Henrietta.
Mrs. Prendergast had heard of Chudleigh Wilmot's accession to fortune
before the news had reached that more than ever "rising" man. Though
she was not among Mr. Foljambe's intimates, and though that sprightly
old gentleman found less favour in her eyes than in those of most of
his acquaintance, she knew when his illness commenced, when it had
assumed a dangerous form; and she was one of the earliest outsiders to
learn its fatal and rapid termination. She was indebted for all this
information to Dr. Whittaker, whom she had assiduously cultivated, and
who was very fond of talking of all and everything that nearly or
remotely concerned Wilmot. The little professional jealousy which had
sometimes interfered with Dr. Whittaker's genuine and generally
irrepressible admiration of the genius and the success of his
_confrère_ and superior had given way to the influence of the
superior's loftiness and liberality of mind; and with Dr. Whittaker
also there was, as old Mr. Foljambe had said, on an occasion destined
to affect many destinies, "nothing like Wilmot."
Dr. Whittaker was not aware that Mrs. Prendergast valued his visits
chiefly because they afforded her an opportunity, which otherwise she
could not have enjoyed, of hearing of Wilmot. She had too much tact to
permit him to make any such mortifying discovery, and he had too much
vanity to permit him to suspect the fact, except under extreme
provocation. So Mrs. Prendergast accounted his visits as among her
most agreeable glimpses of society; and he regarded her as one of the
most sensible and unaffected women of his acquaintance. Thus, when Dr.
Whittaker's attendance on Mr. Foljambe came to a close with the
sprightly and _débonnaire_ old gentleman's life, he brought the news
to his friend in Cadogan-place, and they lamented together Wilmot's
untimely absence. But Dr. Whittaker had previously conveyed to Mrs.
Prendergast information of another sort, which had largely influenced
the feelings with which she heard of Mr. Foljambe's death.
It was the same welcome messenger who had brought her the tidings of
Madeleine Kilsyth's marriage; and never had he been more welcome. She
had steadily persevered in denying to herself that the young Scotch
girl could possibly count for anything, one way or another, in the
matter in which she was so vividly interested; but she had not
succeeded in feeling such complete conviction on the point as to
render her indifferent to any occurrence which effectually disposed of
that young lady before Wilmot's return. That he should have come back
to London, to all the former prestige of his talent and success, with
the new and brilliant addition that he had acquired the whole of Mr.
Foljambe's large fortune, to find Madeleine Kilsyth unmarried, and to
be brought upon an equality with her by the agency of his
wealth,--this would not have appeared to Henrietta by any means
desirable. The obstacles which the social pride of her relations might
have opposed to a penchant for Wilmot on the part of Miss Kilsyth--and
Mrs. Prendergast had always felt instinctively that such a _penchant_,
if it did not actually exist, would arise with opportunity--would be
considerably modified, if not altogether removed, by Wilmot's becoming
a rich man by other than professional means. Altogether there were
many new sources of danger to her project, which did not relax in its
intensity and fixedness by time, silence, or leisure for
consideration, in the possibility of Madeleine Kilsyth's being again
brought within Wilmot's reach, which presented themselves very
unpleasantly to the clear perception of Mrs. Prendergast.
"And so you had not heard of Miss Kilsyth's intended marriage at all,
knew nothing of it until after the event?" said Dr. Whittaker, after
he had imparted the intelligence to Mrs. Prendergast. To him it was
merely an item in the gossiping news of the day; nor had he any
suspicion that it was more to his hearer.
"No; I had not heard a word of it. And I wonder I had not, for I have
seen Miss Charlton several times; and I know Mrs. M'Diarmid has been
at their house frequently. She must have known all about it, and I
can't fancy her knowing anything and not talking about it."
"No," said Dr. Whittaker. "Reserve is not her _forte_, good old lady.
But they say--the omnipresent, omniscient, and indefinable
_they_--that Miss Kilsyth expressly stipulated that the engagement was
to be kept a profound secret. She is troubled, I understand, with rather
more delicacy and modesty than most young ladies at present; and she
disliked the pointing and talking, the giggling and speculation which
attend the appearance of an engaged young lady in what is politely
called 'high life' on such occasions."
"The engagement was not a long one, I suppose?" said Henrietta.
"Only a few weeks, I understand. They say Lady Muriel Kilsyth was
rather anxious to get her stepdaughter off her hands--"
"And into those of her not particularly rich cousin, I fancy," said
Henrietta. Dr. Whittaker laughed.
"I daresay I shall hear a great deal about it at the Charltons'," she
continued; "I am going to dine there to-morrow. I know Mrs. M'Diarmid
will be there, and she will have plenty to tell, no doubt. I shall
hear much more about the wedding than I shall care for."
Mrs. Prendergast dined at Mrs. Charlton's on the following day, and
she did hear a great deal about the wedding, which Mrs. M'Diarmid was
of opinion had not been quite worthy of the occasion either in style
or in publicity, and whereat she could not say Madeleine had conducted
herself altogether to her satisfaction. Not that she had been too
emotional, or in the least bold in her manner, but she had taken it
all so very quietly.
"I assure you it was quite unnatural, in my opinion," said the old
lady, with a homely heartiness of manner calculated to convert other
people to her opinion too. "Madeleine was as quiet and as unconcerned
as if it was somebody else's wedding, and not her own. She positively
seemed to think more of little Maud's dress and appearance than of her
own, and she was as friendly as possible with Mr. Caird."
"Friendly with Mr. Caird, Mrs. M'Diarmid!" said Henrietta. "Why should
you be surprised at that? Why should she not be friendly with him?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know, my dear," answered Mrs. M'Diarmid, who
called everyone 'my dear;' "it did seem odd to me somehow--there, I
can't explain it; and I daresay I'm an old fool--very likely; but
they did seem more like friends to me, that is, Madeleine did, than
lovers--that's the truth."
Miss Charlton remarked to Mrs. Prendergast, with a sentimental sigh,
that she perfectly understood Mrs. M'Diarmid,--that Miss Kilsyth's
manner had had too little of the solemnity and exaltation of such a
\serious and important event. "At such a moment, Henrietta," said the
young lady, raising her fine eyes towards the ceiling, "earth and its
restraints should fade, and the spirit be devoted to the heavenly
temple, Which is the true scene of the marriage."
"All I can say, then," said Mrs. M'Diarmid, by no means touched by the
high-flown interpretation placed upon her remarks, "is, that if anyone
can be reminded of a heavenly temple by St. George's, Hanover-square,
they must have a lively imagination; for a duller and heavier earthly
one I never was in in my life."
"I suppose the wedding-party was numerous?" said Mrs. Charlton, who
never could endure anything like a verbal passage-at-arms; and who was
moreover occasionally beset by a misgiving that her daughter was
rather silly.
"Not what the Kilsyths would consider large, my dear; only their
immediate connections and a few very intimate friends. Miss Kilsyth
would have it so; and indeed the whole thing was got up in a hurry. It
was announced in the _Morning Post_ on Monday, and the marriage came
off on Wednesday."
"I suppose the bride had some splendid presents?" said Miss Charlton,
whose curiosity was agreeably irrepressible.
"O yes, my dear, lots. Some beautiful and expensive; some ugly and
more expensive; Several cheap and pretty; and a great many which could
not possibly be of use to any rational being. You know Mr. Foljambe,
don't you, Mrs. Prendergast?"
"Yes," said Henrietta; "I know him slightly."
"He is an old friend of Kilsyth's; poor man, he's very ill
indeed--could not come to the wedding because he was ill then, and he
is much worse since; he gave Madeleine the handsomest present of the
lot--a beautiful set of pearls, and he sent her such a nice, kind,
old-fashioned letter with them. He is a real old dear, though I always
feel a little afraid of him somehow."
"Is Mr. Foljambe really very ill?" said Mrs. Charlton.
"I am sorry to say he is," said Henrietta; "I saw Dr. Whittaker
to-day, and he gave a very bad account of him."
"Dr. Whittaker?" said Mrs. Charlton inquiringly. "I don't know him;
I--"
"No," interrupted Henrietta with a smile; "he is not yet famous; he is
only just beginning to be a rising man. He is a great friend of Dr.
Wilmot's, who, when he went abroad, placed several of his principal
patients in his hands."
As Henrietta mentioned Wilmot's name, she glanced keenly at Mrs.
M'Diarmid, and perceived at once that the mention of him produced an
effect on the old lady of no pleasing kind. Her face became overcast
in a moment.
"I hope Miss Kilsyth's--I beg her pardon, Mrs. Caird's health is
sufficiently restored to make any such provision in her case
unnecessary," said Henrietta to Mrs. M'Diarmid in her best manner;
which was a very good manner indeed.
"Yes, yes," the old lady said absently; then recovering herself, she
continued, "Madeleine has been much better latterly; but Sir Saville
Rowe has been looking after her. Dr. Wilmot recommended her specially
to his care."
The conversation then turned on other matters, and did not again
revert to the Kilsyths; but Mrs. Prendergast carried away with her
from the substance of what had passed two convictions.
The first, that Wilmot had entertained sufficient feeling of some kind
for Madeleine Kilsyth to render him averse to bringing her into
contact with the man who attended his wife's deathbed, and who might
therefore have been inconveniently communicative, or even suspicious.
The second, that there was some painful impression or association in
the kind, honest, and simple mind of Mrs. M'Diarmid connected with Dr.
Wilmot and Madeleine Kilsyth.
On that evening Mrs. Prendergast settled the point, in consultation
with herself, that Madeleine's marriage was an important advantage
gained. How important, or precisely why, she had no means of
ascertaining, but she felt that it was so; and she experienced a
comfortable feeling, compounded of hope and content, at the
occurrence.
A week later Dr. Whittaker called on Henrietta and communicated to her
the intelligence of Mr. Foljambe's death; and in a few days later the
accession of Wilmot to his faithful old friend's large fortune was
made known to her in the same way.
And now Henrietta felt the full importance of the removal of Madeleine
Kilsyth from Wilmot's path. He would return to London of
course--perhaps to abandon his professional pursuits, though that she
thought an unlikely step on his part. His sphere of life would, however,
certainly be changed; and the best chance for the success of her
project would consist in her being able to induce him to form habits
of intimacy and companionship with her before the increased demands of
society upon him should whirl him away out of her reach. Even supposing,
which she--though more capable than most women of taking a contingency
which she disliked into sensible and serious consideration--did not
think likely, that Dr. Wilmot would contemplate a second marriage, and
that marriage purely of affection, he would certainly return to London
heart-whole. If Madeleine Kilsyth had indeed possessed for him
attraction which he could not disavow to himself, nor avow to the
world, so much the better now as things had turned out. Madeleine
would have held his fancy captive until such time as fate had set
between them a second inviolable barrier; and this new and keen
disappointment, even supposing he had never distinctly formulated his
hope, would have turned his heart, and brought him: back irresistibly
to the realties of life.
Thus, knowing nothing of the actual circumstances of the case, unaware
of the twofold shock which Chudleigh Wilmot had received by the events
which she calmly regarded as equally fortunate; unconscious of the
storm of passion, rage, grief, and helplessness in which Wilmot was
wrapped and tossed, even while she was quietly discussing the matter
with herself, Henrietta Prendergast arranged the present before her
eyes, and questioned the future in her thoughts. But had she known all
of which she was ignorant--had she been able to see Chudleigh Wilmot
as he really was, while she was thus thinking of him, the revelation
would hardly have changed the current of her thoughts, though it might
have robbed her of much of her composure. In that case she would have
reflected that she had but mistaken the quality and the depth of his
feelings, that circumstances remained unchanged. Wilmot had been
passionately in love with Madeleine Kilsyth; but he was now none the
less certainly, irrevocably, and eternally separated from her.
Thus, the facts which she knew, the facts which she guessed, and the
facts which were effectually concealed from her, all bore
encouragingly upon the projects of Henrietta Prendergast. It is only
just to acknowledge that the increase to his wealth did not intensify
or sharpen Mrs. Prendergast's wish to marry Wilmot; indeed it rather
depressed her. She felt that it might create new obstacles as strong
as those which fate had removed; she would have preferred his being in
his former position. "If I could have won him as he was," she thought,
"and then this fortune had come, that would have been better. However,
ever so poor he would have been a man worth winning; it makes no
difference in that respect his being ever so rich."
After all, this appreciation, calm and passionless, yet just,
clear-sighted, and true, was not a gift to be despised by a sensible
man, who had had the gilding pretty nearly taken off the gingerbread
of his life, but it was not likely to be valued as it deserved by a
man pining desperately for the impossible love of a brilliant young
beauty like Madeleine Kilsyth.
One immediate purpose which Henrietta set strongly before her was to
see Wilmot as soon as possible after his return, of the time of which
event she would be duly informed by Dr. Whittaker. She had had no
communication with him since the puzzling interview which had preceded
his departure; he had neither written nor gone to take leave of her;
but this omission, which would have been extremely discouraging to a
less keen-sighted woman, was not discouraging to Henrietta. She knew
that, as far as she was concerned, it meant simply nothing. Wilmot was
deeply distressed and preoccupied; that was the cause of it. She also
knew that at present, in his life, _she_ meant nothing, and she was
satisfied, so that the future should afford her a fair opportunity of
coming to mean much. But she must attain and begin to profit by that
opportunity as soon as possible--she must endeavour to anticipate
other impressions; and for this purpose she resolved to seek an
interview with him immediately on his return.
"I will write to him at once," she said to herself "He has no reason
to wish to avoid me; and if he had, he would conquer it at an appeal
made in the name of poor Mabel."
And this strange yet matter-of-fact woman paused in the busy current
of her thoughts and plans to bestow affectionate remembrance and true
regret on her dead friend! Henrietta Prendergast was neither
inconsistent nor insincere.
* * * * *
"I hope you did not think me intrusive in asking you to call on me so
soon," said Henrietta to Chudleigh Wilmot, when he had duly presented
himself in answer to a note from her, which she had written on the day
Dr. Whittaker had told her Wilmot had returned to London.
"You have seen him, of course?" she had asked Dr. Whittaker.--"Yes, I
have seen him. He looks extremely ill--wretchedly ill, in fact. As
unlike a man who has just come in for a tremendous stroke of luck as
any man I ever saw. I fancy he was more cut up about his wife's death
than either you or I gave him credit for--eh, Mrs. Prendergast?"
And now, holding Wilmot's hand in hers, and looking into his sunken
eyes, marking his sallow cheek, the rigidity of the expression of his
face, the thinness of his hand, she thought that Dr. Whittaker's first
impressions were correct. He did look ill, wretchedly ill. He did
indeed look little like a favourite of fortune.
He assured her, very kindly, that her note had only forestalled his
intention of calling upon her immediately, and apologised for his
former omission.
"I ought to have come to say good-bye," he said; "but I could not
indeed. I made no adieux possible to be avoided."
"And have you benefited by your absence? Have you gained health and
spirits to enjoy the good fortune which has befallen you?"
She asked him these questions in a tone of more than conventional
kindness; but her face told him she read the answer in his.
"I am quite well," he said quickly; "but perhaps I don't enjoy my good
fortune very much. I am alone in the world, Mrs. Prendergast; and my
fortune has been gained by the loss of the best friend I ever had in
it."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "that is very true. Poor Mr. Foljambe!
He missed you very much; but," she added, for she saw the painful
expression of self-reproach which she had noticed in their first
interview after Mabel's death settle down upon his face, "you must not
grieve about that. He expressed the utmost confidence in Dr.
Whittaker."
"I know--I know," said Wilmot. "Still I wish--however, that is but one
of many far heavier griefs. I did not come to talk about my troubles,"
he said with a faint smile. "You had something to say to me--what is
it? Not only to congratulate me on being a rich man now that it is too
late, I am sure."
"It is not altogether too late, I think," said Henrietta in a low
impressive voice; "and I wanted to speak to you of something connected
alike with your grief and your fortune."
"Indeed!" said Wilmot in a tone of anxious surprise.
"Yes," said Henrietta; "I did not know how long or how short a time
you might be within my reach; and so I determined to lose no time in
endeavouring to gain your assent to a wish of poor Mabel's."
The conscious blood rushed into Wilmot's face. This, then, was the
double connection of his present visit with his grief and his fortune.
And he had not been thinking of Mabel! His dead wife's friend believed
him indifferent to the wealth that had come too late to be shared by
her; and except for the first sudden remembrance which the sight of
Henrietta had produced, he had not thought of his dead wife at all. He
thought of her now with keen remorse--keener because it had not
occurred to him to think of her before, in connection with his wealth.
Yes, the life which had had so dark an ending might have been very
bright and prosperous now, with all this useless money to gild it. He
shrunk from Mrs. Prendergast's steady eyes with all the shame and
uneasiness of a candid nature when given credit for motives or deeds
superior to the truth. No vision of the dead face he had seen, awfully
white and still, in his little loved home, had arisen to blot out the
prospect of a future rich in all that wealth can give, to teach him
how infinitely little is that all, how poor that richness! But he
carried about for ever between him and the sunshine a vision of a fair
girlish face, with pleading innocent blue eyes, with golden hair and
faintly flushing cheeks, with sweet sensitive lips, and over all a
look which he knew well and interpreted only too accurately. And that
face, it did not lie in a coffin indeed, but as far, as hopelessly
away from him--it lay on another man's breast This was his grief; the
other--well, the other was his shield from suspicion, from
observation, his defence. He seized upon it, feeling unutterably the
degradation of the evasion, and answered:
"I will be more than grateful, Mrs. Prendergast, if you can show me
any way in which I can fulfil any wish of hers. If there is anything
within the power of any effort of mine, let me know it."
Then Henrietta, in her turn, putting the dead woman forward as a
pretext, began to discuss with Wilmot the provisions of a certain
charitable institution, to which she knew it had been Mrs. Wilmot's
wish to contribute, but which she had not felt entitled by her means
to assist. Wilmot acceded to all her suggestions with the utmost
readiness, besought her to tax her memory for any other resource for
doing honour to Mabel's memory, and prolonged his visit considerably
beyond Henrietta's expectation. In her softened manner there was now
no reproach, and her sense and calmness refreshed his jaded spirits.
It was a relief to him to be in the company of a woman who did not
expect him to be anything but sorrowful, and who yet had no suspicion
of the cause and origin of his sorrow. So thought Wilmot, as he left
Henrietta, having asked her permission to call on her again speedily.
And at the same moment Henrietta was thinking--
"He knows something of the torture of love unrequited and in vain now.
It won't last, of course; but for the present, if she could only know
it, poor Mabel is avenged!"