REHABILITATION
"Cast from the pedestal of pride with shocks."
All through the little supper, made gay by the brilliant dresses of the
ladies and the bunches of roses in the middle of the table, a
restlessness marked the guide's manner; he was clearly anxious to have
it over, get rid of Poussette and Miss Cordova, and be alone with
Pauline.
It was a quarter to twelve when this was arrived at, and Crabbe took
the precaution of closing the door securely after the Frenchman, and of
seeing that the blind was sufficiently lowered over the one window
which looked on the side of the cleared yard nearer the river, but he
did not think of looking out of the window. Perhaps if he had he would
not have recognized Ringfield in the straight dark shadow that kept
walking up and down, up and down, as long as the light shone from that
room. When he at last found himself secure and alone, the Englishman's
stoicism, pride, and remorse, all came forth at one bound. He sat down
and swept the dishes away from him, reached for Pauline's hand, and
bent his head down over it upon the table, smothering different
ejaculations, which, warm and earnest enough, were totally removed from
his usual style of impassioned speech--he uttered nothing profane. But
he sobbed--sobbed.
"Oh, what is it?" cried Miss Clairville in alarm. "What has happened?
I never saw you like this before. It frightens me--why you sound as if
you were crying, but that would be impossible. Oh, tell me, tell me!"
He grew calmer, lifted his head and felt for his handkerchief. "Yes,
it's quite possible! I believe I have shed a tear or two. The first
in how many years, Pauline? Ah--that I could not, would not wish to
compute, but it's over now, I----"
He stopped, released her hand and began settling his clothes with the
familiar touches she remembered so well. "I--well; Pauline, it's this;
I've come into money. Now you know. Now you understand. And another
thing--I know how to make money--what's more. Nothing succeeds like
success, you see, and by Heaven--one thing followed on another till I
could have gambled for luck, lost all, and won all back! Oh--I don't
know what I'm saying, but I mean that one thing would have been enough,
and there came two, two at once, here in the middle of this gloomy
wood, this Inferno of a place I have hated so well and so long.
Gad--it isn't half bad to-night though! I feel like a gentleman, I
hope I look like one; I can act like one at least: pay my way, pay for
this little spread, pay for your roses--what did you think when you saw
them?"
Pauline did not take her eyes off him. She was alarmed, not believing
a word he said, and she did not answer with her usual spirit.
"I thought them very wonderful of course in this out-of-the-way place.
Did you send for them?"
"My lady is cautious. New for her. Where is our Gallic zeal and
impetuosity gone? You're afraid of me! I see it. You think I'm
drunk?"
She shook her head, but her smile was somewhat wan.
"Here, I'll convince you. Take my hands, both of them. Both of them,
I say. At once, madam."
She did so and he drew her near, nearer, till their knees were touching.
"Now you answer me. Are they steady?"
"Yes."
"Very reluctantly given. Are they quite steady and firm like your own
or like those of your parson friend?"
"Oh, don't, don't! Yes--quite firm, quite steady."
"You see! Now look at my eyes, look into them, lady dear. At once,
madam. You find that trying, do you, but persevere. Well--what do you
find? Are they wild, bloodshot, glazed, glaring? No? Only your image
therein. And by God, Pauline, there never was and never will be any
image half so beautiful, half so dear. That you must and will believe.
Well, then--no, don't draw your hands away--about this money, for I'm
perfectly sober and desirous of telling you the truth. You have the
right to know. One thing led to another, but the first of it was like
this. I've always been a scribbler in my lazy moments, as you know,
but perhaps you can't be expected to know that I have put care and
strong thought, art and heart both, into some verse that I occasionally
would take out and look over, and then lock away again. How could I,
forlorn and degraded, an outcast from society, hope to effect anything
in literature! Yet I never destroyed any of these pet lucrubations of
mine, and one day, a few months ago, I picked out a poem, copied it
fair when my hand wasn't shaking, and sent it to a magazine in England.
They took it--and I was so surprised that I went on a good long drunk.
But when I got straight again I found a handsome cheque awaiting me and
the hope, very warmly expressed by the way, that I would let him, the
editor, have many more in the same vein. Many more, mind you, with
cheques to match, so long as my industry holds out and I can find
enough to say. Now consider for a moment what that signifies to a man
like me, fallen so low, I confess it, ostracized and exiled, cut off
from all old associations and without hope of overcoming my fault
sufficiently to enable me to make a fresh start. It meant not only
money, but employment, and congenial employment. It meant that after
all, these years of leanness have not been wasted, that I have
something to say if I can only retain the knack, the trick, of saying
it in the way people will like, the public like. This alone would be
much, but with it goes, you see, some money, so, as I said, one thing
brings another; and money after all, Pauline, is what many a man as
lost as I am mostly requires. It isn't as if I'd _had_ money,
squandered it and lost it; I never had it--I never had it."
He paused, and for a moment there had sounded that high dangerous ring
in his voice she knew so well, and Miss Clairville drew her hands away.
"But that was not all," she said coldly. "You spoke of something else,
of two things that had happened. What was the other?"
"The second grew out of the first, out of what I have told you. The
poems--they were a couple of ranch episodes,--I'll let you see them
presently--were signed by my full name, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree. I never
supposed any one I knew would see them, or seeing them trouble their
heads about the writer; in fact, I never thought about the matter. But
somebody did see them and did remember me, and did take the trouble to
find out who I was, and where I was, and I've had within the last
fortnight two letters from a well known firm of lawyers in London
informing me that I am without doubt the man they have been searching
for during the past year, and that quite a respectable little fortune
awaits me. There have been a few deaths in the family; I am next of
kin and so that's all there is about it. Simple as you like, but true
beyond a doubt, and so I thought I'd celebrate the event to-night with
you, Pauline, and perhaps confer with you--you woman of the world, with
your knowledge of life and of me--of me, alas! Me at my worst,
Pauline, but let us hope really my worst."
He rose and walked around the room, unconscious of the dark shadow that
also walked austerely outside the window. "This money--it is a great
thing that has happened to me. It is difficult to realize. Don't mind
my walking up and down; it soothes me and I'm excited too, I think."
Pauline seemed dazed.
"Is there a title? Is it much--the money that has been left you, I
mean? Very much?"
"A good deal, but no title." And Crabbe could not and did not try to
suppress the satisfied smile which told how he had gained in
self-respect during the last few days.
"I expect you'll think it a good deal. Of course in England it will be
different. There must be two houses with it; a town house--no, that
was sold a long while ago, I believe; anyway, there would be more to do
with it over there than on this side. I wonder how soon I ought to go."
"Go! You are going! But how much is it?"
"Oh! Didn't I say? About ten thousand; pounds you know, Pauline,
pounds, not dollars."
"Ten thousand pounds!"
"A nice little sum, lady dear?"
"All that money yours?"
"Yes, and not a penny too much, not a penny too much. I have to
revenge myself on fate, or Providence, or whatever you call it, for
these years of misery. I have to think of what I might have done and
lose no time in doing it. Pauline, I must think of you."
A softer mood held him now and he dropped upon his knee and laid his
head upon her lap, but she could not follow his swift changes of
emotion; the mention of the money had obliterated every other thought,
and whether it was the woman in her or the potential miserliness of her
race--the Clairvilles were traditionally stingy--she seemed unable to
get away from the mere image of the ten thousand pounds.
"But, _Mon Dieu_, what a great change there will be! You will be
everything and I shall be nothing! A poor actress, a doubtful lady!
Oh! I shall be nothing to you, I can see, I can see! _Mon Dieu_, but
this is only to bring more trouble upon me!"
Crabbe, as he will still be called, was at this much astonished. To do
him justice he had for some time, ever since Ringfield's advent in the
village in fact, found himself wishing that he might sincerely reform
and offer Pauline the honour of marriage, and with it some hopes of a
respectable competence.
"What nonsense are you saying?" he returned angrily. "Isn't money what
we both require, what we have always required? And here it is now, as
much as we want, and more, a great deal more, than we deserve or we
expected! Why, I'll marry you now, Pauline, and you'll keep me steady;
you and the travel and all the strangeness and the glory of it. You
don't need any educating, any furbishing up--thank Heaven you were
always a lady!--but we'll go abroad, of course, for a while and I'll
show you Paris, Pauline, Paris, where you told Father Rielle you wanted
to go and act; and you shall buy all you want at the shops, and I'll
take you to the Louvre. Oh, yes, and you must go and see Mme.
Bernhardt if she is acting; you might have been her rival if you'd
begun earlier, with your moods and fancies and tempers. Then we'll
come back to London, and I'll take you for a day to my old lodgings in
Jermyn St., just to square up things. Then we'll progress quietly to
the Towers, Langmere, Suffolk; that's the estate; not the most
interesting of counties, but everything will be new and equally
interesting to you, and thus we'll sober down to the regulation old
English married couple. Dost like the picture, my lady of St. Ignace,
my _châtelaine_ of Clairville?"
"Always Clairville, always St. Ignace." She clasped her hands above
her head in weariness. "If something could happen like what you
describe, but no--it is impossible. They say that Henry's sight is
going now, that very soon he will not be able to walk about by himself
at all, that he is better in body but worse in mind, that he is
forgetting all caution and speaking openly of the child--what is to be
the end of it?"
"If anything could happen! Something _has_ happened. What I am
telling you is true. I am rich, able to take care of you, to put an
end to this sordid existence; you shall be taken away from Henry and
the child, and the old associations. Don't you believe me?"
"I should like to; but it's too much, too sudden, too good to be true."
"But it _is_ true; here are the letters; here is money, a little of
what is due, and here are the poems. You see, even if there were any
mistake, any hitch about the estate, I still have a career open to me.
There's an old manuscript novel of mine lying about somewhere; I
believe I can get that taken; and I feel, I know there's something in
it,--life, truth, suffering! But there's no hitch, no mistake, I swear
it to you, Pauline; and whenever you're ready, I am; and we will, in
melodramatic language, fly together from these dreary wilds.
Fortunately residence at St. Ignace doesn't imply creditors. I've
taken a room here at Poussette's, and I shall live in comfort for the
short time that may elapse before we start. One thing, I hope, I hope,
I shall keep sober. Would you take me if you thought I wouldn't, lady
dear?"
He sat, stooping forward, his hair slightly disarranged, his blue eyes
no longer choleric but gently smiling. She realized that he was still
goodlooking, still a gentleman, a man of culture and even talent, young
enough to move the world, and almost as young in appearance as herself;
for mental anxiety and care of any kind always showed directly in her
mobile features, and she was already beginning to track a few grey
hairs and a few unbecoming wrinkles.
"There's another reason," she said evasively. "You have no idea how
persistent this young man, the minister, has become. I have warned
him, I have told him--not everything, of course, but a great deal--yet
still he follows me, and to-day, I cannot remember what I said; but I
have certainly led him to expect that I shall marry him."
"What! The parson! I thought you had more sense. Never do, never in
the world. And now in the light of my proposals, see what you would be
throwing away."
"But he is very earnest, very determined. He may keep me to my word.
He may not get over it if I refuse, if I manage to leave St. Ignace
with you."
Crabbe laughed and kissed her lightly on the ear. He said nothing, but
produced first letters and papers from his pocket and then a small
case. Pauline opened it; a pair of beautiful ear-rings flashed in the
lamp light. In her ears were the imitation ones; she thought no longer
of anything but whisking these out and putting on the others. Together
they studied the papers and read the letters; and before they parted
for the rest of the night she had promised to be ready in a month to
marry him wherever he would prefer to have the ceremony performed, and
to go abroad with him. She was to say that he had certainly come into
some money but not to say how much; she was to busy herself with making
arrangements for her brother's future comfort, as in all probability
the pair would never revisit St. Ignace; and she was to make in
particular a visit of a few days to Hawthorne on special and private
business connected with the child Angeel.