found himself ever furtively seeking her.... Such chance meetings are
not impossible; they happen every day. Why should such a thing not come
to him as well as to another?
And so in the summer twilight, not once but many times, some woman's
form--slender, graceful, light-footed as was Rosaleen's--would create
for a moment the illusion that she was there, close to him, would bring
the wild hope that in a moment his hungry heart would be satisfied, his
conscience cheated. And then the woman in whom he had seen for a moment
his poor lost love, would turn her head--and Banfield, cast down but
undismayed, would again pursue his eager, aimless search.
On the last evening of his stay in London, this obsession became so
intense that Banfield saw Rosaleen in every woman's shape that passed
him by. He grew afraid; and after an hour spent in the peopled streets,
he told himself that that way madness lay.
With eyes fixed on the dusty pavements, he made his way back to his
hotel, and sitting down he wrote a letter--a kind, cheerful letter--to
Matilda Wellow, telling her that he would be with her the next afternoon
at five o'clock. And then, for the first time since he had known that
Rosaleen was in London, his sleep was restful and unbroken. But in the
early morning he dreamed a curious dream; Rosaleen, the beloved, the
longed-for woman, was again with him,--elusive, mysterious, teasing as
she had ever been,--and Banfield, waking in the early dawn, felt tears
of joy standing on his face.
When he got up in the morning, and faced the day which was to see him go
back to Market Dalling, he felt as must feel a man who sees stretching
before him a lifelong period of servitude; but with that feeling came
the gloomy belief that he had conquered the temptation that had so beset
him, and this being so, he argued that he had at least a right to see
the place where Rosaleen now lived.
Having come to this specious understanding with himself, Banfield felt
his heart lighten. He told himself that he would wait till he was within
some two hours of the time when he knew he must leave London, and,
having so decided, he checked his impatience by various devices, packing
his portmanteau, paying his bill, doing first one thing and then
another, till the moment came for him to start walking along the
Embankment to Westminster.
When at last he reached the broad, wind-swept space out of which he had
been told turned Abbey Street, quietest and most sequestered of urban
backwaters, he lingered for awhile, suddenly filled with an obscure fear
of that for which he had so longed--a chance meeting with his wife.
After a few moments of indecision, he started walking slowly down the
middle of the street, his footfalls echoing on the cobblestones.
Banfield looked about him curiously. To the right stretched the rough
grey wall of London's oldest garden, framing a green oasis opposite the
row of small eighteenth-century houses which stood on the other side of
the street. They were quaint, shabby little dwellings, and against more
than one fanlight was displayed a card bearing the word "Lodgings."
When Banfield came opposite No. 18, he stopped and looked up at the
windows with beating heart and the colour rushed into his face, flooding
it under the sunburn; following a sudden, an irresistible impulse, he
stepped up on to the pavement, and with a nervous movement pulled the
bell.
Then followed what seemed to him a long wait on the doorstep, but at
last a thin, fretful woman came to the door and enquired his business.
"Does Miss Rosaleen Tara live here? Can I see her?"
"Yes, she lives 'ere right enough,"--the woman spoke with weary
indifference,--"come this way."
Banfield paused; he had never thought the access to Rosaleen would be so
simple, and he was bewildered by the ease with which this, to him so
momentous a step, had been compassed.
He followed the woman up the narrow, wainscoted staircase to a tiny
landing. "Stop," he said almost inaudibly, "I must tell you what to
say--you must not show me straight in to her, like this."
But even as he spoke, there was another tinkle of the bell, and the
woman began running heavily down the little staircase, leaving him
standing in front of the door.
He knocked, but there came no answer, and at last he turned the handle,
and walked into the room. It was empty of human presence, and yet his
wife had stamped something of herself on the shabbily furnished
sitting-room. Certain dainty trifles which he had known as hers were
there, and before him, on the piano, was a music-case which he himself
had given her.
The sight of this, his own gift, affected Banfield oddly, giving him a
feeling that he had a right to be there. After a moment's hesitation, he
walked over to the window, and looked out into the old Abbey garden.
There he would wait patiently--for hours if need be--till Rosaleen came
in.
Then, quite suddenly, there fell on his ear the voice which he had so
often heard in dreams, and which he had of late so passionately longed
to hear. He turned sharply round, and noticed for the first time that
the door of the inner room was ajar. It was from thence that the light,
indifferent tones floated impalpably towards him.
"Ah! but it's kind of you, doctor, to come so soon after Miss Lonsdale
asked you to see me! I've only just come in, but I won't be a moment--I
didn't expect you yet. Miss Lonsdale will be in long before you leave, I
hope; she's almost as anxious about my voice as I am--and the faith she
has in you, why, it's something wonderful!"
To Banfield, the words recalled, not Rosaleen his wife, but Rosaleen the
girl, the dear bewitching stranger he had first known and wooed, though
never won. Unconsciously he visualised the speaker; he seemed to see the
quick, bird-like movements with which she was taking off her hat and
smoothing her hair before the glass. He even saw her smiling--smiling as
she used to smile at him in the very early days of their acquaintance.
He knew that he ought to cry out--tell her that it was he, her husband,
David Banfield, who was there, and not the stranger whom she had
apparently been expecting; but though he opened his lips, no word would
come.
At last the door swung open quickly, and for a moment Banfield saw her
face, lit up by that touch of wholly innocent coquetry of which your
pretty Irishwoman seems to have the secret.
Then, as suddenly she realised the identity of the tall man standing
between her and the window, a peculiar--to Banfield a very
terrible--change of expression stiffened Rosaleen's face into watchful
fear and attention.
"What is it?" she asked. "Tell me quickly, David! Is Rosy ill, or--or
dead?"
"Rosy?" he stammered. "She's all right. I heard this morning----"
"--And I yesterday," she breathed quickly. Then she sat down, and
Banfield let his eyes rest on her with a painful, yearning scrutiny.
He had thought to find her altered, coarsened by the experience he
believed her to have gone through, but she had the same look of
delicate, rather frigid refinement, which had first attracted him. He
noted the perfection of her delicate profile, the determined,
well-shaped mouth,--then saw with a pang that there were a few threads
of white in the dark curly hair which, with her bright blue eyes, had
always been Rosaleen's principal beauties; and yet she looked scarcely
older than on the day he had last seen her--that on which he had
accompanied her with a heavy heart to the station at Market Dalling to
see her off to London.
Now, looking at her, it stabbed him to remember how even then she had
shown an almost childish joy in leaving him. She had put her arms round
his neck and kissed him in sign of gratitude. "It's kind of you to let
me go, Dave!" she had whispered. He had often thought of those last
words, the last he had heard her speak. Now he again remembered them.
Alas! alas! why had he let her go?
She sat, looking away from him, her eyes fixed on the empty grate.
"You frightened me," she said plaintively. "Why did you come here,
David, and frighten me like this? Why have you come here at all
after--after what you did to me?"
"What I did to you?" he stammered confusedly, and there came over him
the shamed fear that she had already heard of his coming marriage with
Matilda Wellow.
"Yes, what you did to me--the documents you sent me--divorce papers
they're called----" He felt, rather than saw, that his wife's eyes were
filling, brimming over with indignant tears. "We don't have those things
at home--in Ireland, I mean. And then reading out my letter--the mad
letter I sent you--before a lot of men!"
Rosaleen had always possessed the wifely art of being able to make David
Banfield feel himself in the wrong, and now, on hearing her last words,
the man before her told himself with a pang that he had indeed acted in
an unkind, even an unmanly, fashion to the fragile-looking woman who sat
with her face averted from him.
"I thought--of course I thought"--he plucked up courage as he
spoke--"that you wanted to be free. You said you hoped I should forget
you."
"--And so I did," she said quickly, "I did wish to be free--not so much
from you, as from the miserable, the stiflingly dull life you made me
lead at Market Dalling. That's why I wrote that foolish--that wicked
letter. I thought it would make you leave me alone. But, David," she
made a restless movement, "I didn't understand. However, I've been well
punished."
There was a short, strained silence. Then Rosaleen got up.
"I'm afraid I can't ask you to stay on much longer," she began
nervously, "for I'm expecting a doctor who was very kind to me once when
I was ill before. He's a friend of Carrie Lonsdale--you remember her,
David? The truth is, my voice has given out, and I've been trying to
give lessons, but Carrie thinks he will be able to make it come back
again soon."
"And what will you do," asked Banfield in a very low voice, "if he
fails?"
She turned and looked up at him, her eyes meeting his in direct
challenge.
"Whatever I do," she said proudly, "you need not fear that I shall come
to you for any help."
And then David Banfield felt shaken, overwhelmed by a fierce spasm of
violent, primitive jealousy. The name of the other man had never been
forthcoming; Rosaleen's letter had sufficed to win the undefended suit.
"I suppose," he said brutally, "that you can always depend on getting
help from your lover?"
Rosaleen's eyes dropped, her face flushed darkly as she saw the change
which came over her husband's face and as there came into his voice
accents she had never heard there.
She sprang up. "How dare you insult me? You have no right to say such a
thing to me! I am free to do exactly what I like and to go to whom I
choose--you yourself made me free!"
But a very different man from the man she had believed David Banfield to
be now stood before her.
Of the words she had said, the last alone remained with him. Free? Nay,
nay, Rosaleen was in no sense free; his whole nature rose up and
protested against such a statement. There could be no question of
choice, for she belonged to him, only to him, solely to him, and that
even if she had in a moment of aberration, of madness--his mind refused
to follow the thought to its logical conclusion--not even in the most
secret recess of his imagination had Banfield ever consented to dwell
on what he believed had been. Not till the last few moments had he seen
the torturing vision which almost always haunts the man who has been
betrayed by a beloved woman.
He came yet closer, and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Rosaleen," he said hoarsely, "you don't understand. You want to know
why I came here to-day? Well, I came to say that I am thinking of
leaving Market Dalling. I came to ask you if you are willing to come
back to me--to make a fresh start. You said just now that it was Market
Dalling and our life there that you hated--not me. I've had a very good
offer to go to South Africa, to Durban, and settle there. There's even a
house waiting for us, and a convent school for Rosy. But whether I go or
not depends on you, Rosaleen. If you are willing to come with us, we'll
all go together--if not, I mean to stay at Market Dalling."
Rosaleen remained quite still. She made no effort to move away from his
touch.
"Did you really come to ask me to do that, David, and that although you
think so ill of me?" There was a wondering doubt, a softer, kindlier
note, than Banfield had ever heard in his wife's voice.
He set his teeth and lied.
"Yes," he said, "that is why I came. Mary Scanlan gave me your address."
"Poor old Mary!" she exclaimed. "I suppose everyone at Market Dalling
thinks I'm a bad woman? Your sister, of course, always hoped that I was
a bad woman?"
She looked at him as if half expecting him to make some kind of denial.
But he remained silent. What answer, what denial could he make? Of
course, everyone at Market Dalling thought Rosaleen a bad woman. For the
matter of that, none of them had ever thought well of her, not even his
own people, not even his sister and her husband had made any attempt to
understand her.
Rosaleen's imprudent question made yet another matter, one which
Banfield had succeeded for a few moments in completely forgetting,
become once more very present to him. With a feeling of terrible
self-reproach there rose before him the helpless figure of Matilda
Wellow.
"It's not only you," he said slowly, "but I myself who need to make a
fresh start. I haven't so much right to blame you as you, Rosaleen,
perhaps think--for I myself did a very wrong, a wicked thing----"
She slipped away from under his hand and got up, facing him.
"It's absurd for you to say that," she exclaimed petulantly, "why, you
couldn't do anything wicked, David, if you tried! For the matter of
that, I never could see--I never have seen--why people are--why people
make----" she seemed to be seeking for a word, a phrase; and it was in a
whisper that she added the words, "beasts of themselves."
Banfield stared at her, not understanding; for the moment he was too
absorbed in his own feelings, in his own remorse, to take much heed of
what she was saying.
"Well?" he asked, "well, Rosaleen, shall we both forgive each other--and
make a fresh beginning?"
"Yes," she whispered, hanging her head as might have done a naughty
child. With a gesture of surrender, she held out her hands. "I'm ashamed
of what I did, David--and I'll try to be a better wife to you than I've
been up to now."
Poor Banfield! As he took her in his arms his heart beat with
suffocating joy; almost any other man would have felt her words, her
implied prayer for forgiveness, curiously inadequate.
She looked at him with a peculiar, earnest look, as if trying to make up
her mind to a certain course, and then, with a quick movement, she shook
herself free and disappeared into the back room.
He heard the sound of a drawer opening, the fumbling of a key. A moment
later she came back and thrust a small packet into his hand.
"There," she said, "open that, read what's inside, and then we'll
burn it. Thank God, Rosy will never know now the shame you put on
her mother. I've often thought how you would feel reading it, if
I--died--before--you did!" and each word was punctuated by an angry sob.
The little packet which Rosaleen had placed in Banfield's hand was tied
with blue ribbon, and on it was written: "In case of my death, to be
forwarded to Mr. Banfield, The Brew House, Market Dalling."
It was Rosaleen's fingers which untied the knotted ribbon and which
showed him, laid amid her little store of jewellery,--he had noticed
that she still wore her wedding ring,--a sheet of notepaper on which
was an attestation, sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths, that the
letter which she had written to him, the confession which had sufficed
to procure him his divorce, had been--false.
"But why?" he stammered. "Rosaleen--why?"
"Because I hated the life you made me lead at Market Dalling! I hate
Market Dalling and the hateful people who live there! You wouldn't even
let me play or sing on Sunday. And then, your sister Kate! She never
gave me a kind word or look! D'you think that was pleasant?" she asked
fiercely,--then more gently she added, "But I'm ashamed, I've always
been ashamed of that letter, and I'd no idea, Dave, that it would make
you do what it did."
The door behind them opened. Rosaleen turned around; she brushed the
angry tears from her cheeks; there came over her tremulous mouth a
charming, rather shy smile.
"Doctor," she said quietly, "you've just come in time to see my husband.
David, this is Dr. Bendall, who was so kind to me when I was ill."
Banfield held out his hand....
III
It was the late afternoon of the same day, and Mrs. Rigby was sitting as
she had sat on her silver wedding day, close to the window of her
sitting-room, her busy hands engaged now, as then, in mending
house-linen. Now, as then also, she was expecting her brother and
Matilda Wellow to dinner, for before Banfield left for London it had
been arranged that he and his betrothed should spend that evening with
the Rigbys.
Mrs. Rigby allowed the work she was holding to fall on her lap. She
looked into her garden with a preoccupied air. The month which had
elapsed since her silver wedding day had brought with it great changes
in her life, and what she saw before her seemed, in a sense, symbolic of
those changes, for in spite of her careful watering and constant
attention, the flower-beds, and above all the beautiful herbaceous
borders of which she was so proud, were beginning to look parched and
withered.
To-night more than ever Mrs. Rigby realised that the marriage of David
and Matilda would alter her own life, and that not for the better. Why,
in old days David would of course have come in to see his sister on his
way from the station, and that even in the now forgotten time when
Rosaleen was mistress of the Brew House. To-day her brother had
evidently gone straight to Matilda Wellow....
But Mrs. Rigby reminded herself that, taken as a whole, her garden was
incomparably fresher and greener than were those of her neighbours on
either side; and as to David and Tiddy, she now told herself, almost
speaking the words aloud in her anxiety to make them true, that she was
pleased--very pleased--with the way everything was going on.
Thus she was glad that the rather absurd secrecy, so insisted on by her
brother, would come to an end to-morrow. Of course a few old friends had
been told in confidence of the engagement--but considering that this was
so, the secret had been very well kept. It was not as if David were a
real widower; Mrs. Rigby could not help hoping that he would be spared
some of the silly remarks, the foolish congratulations, which fall to
the ordinary engaged man. It must be bad enough for him, so the sister
told herself, to put up with Tiddy's sentimental raptures. Still, it was
a comfort to know that Matilda Wellow was well aware that she was in
luck's way! How Tiddy studied David in everything--any other man would
have been spoilt!
For the first time, a smile, not a very kind smile, came over Mrs.
Rigby's shrewd, rather hard face.
During the last month, Matilda had actually given up eating potatoes and
butter, because some fool had told her that in that way she might hope
to regain the youthful slenderness of her figure! As for David, his
betrothed's little attentions evidently touched him, and no one could
say that he was not an attentive lover. Think of the ring he had sent
Tiddy, the ruby ring which had arrived yesterday morning, and which must
have cost--so Matt, who was learned in such things, declared--not a
penny less than £50!
The exact date of the wedding would probably be fixed to-night, for it
had been arranged that the marriage was to follow very soon after the
announcement of the engagement. There was no reason for delay. Mrs.
Rigby had herself chosen the 3rd of August as the best date, and she had
little doubt that she would be able to persuade Dave and Tiddy that no
other day would suit them so well.
Suddenly her quick ears caught the sound of footsteps treading down the
path to the left, a path hidden from the place where she was now
sitting, and a slight frown came over her face. Mrs. Rigby liked her
husband to come straight in to her from the office; but lately, he had
taken to the tiresome habit of going out by the back way, into the
garden, and then suddenly popping round on her.
She looked out expectantly, but the sound of footsteps died away. It
must have been one of the maids going down to the extreme end of the
garden in search of some kitchen stuff.
Mrs. Rigby again took up her work and began sewing diligently. Yes, the
marriage should take place quite quietly on the 3rd of August.
Everything was ready--in fact, there was nothing left to wait for. Even
Tiddy's wedding gown and headgear had come home.
David had showed himself oddly interested in this wholly feminine
question of his bride's attire.
He had actually been to the trouble of choosing the material of which
Tiddy's wedding gown was to be made; a white and grey stripe, a thin,
gauzy stuff not nearly substantial enough--or so Mrs. Rigby had
thought--for the purpose to which it was destined. And then he had
persuaded Matilda to go to a new dressmaker, a Frenchwoman who had been
lady's maid to one of his grand county acquaintances, and who had just
set up for herself in Market Dalling. More wonderful still, David had
made a rough drawing from some old picture that had taken his fancy of
the hat he desired Matilda to wear on her wedding day! It was a white
hat trimmed with long grey feathers, quite unlike Tiddy's usual
style....
Suddenly looking up, Mrs. Rigby felt a thrill of something like
superstitious fear, for there, making her way round the corner from the
summer-house, came, walking very slowly, a woman at once like and unlike
Matilda Wellow, clad in a silvery-looking gown and wearing a white hat
trimmed with long grey feathers.
As the figure advanced down the path, it took unmistakable shape and
substance; here, without a doubt, was Matilda wearing what were to be
her wedding garments, and, as Mrs. Rigby suddenly became aware, a
Matilda quite unlike her usual homely self!
Who would have thought that simply leaving off potatoes and butter for a
month would have made such a change! Or was that change due to the art
of the French dressmaker? The silvery-flounced skirt fell in graceful,
billowy folds to the ground, for Miss Wellow was not even holding up her
gown, as a more sensible woman would have done. The muslin kerchief
edged with real lace, outlined the wearer's still pretty shoulders, and
the hat--well, the hat was certainly becoming, especially now that
Tiddy's cheeks were flushed--as well they might be, considering what a
fool the woman was making of herself!
Mrs. Rigby felt rather cross at having been so startled; she got up, and
walked out to meet her guest, determined not to be drawn into any praise
of the becoming hat and gown.
"I hope David won't keep us waiting long," she said tartly. "I suppose
he thought that he must put on his dress suit," and her expression
showed clearly that in the matter of overdressing there was not much to
choose between her brother and the woman who was to become his wife.
"David will not be here to-night, Kate. He came, but he has gone away
again--back to London."
Miss Wellow spoke in a low, collected voice, and certain little
irritating mannerisms with which she usually punctuated her words were
absent. Perhaps it was the quiet, expressionless way in which she made
her surprising statement that caused Mrs. Rigby, as she afterwards
averred to her husband, at once to feel that something was wrong.
"Gone back to London?" the sister repeated. "Why, whatever has he done
that for? What business took him back to London, to-day?" and she looked
searchingly at the other's flushed face.
"Kate," said Miss Wellow, again speaking in the soft, emotionless voice
which was so unlike her own, "I have got to tell you something which I
fear will upset you--and make you very angry with poor David. Kate--he
has gone back to Rosaleen."