner during and

after the wedding ceremony, full well aware that there had been

considerable reluctance on her part to acquiesce in this neighbourly

arrangement, and, as a philosopher of long standing, holding that

whatever Baptista's attitude now, the conditions would probably

be much the same six months hence as those which ruled among other

married couples.

An absolutely unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind

about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the

midday dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of

starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up

inside Pen-zephyr new pier about six at least.'

'What--are we going to Pen-zephyr?' said Baptista. 'I don't know

anything of it.'

'Didn't you tell her?' asked her father of Heddegan.

It transpired that, owing to the delay in her arrival, this proposal

too, among other things, had in the hurry not been mentioned to

her, except some time ago as a general suggestion that they would go

somewhere. Heddegan had imagined that any trip would be pleasant, and

one to the mainland the pleasantest of all.

She looked so distressed at the announcement that her husband

willingly offered to give it up, though he had not had a holiday off

the island for a whole year. Then she pondered on the inconvenience of

staying at Giant's Town, where all the inhabitants were bonded, by the

circumstances of their situation, into a sort of family party, which

permitted and encouraged on such occasions as these oral criticism

that was apt to disturb the equanimity of newly married girls, and

would especially worry Baptista in her strange situation. Hence,

unexpectedly, she agreed not to disorganize her husband's plans for

the wedding jaunt, and it was settled that, as originally intended,

they should proceed in a neighbour's sailing boat to the metropolis of

the district.

In this way they arrived at Pen-zephyr without difficulty or mishap.

Bidding adieu to Jenkin and his man, who had sailed them over, they

strolled arm in arm off the pier, Baptista silent, cold, and obedient.

Heddegan had arranged to take her as far as Plymouth before their

return, but to go no further than where they had landed that day.

Their first business was to find an inn; and in this they had

unexpected difficulty, since for some reason or other--possibly the

fine weather--many of the nearest at hand were full of tourists and

commercial travellers. He led her on till he reached a tavern which,

though comparatively unpretending, stood in as attractive a spot as

any in the town; and this, somewhat to their surprise after their

previous experience, they found apparently empty. The considerate old

man, thinking that Baptista was educated to artistic notions, though

he himself was deficient in them, had decided that it was most

desirable to have, on such an occasion as the present, an apartment

with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often heard in use

among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room on

the first floor, from which a bow-window protruded, for the express

purpose of affording such an outlook.

The landlady, after some hesitation, said she was sorry that

particular apartment was engaged; the next one, however, or any other

in the house, was unoccupied.

'The gentleman who has the best one will give it up tomorrow, and then

you can change into it,' she added, as Mr Heddegan hesitated about

taking the adjoining and less commanding one.

'We shall be gone tomorrow, and shan't want it,' he said.

Wishing not to lose customers, the landlady earnestly continued that

since he was bent on having the best room, perhaps the other gentleman

would not object to move at once into the one they despised, since,

though nothing could be seen from the window, the room was equally

large.

'Well, if he doesn't care for a view,' said Mr Heddegan, with the air

of a highly artistic man who did.

'O no--I am sure he doesn't,' she said. 'I can promise that you shall

have the room you want. If you would not object to go for a walk for

half an hour, I could have it ready, and your things in it, and a nice

tea laid in the bow-window by the time you come back?'

This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman,

and they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite

direction to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on

her wan face, had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret

her sacrificial step for mending matters that morning.

She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to

inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman

who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.

The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just

handed Baptista a newspaper on which she discerned the heading, 'A

Schoolmaster drowned while bathing', when her husband turned to join

her. She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion;

but it was more than flesh and blood could do, and completing a small

purchase almost ran out of the shop.

'What is your terrible hurry, mee deer?' said Heddegan, hastening

after.

'I don't know--I don't want to stay in shops,' she gasped.

'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go

back and have some tay!'

They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a

sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily

spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the

midst, and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the

meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view

had been engaged, regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's

pleasure, she did not direct any keen attention out of the window. Her

gaze as often fell on the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere,

and on the table as much as on either, beholding nothing at all.

But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which

her eyes presently became riveted like those of a little bird upon a

snake. For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such

a hat--surely, from its peculiar make, the actual hat--that had been

worn by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when she saw a

railway ticket sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket

there--she had noticed the act.

Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her

husband jumped up and said, 'You are not well! What is it? What shall

I get 'ee?'

'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at the chemist's

shop you were in just now.'

He jumped up like the anxious old man that he was, caught up his own

hat from a back table, and without observing the other hastened out

and downstairs.

Left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door, then

spasmodically rang the bell. An honest-looking country maid-servant

appeared in response.

'A hat!' murmured Baptista, pointing with her finger. 'It does not

belong to us.'

'O yes, I'll take it away,' said the young woman with some hurry 'It

belongs to the other gentleman.'

She spoke with a certain awkwardness, and took the hat out of the

room. Baptista had recovered her outward composure. 'The other

gentleman?' she said. 'Where is the other gentleman?'

'He's in the next room, ma'am. He removed out of this to oblige 'ee.'

'How can you say so? I should hear him if he were there,' said

Baptista, sufficiently recovered to argue down an apparent untruth.

'He's there,' said the girl, hardily.

'Then it is strange that he makes no noise,' said Mrs Heddegan,

convicting the girl of falsity by a look.

'He makes no noise; but it is not strange,' said the servant.

All at once a dread took possession of the bride's heart, like a

cold hand laid thereon; for it flashed upon her that there was a

possibility of reconciling the girl's statement with her own knowledge

of facts.

'Why does he make no noise?' she weakly said.

The waiting-maid was silent, and looked at her questioner. 'If I tell

you, ma'am, you won't tell missis?' she whispered.

Baptista promised.

'Because he's a-lying dead!' said the girl. 'He's the schoolmaster

that was drowned yesterday.'

'O!' said the bride, covering her eyes. 'Then he was in this room till

just now?'

'Yes,' said the maid, thinking the young lady's agitation natural

enough. 'And I told missis that I thought she oughtn't to have done

it, because I don't hold it right to keep visitors so much in the

dark where death's concerned; but she said the gentleman didn't die

of anything infectious; she was a poor, honest, innkeeper's wife, she

says, who had to get her living by making hay while the sun sheened.

And owing to the drowned gentleman being brought here, she said, it

kept so many people away that we were empty, though all the other

houses were full. So when your good man set his mind upon the room,

and she would have lost good paying folk if he'd not had it, it wasn't

to be supposed, she said, that she'd let anything stand in the way.

Ye won't say that I've told ye, please, m'm? All the linen has been

changed, and as the inquest won't be till tomorrow, after you are

gone, she thought you wouldn't know a word of it, being strangers

here.'

The returning footsteps of her husband broke off further narration.

Baptista waved her hand, for she could not speak. The waiting-maid

quickly withdrew, and Mr Heddegan entered with the smelling salts and

other nostrums.

'Any better?' he questioned.

'I don't like the hotel,' she exclaimed, almost simultaneously. 'I

can't bear it--it doesn't suit me!'

'Is that all that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the

first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such

trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about

from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like

the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od

dang it all, 'tis enough to--But I won't say any more at present, mee

deer, though it is just too much to expect to turn out of the

house now. We shan't get another quiet place at this time of the

evening--every other inn in the town is bustling with rackety folk

of one sort and t'other, while here 'tis as quiet as the grave--the

country, I would say. So bide still, d'ye hear, and tomorrow we shall

be out of the town altogether--as early as you like.'

The obstinacy of age had, in short, overmastered its complaisance, and

the young woman said no more. The simple course of telling him that

in the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their

own might, it would have seemed, have been an effectual one without

further disclosure, but to allude to that subject, however it was

disguised, was more than Heddegan's young wife had strength for.

Horror broke her down. In the contingency one thing only presented

itself to her paralysed regard--that here she was doomed to abide,

in a hideous contiguity to the dead husband and the living, and her

conjecture did, in fact, bear itself out. That night she lay between

the two men she had married--Heddegan on the one hand, and on the

other through the partition against which the bed stood, Charles Stow.

VI

Kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the

present of Baptista Heddegan. It was ten o'clock in the morning; she

had been ill, not in an ordinary or definite sense, but in a state of

cold stupefaction, from which it was difficult to arouse her so much

as to say a few sentences. When questioned she had replied that she

was pretty well.

Their trip, as such, had been something of a failure. They had gone

on as far as Falmouth, but here he had given way to her entreaties

to return home. This they could not very well do without repassing

through Pen-zephyr, at which place they had now again arrived.

In the train she had seen a weekly local paper, and read there a

paragraph detailing the inquest on Charles. It was added that the

funeral was to take place at his native town of Redrutin on Friday.

After reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal

neighbourhood of the tragedy, only stipulating that they should

take their rest at a different lodging from the first; and now

comparatively braced up and calm--indeed a cooler creature altogether

than when last in the town, she said to David that she wanted to walk

out for a while, as they had plenty of time on their hands.

'To a shop as usual, I suppose, mee deer?'

'Partly for shopping,' she said. 'And it will be best for you, dear,

to stay in after trotting about so much, and have a good rest while I

am gone.'

He assented; and Baptista sallied forth. As she had stated, her first

visit was made to a shop, a draper's. Without the exercise of much

choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil, also a black stuff gown;

a black mantle she already wore. These articles were made up into a

parcel which, in spite of the saleswoman's offers, her customer said

she would take with her. Bearing it on her arm she turned to the

railway, and at the station got a ticket for Redrutin.

Thus it appeared that, on her recovery from the paralysed mood of the

former day, while she had resolved not to blast utterly the happiness

of her present husband by revealing the history of the departed

one, she had also determined to indulge a certain odd, inconsequent,

feminine sentiment of decency, to the small extent to which it could

do no harm to any person. At Redrutin she emerged from the railway

carnage in the black attire purchased at the shop, having during the

transit made the change in the empty compartment she had chosen. The

other clothes were now in the bandbox and parcel. Leaving these at the

cloak-room she proceeded onward, and after a wary survey reached the

side of a hill whence a view of the burial ground could be obtained.

It was now a little before two o'clock. While Baptista waited a

funeral procession ascended the road. Baptista hastened across, and

by the time the procession entered the cemetery gates she had

unobtrusively joined it.

In addition to the schoolmaster's own relatives (not a few), the

paragraph in the newspapers of his death by drowning had drawn

together many neighbours, acquaintances, and onlookers.

Among them she passed unnoticed, and with a quiet step pursued the

winding path to the chapel, and afterwards thence to the grave. When

all was over, and the relatives and idlers had withdrawn, she stepped

to the edge of the chasm. From beneath her mantle she drew a little

bunch of forget-me-nots, and dropped them in upon the coffin. In a

few minutes she also turned and went away from the cemetery. By five

o'clock she was again in Pen-zephyr.

'You have been a mortal long time!' said her husband, crossly. 'I

allowed you an hour at most, mee deer.'

'It occupied me longer,' said she.

'Well--I reckon it is wasting words to complain. Hang it, ye look so

tired and wisht that I can't find heart to say what I would!'

'I am--weary and wisht, David; I am. We can get home tomorrow for

certain, I hope?'

'We can. And please God we will!' said Mr Heddegan heartily, as if he

too were weary of his brief honeymoon. 'I must be into business again

on Monday morning at latest.'

They left by the next morning steamer, and in the afternoon took up

their residence in their own house at Giant's Town.

The hour that she reached the island it was as if a material weight

had been removed from Baptista's shoulders. Her husband attributed

the change to the influence of the local breezes after the hot-house

atmosphere of the mainland. However that might be, settled here, a few

doors from her mother's dwelling, she recovered in no very long time

much of her customary bearing, which was never very demonstrative. She

accepted her position calmly, and faintly smiled when her neighbours

learned to call her Mrs Heddegan, and said she seemed likely to become

the leader of fashion in Giant's Town.

Her husband was a man who had made considerably more money by trade

than her father had done: and perhaps the greater profusion of

surroundings at her command than she had heretofore been mistress of,

was not without an effect upon her. One week, two weeks, three weeks

passed; and, being pre-eminently a young woman who allowed things to

drift, she did nothing whatever either to disclose or conceal

traces of her first marriage; or to learn if there existed

possibilities--which there undoubtedly did--by which that hasty

contract might become revealed to those about her at any unexpected

moment.

While yet within the first month of her marriage, and on an evening

just before sunset, Baptista was standing within her garden adjoining

the house, when she saw passing along the road a personage clad in a

greasy black coat and battered tall hat, which, common enough in the

slums of a city, had an odd appearance in St Maria's. The tramp, as he

seemed to be, marked her at once--bonnetless and unwrapped as she was

her features were plainly recognizable--and with an air of friendly

surprise came and leant over the wall.

'What! don't you know me?' said he.

She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not

acquainted with him.

'Why, your witness to be sure, ma'am. Don't you mind the man that was

mending the church-window when you and your intended husband walked

up to be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and I

came and did my part by writing my name and occupation?'

Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That

would have been of less importance but for the fact that the wedding

witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr.

Heddegan, but the one on the day previous.

'I've had a misfortune since then, that's pulled me under,' continued

her friend. 'But don't let me damp yer wedded joy by naming the

particulars. Yes, I've seen changes since; though 'tis but a short

time ago--let me see, only a month next week, I think; for 'twere the

first or second day in August.'

'Yes--that's when it was,' said another man, a sailor, who had come up

with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it necessary to join in (Baptista

having receded to escape further speech). 'For that was the first time

I set foot in Giant's Town; and her husband took her to him the same

day.'

A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which

Baptista could not help hearing.

'Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,' repeated the decayed

glazier. 'Where's her good-man?'

'About the premises somewhere; but you don't see'em together much,'

replied the sailor in an undertone. 'You see, he's older than she.'

'Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,' said

the glazier. 'He was a remarkably handsome man.'

'Handsome? Well, there he is--we can see for ourselves.'

David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the

garden; and the glazier, looking in bewilderment from the husband to

the wife, saw the latter turn pale.

Now that decayed glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man--too

far-seeing and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and

straightforward means--and he held his peace, till he could read

more plainly the meaning of this riddle, merely added carelessly,

'Well--marriage do alter a man, 'tis true. I should never ha' knowed

him!'

He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to

where he could again address her, asked her to do him a good turn,

since he once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant

money, she handed him some, at which he thanked her, and instantly

went away.

VII

She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been

an awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or

later the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any

rate she had not heard the last of the glazier.

In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the

other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and

the worthy witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second

time.

'It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery--hours!' he said

with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply.

'But thanks to a good intellect I've done it. Now, ma'am, I'm not a

man to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I'm

going back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as

rain on thirsty ground.'

'I helped you two days ago,' began Baptista.

'Yes--but what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage

to Pen-zephyr. I came over on your account, for I thought there was a

mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this--'twould

be very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He's a queer

temper, though he may be fond.'

She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the

hush-money she paid was heavy that day. She had, however, the

satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him

diminish out of sight. But Baptista perceived that the system into

which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her

peace of mind, particularly if it had to be continued.

Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past.

But another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant's

Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in

the company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.

'This is the lady, my dear,' he said to his companion. 'This, ma'am,

is my wife. We've come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we

can find room.'

'That you won't do,' said she. 'Nobody can live here who is not

privileged.'

'I am privileged,' said the glazier, 'by my trade.'

Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the

man's wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours,

the necessity for keeping up the concealment.

'I will intercede with my husband, ma'am,' she said. 'He's a true man

if rightly managed; and I'll beg him to consider your position. 'Tis a

very nice house you've got here,' she added, glancing round, 'and well

worth a little sacrifice to keep it.'

The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as

she had done on the previous two. But she formed a resolve that,

if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a

revelation--worse though that must now be than before she had

attempted to purchase silence by bribes. Her tormentors, never

believing her capable of acting upon such an intention, came again;

but she shut the door in their faces. They retreated, muttering

something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan

was.

She looked at him, unconscious of all. The case was serious; she knew

that well; and all the more serious in that she liked him better now

than she had done at first. Yet, as she herself began to see,

the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself. Her name and

Charles's stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a month

only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union

with her had not already been discovered by his friends. Thus spurring

herself to the inevitable, she spoke to Heddegan.

'David, come indoors. I have something to tell you.'

He hardly regarded her at first. She had discerned that during

the last week or two he had seemed preoccupied, as if some private

business harassed him. She repeated her request. He replied with a

sigh, 'Yes, certainly, mee deer.'

When they had reached the sitting-room and shut the door she repeated,

faintly, 'David, I have something to tell you--a sort of tragedy I

have concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but

perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better

of me than you would do otherwise.'

'Tragedy?' he said, awakening to interest. 'Much you can know about

tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!'

She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder.

But on she went steadily. 'It is about something that happened before

we were married,' she said.

'Indeed!'

'Not a very long time before--a short time. And it is about a lover,'

she faltered.

'I don't much mind that,' he said mildly. 'In truth, I was in hopes

'twas more.'

'In hopes!'

'Well, yes.'

This screwed her up to the necessary effort. 'I met my old sweetheart.

He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were

coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was

drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married

you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I've tried to keep it

from you, but have found I cannot. There--that's the substance of it,

and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!'

She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or

blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and

began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.

'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his

fingers over his head. 'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my

trouble--ha-ha!'

She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still

continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'O--what do you mean? Is it done

to torment me?'

'No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching

quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--_I've_

got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never

have seen my way to tell mine!'

'What is yours--what is it?' she asked, with altogether a new view of

things.

'Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the

ground and wiping his eyes.

'Not worse than mine?'

'Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the

past alone; and I don't mind it. You see, we've been married a month,

and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day

or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--'

'Past, present, and future!' she murmured. 'It never occurred to me

that you had a tragedy too.'

'But I have!' he said, shaking his head. 'In fact, four.'

'Then tell 'em!' cried the young woman.

'I will--I will. But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. Well--I

wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any more than you were a

spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.'

'Ah!' said she, with some surprise. 'But is that all?--then we are

nicely balanced,' she added, relieved.

'No--it is not all. There's the point. I am not only a widower.'

'O, David!'

'I am a widower with four tragedies--that is to say, four

strapping girls--the eldest taller than you. Don't 'ee look so

struck--dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman,

their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and--to cut a long story

short--I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept

the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by

degrees. I've long felt for the children--that it is my duty to have

them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break

it to 'ee, but I've seen lately that it would soon come to your ears,

and that hev worried me.'

'Are they educated?' said the ex-schoolmistress.

'No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth,

they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young

schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach 'em,

and bring 'em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they

are growed up too tall to be sent to school.'

'O, mercy!' she almost moaned. 'Four great girls to teach the

rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their

books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished--I am,

I am!'

'You'll get used to 'em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets--mine

against yours--will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I

could send for 'em this week very well--and I will! In faith, I

could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my

difficulty!'

Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned.

Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to

her room she wept from very mortification at Mr Heddegan's duplicity.

Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a

young wife so!

The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer

her eyes to turn towards him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her

reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled

with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. 'How very well matched we

be!' he said, comfortably.

Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush

down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall,

hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the

eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them

standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his

whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, 'Now come forrard,

and shake hands properly with your stepmother.'

Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them

together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only

plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such

a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly

inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could

only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress

was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years

she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without

prospect of reward.

She went about quite despairing during the next few days--an

unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married

six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been

amongst the few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his

secret, and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready-made

household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support

them in their remonstrances.

'No, you don't yet know all,' she said.

Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of

this issue. For some time, whenever conversation arose between her and

Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, 'I am miserable, and

you know it. Yet I don't wish things to be otherwise.'

But one day when he asked, 'How do you like 'em now?' her answer was

unexpected. 'Much better than I did,' she said, quietly. 'I may like

them very much some day.'

This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of

Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the

crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their

Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that

were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to

their young lives before their mother's wrong had been righted, had

operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal

ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely

objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of

certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather

than suffered.

This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of

Baptista's nature, that her attention, from being first arrested

by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart

expanded in sympathy with theirs. The sentences of her tragi-comedy,

her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in humanity,

as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but

infinitely much to pity, she learnt with the lapse of each week in

their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and

from liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point

of junction between her own and her husband's interests, generating a

sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there

had threatened to be neither friendship nor love.

_George Moore_

A FAITHFUL HEART

(_The Speaker_, 16 April 1892)

Part I

It was a lovely morning, and Major Shepherd walked rapidly, his toes

turned well out, his shoulders set well back. Behind him floated the

summer foliage of Appleton Park--the family seat of the Shepherds--and

at the end of the smooth, white road lay the Major's destination--the

small town of Branbury.

The Major was the medium height; his features were regular and cleanly

cut. He would have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been

two dark mud-coloured dots, set close together, wholly lacking in

expression. A long brown moustache swept picturesquely over bright,

smoothly shaven cheeks, and the ends of this ornament were beginning

to whiten. The Major was over forty. He carried under his arm a

brown-paper parcel (the Major was rarely seen without a brown-paper

parcel), and in it were things he could not possibly do without--his

diary and his letter-book. The brown-paper parcel contained likewise

a number of other papers; it contained the Major's notes for a book he

was writing on the principal county families in Buckinghamshire. The

Major had been collecting information for this book for many years,

and with it he hoped to make two or three hundred pounds--money which

he stood sorely in need of--and to advance his position in the county,

a position which, in his opinion, his father had done little to

maintain, and which, to his very deep regret, his sisters were now

doing their best to compromise. That very morning, while packing up

his brown-paper parcel, some quarter of an hour ago, he had had a

somewhat angry interview on this subject with his sisters. For he had

thought it his duty to reprove them for keeping company with certain

small London folk who had chosen to come to live in the neighbourhood.

Ethel had said that they were not going to give up their friends

because they were not good enough for him, and Maud had added

significantly that they were quite sure that their friends were quite

as good as the friend he was going to see in Branbury. The Major

turned on his heel and left the house.

As he walked towards Branbury he asked himself if it were possible

that they knew anything about Charlotte Street; and as he approached

the town he looked round nervously, fearing lest some friend might

pop down upon him, and, after some hesitation, decided to take a long

detour so as to avoid passing by the house of some people he knew. As

he made his way through a bye-street his step quickened, and at the

corner of Charlotte Street he looked round to make sure he was not

followed. He then drew his keys from his pocket and let himself into a

small, mean-looking house.

Major Shepherd might have spared himself the trouble of these

precautions; no one was minded to watch him, for everyone knew

perfectly well who lived in 27, Charlotte Street. It was common talk

that the tall, dark woman who lived in 27 was Mrs Charles Shepherd,

and that the little girl who ran by Mrs Shepherd's side on the rare

occasions when she was seen in the streets--for it was said that the

Major did not wish her to walk much about the town, lest she should

attract the attention of the curious, who might be tempted to make

inquiries--was the Major's little daughter, and it had been noticed

that this little girl went forth now and then, basket on her arm, to

do the marketing. It was said that Mrs Shepherd had been a servant

in some lodging-house where the Major had been staying; other

scandal-mongers declared that they knew for certain that the Major had

made his wife's acquaintance in the street. Rumour had never wandered

far from the truth. The Major had met his wife one night as he was

coming home from his club. They seemed to suit one another; he saw

her frequently for several months, and then, fearing to lose her, in

a sudden access of jealousy--he had some time before been bitterly

jilted--he proposed to marry her. The arrival of his parents, who

came up to town beseeching of him to do nothing rash, only served to

intensify his determination, and, losing his temper utterly, he told

his father and mother that he would never set his foot in Appleton

Park in their lifetime if they ever again ventured to pry into his

private affairs; and, refusing to give any information regarding his

intentions, he asked them to leave his lodgings. What he did after

they never knew; years went by, and they sighed and wondered, but the

matter was never alluded to in Appleton Park.

But the Major had only £400 a year, and though he lived at Appleton

Park, never spending a penny more than was necessary, he could not

allow her more than £3 a week. He had so many expenses: his club, his

clothes, and all the incidental expenses he was put to in the grand

houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd

managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to

call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work,

she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest,

she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and

taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared

her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers was a

kind-hearted, simple nature, that misfortune had brought down in the

world; but, as is not uncommon with persons of weak character, she

possessed a clear, sensible mind which allowed her to see things

in their true lights, and without difficulty she recognized the

unalterable nature of her case. It mattered little whether the Major

acknowledged her or not, his family would never have anything to do

with her; the doors of Society were for ever closed against her. So

within a year of her marriage with the Major she was convinced that

her marriage had better be kept a secret; for, by helping to keep it

a secret, she could make substantial amends to the man who had married

her; by proclaiming it to the world, she would only alienate his

affection. She understood this very well, and in all docility and

obedience lent herself to the deception, accepting without complaint

a mean and clandestine existence. But she would not allow her little

girl to carry up a jug of hot water, and it was only rarely, when

prostrate with pain, that she allowed Nellie to take the basket and

run round to the butcher's and buy a bit of steak for their dinner.

The heiress of Appleton Park must be brought up free from all

degrading memory. But for herself she had no care. Appleton Park could

never be anything to her, even if she outlived the old people, which

was hardly probable. What would she, a poor invalid, do there? She did

not wish to compromise her husband's future, and still less the future

of her darling daughter. She could only hope that, when dead, her sins

would be forgiven her; and that this release might not be long delayed

she often prayed. The house was poor, and she was miserable, but any

place was good enough to suffer in. So she said when she rose and

dragged herself downstairs to do a little cooking; and the same

thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour,

furnished with what a few pounds could buy--a paraffin-lamp, a round

table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which

it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not

a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours. From

the barren little passage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and

everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative. The Major had impressed

his personality upon the house. Everything looked as if it had been

scraped. There was a time when Mrs Shepherd noticed the barrenness of

her life; but she had grown accustomed to it, and she waited for the

Major in the terrible armchair, glad when she heard his step, almost

happy when he sat by her and told her what was happening 'at home'.

He took her hand and asked her how she was. 'You are looking very

tired, Alice.'

'Yes, I'm a little tired. I have been working all the morning. I made

up my room, and then I went out to the butcher's and bought a piece of

steak. I have made you such a nice pudding for your lunch; I hope you

will like it.'

'There's not much fear about my liking any beefsteak pudding you make,

dear; I never knew anyone who could make one like you. But you should

not tire yourself--and just as you are beginning to get better.'

Mrs Shepherd smiled and pressed her husband's hand. The conversation

fell. At the end of a long silence Mrs Shepherd said: 'What has

happened to trouble you, dear? I know something has, I can see it by

your face.'

Then the Major told how unpleasantly his sisters had answered him when

he had ventured to suggest that they saw far too much of their new

neighbours, who were merely common sort of Londoners, and never would

be received by the county. 'I'm sure that someone must have told them

of my visits here; I'm sure they suspect something ... Girls are very

sharp nowadays.'

'I am sorry, but it is no fault of mine. I rarely leave the house, and

I never walk in the principal streets if I can possibly help it.'

'I know, dear, I know that no one can be more careful than you; but

as people are beginning to smell a rat notwithstanding all our

precautions, I suppose there's nothing for it but to go back to

London.'

'Oh, you don't think it will be necessary to go back to London, do

you? The place suits the child so well, and it is so nice to see you

almost every day; and it is such a comfort when you are not here to

know you are only a few miles away; and from the top of the hill the

trees of the park are visible, and whenever I feel well enough I walk

there and think of the time our Nellie will be the mistress of all

those broad acres.'

'It is the fault of the busybodies,' he said; 'I cannot think what

pleasure people find in meddling in other people's affairs. I never

care what anyone else does. I have quite enough to do thinking of my

own.'

Mrs Shepherd did not answer. 'I see,' he said, 'you don't like moving,

but if you remain here all the trouble we have taken not to get found

out these last ten years will go for nothing. There will be more worry

and vexations, and I really don't think I could bear much more; I

believe I should go off my head.' The little man spoke in a calm, even

voice, and stroked his silky moustache gravely.

'Very well, then, my dear, I'll return to town as soon as you like--as

soon as it is convenient. I daresay you are right.'

'I'm sure I am. You have never found me giving you wrong advice yet,

have you, dear?'

Then they went down to the kitchen to eat the steak pudding; and when

the Major had finished his second helping he lit his pipe, and the

conversation turned on how they should get rid of their house, and

how much the furniture would fetch. When he had decided to sell the

furniture, and had fixed the day of their departure, Mrs Shepherd

said--

'There's one thing I have to ask you, dear, and I hope you won't

refuse my request. I should like to see Appleton Park before I leave.

I should like to go there with Nellie and see the house and the lands

that will one day belong to her.'

'I don't know how it is to be managed. If you were to meet my mother

and sisters they would be sure to suspect something at once.'

'No one will know who I am. I should like to walk about the grounds

for half an hour with the child. If I don't see Appleton now I never

shall see it.'

The Major stroked his long, silky moustache with his short, crabbed

little hand. He remembered that he had heard the carriage ordered for

two o'clock--they were all going to a tennis-party some miles distant.

Under the circumstances she might walk about the grounds without being

noticed. He did not think any of the gardeners would question her,

and, if they did, he could trust her to give an evasive answer. And

then he would like her to see the place--just to know what she thought

of it.

'Won't you say yes?' she said at last, her voice breaking the silence

sharply.

'I was just thinking, dear: they have all gone to a tennis-party

today. There'll be no one at home.'

'Well! why not today?'

'Well; I was thinking I've been lucky enough to get hold of some very

interesting information about the Websters--about their ancestor Sir

Thomas, who distinguished himself in the Peninsular--and I wanted to

get it copied under the proper heading, but I daresay we can do that

another day. The only thing is, how are you to get there? You are not

equal to walking so far--'

'I was thinking, dear, that I might take a fly. I know there is the

expense, but ...'

'Yes; five or six shillings, at least. And where will you leave

the fly? At the lodge gate? The flyman would be sure to get into

conversation with the lodge-keeper or his wife. He'd tell them where

he came from, and--'

'Supposing you were to get a two-wheeled trap and drive me yourself;

that would be nicer still.'

'I'm so unlucky; someone would be sure to see me.'

The Major puffed at his pipe in silence. Then he said, 'If you were

to put on a thick veil, and we were to get out of the town by this end

and make our way through the lanes--it would be a long way round; but

one hardly meets anyone that way, and the only danger would be going.

We should return in the dusk. I don't care how late you make it; my

people won't be home till nine or ten o'clock at night, perhaps later

still. There will be dancing, and they are sure to stay late.'

Finally the matter was decided, and about four o'clock the Major went

to the livery stable to order the trap. Mrs Shepherd and Nellie joined

him soon after. Turning from the pony, whose nose he was stroking, he

said--

'I hope you have brought a thick shawl; it will be cold coming back in

the evening.'

'Yes, dear, here it is, and another for Nellie. What do you think of

this veil?'

'It will do very well. I do hope these stablemen won't talk; let's

go off at once.' The Major lifted in the child, tucked the rug about

them, and cried to the stableman to let go. He drove very nervously,

afraid at every moment lest the pony should bolt; and when the

animal's extreme docility assured him there was no such danger, he

looked round right and left, expecting at every moment some friend to

pounce down upon him. But the ways were empty, the breeze that came

across the fields was fresh and sweet, and they were all beginning to

enjoy themselves, when he suddenly espied a carriage following in his

wake. He whipped up the pony, and contrived to distance his imaginary

pursuer; and having succeeded, he praised his own driving, and at the

cross-roads he said: 'I dare not go any farther, but you can't miss

the lodge gate in that clump of trees--the first white gate you come

to. Don't ask any questions; it is ten to one you'll find the gate

open; walk straight through, and don't forget to go through the

beech-wood at the back of the house; the river runs right round the

hill. I want to know what you think of the view. But pray don't ask to

see the house; there's nothing to see; the housemaids would be sure

to talk, and describe you to my sisters. So now goodbye; hope you'll

enjoy yourself. I shall have just time to get to Hambrook and back; I

want to see my solicitor. You'll have seen everything in a couple of

hours, so in a couple of hours I shall be waiting for you here.'

Part II

It was as the Major said. The lodge-keepers asked no questions, and

they passed up the drive, through the silence of an overgrowth of

laurels and rhododendrons. Then the park opened before their

eyes. Nellie rolled on the short, crisp, worn grass, or chased the

dragonflies; the spreading trees enchanted her, and, looking at the

house--a grey stone building with steps, pillars, and pilasters,

hidden amid cedars and evergreen oaks--she said, 'I never saw anything

so beautiful; is that where the Major goes when he leaves us? Look at

the flowers, Mother, and the roses. May we not go in there--I don't

mean into the house? I heard the Major ask you not to go in for fear

we should meet the housemaids--but just past this railing, into

the garden? Here is the gate.' The child stood with her hand on the

wicket, waiting for reply: the mother stood as in a dream, looking

at the house, thinking vaguely of the pictures, the corridors, and

staircases, that lay behind the plate-glass windows.

'Yes; go in, my child.'

The gardens were in tumult of leaf and bloom, and the little girl ran

hither and thither, gathering single flowers, and then everything

that came under her hands, binding them together in bouquets--one

for mother, one for the Major, and one for herself. Mrs Shepherd only

smiled a little bitterly when Nellie came running to her with some new

and more splendid rose. She did not attempt to reprove the child. Why

should she? Everything here would one day be hers. Why then should

the present be denied them? And so did her thoughts run as she walked

across the sward following Nellie into the beech wood that clothed the

steep hillside. The pathway led by the ruins of some Danish military

earthworks, ancient hollows full of leaves and silence. Pigeons cooed

in the vast green foliage, and from time to time there came up from

the river the chiming sound of oars. Rustic seats were at pleasant

intervals, and, feeling a little tired, Mrs Shepherd sat down. She

could see the river's silver glinting through the branches, and,

beyond the river, the low-lying river lands, dotted with cattle and

horses grazing, dim already with blue evening vapours. In the warm

solitude of the wood the irreparable misfortune of her own life

pressed upon her: and in this hour of lassitude her loneliness seemed

more than she could bear. The Major was good and kind, but he knew

nothing of the weight of the burden he had laid upon her, and that

none should know was in this moment a greater weight than the burden

itself. Nellie was exploring the ancient hollows where Danes and

Saxons had once fought, and had ceased to call forth her discoveries

when Mrs Shepherd's bitter meditation was broken by the sudden sound

of a footstep.

The intruder was a young lady. She was dressed in white, her pale gold

hair was in itself an aristocracy, and her narrow slippered feet were

dainty to look upon. 'Don't let me disturb you,' she said. 'This is my

favourite seat; but I pray you not to move, there is plenty of room.'

So amiable was she in voice and manner that Mrs Shepherd could not

but remain, although she had already recognized the girl as one of

the Major's sisters. Fearing to betray herself, greatly nervous, Mrs

Shepherd answered briefly Miss Shepherd's allusions to the beauty of

the view. At the end of a long silence Miss Shepherd said--

'I think you know my brother, Major Shepherd.'

Mrs Shepherd hesitated, and then she said: 'No. I have never heard the

name.'

'Are you sure? Of course, I may be mistaken; but--'

Ethel made pause, and looked Mrs Shepherd straight in the face.

Smiling sadly, Mrs Shepherd said--

'Likenesses are so deceptive.'

'Perhaps, but my memory is pretty good for faces.... It was two or

three months ago, we were going up to London, and I saw my brother get

into the train with a lady who looked like you. She really was very

like you.'

Mrs Shepherd smiled and shook her head.

'I do not know the lady my brother was with, but I've often thought I

should like to meet her.'

'Perhaps your brother will introduce you.'

'No, I don't think he will. She has come to live at Branbury, and now

people talk more then ever. They say that he is secretly married.'

'And you believe it?'

'I don't see why it shouldn't be true. My brother is a good fellow in

many ways, but, like all other men, he is selfish. He is just the man

who would keep his wife hidden away in a lonely little lodging rather

than admit that he had made a _mésalliance_. What I don't understand

is why she consents to be kept out of the way. Just fancy giving up

this beautiful place, these woods and fields, these gardens, that

house for, for--'

'I suppose this woman gives up these things because she loves your

brother. Do you not understand self-sacrifice?'

'Oh yes, if I loved a man.... But I think a woman is silly to allow a

man to cheat and fool her to the top of his bent.'

'What does it matter if she is happy?'

Ethel tossed her head. Then at the end of a long silence she said:

'Would you care to see the house?'

'No, thank you, Miss; I must be getting on. Goodbye.'

'You cannot get back that way, you must return through the

pleasure-grounds. I'll walk with you. A headache kept me at home this

afternoon. The others have gone to a tennis-party.... It is a pity I

was mistaken. I should like to meet the person my brother goes every

day to Branbury to see. I should like to talk with her. My brother

has, I'm afraid, persuaded her that we would not receive her. But this

is not true; we should only be too glad to receive her. I have heard

Father and Mother say so--not to Charles, they dare not speak to him

on the subject, but they have to me.'

'Your brother must have some good reason for keeping his marriage

secret. This woman may have a past.'

'Yes, they say that--but I should not care if I liked her, if I knew

her to be a good woman now.'

To better keep the Major's secret, Mrs Shepherd had given up all

friends, all acquaintance. She had not known a woman-friend for years,

and the affinities of sex drew her to accept the sympathy with which

she was tempted. The reaction of ten years of self-denial surged up

within her, and she felt that she must speak, that her secret was

being dragged from her. Ethel's eyes were fixed upon her--in another

moment she would have spoken, but at that moment Nellie appeared

climbing up the steep bank. 'Is that your little girl? Oh, what a

pretty child!' Then raising her eyes from the child and looking the

mother straight in the face, Ethel said--

'She is like, she is strangely like, Charles.'

Tears glistened in Mrs Shepherd's eyes, and then, no longer doubting

that Mrs Shepherd would break down and in a flow of tears tell the

whole story of her life, Ethel allowed a note of triumph to creep

into her voice, and before she could stop herself she said, 'And that

little girl is the heiress of Appleton Park.'

Mrs Shepherd's face changed expression.

'You are mistaken, Miss Shepherd,' she said; 'but if I ever meet your

brother I will tell him that you think my little girl like him.'

Mrs Shepherd pursued her way slowly across the park, her long weary

figure showing upon the sunset, her black dress trailing on the crisp

grass. Often she was obliged to pause; the emotion and exercise of the

day had brought back pain, and her whole body thrilled with it.

Since the birth of her child she had lived in pain. But as she leaned

against the white gate, and looked back on the beautiful park never

to be seen by her again, knowledge of her sacrifice quickened within

her--the house and the park, and the manner and speech of the young

girl, combined to help her to a full appreciation of all she had

surrendered. She regretted nothing. However mean and obscure her life

had been, it had contained at least one noble moment. Nellie pursued

the dragonflies; Mrs Shepherd followed slowly, feeling like a victor

in a great battle. She had not broken her trust; she had kept her

promise intact; she would return to London tomorrow or next day, or at

the end of the week, whenever the Major wished.

He was waiting for them at the corner of the lane, and Nellie was

already telling him all she thought of the house, the woods, the

flowers, and the lady who had sat down by Mother on the bench above

the river. The Major looked at his wife in doubt and fear; her smile,

however, reassured him. Soon after, Nellie fell asleep, and while

she dreamed of butterflies and flowers Mrs Shepherd told him what had

passed between her and his sister in the beechwood above the river.

'You see, what I told you was right. Your appearance has been

described to them; they suspect something, and will never cease

worrying until they have found out everything. I'm not a bit

surprised. Ethel always was the more cunning and the more spiteful of

the two.'

Mrs Shepherd did not tell him how nearly she had been betrayed into

confession. She felt that he would not understand her explanation of

the mood in which his sister had caught her. Men understand women so

little. To tell him would be merely to destroy his confidence in her.

As they drove through the twilight, with Nellie fast asleep between,

he spoke of her departure, which he had arranged for the end of the

week, and then, putting his arm round her waist, he said: 'You have

always been a good little woman to me.'

_Walter Besant_

THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED

(_In Deacon's Orders and Other Stories_, New York: Harper and Bros.,

1895)

Act I

'You dear old boy,' said the girl, 'I am sure I wish it could be, with

all my heart, if I have any heart.'

'I don't believe you have,' replied the boy gloomily.

'Well, but, Reg, consider; you've got no money.'

'I've got five thousand pounds. If a man can't make his way upon that

he must be a poor stick.'

'You would go abroad with it and dig, and take your wife with you--to

wash and cook.'

'We would do something with the money here. You should stay in London,

Rosie.'

'Yes. In a suburban villa, at Shepherd's Bush, perhaps. No, Reg, when

I marry, if ever I do--I am in no hurry--I will step out of this room

into one exactly like it.' The room was a splendid drawing-room in

Palace Gardens, splendidly furnished. 'I shall have my footmen and my

carriage, and I shall--'

'Rosie, give me the right to earn all these things for you!' the young

man cried impetuously.

'You can only earn them for me by the time you have one foot in the

grave. Hadn't I better in the meantime marry some old gentleman with

his one foot in the grave, so as to be ready for you against the time

you come home? In two or three years the other foot, I dare say, would

slide into the grave as well.'

'You laugh at my trouble. You feel nothing.'

'If the pater would part, but he won't; he says he wants all his money

for himself, and that I've got to marry well. Besides, Reg'--here her

face clouded and she lowered her voice--'there are times when he looks

anxious. We didn't always live in Palace Gardens. Suppose we should

lose it all as quickly as we got it. Oh!' she shivered and trembled.

'No, I will never, never marry a poor man. Get rich, my dear boy,

and you may aspire even to the valuable possession of this heartless

hand.'

She held it out. He took it, pressed it, stooped and kissed her. Then

he dropped her hand and walked quickly out of the room.

'Poor Reggie!' she murmured. 'I wish--I wish--but what is the use of

wishing?'