WILLIAM CRAWFORD FREE.
When William Crawford had posted his letter to his wife he felt ten
years younger than an hour before. He enjoyed an extraordinary
accession of spirits. The day had grown heavy and cloudy, but to him
it was brighter than the flawless blue of Mediterranean summer.
Richmond and Singleton Terrace were done with for good and all. There
were to be no more private theatricals played for board and lodgings.
Instead of simulating love for an elderly woman, he was at liberty to
make real love to the most charming young girl he had ever met. His
notions of right and wrong were clear and simple: what he liked was
right, what he did not like was wrong. Since he had come to man's
estate he had acted upon the code, and it never once occurred to him
to question it. He did not object to other men being pious or just or
modest; he did not object to their even preaching a little to him
about the merit of these or any other virtues. All he asked was to be
let go his own gait unmolested.
He was now at liberty to take what path he chose and adopt what sport
pleased his humour. He had played for a small fortune and won. He felt
proud of his success, and sorry that the nature of it forbade him
glorying in it. He was aware that the most disreputable and
unprincipled blackleg in the Counter Club would scorn to get money
as he had acquired his. But this did not matter to him. He was
not going to tell any one at the club how he came by the money;
that was an irksome self-restraint imposed upon himself out of
deference to ridiculous conventional ideas. But he had the money in
his pocket--that was the great thing.
As he intended playing all through the night, if the game were kept
up, it was too early to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon. He
should be fagged out before morning if he sat down now. He was neither
so young nor so impetuous that he could not discipline desire to
delay.
All at once he remembered that in abandoning Singleton Terrace so
suddenly he had lost his kit. The value of his baggage was not very
great, and with the sum now in his possession he would not for three
times its value go back to Richmond for it. He had now no personal
belongings but the clothes he stood in and a portmanteau at Welford.
He would go to a tailor and an outfitter and order what he wanted.
That would amuse him and help to kill time. He should get back to the
club about seven, and devote the rest of the evening and all the night
to cards.
He did not go to the tailor with whom he had dealt since he came to
live at Richmond. He wanted to cut himself off from that place as
completely as possible.
At the tailor's he ordered three suits of clothes to be ready in three
days and forwarded to Crawford's House, Crawford Street, Welford. What
he bought at the outfitter's were to be sent to the tailor's and to
accompany the parcel of the latter. He paid in advance for all. Then
he went to another shop, purchased a portmanteau, and directed it to
be delivered at the tailor's, and sent a note with it, asking him to
put the outfitter's parcel and the clothes into it and send it to the
address already given.
Then he bethought him of a dressing-bag, and he bought a handsome one
with silver-mounted bottle and ivory-backed brushes. The bag, being of
leather, reminded him that he had no boots but those on his feet. So
he purchased a couple of pairs and a pair of slippers, and the
slippers put him in mind of a dressing-gown.
He directed all these things to be sent to the tailor's, and wrote to
the tailor to let them all be forwarded at the one time--that is, when
the clothes were finished, in three days.
He enjoyed this shopping greatly. He had never before spent so much
money on himself in one day. It was so pleasant to buy these articles
without worrying about the price, to be in doubt as to whether he
should have a dressing-bag at thirty or thirty-five pounds, and to
decide in favour of the thirty-five-pound one merely because it had
prettier bottles and a greater number of pockets.
When he could think of nothing else which he wanted, he said to
himself, "And now what shall I take Hetty? I must get the very
handsomest present I can light upon."
This set him off calling Hetty up to mind. He looked into the windows
of a dozen jewellers' and shops where fancy articles were sold. He
failed to find an article to his liking. He could not realise Hetty
accepting any of the costly gifts presented to his view. At length
with a sudden start he cried out to himself, "What an idiot I have
been! Of course, she would not accept any of these things from me now.
A few simple flowers from Covent Garden to-morrow morning on my way to
Welford will be the very thing."
It never once occurred to him during the day that the money he was
spending belonged to his wife, and was being laid out in a way and
under conditions not contemplated by her in giving it to him. When he
decided on taking flowers to Hetty, it never once occurred to him that
this would be spending his wife's money to conciliate a rival of hers,
and that twenty-four hours ago he would have bought these same flowers
for his deserted wife.
"Hetty," he said, formulating his theory, "is to be won through her
imagination, not by pelf."
When he got back to the club he reckoned up what he had spent.
It was an agreeable surprise to find that although he had treated
himself with great liberality, all his purchases did not absorb the
hundred-pound note he had changed at the tailor's. He had got a
moderate outfit and a very handsome dressing-case, with cut-glass
bottles silver-mounted, and ivory-backed brushes, for less than one
thirty-second part of the money received from Mr. Brereton that
afternoon. He sat down to an excellent dinner with the conviction that
he had done a fair day's work, and that he was entitled to enjoy
himself for the remainder of the evening, and as far into the morning
as he chose.
The dinner was excellent; his shopping had given him zest for it, and
when he stood up from the table he felt in the most excellent humour
with himself and all the world.
He looked at his watch.
"She has my letter by this time," he said to himself, thinking of his
wife. "If she is not a greater fool than I take her for, she will know
from it that she has seen the last of me."
When he wrote the letter he had no intention of conveying any such
idea to her, but his shopping and thoughts of Hetty had hardened his
heart since then towards his unhappy wife, and now he wanted to
believe that his letter would leave her no loophole of hope.
"Dr. Loftus said any shock might bring on the end. Perhaps my
letter----" He paused and did not finish the sentence, but began
another: "When a case is hopeless the greatest mercy which can be
shown to the sufferer is, of course, to put an end to the struggle.
She could not have fancied for a moment that I was going to spend all
my life in the sick-room of a woman almost old enough to be my mother.
Anyway, I need not bother my head any more about the matter. She
cannot say that while our married life lasted I was not a kind and
considerate husband. Turn about is fair play, and I am going to be a
little kind and considerate to myself now. I'll put the past away from
my mind. 'Gather we rosebuds while we may' is my version. Now to lose
for the last time."
At the Counter Club there were men every night who did not mind how
far into the morning they sat so long as they were winning. From the
moment Crawford touched the cards until he rose at half-past six he
had lost steadily. Though he had played for higher stakes than usual,
he had been as careful of his game as if he had no more than a few
hundred pounds with him. He had not been reckless. He had not plunged.
Luck had simply been dead against him, and when, while eating his
early breakfast, he counted up the cost, he found he was close on
three hundred pounds the worse for his night's experience.
Mentally he cursed his bad luck.
"But I deserve no better," he thought. "I told myself that I should
have good luck only when I had come from Welford. The luck I played
with last night was my wife's or my own, and both have been invariably
bad. I shall go to Welford to-day, and play to-night with Hetty's
luck, and win back all I have lost and more besides. And now to get a
bouquet for Hetty--for the loveliest girl in the whole of England. But
the bouquet must not be too splendid. It must be simple and cheap, or
it might do more harm than good."
At Covent Garden he bought some simple blossoms, and had them tied
carelessly together.
"She will not value them for what they cost, but for my remembering
her."
He was full of confidence in his power to fascinate and win. It never
for a moment occurred to him that Hetty might not care for him or his
memory of her. The notion of a rival had never entered his head, and
if any one had suggested such a thing he would have laughed the
consideration of it to scorn. He admired Hetty intensely, and he meant
to succeed, and succeed he would.
He lounged about Covent Garden for a good while, for he did not want
to reach Welford until Layard had gone to the gasworks. Of course he
should say his visit to Crawford's House was made with the purpose of
seeing what progress had been made with the gates for the flooded
ice-house.
It was about eleven o'clock when he got to Welford Bridge.
"The coast will be quite clear till one or two o'clock," he thought,
with a sense of satisfaction. "Layard has gone to the works and Philip
Ray is in his office, curse him!"
When Hetty heard the latch in the door that day she came to no hasty
conclusion that it was her brother come back for something he had
forgotten. She was in the kitchen with Mrs. Grainger at the moment,
and guessed immediately it was Crawford, although the week was not yet
up. If Philip Ray had not spoken out to her, that sound at the door
and the likelihood of the visitor being the landlord of the house
would have thrown her into unpleasant excitement bordering on panic;
but now she felt as calm and as much at ease as though certain it was
Alfred himself.
"I shall say nothing of what that dreadful man said about his falling
into the river," she resolved hastily. "If he chooses to speak of it,
well and good; if he does not, well and good also. We are to leave
this house as soon as Alfred can make arrangements for doing so. The
quieter and the smoother everything goes in the meantime the better."
Crawford paused in the hall. Mrs. Grainger appeared "Is Mr. Layard
in?" he asked, well-knowing he was not.
"No, sir, he's gone to the works."
"Then will you tell Miss Layard I should be glad to see her for a few
minutes?" he said, taking off his hat and putting it on the table.
Hetty came at once, and held out her hand with a smile.
"She looks lovelier than ever," he thought, as he took the long
slender hand and retained it. "I know I have come before my time, but
I have been bothered again in my sleep about that ice-house and you. I
will stay a day or so in order to see the gates put up--that is, of
course, if you do not object?"
"Object!" she said, withdrawing her hand. "Why on earth should we
object?"
"Well, I don't know," said he. "It may seem to you that I am unduly
anxious about the matter. But upon my word, my anxiety about you has
deprived me of all peace since I saw you last, and that scoundrel to
whom I gave the order for the gates has not begun them yet. I assure
you I had to exercise all my self-restraint to keep my hands off the
fellow when I forced the truth from him. Will you accept a few simple
flowers as a peace-offering and in lieu of the gates?"
"O, thank you," she said. "They are beautiful! But you give yourself a
great deal of unnecessary anxiety and trouble about that ice-house. We
never allow little Freddie on the Quay by himself, and of course there
is no danger for a grown-up person, because no grown-up person ever
goes near it. How on earth," she asked, with a laugh, "do you fancy a
grown-up person could fall into such a place?" She wondered was he
going up to his own room, or did he intend to remain standing there
all day?
"I daresay I should not mind it if my dream happened to be about any
one else. But the mere hint that any danger could threaten you is
enough to drive me distracted. It is indeed," he said, looking at her
intently, and with a pained expression on his usually passive face. "I
assure you I did not sleep a wink last night; I could not, and I feel
quite worn out and ill this morning. I have been wandering about,
trying to kill time until I thought it was not too early to call here.
I am hardly able to stand with anxiety, want of sleep, and fatigue."
"Would you not like to go to your own room and rest awhile? I will
send Mrs. Grainger up with something nice for you."
"Mrs. Grainger could bring up nothing that I'd care for, and I hate
the notion of going to that lonely room. I am quite nervous and
unstrung." He sighed faintly and leaned against the wall for support.
"Well," she said, "will you come into our room and rest there?"
Plainly, after his reference to the loneliness of his own place and
the declaration of his exhausted condition, there was nothing but to
offer him their front-room.
"Thank you," he said, "I shall very gladly accept your offer. I am
thoroughly ashamed of seeming so weak and unmanned, but indeed I have
had an awful time of it."
He sank on a chair as though completely exhausted. She stood by the
door and said, "Cannot I send you something, Mr. Crawford?"
"If you would be so good as to get me a glass of water and then not
leave me for a little while I should feel very grateful to you."
She hastened away and returned in a few seconds with the water.
"Miss Layard, I cannot tell you how ill I felt as I came along here. I
really thought I should not have had courage to open the front door. I
was full of the direst imaginings. I fancied that no sooner should I
raise the latch than some awful form of bad news about you would
strike me dumb with horror, paralyse me with despair." He took out his
handkerchief and rubbed his forehead, which, however, was perfectly
free from moisture.
"I am very sorry to be the cause of so much trouble to you, Mr.
Crawford," said Hetty with some concern, though she had a vague kind
of feeling that there was something wrong with the man--that he was
either acting or of weak intellect. It never once occurred to her that
he was thinking of making love to her. How could it? Was not he a
married man? And did he not know that they were aware the owner of the
Welford and Leeham property was his wife? She thought he had been a
good deal too impulsive and a little impertinent on the former
occasion when he told her of his dream, but now she was almost
convinced that his violence of language on the former occasion and his
physical collapse now were the result of a weak mind under strong
excitement.
For a while after drinking the water he sat still and did not speak.
Apparently he was gradually recovering, for he sighed once or twice,
and once or twice straightened himself and sat upright on his chair.
"I shall be all right in a few minutes. The sight of you is doing me
good."
"Well, of course you know now nothing dreadful has happened?"
"To you--yes; I know that, thank Heaven! but to me, yes."
"Something dreadful has happened to you?" cried Hetty. "I am sorry to
hear you say so. Nothing, I hope, that can't be mended?"
"Well, I do not know about that. If my condition were very desperate,
Miss Layard, and it was in your power to mend it, and I asked you to
help me, would you do so?"
"Certainly, Mr. Crawford, if I possibly could." He rose and went to
her where she sat by the table, and bent over her, and said in a low,
tremulous, tender voice, "Thank you--thank you a thousand times, my
dear Miss Layard, my dear Hetty--may I call you Hetty?"
She coloured and looked uncomfortable, and this made her shine in his
eyes with ineffable beauty. "It is not usual," she said at last.
"No, it is not usual, but I would deem it a great privilege. I of
course would not call you by your dear Christian name when any one was
by, but when you and I were having a little chat by ourselves I might,
might I?"
Her colour and her confusion increased. "It is not usual," she
repeated. "There is no reason why you should call me one thing now and
another thing at another time." She raised her eyes, drew away a
little from him, and pointing to the chair, said with steady emphasis
which surprised herself, and showed him he must go no further--now,
anyway: "I am afraid you are not yet rested enough to stand so long.
Will you not sit down again?"
"You are right," he said with a deep sigh. "You are quite right. I am
completely worn out, and my head is confused."
"There is no couch in your own room--perhaps you would like to rest on
the one here? You will not be disturbed for some hours yet. My brother
does not come in till three."
"Thank you very much, Miss Layard," he said, without any emphasis on
her name. "But I think I'll go to my own room and lie down now. If I
could get an hour's sleep I should be all right."
When he stood alone in his own room he said to himself, "I have not
made much progress with her yet. I durst not go any further to-day
than I went. Next time I ask her I'd bet a thousand pounds to a penny
she'll give me leave to call her Hetty when we're alone. Once let her
give me leave to call her Hetty when we are alone while I am to call
her Miss Layard when any one else is present, and the rest is simple.
My dreams"--he uttered his short sharp laugh and winked his eyes
rapidly--"my dreams and my enormous solicitude for her welfare _must_
tell in the end."
He went to the open window and looked out at the canal and the Ait and
the tow-path. Then he turned his eyes downward.
With a cry of terror he sprang back, as though a deadly weapon or
venomous snake in act to strike were a hand's breadth from his breast.