GEOFFREY HAS A VISITOR
And Beatrice—had she fared better during these long months? Alas, not
at all. She had gone away from the Bryngelly Station on that autumn
morning of farewell sick at heart, and sick at heart she had remained.
Through all the long winter months sorrow and bitterness had been her
portion, and now in the happiness of spring, sorrow and bitterness were
with her still. She loved him, she longed for his presence, and it was
denied to her. She could not console herself as can some women, nor did
her deep passion wear away; on the contrary, it seemed to grow and
gather with every passing week. Neither did she wish to lose it, she
loved too well for that. It was better to be thus tormented by
conscience and by hopelessness than to lose her cause of pain.
One consolation Beatrice had and one only: she knew that Geoffrey did
not forget her. His letters told her this. These letters indeed were
everything to her—a woman can get so much more comfort out of a letter
than a man. Next to receiving them she loved to answer them. She was a
good and even a brilliant letter writer, but often and often she would
tear up what she had written and begin again. There was not much news
in Bryngelly; it was difficult to make her letters amusing. Also the
farcical nature of the whole proceeding seemed to paralyse her. It was
ridiculous, having so much to say, to be able to say nothing. Not that
Beatrice wished to indite love-letters—such an idea had never crossed
her mind, but rather to write as they had talked. Yet when she tried to
do so the results were not satisfactory to her, the words looked
strange on paper—she could not send them.
In Geoffrey’s meteor-like advance to fame and fortune she took the
keenest joy and interest, far more than he did indeed. Though, like
that of most other intelligent creatures, her soul turned with loathing
from the dreary fustian of politics, she would religiously search the
parliamentary column from beginning to end on the chance of finding his
name or the notice of a speech by him. The law reports also furnished
her with a happy hunting-ground in which she often found her game.
But they were miserable months. To rise in the morning, to go through
the round of daily duty—thinking of Geoffrey; to come home wearied, and
finally to seek refuge in sleep and dreams of him—this was the sum of
them. Then there were other troubles. To begin with, things had gone
from bad to worse at the Vicarage. The tithes scarcely came in at all,
and every day their poverty pinched them closer. Had it not been for
Beatrice’s salary it was difficult to see how the family could have
continued to exist. She gave it almost all to her father now, only
keeping back a very small sum for her necessary clothing and such
sundries as stamps and writing paper. Even then, Elizabeth grumbled
bitterly at her extravagance in continuing to buy a daily paper, asking
what business she had to spend sixpence a week on such a needless
luxury. But Beatrice would not make up her mind to dock the paper with
its occasional mention of Geoffrey.
Again, Owen Davies was a perpetual anxiety to her. His infatuation for
herself was becoming notorious; everybody saw it except her father. Mr.
Granger’s mind was so occupied with questions connected with tithe that
fortunately for Beatrice little else could find an entry. Owen dogged
her about; he would wait whole hours outside the school or by the
Vicarage gate merely to speak a few words to her. Sometimes when at
length she appeared he seemed to be struck dumb, he could say nothing,
but would gaze at her with his dull eyes in a fashion that filled her
with vague alarm. He never ventured to speak to her of his love indeed,
but he looked it, which was almost as bad. Another thing was that he
had grown jealous. The seed which Elizabeth had planted in his mind had
brought forth abundantly, though of course Beatrice did not know that
this was her sister’s doing.
On the very morning that Geoffrey went away Mr. Davies had met her as
she was walking back from the station and asked her if Mr. Bingham had
gone. When she replied that this was so, she had distinctly heard him
murmur, “Thank God! thank God!” Subsequently she discovered also that
he bribed the old postman to keep count of the letters which she sent
and received from Geoffrey.
These things filled Beatrice with alarm, but there was worse behind.
Mr. Davies began to send her presents, first such things as prize
pigeons and fowls, then jewellery. The pigeons and fowls she could not
well return without exciting remark, but the jewellery she sent back by
one of the school children. First came a bracelet, then a locket with
his photograph inside, and lastly, a case that, when she opened it,
which her curiosity led her to do, nearly blinded her with light. It
was a diamond necklace, and she had never seen such diamonds before,
but from their size and lustre she knew that each stone must be worth
hundreds of pounds. Beatrice put it in her pocket and carried it until
she met him, which she did in the course of that afternoon.
“Mr. Davies,” she said before he could speak, and handing him the
package, “this has been sent to me by mistake. Will you kindly take it
back?”
He took it, abashed.
“Mr. Davies,” she went on, looking him full in the eyes, “I hope that
there will be no more such mistakes. Please understand that I cannot
accept presents from you.”
“If Mr. Bingham had sent it, you would have accepted it,” he muttered
sulkily.
Beatrice turned and flashed such a look on him that he fell back and
left her. But it was true, and she knew that it was true. If Geoffrey
had given her a sixpence with a hole in it, she would have valued it
more than all the diamonds on earth. Oh! what a position was hers. And
it was wrong, too. She had no right to love the husband of another
woman. But right or wrong the fact remained: she did love him.
And the worst of it was that, as she well knew, sooner or later all
this about Mr. Davies must come to the ears of her father, and then
what would happen? One thing was certain. In his present
poverty-stricken condition he would move heaven and earth to bring
about her marriage to this rich man. Her father never had been very
scrupulous where money was concerned, and the pinch of want was not
likely to make him more so.
Nor, we may be sure, did all this escape the jealous eye of Elizabeth.
Things looked black for her, but she did not intend to throw up the
cards on that account. Only it was time to lead trumps. In other words,
Beatrice must be fatally compromised in the eyes of Owen Davies, if by
any means this could be brought about. So far things had gone well for
her schemes. Beatrice and Geoffrey loved each other, of that Elizabeth
was certain. But the existence of this secret, underhand affection
would avail her naught unless it could be ripened into acts. Everybody
is free to indulge in secret predilections, but if once they are given
way to, if once a woman’s character is compromised, then the world
avails itself of its opportunities and destroys her. What man, thought
Elizabeth, would marry a compromised woman? If Beatrice could be
compromised, Owen Davies would not take her to wife—therefore this must
be brought about.
It sounds wicked and unnatural. “Impossible that sister should so treat
sister,” the reader of this history may say, thinking of her own, and
of her affectionate and respectable surroundings. But it is not
impossible. If you, who doubt, will study the law reports, and no worse
occupation can be wished to you, you will find that such things are
possible. Human nature can rise to strange heights, and it can also
fall to depths beyond your fathoming. Because a thing is without
parallel in your own small experience it in no way follows that it
cannot be.
Elizabeth was a very remorseless person; she was more—she was a woman
actuated by passion and by greed: the two strongest motives known to
the human heart. But with her recklessness she united a considerable
degree of intelligence, or rather of intellect. Had she been a savage
she might have removed her sister from her path by a more expeditious
way; being what she was, she merely strove to effect the same end by a
method not punishable by law, in short, by murdering her reputation.
Would she be responsible if her sister went wrong, and was thus utterly
discredited in the eyes of this man who wished to marry her, and whom
Elizabeth wished to marry? Of course not; that was Beatrice’s affair.
But she could give her every chance of falling into temptation, and
this it was her fixed design to do.
Circumstances soon gave her an opportunity. The need of money became
very pressing at the Vicarage. They had literally no longer the
wherewithal to live. The tithe payers absolutely refused to fulfil
their obligations. As it happened, Jones, the man who had murdered the
auctioneer, was never brought to trial. He died shortly after his
arrest in a fit of _delirium tremens_ and nervous prostration brought
on by the sudden cessation of a supply of stimulants, and an example
was lost, that, had he been duly hanged, might have been made of the
results of defying the law. Mr. Granger was now too poor to institute
any further proceedings, which, in the state of public feeling in
Wales, might or might not succeed; he could only submit, and submission
meant beggary. Indeed he was already a beggar. In this state of affairs
he took counsel with Elizabeth, pointing out that they must either get
money or starve. Now the only possible way to get money was by
borrowing it, and Mr. Granger’s suggestion was that he should apply to
Owen Davies, who had plenty. Indeed he would have done so long ago, but
that the squire had the reputation of being an exceedingly close-fisted
man.
But this proposition did not at all suit Elizabeth’s book. Her great
object had been to conceal Mr. Davies’s desires as regards Beatrice
from her father, and her daily dread was that he might become
acquainted with them from some outside source. She knew very well that
if her father went up to the Castle to borrow money it would be lent,
or rather given, freely enough; but she also knew that the lender would
almost certainly take the opportunity, the very favourable opportunity,
to unfold his wishes as regards the borrower’s daughter. The one thing
would naturally lead to the other—the promise of her father’s support
of Owen’s suit would be the consideration for the money received. How
gladly that support would be given was also obvious to her, and with
her father pushing Beatrice on the one side and Owen Davies pushing her
on the other, how could Elizabeth be sure that she would not yield?
Beatrice would be the very person to be carried away by an idea of
duty. Their father would tell her that he had got the money on this
undertaking, and it was quite possible that her pride might bring her
to fulfil a bond thus given, however distasteful the deed might be to
her personally. No, her father must at all hazards be prevented from
seeking assistance from Owen Davies. And yet the money must be had from
somewhere, or they would be ruined.
Ah, she had it—Geoffrey Bingham should lend the money! He could well
afford it now, and she shrewdly guessed that he would not grudge the
coat off his back if he thought that by giving it he might directly or
indirectly help Beatrice. Her father must go up to town to see him, she
would have no letter-writing; one never knows how a letter may be read.
He must see Mr. Bingham, and if possible bring him down to Bryngelly.
In a moment every detail of the plot became clear to Elizabeth’s mind,
and then she spoke.
“You must not go to Mr. Davies, father,” she said; “he is a hard man,
and would only refuse and put you in a false position; you must go to
Mr. Bingham. Listen: he is rich now, and he is very fond of you and of
Beatrice. He will lend you a hundred pounds at once. You must go to
London by the early train to-morrow, and drive straight to his chambers
and see him. It will cost two pounds to get there and back, but that
cannot be helped; it is safer than writing, and I am sure that you will
not go for nothing. And see here, father, bring Mr. Bingham back with
you for a few days if you can. It will be a little return for his
kindness, and I know that he is not well. Beatrice had a letter from
him in which he said that he was so overworked that he thought he must
take a little rest soon. Bring him back for Whit-Sunday.”
Mr. Granger hesitated, demurred, and finally yielded. The weak,
querulous old farmer clergyman, worn out with many daily cares and
quite unsupported by mental resources, was but a tool in Elizabeth’s
able hands. He did not indeed feel any humiliation at the idea of
trying to borrow the cash, for his nature was not finely strung, and
money troubles had made him callous to the verge of unscrupulousness;
but he did not like the idea of a journey to London, where he had not
been for more than twenty years, and the expenditure that it entailed.
Still he acted as Elizabeth bade him, even to keeping the expedition
secret from Beatrice. Beatrice, as her sister explained to him, was
proud as Lucifer, and might raise objections if she knew that he was
going to London to borrow money of Mr. Bingham. This indeed she would
certainly have done.
On the following afternoon—it was the Friday before Whit-Sunday, and
the last day of the Easter sittings—Geoffrey sat in his chambers, in
the worst possible spirits, thoroughly stale and worn out with work.
There was a consultation going on, and his client, a pig-headed Norfolk
farmer, who was bent upon proceeding to trial with some extraordinary
action for trespass against his own landlord, was present with his
solicitor. Geoffrey in a few short, clear words had explained the
absurdity of the whole thing, and strongly advised him to settle, for
the client had insisted on seeing him, refusing to be put off with a
written opinion. But the farmer was not satisfied, and the solicitor
was now endeavouring to let the pure light of law into the darkness of
his injured soul.
Geoffrey threw himself back in his chair, pushed the dark hair from his
brow, and pretended to listen. But in a minute his mind was far away.
Heavens, how tired he was! Well, there would be rest for a few
days—till Tuesday, when he had a matter that must be attended to—the
House had risen and so had the courts. What should he do with himself?
Honoria wished to go and stay with her brother, Lord Garsington, and,
for a wonder, to take Effie with her. He did not like it, but he
supposed that he should have to consent. One thing was, _he_ would not
go. He could not endure Garsington, Dunstan, and all their set. Should
he run down to Bryngelly? The temptation was very great; that would be
happiness indeed, but his common sense prevailed against it. No, it was
better that he should not go there. He would leave Bryngelly alone. If
Beatrice wished him to come she would have said so, and she had never
even hinted at such a thing, and if she had he did not think that he
would have gone. But he lacked the heart to go anywhere else. He would
stop in town, rest, and read a novel, for Geoffrey, when he found time,
was not above this frivolous occupation. Possibly, under certain
circumstances, he might even have been capable of writing one. At that
moment his clerk entered, and handed him a slip of paper with something
written on it. He opened it idly and read:
“Revd. Mr. Granger to see you. Told him you were engaged, but he said
he would wait.”
Geoffrey started violently, so violently that both the solicitor and
the obstinate farmer looked up.
“Tell the gentleman that I will see him in a minute,” he said to the
retreating clerk, and then, addressing the farmer, “Well, sir, I have
said all that I have to say. I cannot advise you to continue this
action. Indeed, if you wish to do so, you must really direct your
solicitor to retain some other counsel, as I will not be a party to
what can only mean a waste of money. Good afternoon,” and he rose.
The farmer was convoyed out grumbling. In another moment Mr. Granger
entered, dressed in a somewhat threadbare suit of black, and his thin
white hair hanging, as usual, over his eyes. Geoffrey glanced at him
with apprehension, and as he did so noticed that he had aged greatly
during the last seven months. Had he come to tell him some ill news of
Beatrice—that she was ill, or dead, or going to be married?
“How do you do, Mr. Granger?” he said, as he stretched out his hand,
and controlling his voice as well as he could. “How are you? This is a
most unexpected pleasure.”
“How do you do, Mr. Bingham?” answered the old man, while he seated
himself nervously in a chair, placing his hat with a trembling hand
upon the floor beside him. “Yes, thank you, I am pretty well, not very
grand—worn out with trouble as the sparks fly upwards,” he added, with
a vague automatic recollection of the scriptural quotation.
“I hope that Miss Elizabeth and Be—that your daughters are well also,”
said Geoffrey, unable to restrain his anxiety.
“Yes, yes, thank you, Mr. Bingham. Elizabeth isn’t very grand either,
complains of a pain in her chest, a little bilious perhaps—she always
is bilious in the spring.”
“And Miss Beatrice?”
“Oh, I think she’s well—very quiet, you know, and a little pale,
perhaps; but she is always quiet—a strange woman Beatrice, Mr. Bingham,
a very strange woman, quite beyond me! I do not understand her, and
don’t try to. Not like other women at all, takes no pleasure in things
seemingly; curious, with her good looks—very curious. But nobody
understands Beatrice.”
Geoffrey breathed a sigh of relief. “And how are tithes being paid, Mr.
Granger? not very grandly, I fear. I saw that scoundrel Jones died in
prison.”
Mr. Granger woke up at once. Before he had been talking almost at
random; the subject of his daughters did not greatly interest him. What
did interest him was this money question. Nor was it very wonderful;
the poor narrow-minded old man had thought about money till he could
scarcely find room for anything else, indeed nothing else really
touched him closely. He broke into a long story of his wrongs, and,
drawing a paper from his breast pocket, with shaking finger pointed out
to Geoffrey how that his clerical income for the last six months had
been at the rate of only forty pounds a year, upon which sum even a
Welsh clergyman could not consider himself passing rich. Geoffrey
listened and sympathised; then came a pause.
“That’s how we’ve been getting on at Bryngelly, Mr. Bingham,” Mr.
Granger said presently, “starving, pretty well starving. It’s only you
who have been making money; we’ve been sitting on the same dock-leaf
while you have become a great man. If it had not been for Beatrice’s
salary—she’s behaved very well about the salary, has Beatrice—I am sure
I don’t understand how the poor girl clothes herself on what she keeps;
I know that she had to go without a warm cloak this winter, because she
got a cough from it—we should have been in the workhouse, and that’s
where we shall be yet,” and he rubbed the back of his withered hand
across his eyes.
Geoffrey gasped. Beatrice with scarcely enough means to clothe
herself—Beatrice shivering and becoming ill from the want of a cloak
while _he_ lived in luxury! It made him sick to think of it. For a
moment he could say nothing.
“I have come here—I’ve come,” went on the old man in a broken voice,
broken not so much by shame at having to make the request as from fear
lest it should be refused, “to ask you if you could lend me a little
money. I don’t know where to turn, I don’t indeed, or I would not do
it, Mr. Bingham. I have spent my last pound to get here. If you could
lend me a hundred pounds I’d give you note of hand for it and try to
pay it back little by little; we might take twenty pounds a year from
Beatrice’s salary——”
“Don’t, please—do not talk of such a thing!” ejaculated the horrified
Geoffrey. “Where the devil is my cheque-book? Oh, I know, I left it in
Bolton Street. Here, this will do as well,” and he took up a draft note
made out to his order, and, rapidly signing his name on the back of it,
handed it to Mr. Granger. It was in payment of the fees in the great
case of Parsons and Douse and some other matters. Mr. Granger took the
draft, and, holding it close to his eyes, glanced at the amount; it was
£200.
“But this is double what I asked for,” he said doubtfully. “Am I to
return you £100?”
“No, no,” answered Geoffrey, “I daresay that you have some debts to
pay. Thank Heaven, I can get on very well and earn more money than I
want. Not enough clothing—it is shocking to think of!” he added, more
to himself than to his listener.
The old man rose, his eyes full of tears. “God bless you,” he said,
“God bless you. I do not know how to thank you—I don’t indeed,” and he
caught Geoffrey’s hand between his trembling palms and pressed it.
“Please do not say any more, Mr. Granger; it really is only a matter of
mutual obligation. No, no, I don’t want any note of hand. If I were to
die it might be used against you. You can pay me whenever it is
convenient.”
“You are too good, Mr. Bingham,” said the old clergyman. “Where could
another man be found who would lend me £200 without security?” (where
indeed!) “By the way,” he added, “I forgot; my mind is in such a whirl.
Will you come back with me for a few days to Bryngelly? We shall all be
so pleased if you can. Do come, Mr. Bingham; you look as though you
want a change, you do indeed.”
Geoffrey dropped his hand heavily on the desk. But half an hour before
he had made up his mind not to go to Bryngelly. And now——The vision of
Beatrice rose before his eyes. Beatrice who had gone cold all winter
and never told him one word of their biting poverty—the longing for the
sight of Beatrice came into his heart, and like a hurricane swept the
defences of his reason to the level ground. Temptation overwhelmed him;
he no longer struggled against it. He must see her, if it was only to
say good-bye.
“Thank you,” he said quietly, lifting his bowed head. “Yes, I have
nothing particular to do for the next day or two. I think that I will
come. When do you go back?”
“Well, I thought of taking the night mail, but I feel so tired. I
really don’t know. I think I shall go by the nine o’clock train
to-morrow.”
“That will suit me very well,” said Geoffrey; “and now what are you
going to do to-night? You had better come and dine and sleep at my
house. No dress clothes? Oh, never mind; there are some people coming
but they won’t care; a clergyman is always dressed. Come along and I
will get that draft cashed. The bank is shut, but I can manage it.”