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Title: Married or single?, Vol. I (of 3)
Author: B. M. Croker
Release date: November 12, 2023 [eBook #72106]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, 1895
Credits: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIED OR SINGLE?, VOL. I (OF 3) ***
MARRIED OR SINGLE?
BY
B. M. CROKER
AUTHOR OF
“DIANA BARRINGTON,” “A FAMILY LIKENESS,” ETC.
[Illustration]
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1895
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PUPIL-TEACHER 1
II. NO NEWS 23
III. THE BREAKING-UP DANCE 41
IV. THE LAST TRAIN 67
V. EXPELLED 89
VI. “POVERTY COMES IN AT THE DOOR” 102
VII. A TELEGRAM FOR MISS WEST 117
VIII. NOT MARRIED AFTER ALL 135
IX. BARGAINING 157
X. MRS. KANE BECOMES AFFECTIONATE 167
XI. CHANGE OF AIR AND SCENE 190
XII. “SHE WILL DO!” 205
XIII. MR. WEST’S WISHES 224
MARRIED OR SINGLE?
CHAPTER I.
THE PUPIL-TEACHER.
+-----------------------------+
| MRS. AND THE MISSES HARPER. |
| |
| SELECT ESTABLISHMENT |
| |
| FOR |
| |
| YOUNG LADIES. |
+-----------------------------+
The above, engraved in bold characters on a highly-polished brass
plate, may be read on the gate of an imposing mansion situated in the
far-spreading suburbs of Riverside, one of the principal mercantile
towns in England. “Harperton” is a solid and secluded residence,
standing in its own grounds (of two acres, one perch). It is planned
to resemble a country house of some pretensions, but the symmetry of
its proportions is spoiled by a long, low building jutting out at the
side, that may be taken for anything from a stable to a billiard-room,
but is, in fact, the scene of Mrs. Harper’s scholastic labours, erected
at her own cost--in other words, the schoolroom. This apartment is
illuminated by six windows, the lower halves of which are, of course,
of muffled glass. The floor is carpeted here and there, as it were,
in squares or plots, and in the midst of each square there is a desk
and a comfortable cushioned chair. These indicate the localities of
the various classes. The schoolroom walls are covered with maps,
book-cases, lists of rules, and practising hours, and lined with
narrow desks and benches. A worn piano, a prim, white-faced clock,
and a high wire fender comprise most of the furniture--ornamental and
otherwise; unless we include the two young ladies who are sitting at
one of the far desks, making the most of their time whilst the boarders
are out for their usual walk. One of these damsels has mendaciously
pleaded ear-ache in order to escape the hateful daily promenade. The
other--that nondescript character, a pupil-teacher--is fulfilling
a part of her duties, and diligently darning the “little ones’”
stockings, whilst her companion, with both elbows on the desk, and both
hands in her ruffled hair, watches her and talks.
“This must be perfectly awful for you, Maddie dear,” she was saying.
“Don’t you loathe it all, and wish you could run away? I should, if I
were in your shoes.”
“Run away! What nonsense, Flo! Where could I run to, even supposing
such an insane idea had entered my head, which it never has done? You
forget that I have no friends in England; and, after all, I am not such
an object of pity as you seem to imagine,” darning steadily all the
time.
“If you are not, I should like to know who is!” demanded her
schoolfellow, emphatically. “You are one day at the top of the tree,
the head of the first class, the best pupil Herr Kroot ever had,
adored by the Harpies”--here Miss Blewitt alluded to her respected
instructress and daughters--“always exquisitely dressed, with heaps
of pocket-money, sleeping in the best room, allowed a fire in winter,
every extra--claret and coffee--and I don’t know _what_! After years
and years of this style of thing, and when you are seventeen, and
almost finished, your father suddenly stops supplies, you are not paid
for for three whole terms, and the hateful Harpies make you into a
regular drudge--a pupil-teacher, a nursery governess, a servant! You
sleep in the attic with those odious little Smiths--wash, dress, and
teach them; you go messages to the shops, and even into Riverside--you,
who were never allowed to stir one yard alone; you mend and darn and
teach.”
She paused, not from lack of words, but from want of breath.
“And a very good thing that I _can_ do something to pay for my living,”
remarked the other, with composure. “If I could not sew and mend and
teach, what would become of me, I should be glad to know? I could
scarcely expect the Harpers to go on keeping me at their own expense;
and now I take the fifth class, the little ones’ music, and I save a
servant for those Indian children, I work for my bread--and I am worth
it.”
“I should rather think you were,” rejoined her listener, sarcastically.
“You are worth a hundred a year to them as teacher, besides being
dressmaker and nursery-maid. It makes me wild--I feel quite crazy--when
I see all that they get out of you, early and late, and the shameful
way they treat you! Once upon a time you were ‘darling Madeline’--their
‘dear, bright-faced girl,’ their ‘model pupil,’ now you are ‘Madeline
West,’ or ‘Miss West,’ and you are ‘slow,’ ‘awkward,’ ‘lazy,’ and
‘impertinent.’ Oh dear me! dear me! sometimes I feel as if I should
like to fly at Miss Selina and bite a piece out of her, I am so savage.”
“I hope to goodness you will restrain your feelings,” said Madeline,
with a smile, as she threaded a long needleful of black wool, and
commenced on a gaping heel. “The Harpers are only human, after
all! It was very hard on them, my father having failed; and all my
music-lessons, and painting, and singing, and German, for two terms,
had to be paid for out of their own pockets. Signor Squaletti charges
half a guinea an hour. Then there were my clothes. I feel hot all over
when I remember the quantity of money I laid out, believing that it
would be all settled, as usual, by father’s cheque at Christmas. There
was that white dress for the breaking-up party----”
“In which you made such an impression on the Wolfertons’ friend, young
Mr. Wynne,” interrupted Florence, with a meaning nudge. “Oh yes, I
remember the white dress!”
“Don’t, Flo! Your elbow is like a knife,” expostulated her friend, with
some discernible increase of colour. “As to Mr. Wynne, what you say is
nonsense, and you know Mrs. Harper forbids us to speak of--of--such
things.”
“I know that Mrs. Harper was most uneasy in her mind when she saw him
dancing four times with you running--yes, dance after dance--and she
came up and introduced him to Julia Flowers’ two red-haired sisters,
and said that gentlemen were so scarce, and her girls were not _out_,
and all that sort of rubbish; and she sent him down to supper with old
Mrs. Browne, and she sent you to bed because you looked pale! Oh yes,
I saw it all--all. I saw that Mr. Wynne never danced again, but stood
with his back to the wall for the rest of the evening, looking as cross
as two sticks. Very likely he would never have given you a thought,
if you had not been so plainly and openly banished: absence makes the
heart grow fonder! Mrs. Harper put the idea into his head by making
such a stupid fuss--and she has only herself to thank. He sent you
those flowers, he came to our church, and Miss Selina took it all to
herself--the ridiculous old cat! As if he would look at her! She closed
on the flowers: much good may they do her!”
“Now, Flo, how do you know that they were not for her?” asked her
companion with a smile. “But, don’t let us talk about them. It is an
old story.”
“But I _will_ talk about them,” persisted Flo, angrily. “I’ll talk
about your nice green tailor-made, and your winter coat trimmed with
fur, and your opera cloak, and your white dress--_the_ white dress,
which they took away from you!”
“Well, they had paid for them, you see,” rejoined Madeline quietly. “I
am glad they did take them--I owe them the less.”
“Thank goodness your gloves and boots were too small,” continued Flo,
in a tone of fervent congratulation, “otherwise they would have gone
also. They are rather different from the Harpers’ chaussure, which is
of the canal-boat type and size. Now I know what pedestrians mean when
they talk of ‘covering’ miles of ground.”
“Well, my dear excited Flo, they did not make their own feet,” said the
other coolly.
“How philosophical you are becoming! Quite an old head on young
shoulders! Who made their tempers, I should be glad to know?--or
their tongues? Thank goodness, this is my last half! Good-bye to
early rising, lectures, scoldings, resurrection pies, milk and water,
and rice puddings. Good-bye to Harperton--penitentiary and prison.
Good-bye to Harpies, and hurrah for home!”--throwing, as she spoke, a
dictionary up to the ceiling; failing to catch which, it fell open,
face downwards, with a bang.
“That is May’s dictionary, Flo,” remonstrated the other. “You will not
improve its poor back.”
“If you stay here long, Madeline, you will certainly become just
as preaching and particular as one of the Harpies themselves. You
are tremendously sobered as it is. Who would think, to look at you
darning away so industriously, that this time last year you were the
queen and moving spirit of the school; always getting up charades,
dances, and concerts, and carrying your point on every question, and
figuratively snapping your fingers at the Harpies if they interfered
with your schemes--which, to do them justice, was very seldom! Ah! my
poor Maddie, since then what a change has come o’er the spirit of your
dream! It is terrible. If you had always been a pupil-teacher it would
be another matter, or if you had gone to another school, where no one
knew that you had fallen from your high estate; but here, the scene
of your triumphs, to make the descent to the very foot of the ladder,
is--is frightful. I often wonder how you can bear it so well.”
“I often wonder too,” said Madeline shortly, winking her tears back
with a great effort. “You are not going the best way to work to help me
to endure my lot, Flo, raking up all these things. Bad or good, I must
submit. I have no alternative--nowhere to go, until my father comes
home. The best thing I can do is to be patient, and try and repay the
Harpers for some of the money they have expended on me.”
“Repay them!” echoed Miss Blewitt, scornfully. “They made a very good
thing out of you for nine years--large profits and quick returns. Now,
although your father has not sent his usual remittance--is not that the
word?--and they have heard that he is in business difficulties, yet I
think they might have given you a little more law--a longer day. They
might have exercised some patience. You have not heard of your father
for more than a year, have you?” she added bluntly.
“No, not for sixteen months,” answered the pupil-teacher.
“But even if he were dead,” proceeded Flo, with a fine disregard of her
friend’s feelings, and an open defiance of the laws of good breeding,
such as is occasionally to be found in girls of her age, “you could not
honestly pretend to be very much cut up! You have not seen him since
you were a small child. You left Australia when you were seven years
old. He is a stranger to you.”
“A stranger, certainly, in one way; but still he is my father, and I
have a presentiment that we shall meet again, and before long,” rolling
up a pair of stockings as she spoke, and averting her eyes from her
outspoken schoolfellow.
“Pooh! I don’t believe in presentiments. _I_ had a presentiment that
father was going to give me a cart and cob last holidays, and it ended
in smoke. If your father had been in the land of the living, surely you
would have heard. I know I am saying this very baldly and plainly, but
there is no use in beating about the bush--is there? You must face the
position sooner or later.”
“You mean the position of being an orphan?” said Madeline, tremulously.
“But I refuse to accept that until I have not one grain of hope left.
It is easy for you, who have your father and mother and five brothers
at home, to talk in this way. Remember, I have only one relation in the
world, and when I lose him I lose all.”
“Well, all I can say is, that I hope your presentiment will turn out
better than mine! Oh, here are the girls coming back!” she exclaimed
peevishly, as a long file of figures appeared, passing the windows
two and two. “What a bore they are! They seem to have only been out a
quarter of an hour, and here they come marching in, disturbing our nice
comfortable little talk.”
Florence Blewitt, who so successfully practised the art of plain
speaking and trampling on other people’s susceptibilities--people were
welcome to trample on hers, she declared; she had none--was a short,
squarely-built girl of sixteen, with a sharp nose, thick brown hair,
intelligent grey eyes, and a very dark skin--a skin that betrayed no
_soupçon_ of foreign blood, but was, nevertheless, more brown than
white. She was brusque, eccentric, clever, and indolent. Florence
could--if she would--but she so seldom would. She preferred the ease
of an undisturbed seat at the very bottom of the class to ambitious
battlings and feverish strivings for the first place. She was the
spoiled only daughter of a wealthy merchant and shipowner, and, being
deferred to and made much of at home, was disposed to be both arbitrary
and independent at school. Moreover, she was selfish, which is not
a taking trait in a young woman’s character, and was anything but a
popular idol. She would borrow readily, but hated to lend; and the only
thing with which she was generous was her advice; the sole present
she was ever known to make was her opinion--gratis. Few were honoured
by her liking, and if she had a friend at Harperton, it was the girl
who sat beside her, conscientiously mending a basketful of most
hopeless-looking stockings.
“I wonder what your fate will be, Maddie?” said Flo, staring at
her meditatively, and studying her delicate profile, her pencilled
eyebrows, her shining hair.
“I wonder too,” echoed Madeline, with a profound sigh.
Madeline West had been born in Melbourne, and sent home at the age
of seven to Mrs. Harper’s establishment, where she had remained for
ten years. From a skinny, elf-like, wildly excitable child, she had
grown up into an extremely pretty girl, with what the drawing-master
termed “wonderful colouring.” Her hair, eyebrows, and lashes were
dark, her eyes two shades lighter, but it was in her complexion and
the exquisite modelling of her head and features that her chief beauty
lay. Her head was small, and beautifully set upon her shoulders; her
skin was of creamy fairness, with a faint shade of carmine in her
cheeks--a colour so delicate that it went and came at a look or word.
She was tall, slight, and wonderfully graceful; full of vivacity,
activity, versatility and resource, ready to throw herself warmly into
any scheme for amusement or mischief--that was to say, twelve months
previously. She was by far the most striking-looking and admired of
Mrs. Harper’s forty boarders, and, notwithstanding this drawback to
feminine goodwill, was a great favourite with pupils, teachers, and
servants. Her popularity had even survived that terrible test of
altered circumstances--that dire fall from the wealthy Australian
heiress to the unpaid slavey of the establishment. She changed, of
course, her ringing laugh and her happy air; her merry repartee and
snatches of songs had disappeared with the pretty frocks and hats
and shoes which she had loved so well. She was developing a staid,
grown-up manner, according to her fellow-pupils; she held back from
their advances--abdicated of her own accord, and her place as queen of
the school was filled, after a decent interregnum, by a rich Cockney,
who was as lavish of her shillings, as she was frugal in the matter of
h’s, and who, according to Flo Blewitt, was “a harmless, good-natured,
vulgar, poor creature.”
It must not be supposed that Madeline West did not keenly feel her
altered position. Many a bitter tear she shed in secret; many a
sleepless hour she lay awake, when all her companions--with only
to-morrow’s lessons on their minds--were slumbering peacefully
in the arms of Morpheus. Every small indignity, every slighting
speech and sharp glance entered as an iron into her soul, but she
made no remonstrance or reply; her swiftly changing colour was the
sole index to her feelings, and what were a school-girl’s--a pauper
school-girl’s--feelings to Mrs. Harper? To tell the truth, Madeline had
never asserted herself even in her days of sunshine. She never could
face an unpleasant situation; she put aside a crisis with a laugh or a
gay word; her sensitive, luxurious nature shrank instinctively from all
unpleasant things. She was a moral coward, though no one suspected it.
The present clouds on her sky had brought out, in an unexpected
manner, unexpected depths in her character. Madeline, the humble
semi-nursemaid, was an industrious, prudent, self-possessed person, who
laboured gravely, doggedly from morning to night, a totally different
girl to the extravagant, generous, easy-going Madeline, the butterfly
who had fluttered the happy hours away for nine whole years. She was
now at another seminary. Adversity is said to be an excellent school,
and offers a fine test of character. Anomalous as it sounds, Madeline
West had _risen_ to the state of life into which she had _fallen_.
CHAPTER II.
NO NEWS.
Three months had passed, and still no sign or token from Mr. Robert
West. How anxiously his daughter’s eyes followed Miss Selina’s skinny
fingers, as they dealt out the letters every morning during breakfast
time--these letters having previously been thoroughly turned over,
examined, felt, and even _smelt_, by that lady and her relatives. It
was always the same in answer to Madeline’s unspoken appeal. “No,
nothing for you, Madeline,” or, “No letter yet, Miss West,” according
to the frame of mind in which Miss Selina found herself. And then Mrs.
Harper, who was seated behind an immense copper tea apparatus, would
peer round it, with her keen little eyes and bobbing grey curls, and
shake her head at the pupil-teacher, in a manner which signified that
she did not approve of her at all! As if poor Madeline was not sick
with hope deferred, and wild with a frenzied desire to get away and
never pass another night under that lady’s roof-tree; only there was
one big _but_, one immense drawback to her own most eager wishes, she
had nowhere else to go.
The Miss Harpers, who were fully alive to Madeline’s value, were by no
means equally anxious for her departure. She corrected exercises, ruled
copybooks, relieved them of several distasteful duties, and took the
little ones’ music--an agonizing ordeal. She really did as much as
any two paid teachers, and--an ecstatic fact--for nothing! Moreover,
they had the delicious sensation that they were performing a charitable
action all the time, and looked primly self-conscious and benevolent
when their friends exclaimed: “How good of you, you dear, kind,
Christian people, to keep that unfortunate Australian girl!”
Miss Selina, who was forty, with a complexion like that of a wax doll
who has been left lying in the sun, would sigh softly and murmur
the word “duty,” when perhaps at that very moment the unfortunate
Australian was fulfilling the least agreeable of hers--putting those
fretful, ungovernable, sickly little Anglo-Indians to bed--and to sleep.
They were too young for school routine; spoiled, fractious,
disobedient, and mischievous, they were Madeline’s almost entire
charge. Happy Madeline!
It is winter when we once more enter the schoolroom at Harperton, a
bitterly cold day, and the small fire behind the wire screen does
not half heat that great bare apartment, with its numerous doors and
windows. Those at a distance are “out in the cold” indeed, for a double
file of girls is gathered closely round the fender, talking four at
a time, and making noise enough for a rookery. This is the half-hour
after tea, and exclusively their own; they are indemnifying themselves
for many hours of silence and French--which almost amounts to the same
thing. Their speech is vigorous and unpolished, for no teacher is
present except Madeline--if teacher she can be called. She is standing
at a remote desk, mounting a drawing by the light of a cheap little
hand-lamp. The gas is never turned on in the schoolroom until half-past
six, because the twilight is so delightful (so economical they meant),
quoth the thrifty Miss Harpers.
The coals, which have been angrily stirred up, throw a good blaze,
and reveal the faces and figures of the fire-worshippers assembled
round the screen, especially the face and figure of Isabella Jones,
the present reigning potentate. She has hitched herself up on the edge
of the fire-guard, holding on there by the mantelpiece, and from this
elevated position is dispensing law, wit, snubs, and patronage. She
is very tall and thin, stoops a good deal, and is the proprietor of a
tip-tilted nose, a pair of quick little brown eyes, and millions of
freckles. She is also the proprietor of a quantity of pretty dresses,
of unlimited pocket-money, a vast amount of self-esteem, and the
largest and reddest hands in the room.
Mrs. Harper’s seminary is only intended for the offspring of wealthy
folk. Izzie’s father has made his pile in margarine, and has
desired that his daughter may have the best of everything--every
accomplishment, every extra, just like a duchess. Izzie has,
accordingly, a separate bedroom, and lessons from the most expensive
masters; nevertheless, she is far--oh! very far--from being like a
duchess. Her education was begun too late; she is naturally dull.
“I say, girls,” she is screaming sociably, “isn’t it grand to think
that in ten days more we shall all be at ’ome?
“‘This day fortnight, where shall I be?
Not in this academee,
Eating scrape and drinking tea.
This day fortnight, where shall I be?’”
She chanted in a sing-song voice, more or less through her nose.
“And there is the breaking-up dance,” put in one of her satellites; “I
don’t want to go home till that is over.”
“Gracious! I should hope not. What fun it will be,” exclaimed Miss
Jones. “I hope there will be lots of men this time. I ’inted as much
to Miss Selina. What is the use of going to the expense of supper, and
us all getting new dresses, just for the day boarders? That’s what _I_
say.”
“What good, indeed!” put in Flo, sarcastically, as she elbowed her
way to the very middle of the fire. “But pray do not make yourselves
unhappy about the expense of the supper, my dear young friends. It will
not concern us. I heard Mrs. Harper telling mademoiselle that they did
not intend to have the girls in on this occasion, gobbling up the ices
and confectionery, like so many locusts.”
“I did not know that locusts went in for confectionery,” remarked
Isabella, with a sniff of scorn.
“This marvellous discovery in natural history was Mrs. Harper’s, not
mine,” said Flo, with swelling dignity. “However, the meaning is plain.
We are not to sup. We are to ’ave”--mimicking her schoolfellow--“buns
and egg-sandwiches ’anded round in the schoolroom, whilst the company
are carousing downstairs.”
The “take-off” was entirely lost on Isabella, who was far too much
impressed with the intelligence to be alive to Flo’s impertinence. A
dead silence followed this disagreeable announcement, which was at
length broken by Miss Jones, who, sliding from the top of the screen in
the excitement of the moment, shrilly exclaimed--
“Well, I declare! I won’t stand it! I shall tell Mrs. H. so to her
face. Why, our parents _pay_ for the supper! Locusts, indeed! My
father pays handsomely for extras and everything, breaking-up party
and all; and to be put off with a bun! I think I see myself--I just
do! Why”--warming with her theme--“supper is ’alf the fun! There
are the crackers and mottoes and jokes, and every one taken down by
a gentleman, arm-in-arm. I’ll go to supper for one, and stay up to
the last. I did not get my new pink dress just to dance with girls,
and eat an egg sandwich and go to bed. _Rather_ not. Leave it to
me, girls”--looking round on her companions with an air of friendly
encouragement--“I shall have a word with Miss Selina. We shall all go
to supper, or Isabella Jones will know the reason why.”
“Oh, you dear, good Izzy!” cried two voices simultaneously. And one
continued, “You know you can do anything with Snappy, and if _you_ ask,
it will be all right. But about partners, I am afraid they will be few
and far between; Snappy and Miss Harper keep the best for themselves
and their friends. Anything is good enough for the girls. Last time I
was thankful to dance all night with a little boy in a jacket; however,
it was a shade better than sitting-out.”
“There are the Wolfertons,” observed Flo, “and they generally bring
two or three men. Last year there was Mr. Wynne, who was tremendously
struck with Madeline.” Then raising her voice, “Maddie, do you remember
Mr. Wynne? Come over here, and let us see if you are blushing.”
“Mr. Wynne, Fred Wolferton’s friend!” cried Isabella, with great
animation. “He is a barrister, and, of course, without a penny to
jingle on a milestone--poor as Job. My father don’t approve of my
getting to know these paupers. You know I’m an heiress”--giggling--“and
father says----”
“Oh never mind your father!” broke in Flo, rudely. “You need not be
alarmed; Mr. Wynne won’t look at you as long as Madeline is in the
room--and perhaps he may not come. Who else are invited--the Sangsters,
the Wallers, the Rays?”
“All common sort of people,” remarked the grand-daughter of a baron.
“Very worthy in their _way_, and well enough for a girls’ school
breaking-up; but I should not dream of knowing them at home, or of
bowing if I met them anywhere;” and she threw up her chin, and looked
about her superciliously.
No one combated this dire announcement; they were all a little in awe
of Miss De Ville and her ancestors--especially of the one who had
fought in Palestine--and they were silent and impressed, being young.
At length a word was whispered, which quickly set every tongue wagging.
That magic word was “dress.” What were they all going to wear? One
lacked new shoes, another gloves; a fan was lent--in prospect--in
return for good offices in the hair-dressing line. Amidst this gabble,
Isabella’s piercing voice was heard high and shrill above all,
describing the body of her new pink dress. Madeline had joined the
crowd, looking white and cold--and no wonder.
“Keep away your fingers, my dear, if they are sticky,” said Flo; “and,
by the way, what are you going to adorn yourself in? Your white dress
was taken by the Harpies, as most unsuitable to you now.”
“I have nothing but my black cashmere,” she returned, “and
this”--holding out a shabby serge sleeve.
“They really must give you something!” cried Isabella, impressively,
“if only for the look of the thing. For the credit of the
establishment, they can’t have you appear like an old rag-picker.”
Madeline coloured vividly. “I don’t mind giving you a dress myself, if
you will take it.”
“Now, I call that a French compliment, Isabella Jones,” remarked Flo,
with her usual candour, “and you know it. If Madeline has to wear
the old black, so much the worse; but, whatever she wears, she will
always look a--_lady_,” accompanying the remark with a glance at Miss
Jones that gave it point and significance, and made that young person
feel that it would be a pleasure to take the big ink-bottle off the
chimney-piece, and fling it at Florence Blewitt’s solid, square-looking
head.
“You need not trouble about my dress, Flo, nor need I,” said Madeline,
trying to find room on the top of the screen for her benumbed fingers.
“Miss Selina told me this morning to practise up my dance music. I am
to play----”
“Oh, what a shame!” chorused half a dozen voices. “Saving the usual
piano player, and a guinea--the skinflints!”
But human nature is human nature, and not a few of these fair creatures
felt a conviction that Madeline and her pretty face were best at the
piano--turned towards the wall--and that it was only fair to give
others a chance, meaning their sweet, unsophisticated selves. They had
a very distinct vision of the benefit that would accrue to them as a
result of this economical arrangement on the part of the Harpers.
“But what will Mr. Wynne do?” inquired Miss De Ville, with the corners
of her mouth drawn down.
She was a tall, pale, sandy-haired girl, with white lashes, and a
scornful countenance. Madeline’s eyes flashed. She was on the point
of answering, but the words were taken out of her mouth by Flo, who
replied--
“He will dance with you instead, my dear.”
“You know we are not allowed to talk about gentlemen,” put in a prim
girl, with very prominent teeth and a painfully stiff white collar.
“Bosh!” exclaimed Isabella. “I’ll talk of whom _I_ please, from the old
gentleman upwards. I’ll talk of Mr. Wynne, Mr. Wolferton, Mr. Lancy,
Mr. Sangster, Mr. Summers, Mr. Ferraby, Mr. Armstrong----”
“_Young ladies!_” said an awful voice that made them all start, and
fall away from the fender like a flock of frightened sheep. “What
vulgarity is _this_? How often have I told you that I highly disapprove
of such conversation! It will come to this, I see”--looking severely
around--“you will have no half-hour after tea if you cannot be trusted.
I am exceedingly displeased and shocked, especially”--seizing on her
scapegoat--“with you, Madeline West. You are old enough to know
better, and to have some influence; and to find you in the very middle
of all this unladylike chatter, discussing gentlemen, is really too
odious. A girl in your position might have a _little_ decency and
self-respect. I am extremely disgusted with you. Now go; it is quite
time the little Smiths were in bed. How is it that you have always to
be _reminded_ of your duties?” she concluded venomously.
Madeline opened her mouth to speak.
“No answer; you know the rule. Now, young ladies, light the gas, and
get to your work.”
A great commotion and bustle ensued. Exit Madeline, trying vainly to
keep back her tears, and with a burning sense of injustice in her
breast. Indeed, for once, she forgot herself, and slammed the door--not
violently, but still with a decided touch of temper. It was a foolish
impulse, foolishly indulged.
She was called back, and imperatively desired to “remember who she was,
and to walk out of the room quietly, and close the door after her in a
ladylike and becoming manner.”
So even this slight safety-valve for her feelings was denied to her,
and she left the apartment for a second time completely crushed.
CHAPTER III.
THE BREAKING-UP DANCE.
The great day of breaking-up dawned at last. What preparations were
made! A cartload of hired chairs for the company was the first arrival;
then a consignment of glass and crockery, baskets of hot-house flowers
from the friends of wealthy pupils, and finally, in a confectioner’s
van--the _supper_! Mrs. Harper, her cap askew, her curls bristling,
was nearly crazy with excitement and fuss. The Misses Harper were
busy, important, and dangerous to accost. The girls, from an early
tea, had retired upstairs to indulge in the next best amusement to
dancing--dressing. Oh, with what leisurely enjoyment were heads tired,
white dresses donned, and gloves drawn on! How often was the following
artful query put with an artless air:--
“You are looking awfully nice, dear! Now, tell me candidly, what do you
think of _me_?”
Madeline had no trouble with her toilette. The black high-necked
day-gown, with a white fichu and lace ruffles, was all the
embellishment within her power; but she was in much request, and very
busy dressing and decorating her more fortunate schoolfellows. The
bell rang. Down they all trooped, conscious, conceited, coquettish,
or careless, and filed past Miss Selina, who held a full-dress
inspection in the hall--Miss Selina, whose face was flushed to the
hue of her new crimson silk, flushed to a shade that set pearl powder
at defiance, and scorned the application of Rowland’s Kalydor. The
young ladies passed muster creditably--with some few exceptions,
such as “Minnie, your dress is too short;” “Fanny, those flowers are
frightful!” “Jocelyn, where did you get such horrible gloves?” The
bevy of fair creatures passed into the schoolroom, where, on a raised
platform, were seats for the chorus, two pianos, a harmonium--in short,
all the preparations for a concert, the one drawback to the young
ladies’ absolute felicity--that is to say, those young ladies who were
compelled to perform, and who now awaited the audience in a kind of
cold shiver, with clammy hands and quickly pulsing hearts. Presently
Herr Kroot arrived in elaborate evening dress, frilled shirt, white
gloves, and an immense accession of dignity, and talked and scolded,
commanded and encouraged, his miserable pupils. Much as they dreaded
the audience, they were trebly afraid of him, and dared not break down
with his eye upon them, his hand turning over the leaves, his low
“counting” in their ears. The large room filled soon, and filled fast,
with day boarders, their friends, parents, a few outsiders, and the
Misses Harper’s own circle--chiefly clerical. There was quite a notable
sprinkling of the sterner sex, for Mrs. Harper’s establishment was
reported to include some beauties. Very nice, indeed, the young people
looked from the body of the concert hall, so young and fresh and fair
in their simple white dresses, with their downcast eyes--that noted
everything all the same. Among other facts, they noted the arrival of
all the Wolfertons and Mr. Wynne, whose presence on the occasion Miss
Selina attributed solely to her own attractions. She was fourteen years
older than him, but what of that? He was old for his age, and she was
young for hers. She flattered herself that in a becoming dress, by
lamplight, or behind a spotted veil, she did not look a day more than
seven and twenty. By all accounts Mr. Wynne was a briefless barrister
(but then Selina’s share of the family stocking was by no means
contemptible), he had the reputation of being clever, and would “get
on” of course. The Wolfertons declared that he was highly thought of as
a rising man, and of fine old family--but poor. Strange that he should
come to the breaking-up this year too--“made quite a point of it,” Amy
Wolferton had whispered, and Amy had looked as if she would have liked
to have added more.
As he pressed her hand, and she glanced at him from under her scanty
eyelashes, a delicious conviction assured Miss Selina that he had not
forgotten her--their charming walk from church, or the little picnic
party, at which he had sat beside her, and when the second supply of
plates had failed, and with regard to the remains of some cold chicken,
said in the most marked manner, “Miss Selina, will you permit me to
lay my bones beside yours?” What was this but a proposal? Certainly
in a novel form, unquestionably it meant that they would share the
same grave. It was a distinct invitation to the family vault of the
blue-blooded Wynnes. How agreeable he was--these barristers always
were! How good-looking! What a contrast to Mr. Murphy, the red-haired
Irish curate, on whom, with his loud, rich brogue, her sister Letitia
had built her hopes matrimonial (N. B. and it had been building on a
quicksand), casting a contemptuous glance at the well-oiled red head to
her left.
These complacent reflections were chasing each other through the good
lady’s brain as she sat in the attitude of solicitous attention during
the opening cantata. A shrewd, keen, calculating woman with regard to
every-day matters, such as school accounts, butchers’ bills, extras,
and with a lynx eye for the failings and shortcomings of her flock, but
where vanity whispered, and a possible (or impossible) husband loomed
on her horizon, Miss Selina was a completely different character, and
an absolute fool, as giddy, as credulous, as feather-headed as any of
the young ladies meekly facing her behind these sheets of music--nay,
worse, for has not every one heard the proverb--“There is no fool like
an old one”? Far-seeing, crafty girls were clever enough to discover
Miss Selina’s weak side, and to use their discovery to their own
advantage. They plied her with compliments, ludicrously inappropriate.
They called her “their own beautiful Miss Selina,” hinted that she
had only to come, to be seen, and to conquer, etc., the result being
that these wise young virgins were frequently invited to tea in the
drawing-room, to supper in Mrs. Harper’s own private refectory, were
taken to concerts, were “let off” on various occasions, and laughed
at “Old Selina” (or Snappy) in their sleeve; called her a ridiculous
goose, as ugly as sin, and as vain as a peacock. It is necessary
to reveal the younger Miss Harper in her true colours in order to
explain how a woman in her position could imagine for a moment that a
young man would fall in love with her elderly charms, in spite of the
overwhelming advantages possessed by at least twenty young rivals--her
own pupils. She had long regarded the girls _en masse_ as her natural
enemies, not as pretty creatures of from sixteen to eighteen years of
age, with bright eyes, brilliant complexions, and angelic dispositions!
She ticketed them in her own mind as disagreeable female children, with
loud voices, voracious appetites, and sly ways. Nevertheless, she was
reluctantly aware, that Madeline could be no longer considered a child,
that some people considered her appearance pleasing! She stared hard
at her now, where her black dress made a sort of blot among the snowy
gowns of the first trebles. What a colour! was she rouged? She looked
just like a doll. Doll or no doll, Miss Selina made a mental note that
she should not be of the happy band who were going in to supper. She
might be getting ideas into her mind--foolish ideas. People perhaps
would notice her, as they had done last year, and turn her giddy head.
The cantata came to a satisfactory conclusion. A fierce, tempestuous
bravura, performed with desperate energy by a long-fingered young lady,
succeeded it. Poor girl! she was trembling with terror as she sat down.
What with the audience before her, and Herr Kroot behind her, she
occupied the proverbial situation of being between the devil and the
deep sea, and played with a courage that was absolutely reckless.
The bravura was followed by a duet, the duet by a violin solo, then one
or two songs. With regard to the last of these, the miserable performer
found her feelings quite too overpowering, and after some gurgling in
the throat, and sniffing in her handkerchief, she collapsed into floods
of tears, and was briskly hustled into the background and hidden behind
the others, whilst, at a moment’s notice, Madeline West was commanded
to take her place and step into the gap.
Poor Madeline! It had not been intended that she should perform. She
had no friends among the audience; no complacent relations to clap
their hands and look proud and important. When the last words of “A
Finland Love Song” had died away in silence--a silence caused by
surprise and emotion--there was a pause of a full minute, and then
a tremendous hurricane of applause burst forth. Ladies winked away
unaccustomed tears, and clapped in a manner that was trying to their
new ten-button gloves; their hearts were moved for the moment; some
chord had been touched by that fresh young voice, by those sympathetic
words, a chord that vibrated, and woke up old memories of the days when
_they_ were young--those days so sad, so sweet, that were no more.
The men encored tumultuously, not only because the singer had a lovely
voice, and sang from her very heart, but--oh, well, because men will be
men, and because the girl in black was uncommonly pretty. “Auld Robin
Gray” was vociferously commanded, but the fair vocalist was adamant;
she only curtseyed timidly, and curtseyed again. No one but herself
had seen Miss Selina’s emphatic shake of the head, as she met her cold
grey eye in that “little look across the crowd.” No, there was to be no
encore.
After the concert, the room was cleared for dancing, and Madeline took
up her post at the best (the drawing-room) piano and played first a
set of lancers, to set every one going, and to polish off the dowagers
and duty dances, and then a waltz--and yet another waltz. It was very
dull work for her. She was placed with her back to the company, and
could neither see nor be seen--which was precisely what Miss Selina
had intended; but the pretty singer was not to be so easily concealed.
More than one would-be partner vainly begged for an introduction. More
than one crafty young man pleaded _fatigue_, and halted long in the
neighbourhood of the piano, where he could obtain a good view of the
charming _pianiste_. After the third waltz, played by Madeline’s weary
fingers, Mr. Wynne approached, and said, as she stood up selecting the
next piece on the programme--
“Miss West, we have all to thank you for your capital playing,” holding
out his hand as he spoke. “And now I hope you will give me the pleasure
of this dance?” She touched his hand timidly, and shook her head. “Oh!
I beg your pardon!” he exclaimed, with a quick glance at her black
dress. “Let me, at least, take you to the tea-room. You must want some
refreshment after your exertions.”
“No, thank you very much,” she answered, once more seating herself at
the instrument. “I have had my tea!”
“You don’t mean to say that you are going to play again?” he asked in a
tone of indignant astonishment.
“Yes, I am going to play all the evening,” she replied, turning over
the leaves and finding the place, with a considerably heightened colour.
“But last year you danced all the evening. What does it mean?”
“It means, Mr. Wynne, that I was then one of the boarders; now, I am
only a pupil-teacher. Circumstances are changed; it is my duty to
play--and,” faltering slightly, “I like it.”
“I find it difficult to believe that, Miss West,” he exclaimed; “but I
suppose I must endeavour to do so. Will you permit me to turn over the
leaves?”
“No, no!” she protested eagerly; “on no account. You must dance.”
“‘Je n’en vois pas la nécessité,’” he quoted, seating himself
deliberately as he spoke. “I am afraid you have lost a relative,” he
continued, in a lower voice. “Your father?”
“I have in one sense,” now striking up another waltz. “My father has
not been heard of for a whole year and a half. When last he wrote he
had lost a great deal of money. He was always a speculator. He has
never written since----” She paused expressively.
“And have you no friend or relation in this country?”
“No, none that I have any claim upon. I have been at school here since
I was seven years old.”
“And, good heavens! you don’t mean to tell me that you have no resource
but to remain on here as pupil-teacher?”
“No other. You see I have no home in this country. I had one long ago
in Melbourne--the only one I ever knew.”
“Do you remember it?” he asked rather abstractedly.
“Yes, I remember the big white house and the bright, sunny climate.”
“Has your father never come home to see you all these years?”
“Never! I’m afraid--I’m afraid----” She paused, unable to articulate,
but her fingers still played steadily on.
“_I’m_ afraid,” he said in a low voice, bending forward, “that you are
not happy here,” contrasting rapidly in his own mind the brilliant
figure she had made last year, as the belle of the evening, the
cynosure of all eyes, to what she now appeared, the poor piano-playing
drudge, not so much as rewarded with a “thank you,” and dressed in a
gown that even _he_ could see was shabby and old-fashioned.
“Oh, Mr. Wynne!” said a sprightly staccato voice at his elbow. “Oh!
you naughty man! Why are you not dancing? Come away; I cannot have you
distracting Miss West’s attention, you dreadful person! We are going to
have another set of lancers, and you shall be _my_ partner.”
With this heavy bribe, he was summarily detached from his post by the
piano, and carried off by the triumphant Miss Selina (swearing to
himself, despite a smiling countenance). Madeline played and played,
until she felt that her fingers had no feeling, and were just as
stiff and mechanical as the teeth in a musical-box. At length supper
released her. She stood up, half expectant, as the others flocked
past two and two, each happy girl provided with a cavalier--beaming,
giggling, blushing, as the case might be! Whilst she waited, a bony,
much-beringed hand was laid heavily upon her shoulder, and she beheld
Miss Selina, who had arrested Mr. Wynne.
“Madeline, my dear,” she whispered, “I am sorry there is no room for
you. I’ll send you out a sandwich, or something.” And then she passed
on, leaving poor Madeline alone in that big empty room, with a lump in
her throat and tears in her eyes.
Miss West was occasionally foolish enough to cut off her nose to spite
her face, and she indignantly declined the subsequent sandwich brought
in on a plate by the sympathetic parlourmaid, who vowed “it was a
shame,” but met with no encouragement to relieve her mind further on
the subject.
Madeline knew that she dared not go to bed. She had still to play--“it
was in the bond.” So she had not even that small comfort; nor might
she, as yet, indulge herself in the further luxury of a thoroughly good
cry.
“What a difference money makes!” she said to herself bitterly. “What a
contrast between this night and last year! Who would have believed--I,
least of all--that that night twelve months I should be sitting here
alone? However, I don’t suppose,” she added, half aloud, with a catch
in her voice, “that any one misses me.”
In this supposition she was wrong. Many people missed the girl
in black, who had sung _the_ song of the concert, who had played
unremittingly all the evening, and who had such a shabby dress, and
such a sweetly pretty face!
Not a few of Mrs. Harper’s guests, who were eating her good things
and sipping her champagne, were registering a black mark against her
all the same, and thinking that they would be sorry if any friend of
_theirs_ had to fill the post of her present “pupil-teacher.”
Mr. Wynne dissembled--as they used to say in good old melodramas--and
was most agreeable to his partner, Miss Selina, but inwardly he
was raging. With professional cleverness he drew her out, and
cross-examined her with regard to Miss West, and she--her tongue
unloosened by two glasses of champagne, her vanity stimulated by his
attentions (to her plate)--was completely off her guard, and as easily
turned inside-out as any quaking witness at the Old Bailey.
She expounded eloquently on Mr. West’s enormities, the vast sums
expended on his daughter, the fact that “but for them she would be
friendless and homeless--probably begging from door to door. The
wretched swindler was dead, the girl had no relatives or friends, and
only for their charity----” Here she paused impressively, expecting Mr.
Wynne to fill up the blank, with some neat and appropriate speech; but,
for once, she was doomed to disappointment.
“Only for your charity she would be a governess, would she not?” he
remarked carelessly. “With such musical talents she is sure of a
lucrative situation--a hundred or so a year. But, of course, under
_your_ roof she has all that she can wish for--a happy home, among her
old companions--and any one can see with half an eye that Mrs. Harper
is a mother to her,” he concluded with immovable features.
Miss Selina started and became of a yet richer shade of crimson. This
idea of a governess, at one hundred pounds a year, was something
entirely novel. The girl was clever and accomplished! Was Mr. Wynne
speaking ironically, when he alluded to a mother’s care and a happy
home? Impossible! His face was as unmoved, his eyes as smiling, his
manner as sociable and friendly as usual. It was a wild, foolish idea,
and she immediately dismissed it from her mind, and plunged into a
discussion on platonic friendships--and a second helping of a most
excellent truffle.
Mr. Wynne managed to have a few words with Mrs. Wolferton after supper.
He stated his case concisely, pointed out Miss West, and strongly
commended her to the kind lady’s notice. Mrs. Wolferton was the mother
of Fred (Mr. Wynne’s schoolfellow, college friend, and chum), and
was very fond of Laurence, whom she had known from the time when he
was an audacious boy in jacket upwards. As she listened to the sorry
history of pretty Miss West, her motherly heart was touched, and she
immediately begged to be introduced to her.
“Remembered her well,” she declared, “from last year. Hoped she
would come and see her during the holidays.” And, finally, being a
woman who believed in deeds as well as _words_, took off her gloves,
removed a jingling bracelet, and seated herself at the piano for the
remainder of the night, in spite of Mrs. Harper’s horrified face and
excited expostulations, saying pleasantly to Madeline, “Now, my dear,
my dancing days are over; yours are just beginning. Go and dance,
Laurence; Miss West has not danced a step this evening.”
The hint was superfluous. Already Laurence and Miss West were at the
other end of the room, and already a very portentous frown had settled
deep on Miss Selina’s brow; but it availed nothing. The two offenders
were dauntless.
Mr. Wynne was a capital partner. He introduced Madeline to various
others, who voted the girl in black quite the prettiest they had seen
for months, and who were the more eager to make her acquaintance, and
to dance with her, from seeing that their attentions were palpably
displeasing to the Harper family. Madeline danced until the end of the
evening, although Miss Selina had hissed into her ear, as she stood
near her, “You are a bold, pushing, unladylike girl.”
She knew she would have to pay dearly for these present delights on the
morrow, and was resolved to drain the cup of pleasure--yes, to the very
dregs! She looked supremely lovely, if slightly defiant; the exercise
of dancing had made her eyes brighter, her colour deeper. Mr. Wynne
told himself that she was the prettiest--ay, and the nicest--girl he
had ever met in the whole course of his life; but he must not lose his
head--no, a briefless barrister could not afford to fall in love with a
penniless pupil-teacher!
CHAPTER IV.
THE LAST TRAIN.
The holidays commenced. The young ladies went north, south, east,
and west to their several homes, and Madeline had the whole big
schoolroom, and the much-disputed fire, absolutely to herself. She
was monarch of all she surveyed, but she was nearly as lonely as
Robinson Crusoe on the desert island. The Miss Harpers were not
covetous of her company; nor was she ever bidden to the friendly
luncheons or the merry little suppers which repeatedly took place.
She, on these occasions, enjoyed(?) a plate of cold meat, or bread
and butter, and a glass of water in the privacy of the schoolroom.
There was no necessity, the Miss Harpers averred, to introduce her
to their friends. It would be a mistake to spoil her; she was quite
conceited enough. But Mrs. Wolferton had no such scruples: she called,
she wrote, she persevered, she carried her point. She insisted on
having Miss West to spend an occasional day with her. What a contrast
to the schoolroom at Harperton House that dainty drawing-room, with
its mirrors, pictures, easy-chairs, Persian carpets, exotic flowers,
and genial Mrs. Wolferton knitting and talking and begging her “to
make herself at home.” Then there was a tempting luncheon, a drive,
a sociable dinner--which included Fred Wolferton, Mr. Wynne, and one
or two others--finally, music and round games, in the midst of which
would come the disagreeable announcement--“A servant for Miss West,
if you please.” Fred Wolferton and Mr. Wynne invariably escorted her
home all the same, leaving her on Mrs. Harper’s spotless doorstep; but
not coming in, nor making any move in that direction--as Miss Selina
angrily remarked from behind the drawing-room blind. Miss Selina had
become very “cold” in her manner to Madeline--in fact, she was more
than cold: she was actually and actively hostile--and glared at the
unlucky pupil-teacher as if she were some kind of poisonous domestic
reptile she had nourished in her bosom. Mrs. Wolferton’s praise, Mrs.
Wolferton’s partiality for Miss West, did not please her; but, happily,
the old lady was going away to the south of France to escape the east
winds, and when she returned she would probably have forgotten her
passing fancy! Miss Selina was good enough to judge others by her own
standard.
One day there came tickets for the Theatre Royal at Riverside, for
Mrs. and the Misses Harper, and Miss West: with Mr. Fred Wolferton’s
compliments. He had not left home--and Mr. Wynne was still his guest.
“To go, or not to go?” that was a question which was debated with great
spirit in Mrs. Harper’s own bedroom. They were only too willing to
accept with pleasure; but what about that girl--_must_ they take her
also? There was no other alternative. If she had only a slight cold,
or even a sty on her eye; but, unfortunately, she was never better in
her life. They had no excuse beyond their own disinclination; go she
must. Very grudgingly they broke the news to Madeline, as she sat over
a slacked-down fire in the schoolroom, dividing her thoughts between
a child’s story-book and Mr. Wynne--needless to ask which had the
largest share. She could not help thinking a good deal of Mr. Wynne.
It was wrong, it was foolish! Miss Selina would have declared that it
was indelicate! Probably he never gave _her_ a second thought. Her
cheeks grew hot at the idea; but an inward voice whispered another
tale. If he did not think of her, why did he always monopolize her at
Mrs. Wolferton’s, usurping Fred’s place at the piano, why sit beside
her at cards? Why had he begged permission to keep a flower? Why had
he hinted that only for his poverty he would marry--or, at least, ask
some girl to marry him--a girl who had no home? Who could that be?
Dare she breathe, even to her inmost soul, that the girl’s name was
Madeline West? If he had not thought of her, why did he tell her so
much about himself, his dead father and mother, his rich, high, and
mighty relations: relations who looked upon empty pockets as a crime;
but who patronized him, asked him to dinner, and hinted that if he
were to place himself on the cotton or soap markets, where heiresses
were plentiful, he might, on the strength of his connections and his
pedigree, secure one of these young ladies, and perhaps fifty thousand
pounds!
But these suggestions he had not taken in good part, quite between
ourselves; and, equally between ourselves, he asked himself what his
grand relations would say if they knew he was head-over-ears in love
with a pretty little pupil-teacher--a perfect lady, certainly, and not
unworthy to bear the name of Wynne, but absolutely without sixpence?
The poor child liked him too--he was sure of it. He could not offer
her a decent home--could not presume to suppose that what was barely
sufficient for one would afford a comfortable maintenance for two. Best
leave her, if he could, in maiden meditation fancy free--leave her for
some luckier fellow, leave his heart in her unconscious keeping. This
visit to the theatre was to be positively the last meeting he would
allow himself; and then for his dismal, solitary old chambers in the
Temple, and work. Plenty of work is an excellent and healing medicine
for any affection of a sentimental nature, so he had read, so he had
been assured, and now he was about to test its efficacy.
The great evening came. With hot and trembling fingers Madeline made
her modest toilet, donned her hat and cape, and awaited the rest of
the party in the hall in a state of feverish suspense. She had rarely
been inside a theatre in her life, and her heart was fluttering with
happy anticipation. What a night this would be to look back upon!
Henry Irving she had often longed to see, and now she was going to
witness _The Lyons Mail_ in company with Mr. Wynne. Oh, it was too much
pleasure to be squeezed into one evening. If it could but be spread
over three or four days, instead of being all compressed into two or
three hours!
“Madeline!” said a sharp voice, that startled her from her delightful
meditations, “just come into the drawing-room for a moment. I wish
to speak to you!” leading the way into that dull apartment, lit at
present by one dim gas-burner, and innocent of such extravagance as a
fire. “I wish to speak to you,” seriously repeated Miss Selina, “about
the preposterous way you are going on with Mr. Wynne! You are really
quite shameless!”
“What have I done, Miss Selina? What do you mean?” she asked,
breathless with horror.
“What have you _not_ done? Flirted with him, run after him to Mrs.
Wolferton’s, made yourself the talk of the whole place. Even the very
_servants_ have remarked it. Don’t imagine for one moment that _he_
thinks of you as anything but a silly chit of a schoolgirl, who is
head-over-ears in love with him, and whom he finds it amusing to draw
out, and laugh at afterwards with Mr. Fred Wolferton.”
“Miss Selina!” cried Madeline, stung to the quick, turning white as
death, and grasping the back of a chair for support, as she stammered
passionately. “How dare you? How dare you say such things? You
know they are not true. I went to Mrs. Wolferton’s because she was
kind--because she asked me. I never ran after Mr. Wynne--never!”
“And pray what are you doing to-night?” with grim, ironical
interrogation.
“If you think that I am running after him in going to the theatre, I
can easily remain at home. I”--(oh, what a wrench was this! but her
pride was roused)--“will stay at home,” removing her hat as she spoke.
“The matter is easily settled.”
Not so easily as she supposed, for at this moment the sound of loud,
cheery, masculine voices in the hall broke in upon them. The door
was flung wide; enter Fred Wolferton, Mr. Murphy--(hush! you must not
tell the bishop!) an elderly escort for Mrs. Harper; last, not least,
Mr. Wynne. And although Madeline, with considerable embarrassment,
firmly and positively assured every one that “she was not going,” as
she could offer no sane reason for her sudden announcement, and was
unquestionably dressed for the theatre, public opinion and public
clamour carried the day.
She replaced her hat, in answer to an impatient signal from Miss
Selina, and went; but the gilt had been removed from the gingerbread,
and all the way in the train--they were ten miles from Riverside--she
was pale and silent, and pointedly avoided Mr. Wynne, to Miss Selina’s
great content. However, Mr. Wynne declined to be avoided. He ignored
Miss Selina’s hints, and the vacant place next to her, which she patted
invitingly, as much as to say, “Come and sit here, and be happy!” and
seated himself at the other side of Madeline, whose eyes were straying
over the theatre, and who, once the overture commenced, began to
realize that she was enjoying herself extremely, and would not allow
Miss Selina’s dreadful insinuations to spoil her whole evening.
Miss Selina, with tightly compressed lips and an angry glare in her
little grey eyes, was aware that she had been publicly slighted. What
is that line about “A woman scorned?” She felt capable of anything.
Her rage against Mr. Wynne was as hot and as consuming as her bitter
jealousy of Madeline West. Well, they should suffer for their
intolerable behaviour, as she called it, meaning the simple fact of
their sitting together, talking with much animation between the acts,
and looking supremely happy. Yes, her feelings must have immediate
relief. She would find a way to punish them; and, as she sat silent,
her eyes fixed upon the drop scene, she was revolving a portentous
plan in her own mind--a scheme that would rid her of her ex-pupil, and
avenge her on the rising barrister by one swift blow--a scheme that
would not be for the benefit of the smiling young couple--no, quite the
reverse.
The orchestra was playing a wild Polish dance, its burthen full of
sadness, despair, and weird, fantastic chords at one period; at another
gaily frolicsome, and full of outbursts of mad mirth--an air that
exercised a strange influence upon them, especially on Madeline, in her
present state of highly strung nerves, and repressed mental excitement.
She drank in that wild melody; it haunted her as long as she lived.
When heard among other scenes, it always recalled this night--this
momentous night, the very crisis of her existence. She gazed at the
stage, at the big, red, mysterious curtain, the bent figures in the
orchestra, the florally ornamented theatre, the gay company, with fans
and opera-glasses, and asked herself, “Was it all real?”
At last the play was over; the actors had been called before the
footlights and vociferously applauded, and had bowed themselves away.
And now people began to move, to look about for cloaks and wraps and
overcoats, and to hurry off, as if the place was on fire! The crowd
was great. Outside it was snowing hard, and inside the crush was
almost suffocating.
“I’ll look after you, Miss West,” said Mr. Wynne, eagerly, as they
found a footing in the passage among hundreds of the recent audience.
“Very well. Be sure you _do_!” put in Miss Selina, with unwonted
briskness. “We are certain to get separated. Look here,
Madeline”--lowering her voice suddenly--“meet us at the bottom of the
station steps. _You_ know the place. Mind you are not late; it’s the
last train!”
And with this injunction on her lips, she was borne away in the crowd,
in her smart, pink opera mantle--once the property of the rich Miss
West--and soon lost to sight.
“Let us wait until the rush is over, and take it quietly,” said Wynne,
struggling vainly to look at his watch. “We will get a hansom, and
be at the station in no time--before them, ten to one--for they are a
large party.”
Inwardly he marvelled at Miss Selina’s arrangement. He was not aware
that she had her reasons--well-thought-out plans--and he was too well
satisfied to question the matter. After a little, when the crush had
lessened, he made his way down to the portico, secured a hansom, and
drove with his charge to the place of rendezvous, the foot of the
steps--a covered entry, luckily, for the snow was falling thick and
fast. They waited--it was bitterly cold--a chill little wind rose, and
sobbed and wailed round them. Five minutes, and no one came to meet
them. Ten minutes! still no one, and the hurrying crowd that had passed
up had now entirely ceased.
“I hope they have not come to grief!” said Wynne. And, suddenly
looking at his watch, he added, “I’ll tell you what--we can’t wait
any longer, or we will miss our train. We must run for it as it is,”
springing quickly up the steps.
Too late! Too late! The red light of the last train to Streambridge
was just disappearing into the big tunnel. What was to be done? He
stood for a moment irresolute. Yes; it was the last train, and it was
gone. A cab was the first idea. Leaving Madeline, who was benumbed with
waiting, and a good deal frightened, he hurried to the cab-rank. It was
empty and void. He waylaid a passing cabby, and told him the state of
the case.
“Ten miles in deep snow! Couldn’t be done, sir, at no price.”
The same story was repeated elsewhere. There was nothing for it but to
go back to Madeline, who was now shivering over the dying fire in the
ladies’ waiting-room.
“Well?” she asked, raising her face expectantly.
“No cab to be had,” he rejoined, with assumed _sangfroid_.
“No cab to be had!” she repeated, her eyes darkening and dilating with
horror. “Oh, Mr. Wynne, can we walk?” Mad project!
“No. I fancy the best thing will be to stop here all night--I mean
at the Railway Hotel--and go on by the first train in the morning. I
will go to the landlady and ask her to look after you, and I will find
quarters elsewhere. It will be all right,” he continued reassuringly.
“Are you certain that Miss Selina said the _foot_ of the steps?” he
asked, as if struck by an afterthought.
“Yes; quite certain,” resolutely.
“Here!” he called to a sleepy porter. “Did you see a party looking for
people by the last train--three ladies and three gentlemen?”
“Yes, sir; stout old party and two elderly ladies”--(oh, ye gods! if
the Miss Harpers had heard him!)--“three gents. They came by the West
Street entrance; they _did_ seem looking--that is, the gents was--but
one of the ladies said you were all right, and bundled the whole pack
into a carriage. She seemed in a terrible flurry.”
“Well, we can do no good by waiting here,” said Wynne, at length. “Come
along, there is nothing to be frightened at, Miss West.” (Miss West was
crying quietly, and very much alarmed indeed.) “You will be back in
time for breakfast. It was all an accident--a misunderstanding, and if
there is any one to blame, or to be blamed, you must blame _me_.”
“I know they will be awfully angry,” said Madeline, turning her white
face to his. “I don’t know _what_ they will say!”
“Not angry, when I have explained everything to their entire
satisfaction. I will go security that you will not get into any
trouble. I will see Mrs. Harper myself.”
And, really, half an hour later, as Madeline sat with her feet on the
fender of a luxurious bedroom in the Railway Hotel--a magnificent
apartment to her benighted eyes--with a hot coal fire before her, and a
cup of steaming coffee in her hand, she began to cheer up, and to take
a brighter view of the situation. What harm was it, after all? Missing
a train--nothing so very dreadful. She would only get a scolding, at
the worst. Alas! she was but too well accustomed to scoldings!
But Laurence Wynne, as he fought his way to another hotel through the
soft, spongy snow, with the collar of his coat turned up, and his head
bent against the stinging sleet, looked graver than he had done when
he was talking to his late companion. It was an exceedingly awkward
business, and he had an uncomfortable conviction that Miss Selina was
at the bottom of the situation. She had sent them to one entrance, and
arrived at the other herself; had requested them to wait--and miss the
train. There had been an expression in her eye that was distinctly
hostile, as he had suddenly encountered it over the top of her fan.
Selina Harper meant mischief--had laid a neat little trap into which
he had artlessly tumbled. “However,” he said to himself, as he entered
the coffee-room of a palatial hotel, “half the evils in the world are
those which have never happened. No doubt the worst of the adventure
would merely resolve itself into a bad quarter of an hour--for
him--with Mrs. Harper.”
CHAPTER V.
EXPELLED.
The next morning, leaving Madeline at the station to follow by a
later train, Mr. Wynne called at Harperton, in order to have a little
explanation. The maid’s face (she was an old maid) looked portentously
solemn as she opened the door; and--oh! ominous objects!--two
good-sized basket trunks, and a bonnet-box, stood waiting in the hall.
As he glanced at them in passing, some one came out through a door just
behind him, and said, in a biting tone--
“Dear me! I am surprised to see Mr. Wynne under the circumstances;
but, as he is here, perhaps he can give an address for Miss West’s
boxes?”
“May I ask what you mean, Miss Selina?” he said, turning to confront
her the instant the drawing-room door was closed.
“I mean,” she replied, flushing to a dull brick colour, “that after her
escapade of last evening, Miss West never enters this house again--a
young lady who stayed out all night!” she concluded with a wild,
dramatic gesture.
“But, you know, that was not her fault, Miss Selina. We waited exactly
where you told us--at the bottom of the steps--and so missed the train.
I could not get a cab, though I did my utmost, the snow was too deep.
I left Miss West at the Railway Hotel and brought her from there this
morning. She----”
“Oh,” interrupted his listener, throwing up both hands, “pray spare me
the details! It is nothing to me whom she was with, or where she went.
We have quite done with her. It was a planned thing between you, no
doubt.”
“Miss Selina,” cried Mr. Wynne, “your sex protects you! A man dared not
say what you have permitted yourself to utter, and do not in your own
heart believe. Am I to understand that because, through waiting for
you, by your own express direction, Miss West lost her only train home
last night, and was obliged to remain in Riverside, you would blast her
reputation, and thrust her out of doors?”
“You are!” she returned, defiantly, looking him full in the face with
her cold, cruel, little eyes.
“And may I ask what is to become of the young lady?” he inquired, with
a forced calmness that was ominous enough.
“Nay,” shrugging her shoulders, “that is a matter between her and you.”
Then she added, with an evil smile, “She need not refer to us for a
character.”
“Perhaps your mother will be more lenient,” he said, making a great
effort to restrain his temper. “Remember that Miss West has no home and
no friends. Can I see Mrs. Harper?”
“I am speaking for my mother,” she answered sharply. “She refuses to
see the girl, or allow her inside our door. There is no use in your
persisting--it is waste of time. We are not rich, but, at any rate,”
choking with excitement, “we have always been respectable!”
“I am delighted to hear it,” he replied, making a low, ironical bow;
“and as there is nothing further to be said, I will wish you good
morning.”
“Good morning!” replied Miss Selina, ringing the bell, and curtseying
simultaneously. “You will be pleased to remove Miss West’s boxes
at once, and inform her that letters from her will be returned
unopened”--thereby securing the last shot, and the last word. And Mr.
Wynne walked out of the house in a bewildered and confused state of
mind, outwardly cool, but in reality at boiling point.
He had not proceeded far when he met Madeline coming towards him, with
a terrified and expectant face. Now was the moment for action. His
senses were stung to alertness, his mind cleared of misgivings; he made
a desperate resolve. She was thrust out homeless and alone in the wide,
wide world! She should share his home, such as it was; it was better
than none. She should, an she would, be his wife--and rich in love if
in nothing else. Prudence had hitherto sealed his lips--for her sake
chiefly. Now that she had no resources, no place open to receive her,
he could and would speak.
The first thing he did was to hail a cab, and despatch the man straight
back to Harperton for Miss West’s luggage, desiring him to bring it to
the station.
“Why, what does it mean? Are they so very angry?” she asked with
blanched cheeks. “Oh, you don’t mean that they are sending me away?”
For she noticed that Mr. Wynne looked unusually pale and grave.
“Come down here with me,” leading her into some public gardens that
they were passing, “and I will tell you all about it.”
The gardens were miserably wintry. Snow lay on the ground, a couple of
boys were snowballing, some starving red-wings fluttered across the
path, a granite-grey sky lowered overhead. Surely it was the last place
on God’s earth in which to relate a love tale; and the girl herself,
what a picture of misery! Oh! thought the young man, if Mrs. Wolferton
had but been at home--but, alas! she was abroad--she would have been
a true friend to this poor forlorn child. Madeline was, of course,
wearing her evening dress, such as it was--at any rate, it was thin. A
shabby little plush opera cloak barely covered her perishing neck and
arms. Over this was drawn a meagre black cape. On her head she wore a
sunburnt sailor hat; in her frozen, mittened hand she held a fan; her
face was pinched with cold, and white with anxiety. No lovely lady-fair
was here to woo this bleak January forenoon. And what of ambition--the
stern, jealous mistress to whom he was pledged?
“They are very angry, senselessly angry,” began the young man. “They
won’t take you back again, and have actually packed your boxes ready
for removal. However, when one door shuts, another opens. There is a
home ready for you, Madeline. Can you guess where it is?”
She gazed at Mr. Wynne, and stood perfectly still and very white, with
her thin, sensitive lips tightly pressed together, and made no reply.
“You know that it is my home,” he continued eagerly. “I need not tell
you that I love you, and so well do I love you, that until now I have
never dared even to whisper my love. I am poor, I have my way to make
as yet, it may be a life of struggling poverty. Can you share it--will
you venture, Madeline?”
The girl stepped back a pace, and suddenly sat down upon an iron garden
bench, still silent, and covered her face with her mittened hands.
“Will you not answer me!” he pleaded. He dared not remove her hands,
or offer her a caress. The snowballing had ceased; the present scene
in real life attracted the two boys, who had drawn near. The lady was
sick, or looked like it.
“You do not mean it,” she faltered. “I know you are very, very kind,
but I cannot accept your pity, for that is what it comes to.”
“I solemnly declare to you that it is not,” he rejoined with emphasis;
“but even if it were, have you not heard that pity is akin to love?”
“It is utterly impossible,” she said slowly. “You are speaking out of
the goodness of your heart, on the impulse of the moment. This time
yesterday, tell me honestly,” raising her lovely eyes to his, “had you
any intention of--of--of this?”
“To be truthful, then, I had not.”
“There, you see, that is enough. There is your answer,” with a quick
little gesture.
“No, no, hear me out. It was on your account that I held my tongue. If
I had had a decent income I would have spoken to you long ago; but I
felt that I had no right to remove you from Mrs. Harper’s care without
having a comfortable home to offer you. I meant to work very hard and
to return next year. Now all has been changed. Circumstances alter
cases. I ask you now, Madeline, will you be afraid to begin with me at
the bottom of the ladder--something tells me that I shall reach the
top?”
“I shall only be a dead weight and a burden,” she replied in a broken
voice. She was relenting. Her own heart was an eloquent advocate for
Mr. Wynne.
“What will your relations say when they hear that you wish to marry a
portionless girl, a--beggar?” she murmured tremulously.
“They will say nothing that can affect us. I am independent. I have no
claims on them, and they have no right to dictate to me. By the time
they hear the news, we shall, I hope, be married. We have nothing to
wait for, and the sooner you have a home of your own the better. I wish
I had a sister or some near relative that I could take you to, but I
am almost as much alone in the world as you are.”
In the end Mr. Wynne prevailed--was not talking his trade?--and
Madeline West walked out of that wintry white garden his affianced wife.
Rash young man! Rash young woman! One would have thought that they had
the wealth of Crœsus, the full consent and warmest wishes of tribes of
wealthy relations, to look at their faces as they passed through the
gates side by side.
Miss West did not feel the snow soaking through her thin walking shoes.
No, she was treading on air--had thrown all doubts and misgivings
to the winds, and was prepared to make the most of this heaven-sent
period. She was about to enter on a new and happy life, believing that,
although a poor man’s wife, her path would be strewn with roses.
She had about as much practical experience of household cares--the
value of pounds, shillings, and pence--as one of the children in the
third class at Harperton. As for Laurence Wynne, Madeline was his,
Madeline was an angel, young, unspoiled, and unsophisticated, with
modest wishes, and a firm faith in him. Their future was before them!
It was!
CHAPTER VI.
“POVERTY COMES IN AT THE DOOR.”
In a very short time Madeline West was Madeline Wynne. She was married
at a little old church in the City, with no other witnesses than the
verger and the clerk; and Mr. and Mrs. Wynne spent a week in Paris ere
they set up housekeeping, in modest lodgings not far from the Temple,
and from which, by leaning well out of the drawing-room window, and
nearly dislocating your neck, you could obtain a glimpse of the Thames
Embankment.
The good old days, when Traddles and Sophy lived in chambers, and
entertained half a dozen of “the dear girls,” were no more. Mr. Wynne
was obliged to set up his little tent outside the venerable precincts,
in the second floor front of Solferino Place. To Madeline it was a
palace, because it was her very own. Here she might poke the fire,
alter the arrangement of the furniture, pile on coals, order tea at any
time, and go out and come in as she pleased. She could scarcely realize
such liberty! Neither could she realize her wedding-ring, and she
frequently stared for a moment in doubt when she heard herself called
“Mrs. Wynne.”
Laurence was not so poor as she imagined, for he hired a piano, bought
her songs, flowers, and--oh! joy--three such pretty new dresses; he
took her to the theatres, for walks in the parks (when he had time),
he showed her most of the sights of London--St. Paul’s, Westminster
Abbey, the National Gallery, and the Tower.
He was even extravagant in one line. He laid out for her a reckless
amount of shillings and half-crowns on literary papers, magazines, and
books. Laurence was fond of reading; she was not, and she little knew
how she startled him when she exclaimed, “Besides all the other hateful
things you have delivered me from, Laurence, you have delivered me from
_books_! I never wish to open one again!”
Now Laurence had been looking forward to introducing his pretty
Madeline to all the great masters in English literature, to hearing
her fresh comments, to sharing her raptures, to comparing first
impressions, favourite pieces, favourite characters; in short, to
opening for this girl of eighteen the portals of a new world. Alas!
it soon became evident that Madeline had an absolute lack of literary
taste. She had a taste for music, for flowers; a marvellous taste in
colours, and in dress; but for reading, as he understood it, not an
atom. (At first he had had visions of reading her some sketches and
articles of his own, but soon changed his mind, and kept his MS. in his
writing-desk.) He read aloud well, and selected, as he believed, gems;
but, unfortunately, Mrs. Wynne preferred paste!
Lamb’s essays were “quite too awfully dry.” Wordsworth was ten times
worse--she could hardly stifle her yawns. And even when he was reading
“Silas Marner,” and, as he considered, George Eliot’s masterpiece,
he noticed that Madeline was shyly perusing the advertisements in a
ladies’ newspaper. She looked so nonplussed and unhappy if he paused
and suddenly asked her, “If that was not fine? and how such and such a
passage struck her?”
At length he relinquished his efforts. It was time, when Madeline,
with a pretty pout, said, “My dear Laurence, I might as well be at
school; you are just talking like Mr. Falk, our professor of English
literature. Such an ugly little mummy.”
“And to whom you never listened?”
“Not I; and I never could remember names, periods, or dates. You must
make the best of me. In some ways you will find that I am hopelessly
stupid.”
In spite of these tiresome readings, Madeline was thoroughly happy;
there was not one single drawback, not one little cloud on her sky,
if we except an occasionally heavy magazine article to which she
was obliged to lend her ears. And Laurence was happy too. It was
delightful to come home those dark, wet nights, and find a kiss, a
blazing fire, and his pretty Madeline awaiting him. She was always
smiling, always so ready to see the comic side of everything, a
veritable sunbeam in that drawing-room.
“Who would be a bachelor?” he asked himself contemptuously, as he
watched her flitting to and fro after dinner, pulling up his armchair
and filling his pipe. If he had one little _arrière pensée_, it was
this, that she would not _always_ give him mutton chops, and a wish
that her ideas of a _menu_ were a little more expansive.
Nevertheless he was perfectly content. He had an incentive to work
hard now, and he did work. He was getting known in a small way. He
had the gift of oratory, of what is known as legal tact, a handsome
presence, and the power--given to so few--of swaying men’s minds with
his eloquence, as the flame of a candle in the wind. But, then, he was
only twenty-eight--a mere boy in the eyes of the ancient profession,
where a man begins to make a start about fifty. Still Laurence Wynne
had his foot on the lower rung of the ladder. More than one shrewd
solicitor had noted him. His luck had turned; his marriage had brought
him good fortune, though it had scared away all his relations, and he
had completely dropped out of society.
But this fool’s Paradise was not to last--it never does. The angel that
opened the gate, and drove the foolish pair out into the everyday,
hard, stony world was typhoid fever.
The hot summer succeeding their marriage was a trying one, and in
the sultry September days typhoid fever laid hold on many victims,
among others on the hard-working young barrister--seized him with a
death-like grip, flung him on a sick bed, and kept him there for months.
The fever was so difficult to shake off, and it had brought so many
other ills in its train. Finances were low--as they are sure to be
when the bread-winner is idle. Doctors’ bills and chemists’ bills were
mounting up, as well as the butcher’s and baker’s, not to speak of the
landlady’s little account.
All the burden now lay upon one pair of young shoulders--Madeline’s;
and, to quote a homely but expressive phrase, she absolutely did not
know where to turn. She had neither money nor friends. Her husband had
no capital; his slender fortune had been invested in his education and
profession. And as to his friends and his distant connections, they
had disowned him. When they had heard of what they were good enough to
call “his low marriage with a teacher in a school,” they had washed
their hands of him with wonderful unanimity. Society had lost sight of
him for months; Mr. and Mrs. Wynne had no acquaintances. Poor Madeline
was in terrible straits, but her courage rose with the occasion; she
was brave and energetic, and did not sit down with her hands before her
and cry.
A schoolfellow of her husband’s (another young barrister) came to see
her and him, and gave help in the shape of advice, which for once was
valuable. They moved to the top story--the attics. (That was a step
of which their landlady highly approved.) And he procured some law
copying for Madeline--who wrote a clear, neat hand--which brought in a
few shillings, and kept the actual wolf from the door. He sent fish,
grapes, and other little delicacies to the invalid, and was in truth
that _rara avis_--a friend in need.
He considered that Wynne had behaved like a madman in marrying on
nothing; but certainly the girl was an immense temptation--so young,
so pretty--such eyes he had never seen--so unsophisticated and fresh,
and yet possessing excellent sense and an elastic and dauntless spirit.
Here for once was an instance in which poverty had not thrust love
out of the window. Strange, but true, their reverses had only served
to draw the Wynnes more closely together. They afforded a refreshing
study to Mr. Jessop, who was a cynic and a philosopher in a small way,
and who sneered and snarled and marvelled. Things had not even come to
the worst with these unfortunate people, not until a third was added
to the establishment in the shape of a Master Wynne, who puckered up
his wrinkled red face, thrust his creasy fists into his eyes, and
made hideous grimaces at the world in which he found himself--and in
which, to tell the truth, he was not particularly wanted, except by his
mother, to whom he was not only welcome, but, in her partial eyes, a
little household god!
His father, who was slowly recovering--an emaciated spectre of what
he had been--was dubious with regard to the striking resemblance to
himself, and frequently wondered in his inmost soul, as to what was
to be the future of his son and heir? How was he to be fed, clothed,
and educated? Dismal echoes answered, “How?” for the Wynnes were now
desperately poor.
I mean by this, that Mr. Wynne’s watch had long been ticketed in a
pawnbroker’s window, that Madeline’s one little brooch had gone the
same way; also--oh, breathe it not!--her best gown and hat; also Mr.
Wynne’s top coat and evening dress clothes; that the invalid alone
tasted meat--and in scanty portions--Madeline telling many clever fibs
with regard to her own dinner. Her inexhaustible spirits and vivacity
seemed to sustain her--that, and a little bread and tea.
The one person who was well-to-do was the baby. He was clothed in a
beautiful cloak and hood--Mr. Jessop’s gifts--purchased, with many
blushes, by that keen-eyed, close-shaven gentleman, and presented with
pride to his godson and namesake. More than once Madeline’s mental eye
had seen these sumptuous garments smuggled away to the pawnbroker’s
round the corner, but she fought hard with the idea, and had sternly
kept it at bay--as yet. Their circumstances were, indeed, all but
desperate, when one evening Mr. Jessop came thundering up the stairs,
newspaper in hand, and panted out, as he threw himself into the nearest
chair and took off his hat--
“I say, Mrs. Wynne, what was your name before you were married?”
“My name,” she echoed, looking blankly at him, for she was trying to
keep the baby quiet and to do some copying simultaneously--vain and
exasperating task--“was West--Madeline West.”
“Ah! I thought so!” he cried triumphantly, clearing his throat and
unfolding his paper with a flourish.
“Then just listen to this:--‘MADELINE WEST.--If this should meet the
eye of Madeline Sidney West, she is earnestly implored to communicate
with Mrs. H. of H. House, at once, when she will hear of something
greatly to her advantage.’ Now what do you think of that?” he demanded
of his friend, who, drawn up near a handful of cinders, had been poring
over a law book. “Looks like a legacy, doesn’t it?”
“Too good to be true, I’m afraid. Eh, Madeline?”
Madeline turned her face alternately on the two men. A faint colour had
invaded her thin, white cheeks, and her eyes brightened as she said--
“There is no harm in answering the notice; it may mean something.”
“Why, of course it does,” cried Mr. Jessop, emphatically. “Get a pen,
give me the infant, and write a line now, and I’ll post it.”
And Madeline accordingly sat down and wrote to Mrs. Harper on the spot,
whilst her companions watched her in silence.
“DEAR MRS. HARPER,
“I have seen your notice in the _Times_ of to-day. My address is--2,
Solferino Place, Westminster.
“Yours truly,
“M. W.”
She was so accustomed to sign merely her initials, and was so flurried
between anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and the screams of the baby,
that she never had the presence of mind to write her full name, and
on this slight omission, this one little cog, turned a most important
factor in her future career.
CHAPTER VII.
A TELEGRAM FOR MISS WEST.
The very morning after Madeline had despatched her letter, a telegram
was handed in for Miss West, 2, Solferino Place. The landlady herself
mounted, breathless, to the attics, with the tan-coloured envelope in
her hand.
“I was just for sending it away, Mrs. Wynne,” she gasped, surveying her
with an inquiring eye; “but it came into my mind as I’d show it to you
on the chance.”
“Thank you; it is for me,” rejoined her lodger, hastily tearing it open
and running her eyes over it. As she read, she became crimson with
amazement and agitation. “Come at once--to-day if possible. News of
your father.--From Mrs. Harper, Streambridge,” was the message.
“But it’s for Miss West, and you’ve gone and opened it!” exclaimed
the landlady, suspiciously. “How is that, eh? I never would have
supposed--no, never,” folding her arms belligerently, “as you wasn’t
on the square; and as I’ve allus kep’ a respectable ’ouse, I couldn’t
think----”
“You need _not_ think, Mrs. Kane; you need not alarm yourself about
the matter, it is all quite right. I _am_ Mrs. Wynne, but I was
Miss West once upon a time. The sender of the message does not know
that I am married,” interrupted Madeline, speaking with studied
composure--though her heart was beating fearfully fast.
Insolent as Mrs. Kane was, she dared not quarrel with her. Her roof
covered them on sufferance. Were she to thrust them forth, where
were they to go? They were entirely at her mercy, for they owed her
money; and latterly she had been inclined to take out a large amount
of interest in rude insolence, biting gibes, and unpleasant hints
with regard to “paupers a coming and settling down on poor, honest,
hard-working people--paupers as could afford dress, and theatres, and
pianos once, and saved nothing for a rainy day!”
Paupers--impecunious people like the Wynnes, especially Mrs. Wynne,
who bore the brunt of these encounters--could not afford to stand on
their dignity, and be independent and “move on.” They must submit
humbly; but it was insufferably galling--as galling to Madeline as Miss
Selina’s yoke, that had pressed upon her so sorely but one little year
ago.
Who but herself knew with what deprecating eyes and voice she had
pleaded with her impatient landlady for a little time, how humbly she
ventured to ask for coals, how stealthily she crept up and down stairs,
carrying baby, and doing her own miserable errands, making her presence
as unobtrusive as possible, for fear of offending her hostess’s
threatening eyes.
The hostess’s threatening eyes were fixed upon her now, with a look
that was an insult, as she listened to her hurried explanation with a
down-drawn lip.
“Oh, well, I suppose, as I know no _better_, I must believe you,” and
with a noisy sniff that intimated quite the reverse, Mrs. Kane glared
once round their squalid sitting-room, to see if anything were broken
or missing, or the valuable property damaged in any way; and, failing
to discover the smallest pretext for complaint, passed out of the
apartment with a heavy and aggressive strut, and banged the door behind
her.
Madeline lost not a second in rushing to the invalid with the great
news, and placing the slip of pink paper in his hand.
“There is something at last! I feel that a change is coming; these
terrible days cannot--cannot go on for ever. I believe my father is
alive, and coming home! What do you think, Laurence?” she asked, and
her voice trembled.
Laurence, still holding the telegram in his thin, transparent hand,
gazed at his wife for some seconds in silence. How changed she was, he
thought, with a pang of self-reproach. She was shabby--very genteelly
shabby. Her black dress was all mended and pieced, her face was
haggard, her eyes sunken, their look eager, anxious, almost desperate.
An intelligent spectator would have declared that she was obviously
half-starved, and so she was. But how furiously she would have
disclaimed such a pronouncement. She would rather have died than have
admitted that truth. As long as Laurence had meat once a day, as long
as baby had milk, she did very well on anything, and anything may mean
almost nothing--it is an elastic word. Meanwhile, Laurence had been
telling himself that he had been a culpable wretch to marry Madeline
West. What would he say to her father when he placed his daughter in
his arms--a daughter in all but rags, with a face pinched with famine,
without a friend, without a penny, and weighted with a dying husband
and a peculiarly ill-tempered baby?
How much better would it have been if he had curbed his foolish
fancy--nipped it in the bud, and left Madeline to her fate. Why had he
not wired to Mrs. Wolferton? What would her father say? Would he cast
her off?
Madeline had hinted that, as well as she could judge her father from
his letters, he was fond of show and style and great people. He wished
her to dance and sing and play well, and to speak French; but he had
never said a word about literature, or the English classics, or what
Laurence called “the higher education of women.” On the other hand, he
hoped that she would always make acquaintance with girls her equals, or
even superiors, and never lower herself by school-friendships that it
would be impossible for him to recognize. Madeline had once innocently
repeated this to her husband verbatim, and it came vividly before
him now. Madeline had done more than form a friendship of which her
aspiring parent would disapprove, a friendship that could be slipped
out of like an old glove. Here she was tied for life to a poor man,
whose only career seemed likely to be that of an invalid--a stone round
her neck as long as he lived.
He had but faint hopes of his own recovery; everything was against it.
He knew that this could not be helped, and he was very patient. If he
had good wine, wholesome delicacies to tempt his appetite, instead
of gruesome scraps of stale, ill-cooked meat and poisonous port at
a shilling; if he could have a change to pure, invigorating air, he
might yet have a chance. And he knew that he might as well long for the
moon--for the entire firmament!
“What is to be done, Laurence?” asked Madeline, rather surprised at his
long silence. “What do you think of it?”
“You must go, of course,” he returned at last. “Go to-day.”
“To-day! My dear Laurence, what are you thinking of?” sitting down on
a rush chair as she spoke, and staring at him in amazement. “Where is
the money to come from? Look here,” producing a shabby little purse,
with a brass clasp, and turning out the pitiably small contents, “all I
possess is two and sevenpence.”
“Still you must go, Maddie, by hook or crook; much may depend on it. A
return third-class----”
“A return third-class would be twenty-two shillings--one pound two,”
she interrupted. “And, besides, I could not go in this,” looking down
at her gown; “now,” appealingly, “could I?”
“No, you could not,” he replied, with a little flush on his pale face.
“And you must get something out. To get something out something else
must go in. And,” speaking with an effort, “I never thought to part
with them, but they could not go in a better cause. I mean,” wiping
his damp forehead, “my mother’s miniature and my father’s medals. The
miniature is framed in seed pearls; the back is gold--it ought to fetch
a couple of pounds. It’s in my desk, Maddie, in a little morocco case.”
There were other things in his desk--neatly-copied-out manuscripts.
These, alas! were valueless--he had proved them. “Take it, my dear, and
welcome; and the medals--they will fetch a few shillings.”
“Oh, Laurence,” suddenly kneeling down beside him, “I don’t like to!
Must I really? I know you think so much of them. They are the only
relics you possess. No, no; I really can’t!”
“Yes, you can, and you shall,” said the sick man, with sudden decision.
“Here, at last, is an opening for you, my poor Maddie. Something tells
me that your father is alive--is coming home rich. You are his only
child, his heiress. You will be looked after and cherished when I am
gone. Yes, my dear, it will be best for you in the end. It was most
wicked of me to marry you. I see it all now, only too plainly. I had
put by nothing for such a strait, and I had no wealthy friends. But I
never dreamt that it would come to this, Maddie; believe me, I never
did. Forgive me!” he urged, and tears, born of weakness and remorse,
stood in his hollow eyes.
“Laurence!” she interrupted, attempting to place her hand on his mouth.
“I should have walked home in the snow that night; I should have taken
you to the Wolfertons’ house, and telegraphed for her; I should have
gone to the parish clergyman--done anything but what I did, and which
led to my dragging you into such a pit as this!” with an inclusive wave
of his hand and a glance round the mean little attic. “But it won’t be
for long now,” he added in a lower voice.
“Oh, Laurence,” she almost screamed as she seized his arm, “why are
you telling me such terrible things, when we have a little gleam of
hope at last? It is cruel--cruel of you. You couldn’t mean that, after
all we have gone through together--that when we are approaching smooth
water--you--you would leave me!”
And here she suddenly broke down and burst into tears, for, alas! she
had an agonizing inward conviction that there was truth in what he
said. How pale and thin and wasted he looked! No one would recognize
him who had seen him last year, with his shorn head, gaunt cheekbones,
and sunken eyes; and she had a heart-breaking feeling that it was not
mere actual illness, nor the dregs of that terrible fever, that were
to blame for this, but that cruel, pitiless, ferocious wolf called
WANT. He was dying of the lack of mere necessaries, and she, miserable
woman, was powerless to procure them; and for this she laid down her
head and wept as if her heart would burst--her passionate sobbing
fairly frightened Laurence. Madeline’s tears were rarely seen; Madeline
was always bright, cheery, almost gay, at the very worst of times; and
now came a reaction, and she was weeping as he had never seen any one
weep before.
“Don’t, Maddie, don’t,” he whispered, feebly stroking her hair; “you
will be better without me, though you don’t think so now. You are
young--only nineteen--many bright days may be in store for you. I will
leave you contentedly, if your father has come home. The greatest
horror I have ever known will be lifted from my mind. You don’t know,
dearest, what torments have racked me as I lay awake through the
long, dark nights, listening to the clocks striking hour after hour,
and wondering what would become of you? Now Providence has answered
the question; your father will give you and the child a home. There,
Maddie, there, don’t; I can’t bear to see you cry like this; and I--I
may get over it, and---- And now, you see, you have awakened the baby!”
as a shrill, querulous cry from the next room interrupted what he was
about to say.
The maternal instinct thus roused, he hoped that her tears would cease,
as he was powerless to arrest them. And Madeline completely broken
down--Madeline, who was always so brave, who had come out in a new
light under the scorching flames of the furnace of affliction--was a
sight that completely unmanned him.
Madeline hastily dried her eyes, strangled her sobs, took her shrieking
offspring out of his cradle, and gave him his midday bottle--an
operation which appeased his appetite and soothed his feelings. Then
she came back to her husband with the child in her arms, and said in
a husky voice, “If you had change of air, good food, properly cooked,
fruit, wine, and the little delicacies all sick people require, you
would get well--I know you would. Promise me, promise that you will try
to get better! Promise me that you will wish to get better, Laurence,”
she continued tremulously, “for--for our sake.”
“I can promise that, at any rate, Maddie,” he answered with a dim
smile; “but you know the old proverb about wishes.”
“And you know that while there’s life there’s hope,” she answered
quickly. “I have hope; you must have hope too! And now I am going
out, you will have to mind baby,” placing the white bundle beside his
father, who eyed his charge dubiously, as it stared at him stolidly,
thumb in mouth.
Madeline hurriedly put on her hat and jacket, and, taking a key,
unlocked a brass-bound desk, and, after a little search, drew out the
morocco case. “Is this it?” she asked, holding it up. “This is what you
mean?”
A nod assured her that it was.
“You would like to look at it once more,” she said, gently laying it
in his hand. “I don’t know how to take it. You are so like her, too,”
looking down at the little oval miniature of a pretty, spirited girl
with dark eyes and dark hair, and seeing her husband’s gaze fixed
greedily on the portrait. “You were so fond of her, Laurence.”
“Not more than I am of you, Maddie,” he answered, closing the case with
a decisive snap. “And my father’s medals,” he said, as he held them up,
and looked at them wistfully. “Well, they will fetch a few shillings,
and they go in a good cause. Here, take them, my dear, and go, and
don’t be long.”
Needless to add this formula. Was she ever long? But time passed very
slowly when Madeline was absent from those two poor attics which were
called home.
CHAPTER VIII.
NOT MARRIED AFTER ALL.
“He has not awoke since, has he?” asked the anxious mother, as, fully
an hour later, she reappeared with a bundle and a basket. “No”--with a
sigh of relief--“I see he is sound,” laying down her load as she spoke.
“And now to begin at the very beginning, and to tell you everything,
Laurence,” opening the basket and producing a bottle. “Here is some
good port wine; I’ve carried it most carefully, so as not to shake it.
You must have a glass at once--that is to be the beginning.”
“Oh, Maddie, what extravagance! When you----”
“Hush! please to listen,” exhibiting as she spoke a hunch of grapes,
six fresh eggs, a jar of Bovril, and a packet of biscuits from her
seemingly inexhaustible store, and laying them on the table.
“Then you are _not_ going!” exclaimed her husband, in a tone of deep
disapproval.
“Oh yes, I am,” she answered promptly, now opening the bundle, and
shaking out a dress that she had pawned, and regarding it with an
expression that showed it was an old and favourite friend. “Here is an
A B C guide. I go to-night when I have left you comfortable, and baby
asleep. Mrs. Kane’s niece has promised to look after you to-morrow, and
to-morrow night I return, all being well.”
“Then they gave you a good price for the miniature and the medals.”
“Price!” she echoed indignantly. “They turned the miniature over and
over, and sneered at it, and said they had no sale for such like; but
they could not say that it wasn’t real gold and pearls, and they gave
me eighteen shillings, and said it was more than it was worth, and ten
shillings on the medals. Medals are a drug in the market.”
“Then how--where did you get money for your journey?” asked her
husband, in a tone of amazement bordering on impatience.
“See here!” holding up both her bare hands. Very pretty hands they
were, but now a little coarse from hard work. “Do you miss anything,
Laurence?” colouring guiltily.
“Yes, your--wedding-ring--and keeper,” after a moment’s pause--a pause
of incredulity.
“You won’t be angry with me, dear, will you?” she said coaxingly,
coming and kneeling beside him. “It makes no real difference, does it?
Please--please don’t be vexed; but I got a sovereign on them, and they
are the first things I shall redeem. You must have nourishing food,
even if I had to steal it; and I would steal for you!” she added,
passionately. “I shall only take a single ticket--third class. Mrs.
Harper will surely lend me a few pounds, and I will be able to leave
ten shillings for you to go on with.”
“How can I be angry with you, Maddie?” he replied. “It is all my
fault--the fault of my rashness, thoughtlessness, selfishness--that you
have had to do this, my poor child! Oh, that snowy night was a bad one
for you! I ought to have left you, and walked back.”
“Such nonsense!” cried his wife, whose spirits were rising. “I won’t
hear you say such things! It’s a long lane that has no turning. I
think--oh, I believe and pray--that I do see the end of ours! And
now there is a nice roast chicken for your dinner. I left it with
Mrs. Kane downstairs. She asked me if I had come in for a fortune? A
fortune, indeed! It was only three and three-pence, but I told her that
I believed that I _had_. Oh dear, oh dear, I hope my words will come
true!”
* * * * *
Madeline’s packing was represented by changing her dress; her
preparations were confined to brushing, rubbing, and inking her hat,
mending her gloves, which, like the typical landlady, “had seen better
days,” and to washing and getting up a pair of cuffs with her own hands.
“You look quite smart, Maddie,” said Laurence, as she completed her
toilet, and came and showed herself to him.
“Yes; I don’t look so very, _very_ poor, do I?”
“No-o,” rather dubiously. Then he added, with a smile, “No one who
looks at your face will think of your clothes; and, indeed, Maddie,
it is not fit that such a pretty girl as you are should be travelling
alone, and third class, such a long journey.”
“Rubbish! rubbish! rubbish!” she answered emphatically. “I’ll wear a
veil, if _that_ will please you; and, indeed, no one will notice me.
If they do, they will think I am some poor girl going to a situation.
You think every one must admire what you thought pretty, you stupid
Laurence; but I heard Mrs. Kane saying the other day that I’d grown
‘awfully plain.’ And it’s not my face Mrs. Harper will notice--you may
be certain of that!”
Ten minutes later she had kissed the sleeping baby, taken leave of
Laurence, given many whispered directions to Mrs. Kane’s niece, and a
whole half-sovereign from her little fund; and then, with a beating
heart, started on foot for a distant terminus. No, she would not take
even a twopenny fare in a ’bus; she must save every penny, and she
would have plenty of rest in the train. And so she had, of a sort, on
the hard, upright seat of a crowded third-class carriage for eight
mortal hours. There is not much repose in such a situation, nor much
sleep to be obtained; and the train roared along through the inky black
night, and tore through small stations with a shriek of contempt
that shook them to their foundations, and nearly shook the teeth of
the unhappy third-class passengers out of their heads. After a whole
night’s travelling of this uneasy description, Madeline arrived at
her destination--Riverside--and quickly alighted on the platform. One
trouble was spared her--luggage.
She went and washed her face and hands, arranged her hair, shook off
some of the dust in the waiting-room, invested fourpence in a bun and
cup of coffee, and felt herself sufficiently fortified to encounter
Mrs. Harper--but not Miss Selina. Another journey by rail, a short
walk, and she found herself once more on the familiar doorstep of
Harperton House, and rang timidly.
A strange maid (who knew not the delinquencies of Miss West) opened
the door, and was evidently surprised to behold such an early visitor.
She informed her that Mrs. Harper was not down yet, nor Miss Harper,
and showed her into the drawing-room, which was in process of being
dusted. Here she waited for some time, whilst a sound of hasty
footsteps and voices was very audible above her head. She looked around
the room, and felt as if she had only quitted it yesterday. And oh!
what a gap there was in her life between the last time she stood there,
listening to Miss Selina’s spiteful remonstrances, and now! But the
room was precisely the same. There was the best piano, on which she
had had many a music-lesson. There was Alice Burns’ big coloured-chalk
drawing, Amy Watson’s two water-colours; Florence Blewitt’s brass work,
and Isabella Jones’s photograph screen--all votive offerings to the
Harper family, and advertisements to pupils’ relatives who came to make
inquiries about the school.
Presently the door opened, and Miss Harper--if we may dare to say
so--burst into the room.
“Oh, Madeline!” she exclaimed, “so it’s you. She only said a young
lady. How more than thankful I am to see you!” shaking hands as
she spoke, and looking into her face with eager scrutiny. “You are
thin--very thin; but thin or fat, you are welcome back. Come up at once
to my mother’s room; she is dressing. She does not come down early now,
and she wants to see you” (here was an honour). “Come, the girls are
all in the schoolroom. The breakfast-bell will be rung in ten minutes,”
turning to lead the way. Then she paused for a moment, with the handle
in her hand. “You have heard about Selina?” she asked, with a red
spot on either cheek, and a spark in either eye. “What! Have you _not_
heard?” she added hurriedly.
Miss Selina! It was not of Miss Selina Madeline had come to hear; and
she shook her head and answered, “No; is she dead?”
“Dead! She’s married. She married nearly a year ago,” returned her
sister, impressively, “Mr. Murphy, the red-haired curate. She--she
behaved atrociously. Don’t mention her to my mother, nor ask about her,
on any account. We don’t speak,” flinging the door wide as she gasped
out the last sentence.
All the reply Madeline made was “Indeed!” But nevertheless she felt a
very lively satisfaction to hear that her old enemy was no longer an
inmate of Harperton, and had gone away, like herself, in disgrace.
“You will find my mother rather changed,” whispered Miss Harper, as
she rapidly preceded her upstairs. “She’s had a slight stroke. All the
troubles and annoyance about Selina were enough to kill her, and she is
not what she was. She never comes down till the afternoon; but take no
notice.”
“Madeline!” cried the old lady, as Madeline entered her room and beheld
her propped up in bed, in her best day cap. “This is too good to be
true! I scarcely expected it, though I have advertised every day in the
_Times_. Come here, my dear, and kiss me”--tendering a withered cheek.
The old lady’s mind was certainly affected, thought her late pupil.
That she who had been so ignominiously cast out should be thus welcomed
back, and with kisses, was scarcely credible, unless viewed from the
idea that Mrs. Harper had become imbecile in the meanwhile. But no, the
reason of this astonishing change from the frost of neglect to the sun
of welcome--affectionate welcome--was a very potent one indeed. It was
nothing less than the prospect of a large sum of money.
Since Madeline had been banished, nothing had gone well. Her place
had been taken by a governess who had actually required a salary,
as well as civility, and had been a great encumbrance and expense.
Then came Selina’s wicked tampering with her sister’s sweet-heart, a
heart-burning scandal, family linen sent to the public wash, and a
serious falling off in the school. Things were going badly. Every step
was down hill--one girl leaving after another, and there were many
vacant places at the long dinner-table.
At last came a letter--from Mr. West of all people! enclosing a
large draft on his bankers, and announcing his return a wealthy and
successful man. The draft was to pay for two years’ schooling, with
interest up to date; but for a whole year Miss West had been elsewhere!
How could they honestly claim these badly-wanted pounds? They had
banished the man’s daughter, and the money must be restored.
Viewed now--in a softer light, through a golden atmosphere--Madeline’s
deeds were excusable. The poor girl had been Selina’s victim, and
therefore more to be pitied than blamed. Madeline must be sought and,
if possible, discovered and reinstated as if there had been no hiatus,
as if nothing disagreeable had occurred. And we have seen the “state of
life” in which Madeline had been found.
“Letitia, do you go down now, and presently send up a nice breakfast
for two--two fresh eggs--whilst I have a talk with dear Madeline.”
Thus the old lady, who still held the reins of authority, although she
had lost the use of her right hand; and Letitia, having previously
rehearsed the whole “talk” with her mother, and fearing that “too many
cooks might spoil the broth,” departed with meek obedience.
“Take off your hat and jacket, my love, and make yourself at home.
I am sure you will not be surprised to hear--yes, put them on the
ottoman--that your father is alive and well, and returning an
_im_mensely”--dwelling lovingly on the word--“rich man.”
Madeline’s heart bounded into her mouth, her face became like flame. So
her presentiment had come true!
“Ah! I see you are surprised, darling: so were we when we got his
letter, a week ago. Here, bring me that case, the green one on the
little table, and I’ll read it to you at once--or you may read it
yourself if you like, Madeline.”
Madeline did as requested, picked out a foreign letter in a well-known
hand, and sat down to peruse it beside Mrs. Harper’s bed. That lady,
having assumed her spectacles for the nonce, scanned her late pupil’s
face with keen intentness.
This is what the letter said:--
“Royal Kangaroo Club,
“Collins Street, Melbourne.
“MY DEAR MRS. HARPER,
“After such a long silence, you will be surprised to see my writing,
but here I am. I am afraid Madeline has been rather uneasy about
me--and, indeed, no wonder. I met with some terrible losses in bank
shares two years ago: nearly the whole of my life’s earnings were
engulphed in an unparalleled financial catastrophe. The anxiety and
trouble all but killed me--threw me into a fever, from the effects
of which I was laid up for months--many months, and when I again put
my shoulder to the wheel I was determined not to write home until I
was as rich a man as ever. I knew that you, who had had the care of
Madeline since she was seven, would trust me, and everything would go
on as usual. I had always been such punctual pay, you would give me
time for once. I am now, I am glad to say, a wealthy man. Some lots
of land I bought years ago have turned up trumps--in short, gold. I
am not going to speculate again, but am returning home a millionaire,
and Maddie shall keep house in London, and hold up her head among the
best. Stray bits of news have drifted to my ears. I heard a foolish
story about some beggarly barrister or curate and her. A schoolgirl
wrote it to her brother; but I am certain it was only girls’
tittle-tattle. Surely you would never allow my _heiress_ to play the
fool! If she did, she knows very well that I would disown her. I am
a fond father in my way, and a good father, as _you_ can testify,
but I’ll have no pauper fortune-hunters, or puling love affairs. A
hint from you to Madeline, that at the least nonsense of _that_ sort
I marry again, and let her please herself, will be, at any rate, a
stitch in time. She has had a good education. She can earn her bread;
but I know it is not necessary to continue this subject. You are a
sensible woman; Madeline is a sensible girl, if she is my daughter.
And I have great views for her, very great views. I shall follow this
letter in about six weeks’ time, and will write again before I leave.
I shall come by the _Ophir_, Orient Line, and you and Maddie can meet
me in Plymouth. I enclose a draft on my agents for six hundred pounds,
five hundred for Maddie’s schooling and outfit for two years, and the
balance for pocket-money and a few new frocks, so that she may be
smart when her old daddie comes home.”
Madeline paused, and shook the letter. No, no draft fluttered out.
“I have banked it,” put in Mrs. Harper, precipitately, who had been
scrutinizing every change in the girl’s face. “It is quite safe.”
“And now I must wind up, hoping soon to see Madeline, and with love
to her and compliments to yourself and daughters, especially the
lively Miss Selina.
“Yours faithfully,
“ROBERT WEST.”
“Well, Madeline, tell me what you think of that?” demanded Mrs. Harper,
wiping her glasses.
“I--I--am very glad of course,” she returned, her brain and ideas
in a whirl; but now fully comprehending the cause of Mrs. Harper’s
blandishments and welcome.
“We are so sorry, love, that we were so hasty about Mr. Wynne. It
was entirely Selina’s doing, I do assure you. I am most thankful to
see--especially after your father’s letter--that you did _not_ marry
him after all!”
“Not marry him,” echoed the girl, colouring vividly. “What do you
mean?”
“I see you are not married by your hand,” pointing a long finger at
Madeline’s ringless member. “Is not that sufficient proof?” she asked
sharply.
Madeline was suddenly aware that she was at a crisis--a great moral
crisis--in her life, when she must take action at once, an action that
meant much. Her father’s letter, Mrs. Harper’s conclusion, her own
dire want, all prompted the quick decision made on the instant. She
would for the present temporise--at least till she had met her father,
told him her story in her own way, and accomplished a full pardon. To
declare _now_ that she was a wife would be ruin--ruin to her, death to
Laurence, for of course her father would cut her off with a shilling.
She was aware that he had very strong prejudices, a grotesque
adoration for rank and success, and a corresponding abhorrence of those
who were poor, needy, and obscure; also that he was a man of his word.
This she had gleaned out in Australia when but seven years of age.
They had lived in a splendid mansion in Toorak, the most fashionable
suburb of Melbourne, and an elderly reduced Englishwoman had been her
governess. But because she had permitted her to play with some children
whose father was in difficulties, who was socially ostracised, she had
been discharged at a week’s notice, and Madeline had been despatched
to England. Her father was peculiar--yes. In a second her mind was
resolved, and, with hands that shook as she folded up the crackling
foreign notepaper, she reassumed the character of Miss West!
CHAPTER IX.
BARGAINING.
“You see, my love,” proceeded Mrs. Harper, in a smooth, insinuating
tone, “it is not _every one_ who would take you back under the
circumstances;” and she paused, and peered at the girl over her
spectacles with a significant air. (The circumstances of five hundred
pounds, thought her listener bitterly.) “Will you give me your word
of honour that you have not been doing anything--unbecoming--anything
that--that--would reflect on your reputation? My dear, you need not
look so red and indignant. I’m only an old woman. I mean no offence.”
“I have done nothing to be ashamed of, or which I shall ever blush for
or regret,” rejoined Madeline, impressively; “and to that I can give my
word of honour. But, Mrs. Harper, you ask strange questions--and I am
no longer at school.”
“Well, well, my dear--well, well; we _did_ hear that you were in the
mantle department at Marshall and Snelgrove’s. I believe there are
ladies in these establishments;” and then she added craftily, “You have
such a nice, tall, slight figure--for trying on things. You were always
so graceful, and had such taking manners!”
“I was not there, Mrs. Harper,” returned Madeline; “and I cannot tell
you where I was, beyond that I lived with a friend, and that I was very
poor.”
“A friend, at Solferino Place?” quickly.
“Yes”--with visible reluctance--“at Solferino Place. And now what do
you want with me, Mrs. Harper?” she asked, with unexpected boldness.
“Well, I wish”--clearing her throat--“and so does Letitia, to let
bygones be bygones; to allow your father to find you here, as if you
had _never_ been away; to hush up your escapade--for though, of course,
I believe you--it might sound a little curious to him. No one knows why
you left, excepting Selina--Mrs. Murphy. It happened in the holidays.
These girls are a new set, and have never heard of you; and, even if
they had, they would not meet Mr. West, as he arrives during the Easter
term. Do you agree to this?”
“Yes,” replied Madeline, with sudden pallor, but a steady voice, “I
agree; it will be best.”
“That is arranged, then,” said the old diplomatist, briskly. “And, now,
what about the money?--what about that? Shall we keep the five hundred
pounds, and give you the balance?”
In former days Madeline would have assented to this proposition at
once; but now her heart beat tumultuously as she thought of Laurence
and the baby. She must secure all she could for their sakes, and,
feeling desperately nervous, she replied--
“No, I can’t quite see that, Mrs. Harper. To one year’s payment and
interest you are, of course, entitled; but the second year I worked for
my living--worked very hard indeed. You can scarcely expect to take two
hundred pounds, as well as my services--gratis.”
But Mrs. Harper _had_ expected it confidently, and this unlooked-for
opposition was a blow. Madeline was not as nice as she used to be, and
she must really put some searching questions to her respecting her
absence, if she was going to be so horribly grasping about money; and
Madeline, blushing for very shame as she bargained with this old female
Shylock, reluctantly yielded one hundred pounds for the year she had
been pupil-teacher. It was money versus character--and a character is
expensive.
Mrs. Harper, on her part, undertook to arrange Madeline’s past very
completely, and Madeline felt that it must be veiled from her father
for the present--at any rate, until Laurence was better, and able to
resume work and a foothold on existence.
She had assured him yesterday that she would steal for him if
necessary. Was not this as bad, she asked herself, bargaining and
chaffering thus over her father’s money, and dividing it with the
greedy old creature at her side? However, she was to have one hundred
and eighty pounds for her share. Oh, riches! Oh, what could she not do
with that sum?
She was to return to her friends at Solferino Place for three
weeks--(she had struggled and battled fiercely for this concession, and
carried the day)--was then to return to Harperton, and be subsequently
escorted to Plymouth by Miss Harper, who would personally restore her
to her father’s arms.
After the morning’s exciting business, Madeline was wearied, flushed,
and had a splitting headache. She was not sorry to share Mrs. Harper’s
excellent tea, and to be allowed to take off her dress and go and lie
down in a spare room upstairs--a room once full, but now empty--and
there she had a long think; and, being completely worn out, a long,
long sleep.
After dinner--early dinner--she went out with Miss Harper, and the
money--her share--was paid to her without delay. She had stipulated for
this. Could it be possible that it was she, Madeline Wynne, who stood
opposite to the cashier’s desk cramming notes and sovereigns into her
sixpenny purse? As they pursued their walk, Madeline recognized a few
old faces, and many old places. She purchased a new hat, which she put
on in the shop; and she heard, to her relief, that the Wolfertons had
left, and gone to live abroad. Some former schoolfellows, now grown
up--no young plant grows quicker than a schoolgirl--recognized and
accosted her. These had been day-boarders. They mentally remarked that
she had turned out very different to what they expected, and that she
looked much older than her age. “She was staying at Mrs. Harper’s, was
she?”
Before they had time to ask the hundred and one questions with which
they were charged, Miss Harper prudently hurried her pupil away,
saying, as she did so--
“Least said, soonest mended, my dear. It’s well you had on your new
hat! Now you had better get some gloves.”
She was not quite as keen about the money as her mother, and was
inclined--nay, anxious--to be amiable. Madeline West, the great
Australian heiress, had possibilities in her power. She was resolved to
be friendly with her, and to reinstate her at once as the favourite
pupil of former days, burying in oblivion the teacher interlude.
The girls Madeline had met walked on disappointed, saying to one
another--
“Fancy _that_ being Maddie West! How awful she looks! So seedy, and so
thin and careworn; and she is barely my age--in fact, she is a week
younger!”
“And so frightfully shabby,” put in another.
“Did you see her dress--all creases?”
“And her gloves!” (The gloves were apparently beyond description.)
“All the same, Miss Harper was making a great fuss--a great deal of
her. It was ‘dear’ this, and ‘love’ that. She is never affectionate for
nothing. I know the old boa-constrictor so well. Perhaps Maddie has
been left a fortune?” hazarded the sharpest of the party.
“Her dress and jacket looked extremely like it,” sneered number one.
“As to her hat, I saw it in at Mason’s this morning--I noticed it
particularly, marked eleven and ninepence. _That_ looks like being an
heiress! Oh, very much so, indeed!”
The price of the hat settled the question!
CHAPTER X.
MRS. KANE BECOMES AFFECTIONATE.
Mrs. Harper would not hear of Madeline returning to London by night.
No, it was a most shocking idea, and not to be entertained. She must
remain until the next day at least, “and travel properly,” which
meant that Miss Harper herself conducted the heiress to Riverside,
and saw her off by the morning express, first class. It was in vain
that Madeline protested that such precautions were quite unnecessary.
She was anxious to save her fare, and return third; for, even with
such wealth as one hundred and eighty pounds, every shilling would
be required. But her voice was silenced. Miss Harper carried the day,
took her late pupil to the station, gave her into the charge of the
guard, and even went so far as to present her with a two-shilling
novel, to wile away the journey (an attention that she hoped would
bear fruit by-and-by). But Madeline did not need it; her own thoughts
were sufficient to absorb her whole attention as she travelled rapidly
homeward. She was sensible of some disquieting pangs when she thought
of Laurence. Would he be angry when he heard that his wife had once
more assumed her maiden name, and pretended that she was still Madeline
West?
No, no; he must forgive her, when there was so much at stake. Her hand
closed involuntarily on her purse, that precious purse which contained
the first payment for the fraud, she had been compelled to practise.
About five o’clock that evening Madeline’s quick foot was once more
heard ascending the stairs, and with hasty fingers she opened the
sitting-room door, and rushed into her husband’s presence. He was up
and dressed--(at all but the worst of times he would insist on dragging
himself out of bed and dressing)--seated at her table, laboriously
doing some copying, with slow and shaky fingers.
It should here be stated, in justice to Mrs. Harper, that she had
passed Madeline under the harrow of searching inquiries, and elicited
the intelligence that she made her livelihood by law copying, and she
was satisfied that it was a respectable employment.
“Ah!” exclaimed the astute dame, “I suppose Mr. Wynne put that bit of
work in your way, did he?” Fortunately for her new _rôle_, Madeline
could truthfully reply “No,” for it was not Laurence who had been the
means of procuring this employment, such as it was, but Mr. Jessop.
“You will give me your permanent address, Madeline,” said Mrs. Harper,
austerely. “That must be thoroughly understood.”
“But you have it already, Mrs. Harper.”
“Have you lodged there long?” she asked, feeling confident that no
well-known counsel at the bar could outdo her in crafty questions.
“Fourteen months,” said her pupil, rather shortly.
“Then you must have been pretty comfortable?”
To which Madeline evasively replied that she had been quite happy. (No
thanks to Mrs. Kane.)
And Mrs. Harper was satisfied. She had found out all she wished to
know. Madeline’s past was as clear as daylight now! _Was it?_
And now behold Madeline at home once more, flushed with excitement,
exhilarated by the change, by the money in her purse, and with her
bright eyes, bright colour, and new hat, making quite a cheerful and
brilliant appearance before the amazed and languid invalid.
He was looking very ill to-day. These close stifling rooms and
sleepless nights were gradually sapping his scanty stock of vitality.
“Baby is asleep,” she said, glancing eagerly into the cradle. “And now
I am going to tell you all about it,” taking off her hat and gloves,
and pushing aside her husband’s writing materials, filling him up a
glass of port, fetching a biscuit, and taking a seat opposite to him,
all within the space of three minutes.
“You have good news, Maddie, I see,” he remarked as he looked at her,
and noticed her condition of suppressed excitement, and her sparkling
eyes.
“Good?--news, yes; and money!” pulling out her purse and displaying
thick rolls of Bank of England notes, and some shining sovereigns.
“Oh, Laurence dear, I feel so happy, all but in one little corner
of my conscience, and I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me--about
something--that is the one drawback! I don’t know how to begin to tell
you--best begin with the worst. I’ve gone back to being Madeline West
once more; they don’t know that I am married.”
“Madeline!” he ejaculated sternly. “You are not in earnest.”
“Now, dear, don’t; don’t speak till you hear all. You know how I left,
how I travelled with the price of my rings. I arrived, was shown up
into Mrs. Harper’s own room--where, in old times, girls were sent for
to have bad news broken to them. She has had a stroke. Miss Selina is
married, and Mr. Murphy is gone. The school is going down. So when
Mrs. Harper had a letter from my father, enclosing five hundred pounds
for two years’ expenses, and one hundred for me for pocket-money, it
was a most welcome surprise, and they were anxious to find me, of
course”--pausing for a second to take breath. “Don’t interrupt me,
_yet_,” she pleaded, with outstretched hands. “Mrs. Harper gave me
papa’s letter to read. He had lost money, he had been ill for a long
time, he had no wish to write until he was again a rich man. Now he is
a millionaire, and is coming home immediately, expecting to find me
still at the Harpers’, and still Miss West. I am to be a great heiress.
I am to keep his house; and, Laurence dear, he had heard a hint of
_you_. I know it was that detestable gossip, Maggie Wilkinson. She had
a cousin in an office in Melbourne, and used to write him volumes. And,
oh, he says dreadful things--I mean my father--if I marry a poor man,
as he has such--such--views. That was the word; and if I disappoint
him, I am to be turned from his door penniless, to earn my own bread!”
“As you are doing now,” observed her listener bitterly.
“Yes!” with a gesture of despair; “but what is it--for you and me and
baby--what are nine shillings a week? Then Mrs. Harper exclaimed, with
great relief, ‘I see you are not married!’ pointing to my hand; and it
all came into my mind like a flash. I did not say I was not married,
I uttered no actual untruth; but I allowed her to think so. The
temptation was too great; there was the wealth for the taking--money
that would bring you health. I said I would steal for you, Laurence;
but it was not stealing, it was, in a sense, my own money, intended for
my use. Are you very angry with me for what I have done, dear?” she
wound up rather timidly.
“No, Madeline. I see you could not help yourself, poor child, with
starvation staring you in the face, and a sick husband and infant to
support! Your father has views for you, has he? I wonder how this
view”--indicating himself and the cradle--“would strike him. As far as
I am concerned, it won’t be for long, and your father will forgive you;
but the child Maddie--on his account your marriage----”
“Laurence!” she almost screamed, “don’t! Do you think the child would
make up for you? Am I not doing all this for _you_--acting a part,
clothing myself in deceit, for you--only for _you_? Do not tell me that
it is all to go for nothing! If I thought that, I would give it up at
once. My sole object is to gain time, and money, until you are yourself
once more, and able to earn our living at your profession. Then, having
done all to smooth the way, I shall confess my marriage to my father.
If he renounces me, I shall still have you, and you will have me.
But, without this money to go on with, to get the best advice, plenty
of nourishment, and change of air, I don’t know what I should do?” And
she surveyed him with a pair of truly tragic eyes. “It has come to me
like a reprieve to a condemned criminal. Say, Laurence, that I have
done right. Oh, please, say it!” putting out her hands, with a pretty
begging gesture.
“No, dearest Maddie, I cannot say that; but I will say that, under the
circumstances, it was a great, an almost irresistible temptation.”
“Then, at least, say you are not angry with me.”
“I can say no to that from the bottom of my heart. How can I be angry,
when I myself am the cause--when it has all been done for _me_? The
only thing is, that there maybe difficulties later on,” looking into
the future with his practical lawyer’s eye. “There may be difficulties
and a desperate entanglement in store for you, my pretty, reckless
Maddie. You know the lines--
“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When once we practise to deceive.’”
“At any rate, I shall make the best of _my_ web,” said his wife,
springing up. “I am going to take Mr. Jessop into my confidence.”
“Are you? Well, I suppose it will be best.”
“Yes, of course it will; I am going to write to him now. The very first
doctor in London is to come and see you; and, as soon as you can be
moved, you go into the country--that I insist upon.”
“I go into the country, do I?” with a grim smile. He was saying to
himself, as he looked at her eager anxious face, that the only country
he would ever go into now would be down to the old burying-place of the
Wynne family. At least his relations could not refuse him admission
there, or close that door--the door of the family vault--in his face.
And when he was at rest, under the walls of the old grey church,
Madeline, as a widow, would be as much her father’s heiress and
housekeeper as if she had never been a wife. In fact, her days of
misfortune would enhance her domestic worth, at least she had learnt
the value of money! As for himself, he was reduced to such a low ebb,
mentally and physically, that death would be a release. To return to
life--with a capital L--and to take up his heavy load, and plod on and
on like an omnibus horse, was not an alluring prospect. Madeline’s
future was safe, and he would rather be under the green sod, with all
the dead and gone Wynnes--when, after life’s fitful fever, they slept
well.
It will be seen from this that Mr. Wynne was in a bad way--too weak,
too hopeless, even to care to struggle back to health. But Madeline had
now sufficient energy for two. Hope pervaded her young veins, decision
and prompt action were its outcome, and money was power.
In the first place, she scribbled a hasty note to Mr. Jessop, and
begged him to call on them that evening without fail. This she
despatched by a little boy, paying a precious sixpence to save time.
Then she descended like a whirlwind upon Mrs. Kane, and begged to
see her for a moment alone. She had made a bold resolve--there was
no alternative. She was about to take Mrs. Kane--the insolent, the
red-faced, the incredulous--into her confidence. She had Hobson’s
choice, and, in fact, was at her wits’ end. Supposing inquiries were
made, supposing Mrs. Harper wrote and asked awkward questions, and who
so ready to answer them--unless previously prepared, previously bribed,
previously flattered, by being let into the secret--as Mrs. Kane?
“Mrs. Kane,” said Madeline, knocking at that lady’s door, the door of
her own sanctum, “I have something to say to you in private.”
“Bless me, Mrs. Wynne, how white your face is!” exclaimed the other
tartly, having been just about to sit down to her supper--tripe and
bottled stout. “Whatever is the matter _now_? Not the bailiffs--that I
do hope.”
“No, no, no; quite the contrary.” Then, struck by a happy thought, “How
much do we owe you, Mrs. Kane?”
“Ah, owe me!” rather staggered. “Let’s see, thirteen weeks, at ten
shillings, is six pounds ten; then the coal----Here,” making a raid
on a rickety writing-table, “I have it all down,” searching among
some papers. “Yes, here it is. Coal, one pound one, kindling wood,
matches, postage on a parcel--total, eight pounds, thirteen and
sevenpence-halfpenny. Are you going to settle it?” she asked briskly.
“Yes, I am,” replied Madeline, now drawing out her full, her
overflowing purse. What courage, what confidence were conferred by the
very feel of its contents! Mrs. Kane gazed at it with eyes as distended
as those of a bull frog, and with her mouth half-open. “A ten-pound
note, Mrs. Kane.” And Mrs. Wynne tendered one as she spoke.
“So I see,” in a milder key. “I’ll get you change, and, though I says
it as shouldn’t, it’s not everybody, you know yourself, who would
have----”
“Yes, quite true, I know all that already, thank you, Mrs. Kane. Never
mind the change just now, it can go towards the milk bill. What I
wanted to speak to you about is to tell you a family secret--which
concerns me.”
“A family secret! Laws, Mrs. Wynne!” suddenly seating herself with
a plunge, and looking at her lodger with a countenance of gratified
anticipation, “whatever can it be?”
“Promise, on your solemn word of honour, not to tell any one.”
“Oh, I’m as safe as a church; no one will get anything out of
me”--mentally resolving to tell her niece and husband without any
churlish delay--“unless it’s something not on the square.”
“It is quite on the square; you need not fear. Once I was a Miss West.”
“So you told me,” nodding her head.
“I was at school near Riverside for a good many years. My father is an
Australian merchant--very rich.”
“Oh, indeed!” in a comfortable tone.
“But for two years he had not been heard of, we thought that he was
dead, and I became a teacher at school. Mr. Wynne saw me there, and
paid me attention, which displeased Mrs. Harper very much. I was sent
away, and we were married. We have been here ever since.”
“So you have,” agreed Mrs. Kane, as much as to say, “And it’s highly to
your credit!”
“Well, now my father has written at last; he is coming home, immensely
rich. He has not heard of my marriage.”
“Laws, you don’t say so!” in a tone of admiration and astonishment.
“No one has heard of it, you see. I had no friends. And if my father
knew that I had married a poor man, he would be dreadfully angry--at
least at first. I went down to Mrs. Harper’s; she showed me his letter.
She thinks I am not married, for,” holding up her bare left hand, “I
pawned my rings to pay my railway fare.”
“Oh, my goodness! Did you really, now?”
“And she took it for granted that I was still Miss West. I confessed
nothing. I told her I had lived here for fourteen months, that I worked
at law stationery, and was very poor, and she was apparently satisfied;
but, all the same, I firmly believe she will write and ask you all
about me. Neither she nor my father must know of my marriage--_yet_.
And now, are you quite prepared? I am Miss West, you know, who has
lived with you since last January year. You understand, Mrs. Kane?”
“Oh yes!” with an expressive wink. “A nice, quiet, respectable young
lady--never going nowhere, keeping no company, and I only wishes I had
a dozen like her. I’ll give it her all pat, you be quite certain,” said
her landlady, rubbing her bare fat arms with the liveliest delight at
her own _rôle_ in the piece. “But how about Mr. Wynne and the baby?”
she asked slyly.
“You need not mention them. It will be all right later on, when I see
my father and prepare him, you know. But now I am obliged to keep him
in the dark. Mrs. Harper would not have given me my money, had she
known. It’s only for a short time that I am forced to resume my old
name, and I assure you, Mrs. Kane, that it’s not very pleasant.”
“Ay, well now, I think it’s rather a joke--something like a play at the
Adelphi, where in the end the father comes in and blesses the young
couple, and they all live together, happy as sand-boys, ever after.
That will be your case, you’ll see!” emphatically.
“I hope so, but I doubt it,” returned her lodger. “I will be content
if my husband recovers his health. Money is nothing in comparison to
health.”
“Ay, may be so; but money is a great comfort all the same,” said Mrs.
Kane, squeezing the note affectionately in her hand, and wondering how
many more of the same quality were in Mrs. Wynne’s purse--“a great
comfort!”
“Well then, now you know all, Mrs. Kane,” said the other, rising, “I
can depend on you? You will be our friend in this matter, and, believe
me, you will be no loser.”
“Certainly you can’t say fairer nor that, can you, ma’am?--though,
as far as I’m concerned, I’m always delighted to oblige a lady for
nothing, and I always fancied you from the first time I saw you in the
hall, and you knocked over that pot of musk, and so Maria will tell
you. As for the secret, wild horses would not tear it from me; and
I’m that interested in you, as I couldn’t express to you, and allus
was--you ask Maria--just as if you was my own daughter. I can’t say
fairer nor that, can I?”
And opening the door with a wide flourish, she waved Madeline through,
who, rather staggered by this unexpected compliment, passed quickly
into the lobby, and with a farewell nod, hurried back to her family
in the upper regions, and set about preparing tea. She also made
preparations for the expected visit of their chief counsellor, Mr.
Henry Jessop.
CHAPTER XI.
CHANGE OF AIR AND SCENE.
Mr. Jessop duly arrived, and found, to his amazement, that his fish
and fruit had been forestalled; and there were other and yet greater
surprises in store for him.
He listened to Madeline’s plainly told tale, with his glass rigidly
screwed into his eye, his mouth pinched up as if he had an unusually
intricate “case” under his consideration.
He never once interrupted her, until she brought her recital to an end,
and she, in the heat and haste of her narrative, had permitted him to
know more of their poverty than he had dreamt of.
The Wynnes were as proud as they were poor; the extremity of their
straits was kept for their own exclusive experience. Mr. Jessop gave
an involuntary little gasp as he listened to the revelation about the
pawnbroker, the history of the miniature, and medals, and rings.
“By the way, I am going to redeem them the first thing to-morrow!” said
Madeline hurriedly.
“No, no, no, my dear Mrs. Wynne; such places for you are simply out
of the question. I will go,” protested Mr. Jessop, who had never been
inside such an institution in his life.
“No, certainly not; they know me quite well at Cohen’s, and you are a
stranger. I don’t mind one bit, as it will be for the last time; and
why should it be more out of the question _now_, than yesterday? Does
money make such a difference in a few hours?” (Money sometimes makes a
difference in a few minutes.)
* * * * *
On the whole, Mr. Jessop approved. The scheme was rash, romantic,
risky; but it was the only plan he could see for the present.
Mrs. Wynne must take her father in hand, and talk him over. “He did not
think she would have much trouble,” he added consolingly, as he looked
at her pretty, animated face; and he told himself that the old fellow
must have indeed a rocky heart if he could resist that. And now for
business, for action, for a council of war.
In a quarter of an hour it was all settled, so unanimous were Madeline
and Mr. Jessop.
A great doctor, whose speciality was low fever, was to be summoned the
next morning. If he consented, Mr. Jessop was to come in the afternoon
with a very, very easy brougham, and take the invalid at once to
Waterloo station, and by rail and carriage to a farm house that he knew
of, about fifty miles from London, where there was pure air, pure milk,
and every incentive to health. The baby and Madeline were to follow
the next day, after everything had been packed up and stored with Mrs.
Kane, who was now amenable to anything, and amiable to imbecility.
The prescribed journey did take place by luxurious and easy stages,
and actually the next night Mr. Wynne passed under the red-tiled
roof of the farm in Hampshire. He was worn out by fatigue, and slept
well--slept till the crowing of the cocks and the lowing of the cows
had announced, long previously, that the day was commenced for
them. He sat in a lattice-paned sitting-room, looking into a sunny
old-fashioned garden (filled in summer with hollyhocks, sunflowers,
roses, and lavender, and many sweet-scented flowers well beloved of
bees), and felt better already, and made an excellent early dinner,
although his portly hostess declared, as she carried the dishes into
the kitchen, “that the poor sick gentleman--and ay, deary me, he do
look bad--had no more appetite than a canary!”
The sick gentleman’s wife and baby appeared on the scene in the course
of the afternoon, “a rare tall, pretty young lady she were,” quoth the
farm folk. A country girl took charge of the infant, who, as long as he
had plenty of milk in his bottle, and that bottle in his clutch, was
fairly peaceable and contented with things in general; and was much
taken with Mrs. Holt’s cap frills, with her bright tin dishes on the
kitchen shelves, and with various other new and strange objects.
Madeline was thankful to get into the peaceful country, with its
placid green fields and budding hedges; to live in Farmer Holt’s old
red-roofed house, with the clipped yew trees in the sunny garden, and
the big pool at the foot of it overshadowed by elder trees. Thankful
to enjoy this haven of rest, away from murky London, with its roar of
hurrying existence and deafening street traffic that never seemed to
cease, night or day, in the neighbourhood of Solferino Place.
Here the lusty crowing of rival cocks, the lowing of cows, the noise
of the churn were the only sounds that broke a silence that was as
impressive as it was refreshing. All things have an end. Madeline’s
three weeks’ leave soon came to a conclusion; and she most reluctantly
tore herself away from the farm, the evening before she was due at
Harperton. How happy she was here! Why must she go?
Laurence was better, a great deal better. He walked in the garden,
leaning on her arm at first, then in the lanes with no support but his
stick. He was more hopeful, more like his former self--he was actually
engaged in tying flies for Farmer Holt, as Madeline watched him
wistfully, with her chin on her hand. She loved the farm itself--the
farmer’s wife (kind Mrs. Holt, with a heart to match her ample person).
The sweet little chickens, and ducks, and calves, and foals, were all
delightful to Madeline, who, active as ever, had helped to feed the
former, learned to make butter, to make griddle-cakes, to milk, and
was on foot from six in the morning until nine o’clock at night, and
had recovered the look of youth and well-being which had so long been
missing from her appearance.
The farmer himself was to drive her to the station in his dog-cart,
and she and Laurence strolled down the lane together to say a few last
words ere they parted--for how long?
Laurence was hopeful now, and Madeline was tearfully despondent. He
was recovering, and felt more self-reliance every day. He would soon,
please God, be back at work.
“I don’t know what has come over me, Laurence,” said his wife, as
they came to the gate and a full stop. “I feel so low, so depressed,
something tells me that I shall not see you again for _ages_,” her eyes
filling with tears. “And I feel so nervous about meeting papa,” and
her lips quivered as she spoke.
“Nonsense, Maddie! you must never meet trouble half way. Your father
cannot but be pleased with you, and when you tell him about me----”
“Oh, but I won’t, I dare not at first,” she interrupted hastily. “It
all comes back to me now. The days in that big house in Toorak, and how
I used to be afraid when I heard his voice in the entrance-hall--his
voice when he was angry. I used to run away and hide under a bed!”
“Nevertheless you must tell him, all the same; you are not a child now.
And when you point out to him that his silence for two years and a half
left you to a certain extent your own mistress, and that your unlucky
marriage was the result of the reins being thrown on your neck----”
“Now, Laurence!” putting her hand on his arm, “you know I won’t listen
to that; and if the worst comes to the worst, I can run away _again_!”
“So you can; and I think in another fortnight I shall be fit for--for
harness. Jessop says----”
“If Mr. Jessop say anything so wicked, he and I will quarrel!”
exclaimed Madeline indignantly. “You are not to do anything for three
months; there is plenty of money left yet.”
“Yes; but, Maddie,” producing some notes, “you know you can’t appear
before your father like that,” pointing to her dress. “You will need a
couple of decent gowns; and I don’t think much of that hat. You must
take forty pounds, without any nonsense, you know.”
“No, I won’t,” pushing it away impatiently. “I don’t require it.”
“But you do, and must take it, and do as I desire you--goodness knows
it’s little enough! Promise me to spend every farthing on yourself.
You ought to be respectably dressed when you meet your father. Where
is your common sense? And naturally he will ask--Where is the hundred
pounds he gave you for new frocks? Remember, Maddie, if he is _very_
angry, you can always come back to me”--kissing her. “And now that I am
not so down on my luck, I feel anxious to work for you, and the sooner
the better; and the sooner you return the better. Here is Holt,” as the
farmer, driving a slashing long-tailed colt, came quickly round the
corner into view. “He is driving that crazy four-year-old! I hope he
will take care of you. Mind you leave her there safely, farmer,” as his
nimble wife climbed up into the lofty dog-cart. “Good-bye, Maddie; be
sure you write to-morrow.” Stepping aside as they dashed through the
gate, carried forward by the impatient chestnut.
Madeline looked back, and waved her handkerchief. Yes, he was still
standing gazing after them, even when they had gone quite a distance;
finally she applied the handkerchief to her eyes.
“Now, don’t take on so, ma’am,” murmured the farmer, his eyes fixed
on the colt’s quivering ears. “We’ll take good care of him! He is a
real nice young gentleman; and as to baby, I don’t see how the missus
will ever part with him. You cheer up! Ain’t you a-going to meet your
father?”
“Yes, Mr. Holt,” she faltered; “but I may as well tell you that he has
not seen me for more than twelve years. He--I--we thought he was dead.
He does not know that I am married!”
“Oh, great gooseberries!” ejaculated her listener emphatically. “What a
taking he’ll be in!”
“No, and he is not to know just yet. I am Miss West, not Mrs. Wynne,
until I have paved the way. I’ve told your wife all about it; she
knows.”
“I don’t see what your father can have to say agin Mr. Wynne?” said
Holt stoutly. “He is a gentleman. The king himself is no more.”
“Ah, yes; but he has no money,” sighed Madeline.
“Maybe he has brains; and them does just as well. Don’t let your father
come between you--you know the Bible says, ‘As----’”
“Mr. Holt!” she exclaimed, flushing indignantly, “do you think I
would ever desert Laurence? No, not for fifty fathers. No, not if my
father came all the way from London on his knees, would I ever give up
Laurence and baby, or forget them for one single hour!”
“Nay, I’m sure you wouldn’t, excuse me, ma’am. But, you see, your
father’s very rich, and you are just wonderful pretty, and when the
old gent--meaning no offence--has you living in a kind of palace,
with servants, and carriages and ’osses, and tricked out in dress and
jewels, and every one pushing and jostling one another to tell you
what a grand and beautiful lady you be--why, maybe, _then_ you won’t
be so keen for coming back; you know it would be only human nature--at
least,” coolly correcting himself--“woman’s natur.”
“Well, Mr. Holt,” she returned rather stiffly, “time will tell. I
cannot say more than that,” unintentionally quoting from Mrs. Kane. “I
know myself that I shall come back, and soon. Remember,” stopping when
she had jumped down, and holding his bony hand tightly in both of hers,
“remember,” she repeated, looking up into his honest rugged face, with
dim and wistful eyes, “I leave them in your charge. Don’t let Laurence
overtire himself--don’t let him walk too far. Don’t let the baby have a
halfpenny to play with again--or the toasting-fork. And, oh, I must go!
Remember, above all, that I shall soon return.”
Exit Miss West, running to take her ticket and claim her luggage; and
Farmer Holt, fearing the effect of the train, for the first time, on
his rampant colt, prudently turned his head back towards the cool green
lanes without any dangerous delay.
CHAPTER XII.
“SHE WILL DO!”
Madeline, having arrived in London, drove direct to No. 2, and spent
one more night under Mrs. Kane’s roof, where she was received with open
arms, and proudly shown a letter marked, “Private and confidential,”
and signed by the neat and respectable signature of “Letitia Harper.”
“_I_ answered her! Ay, my word, that I did!” cried Mrs. Kane
triumphantly. “She’ll not come poking her nose after you again. I knew
Miss West for a long time, I said, and nothing to her discredit.
She was a most excellent, reliable young lady--who kept herself _to_
herself: and should I mention as Miss Harper had kindly referred to me?
_That_ wor a poser, I can tell you! Back came a letter telling me on no
account to say a word to Miss West, and enclosing a postal order for
ten shillings for my _trouble_! That was a rare joke! the trouble was
a pleasure. And how is Mr. Wynne? and how is the dear baby?” continued
Mrs. Kane, whose speech and affection were alike at high tide.
It was evident to Madeline herself that she must get some new clothes.
She was not even wearing out the remains of her trousseau--never having
had one. What would her father say to her faded cotton, and still
more shabby serge? Even the eleven-and-ninepenny hat was now _passé_.
Knowing, as he did, too, that she had the means to dress differently!
She must spend money on her wardrobe without delay. Accordingly, after
breakfast, she sallied forth, and went to a first-class establishment
where a great sale was in its first frenzy. Here, among a mob of
well-dressed ladies, she struggled for standing room, and waited for
attendance, and saw dress after dress on which she had set her heart
snatched away and sold. After patient endurance of heat, tempers,
rudeness, and unblushing selfishness, she secured the attention of a
harassed girl, who perhaps feeling that she was even such an one as
herself, assisted her to choose a neat covert coating, a tailor-made
coat and skirt--a model costume of _crêpon_, with immense sleeves and a
profusion of jet and black satin trimmings, also a black gauze evening
gown--a once-exquisite garment, but now shockingly tumbled by ruthless
hands, though it _was_ a “Paris pattern.”
These, with a smart silk blouse, a picture hat, a cape, shoes,
handkerchiefs, veils, and gloves, swallowed up twenty-five pounds. Then
she returned with her parcels in a hansom, displayed the contents (by
request) to Mrs. Kane, and spent her evening in altering the bodices
and packing her trunk: it was not very full. It did not need any one
to come and sit on the top and press the lock together. Next morning
she was _en route_ to Riverside, and that same evening in Mrs. Harper’s
arms!
Mrs. Harper and her daughter were delighted to see her. The house
was empty; the girls had gone home for the Easter holidays, and they
would be very cosy and comfortable. They asked many veiled and clever
questions anent her money. What had she done with it? Surely she had
not spent it _all_? How much was the tailor-made? How much was the
black? But she gave them no satisfactory answer. That was _her_ affair,
and not in the bond!
Days passed, and yet no sign of Mr. West, and Mrs. Harper was becoming
a little impatient and irritable. Could he mean to disappear for a
second time? What was she to think?
Meanwhile Madeline wrote to the farm daily, posting the letters
herself. Here is one of them as a specimen:--
“MY DEAR LAURENCE,
“No news yet. So glad to get your letters. I call for them every day.
It looks funny to see nothing but W. on the envelope, but it would
never do to put West, much less Wynne. It makes me very happy to
hear that you and baby are getting on so well and are making the best
of this lovely weather. How I wish I was back with you--ten--fifty
times a day--strolling about the lanes and fields among the lambs and
primroses, instead of being cooped up here, in this hot, dusty suburb.
You must not do too much! How dare you walk to the top of Brownwood
Hill! It is just four times too far. How could the Holts allow you to
be so foolish? But I’m afraid you don’t mind _them_. You ask what _I_
am doing? I am trying hard to make believe that I am Madeline West
once more. Don’t be shocked, my dear Laurence, but at times I succeed
admirably, especially when I sit down to an hour’s practising on the
schoolroom piano. I am getting up my music and singing again, and
working very hard, so that my father won’t be disappointed as far
as my voice is concerned. I have looked over the new books that the
girls had last half in the first class--horrible essays and lectures
and scientific articles--about the glacial periods, and shooting
stars, such as I abhor, and _you_ love; but I know that I ought to
read up, for I am a shameful ignoramus. I, however, enjoy rubbing up
my French, and have devoured several most delicious books by Gyp. Miss
Harper lent them to me. She said, now that I had left school, I might
read them. I asked her--just to see how she would look--if she had
any of Émile Zola’s. I had heard so much of them. She nearly fainted,
and said, ‘My dear, you must never even mention that man’s _name_!’
I have learnt to dress my hair in the new style. I’ve gone shopping
with Miss Harper. Altogether I’ve been very busy, and when I sit in
my old place at meal-times, and stare at the familiar wall-paper,
and familiar cups and saucers, and when I listen to the Harpers’
well-known little sayings and turns of speech, when I look out of the
windows, or sit alone in the schoolroom, as I used formerly to do in
holiday times, I honestly declare that I feel as if all about you was
a dream, and that I cannot bring myself to realize that I have ever
left school at all. You see I am naturally a very adaptable creature;
I drop into a groove at once, and accommodate myself to circumstances.
For instance, Mr. Holt said I was born to be a farmer’s wife! I have
lived here for so many, many years that I fall straight back into
my old place. Then I rouse up and go off to the post-office, when
the second post is due, and receive one of your welcome letters;
and I know that I am not dreaming, but that I am actually married.
Oh, Laurence, I sometimes look at the Harpers and say to myself--If
they knew! I wish that this waiting was over! I wish my father would
come! This delay makes me so nervous and so jumpy. It’s like sitting
in a dentist’s drawing-room! I sincerely hope that anticipation
will prove to be the worst part of the business. Miss Harper is
coming. I hear her heavy step! No--I breathe again. Only fancy, she
asked me yesterday, with one of her old sharp looks, _whom_ I was
always writing to? and I was fortunate to have so many friends--such
wonderful correspondents! With a kind of sneer, then, she said, ‘I’m
going out, and I may as well post your letter,’ but I need not tell
you that I declined her amiable offer, and posted it myself. You say
that baby screams at night, and must be consigned to an outhouse, if
he continues to make night hideous. How inhuman of you, Laurence,
to write such horrid things, even in joke! Do you think he could
possibly be missing _me_, or is this a foolish idea with respect to
an infant of five months old? Ask Mrs. Holt to feel his gums. Perhaps
it is a tooth? And now good-bye, with many kisses to him, and kind
remembrances to the Holts.
“I am, your loving wife,
“M. W.”
Very shortly after this letter was despatched Mrs. Harper received
a telegram from the agents to say that the _Ophir_ was expected at
Plymouth the next afternoon.
What a fuss ensued, what rushing and running and packing, and calling
for twine and luggage labels, and leather straps and sandwiches on the
part of an excited spinster, who was enchanted at the prospect of a
jaunt down to Devonshire--all expenses paid. Once fairly off, and away
from her own familiar beat, she was little better than a child. It was
not Miss Harper who looked after Madeline, but Madeline who took care
of her. At every big station she was seized with a panic, and called
out, “Porter, where are we now? How long do we stop? Do we change? Is
the luggage all right?” Her fussy flight to the refreshment-rooms,
and frantic dashes back to the carriage--usually the wrong one--was
amusing to her fellow-travellers, but not to Madeline; and, besides
this, her shrill and constant chatter about “your father,” “I do hope
the _Ophir_ won’t be late,” “she is a splendid steamer, 10,000-horse
power,” “and I hope they have had a good passage,” made her former
pupil feel a keen desire to say something cross, knowing that Miss
Harper imagined that she was impressing the other inmates of the
carriage, but in reality was making herself supremely ridiculous.
Madeline was thankful when they were safely housed (luggage and all)
in the best hotel in Plymouth. Miss Harper had only forgotten her
umbrella in the train, and lost a considerable share of her temper in
consequence, but a good dinner and a good night’s rest made this all
right, and she wore a smiling face as she and her charge and many other
people went down the next morning to board the newly-arrived Orient
Liner _Ophir_.
To a stranger it was a most bewildering scene, and Miss Harper and
Madeline stared about them helplessly; but of course the new arrivals
were readily singled out by the passengers, and Mr. West had no
hesitation whatever in promptly selecting the prettiest girl who had
come up the side as his own daughter.
It would have been a severe blow to his penetration and self-esteem had
he been wrong, but it so happened that he was right.
And now, before introducing him to Madeline, let us pause and take a
little sketch of Robert West, millionaire, who had made considerable
capital out of the fact, and taken the lead socially during the
recent voyage, from whist and deck-quoits to the usual complimentary
letter to the captain. He is a man of fifty-five, or a little more,
short, spare, dapper, with a thin face, hair between fair and grey,
quick bright hazel eyes, a carefully trimmed short beard, and waxed
moustache. There are a good many deep wrinkles about his eyes, and
when he raises his cap he no longer looks (as he does otherwise, and
at a short distance) a man of five and thirty, but his full age, for
we perceive that his head is as bald as a billiard ball. (N.B.--His
photographs are invariably taken in his hat.) He is dressed in the most
approved manner, and by the best tailor in Melbourne; a fat little
nugget hangs from his watch-chain; a perennial smile adorns his face,
although he has a singularly hard and suspicious eye. His history
and antecedents may be summed up in a few sentences: His father, an
English yeoman of a respectable old stock, committed forgery, and
was transported to Port Philip in 1823; he got a ticket-of-leave,
acquired land, squatted, married in Port Philip, now Victoria. His
success was fitful, owing to drought, scab, and the many other evils
to which an Australian settler is heir. However, he gave his son a
fairly good education in England. He desired him to make a figure as
a gentleman. To this end he pinched and struggled and scraped, and
finally sent Robert down to Melbourne with a certain sum of money, and
a stern determination to grapple with and conquer fortune. Privately
Robert despised his horny-handed old father, the ex-convict. He hated
a squatter’s life--loathed dingoes, dampers, buck-jumpers, and wool,
and he soon fell into a comfortable berth in a land-agent’s office,
and being steady, capable, hard-headed (and hard-hearted), prospered
rapidly; in his young days everything in Melbourne was of Tropical
growth.
He married a veritable hot-house flower--his employer’s only
daughter--a pretty, indolent, excitable, extravagant creature, with
French blood in her veins, who carried him up a dozen rungs of the
social ladder, and brought him a fortune. Her house--in Toorak--her
splendid dresses, entertainments, and equipages were the talk and
envy of her neighbours and sex; she was in with the Government House
set, and she lived in an incessant round of gaiety, a truly brilliant
butterfly.
After six years of married life, she died of consumption; and her
widower was not inconsolable. He kept on the big house, he frequented
his club, he heaped up riches, he gambled with selections as others
do with cards; he was not behind-hand in the great land boom which
led to that saturnalia of wild speculation which demoralized the
entire community. Suburban lands were forced up to enormous prices--a
thousand times their value; people bought properties in the morning and
sold them in the afternoon at an advance of thousands of pounds. New
suburbs, new banks, new tenements sprang up like mushrooms, under the
influence of adventurous building societies, and every one was making
an enormous fortune--on paper.
When the gigantic bubble burst, the consequences were terrible,
involving the ruin of thousands. Robert West had seen that the crash
must come, but believed that _he_ would escape. He tempted fortune too
rashly. Just a few more thousands, and he would sell out; but his
greed was his bane. He had not time to stand from under when the whole
card house toppled over and his fortunes fell.
He was left almost penniless: the banks had collapsed, land and estate
was unsaleable. He was at his wits’ end. He seriously contemplated
suicide, but after all decided to see the thing out--that is, his
own life. He went to Sydney; he kept his head above water; he looked
about keenly for a plank of security, and providence--luck--threw
him one. Land he had taken with grumbling reluctance as part payment
of an ancient debt--land he had never been within five hundred miles
of--proved to be a portion of the celebrated Waikatoo gold mines. He
was figuratively and literally on the spot at once; his old trade stood
to him. He traded, and sold, and realized, keeping a certain number of
shares, and then turned his back on greater Britain for ever, intending
to enjoy life, and to end his days in Britain the less. Money was his
dear and respected friend; he loved it with every fibre of his little
shrivelled heart. Ambition was his ruling passion, and rank his idol.
To rank he would abase himself, and grovel in the gutter; to rank he
intends to be allied before he is much older--if not in his own proper
person, he will at least be the father-in-law of a peer. Money for the
attainment of this honour was no object; and as his sharp, eager eyes
fell on the pretty frightened face that was looking diffidently round
the many groups standing on the deck of the steamer, he told himself,
with a thrill of ecstasy, “That if that girl in the black hat is
Madeline--by Jove! she will do!”
CHAPTER XIII.
MR. WEST’S WISHES.
Standing close to Mr. West--or, rather, Mr. West had attached himself
to him--was his favourite fellow-traveller, a young and somewhat
impecunious nobleman--Lord Anthony Foster--the son of a duke, whose
pedigree was much longer than his purse, and one of a large family.
Most of this family were already established in life, and had repaired
their shattered fortunes by a prudent and wealthy marriage; but Lord
Tony, as he was called, preferred his liberty. He was fond of sport
and travelling, and was postponing the evil day (as he considered it)
which, alas! must sooner or later overtake him, for his private fortune
was small. His elder brother, the present duke, was close-fisted,
and his personal expenses, do as he would, invariably exceeded his
expectations--it is a little way they have with many people--and
although he had no extravagant tastes (so he declared), yet he was
liberal, and liked to “do things comfortably.” In his appearance no
one would suspect that the blood of a hundred earls ran in his veins;
in fact (low be it whispered), he was a rather common-looking young
man--short, square, with a turned-up nose, wide nostrils, a wide mouth,
and a faint light moustache; his complexion was tanned to mahogany, but
a pair of merry blue eyes, and an open, good-humoured countenance made
up for many deficiencies. He was not a ladies’ man, but popular with
men; not at all clever, but ever ready to laugh at other folk’s good
things, and his own mistakes--shrewd enough, too; a capital shot, an
untiring angler, an enterprising traveller, and, according to his own
account, an unparalleled sleeper. He had no profession, no ties, no
landed estates to look after--the world was his landed estate--and he
was now returning from a long tour of inspection in Japan and Australia.
Lord Tony had met Mr. West in Sydney society, and Mr. West had taken an
immense fancy to him, and had privately arranged the date of his own
departure so as to secure the young lord as a fellow-passenger. He had
also shared his cabin. In this unaffected young man, with a pleasant,
hearty manner, and a large connection in the peerage, he saw a link to
upper circles, and a ready ladder for his nimble and ambitious foot.
Mr. West was determined to get into society, to enjoy his money, to
be in the swim, and to make a splash! He had obtained one or two
good introductions to merchant princes, and he had cemented a fast
friendship with Lord Tony. Friendships grow quickly at sea, though
these same friendships frequently languish and fade on shore. He had
frequently and pointedly alluded to “his only child,” “his daughter,”
“his little heiress;” he had displayed with pride the photograph of a
very charming girl in her early teens; he had thrown out hints, that if
she married to please _him_--a nice, unaffected, well-connected young
fellow, who would give her a coronet on her handkerchief--the money to
spend and keep up her position would be _his_ affair.
Lord Tony’s married brothers and sisters were continually and
clamorously urging heiresses upon his notice; it was “his only
chance,” they assured him. “He must marry money.” If this pretty
girl now speaking to West, with visible trepidation and becomingly
heightened colour, was the heiress he was always swaggering about and
dragging into his conversation, Lord Tony told himself, as he took his
cigarette out of his mouth and blew away a cloud of smoke, “that, by
George! he might do worse.” And so he might. Presently he was formally
introduced to the young lady and her companion, and Mr. West, who was
metaphorically carried off his feet by Madeline’s unexpected grace, was
in a condition of rampant satisfaction. _She_ would go down. She would
take anywhere; and actually, for a few lofty seconds, he scorned a
mere lord, and saw a wreath of strawberry leaves resting on her pretty
dark hair.
Miss Harper was not slow to read the signs of the times--to interpret
the expression of the millionaire’s growing complacency: he found
Madeline prettier than he had anticipated; he was greatly pleased; and
she immediately improved the occasion, and murmured a few well-timed
words into his ear about “dearest Madeline’s air of distinction, her
exquisitely shaped head, her vivacity, her remarkable beauty; fitted
to adorn any sphere; always a favourite pupil; a most accomplished,
popular girl;” whilst Madeline gravely answered Lord Anthony’s blunt
questions. He was the first lord she had ever spoken to, and as far as
she could judge, neither formidable nor imposing.
After a little she found herself being led up and presented to the
captain and to several of the passengers, with a look and tone that
told even Madeline, who had a very humble opinion of herself, that her
father was exceedingly proud of her!
Oh, if he would only be kind--only be good to her! if her pretty face,
that he appeared to value so much, would but open the door of his
heart, and admit her and Laurence and his grandchild! But it would not.
Do not think it, simple Madeline; it will only admit you in company
with a peer of the realm.
After much fuss and bustle, Mr. West and his party disembarked. Never
in all her life had Madeline been so much stared at. And she was not
merely looked at curiously--as a pretty girl who had never seen her
father since she was a child--she was doubly interesting as a great
heiress, and a very marketable young person. She was not sorry to make
her escape, and was conducted down the gangway in a kind of triumphal
procession, led by her exultant parent, her arm on his, whilst Miss
Harper followed, leaning on Lord Anthony--who was to be Mr. West’s
guest at his hotel--and I have no hesitation in affirming that this was
the happiest moment of Miss Harper’s life, if it was not that of her
pupil’s (as to this latter I cannot speak with certainty). Arm-in-arm
with a lord! What would people say at home when she went back? Her
heart already beat high with anticipation of the sensation she would
produce upon the minds of her particular circle. If one of them could
only see her! But there is always an “if.”
Mr. West was rather indisposed after his voyage. He could not sleep,
he declared; he missed the engines; and he remained at Plymouth for a
few days. So did Lord Anthony, who was in no particular hurry. Miss
Harper had reluctantly taken leave, and returned to Harperton, endowed
with a valuable present “for all her kindness to Madeline,” quoth Mr.
West, as he presented it with considerable pomp, and this offering
she graciously and modestly accepted--yes, without the quivering of
an eyelid, much less the ghost of a blush! Perhaps, so crooked are
some people’s ideas, she had brought herself to believe that she _had_
been kind to Madeline--and, indeed, she had never been as hard as
Miss Selina. She would have liked to have remained at this luxurious
hotel a few days longer. Everything was done _en prince_. A carriage
and pair, a really smart turn-out (cockades and all), took them for a
delightful drive. There were excursions to Mount Edgecumbe, promenades
on the Hoe. Plymouth was gay, the weather was magnificent, Lord
Anthony Foster of the party--and so amusing! Miss Harper was easily
amused--sometimes. She threw out one or two hints to Mr. West to the
effect that she was excessively comfortable, that this little visit was
quite too delightful--an oasis in her existence; that mamma was not
lonely--in short, that she dreaded parting with her dearest pupil; but
nevertheless she had to go. Mr. West was ruthless, he was blunt; he
was, moreover, wonderfully keen at interpreting other people’s motives.
He perfectly understood Miss Harper. She was, no doubt, very much at
her ease; but he owed her nothing. She had been amply paid; she had
had his girl for twelve years, and could afford to part with her young
charge.
Moreover, Miss Harper did not belong to the class of people he
particularly wished to cultivate--that was sufficient--and he smilingly
sped the parting guest, after a four days’ visit. During those
four days Madeline had been installed as mistress of her father’s
establishment, and was endeavouring to accustom herself to her new
_rôle_. Everything was deferred to her, the ordering of dinner, the
ordering of carriages, and of various items that meant a considerable
outlay. She took up her position at once with a composure that
astonished her school-mistress. She stared at Madeline in amazement, as
she sat at the head of the table in her new black gauze, and comported
herself as though she had occupied the post for years.
In about a week’s time, the Wests (still accompanied by Lord Anthony)
went to London, staying at the Métropole Hotel; and here Mr. West,
who was a brisk man of action, and resolved to lose not an hour in
enjoying his money and realizing his plans, set about house-hunting,
_con amore_, assuring delighted house agents that price was no
consideration--what he sought was size, style, and situation.
Under these favourable circumstances, he soon discovered what he
required. A superb mansion in Belgrave Square, with large suites of
reception rooms, twenty bedrooms, hot and cold water, electric light,
speaking-tubes, stabling for twelve horses, and, in short, to quote
the advertisement, “with everything desirable for a nobleman’s or
gentleman’s family.” It had just been vacated by a marquis, which made
it still more desirable to Mr. West. If not near the rose, the rose had
lived there! Indeed, to tell the happy truth, a duke resided next door,
and an ambassador round the corner. So far so good. The next thing was
to be neighbourly. Then there was the business of furnishing--of course
regardless of cost. Days and days were spent, selecting, measuring,
matching, and discussing at one of the most fashionable upholsterers
in town, and the result was most satisfactory, most magnificent, and
most expensive. There was a dining-room hung with ancestors--Charles
Surface’s, perhaps--but certainly not Mr. West’s. A full-length
portrait of his father in prison dress would have been a startling
novelty; there was an ante-room in turquoise blue, a drawing-room in
yellow and white, and a boudoir in rose and pearl-colour brocade. Of
the delights of these apartments, of the paintings, statuary, bronzes,
and Chinese curios, of the old silver and china and ivory work, and
pianos and Persian carpets, it would take a book to catalogue.
As for Madeline, accustomed, as we know, to four Windsor chairs, two
tables, a shabby rag of Kidderminster carpet, and a horsehair sofa with
a lame leg, her brain was giddy as she endeavoured to realize that
she was to be mistress of these treasures, and to preside over this
palatial establishment. Carriages and horses found places in stables
and coach-houses; a troop of well-trained servants populated the house.
There was a stately lady housekeeper, a French chef, a French maid for
Madeline, three footmen in mulberry and silver buttons, and a butler
whom one might have mistaken for a dean, and whose deportment and
dignity were of such proportions as to overawe all timid natures, and
of very high value in his master’s eyes.
Madeline shrank from her lady’s maid, but she was a
necessity--_noblesse oblige_. She did not wish the sharp-eyed
Parisienne to spy out the nakedness of the land, as far as her own
wardrobe was concerned, and was at many a shift to postpone her arrival
until she had garments more befitting her background and her father’s
purse. Indeed he had not been pleased with her gowns, “they looked
cheap,” he had remarked with a frown.
“Is that all you have, Madeline, that black thing?” he asked rather
querulously one evening, as they stood in the drawing-room awaiting
Lord Anthony, and a friend.
“Yes, papa; and it is nearly new,” she said in a tone of deprecation.
“It does very well for the present, and I must wear it out.”
“Wear out! Stuff and nonsense!” irritably. “One would think you had a
shingle loose. I really sometimes fancy, when I hear you talking of the
price of this and that, and so on, and _economy_, that you have known
what it is to be poor--poor as Job! Whereas, by George! you have never
known what it is to want for a single thing ever since you were born.
You have as much idea of poverty as your prize black poodle has!”
Had she? Had she not known what it was to frequent pawnshops, to battle
with wolfish want, to experience not merely the pleasures of a healthy
appetite, but the actual pangs of painful hunger. Oh, had she not
known what it was to be poor! She gave a little half-choked nervous
laugh, and carefully avoided her father’s interrogative eyes.
“I’ll give you a cheque to-morrow,” he resumed, “and do go to some
good dressmaker, and get yourself some smart clothes. Lady Rachel,
Lord Tony’s sister, is going to call, ask her to take you to some
first-class place, and choose half a dozen gowns. I really mean it;
and put this thing,” flicking her fifty-shilling costume with a
contemptuous finger and thumb, “behind the fire. You are not like your
mother; _she_ made the money fly. However, she was always well turned
out. I don’t want you to ruin me; but there is a medium in all things.
What is the good of a daughter who is a beauty if she won’t set herself
off?”
“Do you _really_ think me pretty, father?” she asked, rather timidly.
“Why, of course I do! We shall have you setting the fashions and
figuring in the papers, and painted full life-size, when you have more
assurance, and know how to make the most of yourself. Remember this,”
now giving his collar a chuck, and speaking with sudden gravity, “that
when you marry”--Madeline blushed--“when you marry, I say,” noticing
this blush, “you must go into the peerage, nothing else would suit
_me_, never forget that. Now that you know my views, there can be
no misunderstandings later on. Never send a commoner to ask for my
consent.”
“But, father,” she ventured boldly, now raising her eyes to his, that
surveyed her like two little fiery brown beads, “supposing that I loved
a poor man, what then? How would it be then?”
“Folly!” he almost yelled. “Poor man. Poor devil! Love! rot and
nonsense, bred from reading trashy novels. Love a poor man! Do you want
to drive me mad? Never mention it, never think of it, if I am to keep
my senses.” And he began to pace about.
“But,” she answered resolutely, pressing her fan very hard into the
palm of her trembling hand, “supposing that I did? Why should I
not?--_you_ married my mother for love.”
“Not a bit of it,” he rejoined emphatically, “I liked her, admired
her; she was very pretty, and had blue blood--foreign blood--in her
veins, but she was a good match. She had a fine fortune, she was in
the best set. Her father took me into partnership. I was a rising
man--and--er--I know all about love; _I_ have been through the mill!
Ha, ha, it’s bad while it lasts, but it does _not_ last! The woman I
loved was a little girl from Tasmania, without a copper. She tempted me
mightily, but I knew I might just as well cut my throat at once. No, I
married for good and sensible reasons, and one word will do as well as
ten. If you ever make a low marriage, a love match with a pauper, or
throw yourself and your beauty and your accomplishments, and all I’ve
done for you, and all my hopes away, I solemnly declare to you that
I shall not hesitate to turn you penniless into the street. I swear
I will do it, and never own you again. You might go and die in the
poor-house, and I’d never raise a finger to save you from a pauper’s
funeral.”
He spoke very fast, his voice uneven and vibrating with passion,
his face livid at the mere idea of his schemes being foiled. He was
terribly in earnest; his very look made Madeline quail. She trembled
and turned pale, as she thought of poor Laurence.
“It’s not much I ask you to do for _me_, is it, Maddie, after all I’ve
done for you?” he continued in a softer key. “I have my ambitions, like
other men, and all my ambition is for _you_. Give up all thoughts of
your lover--that is, if you have one--and be an obedient daughter. It’s
not so much to do for me, after all.”
Was it not? Little he knew!
“Promise me one thing, Madeline,” he continued once more, breathing in
hard gasps, and seizing her ice-cold hand in his hot dry grip.
“What is that, father?” she asked in a whisper.
“That you will never marry without my consent, and never listen to a
commoner. Will you promise me this? Can you promise this?”
“Yes, father, I can,” she answered, steadily looking him full in the
eyes, with a countenance as white as marble.
“On your honour, Madeline?”
“On my honour!” she echoed in a curious, mechanical voice.
“Very well, then,” inwardly both relieved and delighted; “that is what
I call a model daughter. You shall have a prize. I will get you some
diamonds to-morrow that will open people’s eyes; no trumpery little
half-set, but a necklet, tiara, and brooches. I saw a _parure_ to-day,
old family jewels. Hard up--selling off; one goes up, another comes
down, like a see-saw. It’s our turn now! You shall wear stones that
will make people blink--diamonds that will be the talk of London. If
folks say they are too handsome for an unmarried girl, that is our
affair, and a coronet will mend that. You have a head that will carry
one well. Your mother’s blue blood shows. You shall pick and choose,
too. Lord Anthony may think----”
“Lord Anthony Foster and Sir Felix Gibbs,” said a sonorous voice.
And what Lord Anthony might think was never divulged to Madeline; Mr.
West, with great presence of mind, springing with one supreme mental
leap from family matters to social courtesies.
The dinner was perfect, served at a round table. The floral decorations
were exquisite; attendance, menu, wines were everything that could
be desired. The gentlemen talked a good deal--talked of the turf, the
prospect of the moors, of the latest failure in the city, and the
latest play, and perhaps did not notice how very little the young
hostess contributed to the conversation. She was absent in mind, if
present in the body; but she smiled, and looked pretty, and that was
sufficient. She was beholding with her mental eye a very different
_ménage_, far beyond the silver centre-pieces, pines, maiden-hair ferns
and orchids, far beyond the powdered footmen, with their dainty dishes
and French _entrées_.
_We_ know what she saw. A cosy farm parlour, with red-tiled floor, a
round table spread with a clean coarse cloth, decorated by a blue mug,
filled with mignonette and sweet pea, black-handled knives and forks,
willow-pattern delf plates, a young man eating his frugal dinner
alone, and opposite to him an empty chair--_her_ chair. She saw in
another room a curious old wooden cradle, with a pointed half-roof,
which had rocked many a Holt in its day. Inside it lay a child that was
not a Holt, a child of a different type, a child with black lashes,
and a feeding-bottle in its vicinity. (Now, Mrs. Holt’s progeny had
never been brought up by hand.) _Her_ baby! Oh, if papa were only to
know! she thought, and the idea pierced her heart like a knife, as
she looked across at him, where he sat smiling, conversational, and
unsuspicious. He would turn her out now this very instant into the
square, were he to catch a glimpse of those two living pictures. He was
unusually animated on the subject of some shooting he had heard of, and
he had two attentive and, shall we confess it, personally interested
listeners--listeners who had rosy visions of shooting the grouse on
those very moors, as Mr. West’s guests.
So, for awhile, Madeline was left to her own thoughts, and they
travelled back to her earliest married days, the pleasant little
sitting-room on the first floor at No. 2, the bright fires, bright
flowers, new music, and cosy dinners (the mutton-chop period), when all
her world was bounded by Laurence. Was it not still the case? Alas, no!
The bald-headed gentleman opposite, who was haranguing about “drives
and bags,” held a bond on her happiness. He had to be studied, obeyed,
and--deceived! Would she be able to play her part? Would she break
down? When he looked at her, as he had done that evening, her heart
failed her. She felt almost compelled to sink at his feet and tell him
all. It was well she had restrained herself. She resolved to save for a
rainy day some of the money he was to give her on the morrow. Yes, the
clouds were beginning to gather, even now.
Oh, what a wicked wretch she felt at times! But why had cruel fate
pushed her into such a corner? Why was her father so worldly and
ambitious? Why had she failed to put forward Laurence’s plea, his own
long absence and silence, and thus excuse herself once for all? Easy
to say this now, when that desperate moment was over--it is always so
easy to say these things afterwards! She had given her father a solemn
promise (and oh, what a hollow promise it was!), and she was to receive
her reward in diamonds of the first water--diamonds that would blind
the ordinary and unaccustomed eye!
Presently she rose, and made her way slowly to her great state
drawing-rooms, and as she sipped her coffee she thought of Laurence,
and wondered what he was doing, and when she dared to see him, to
write? Poor Laurence! how seedy his clothes were; and how much his
long illness had altered his looks. With his hollow cheeks and cropped
head (his head had been shaved), none of his former friends would
recognize him. Then her thoughts wandered to her diamonds. She stood
up and surveyed herself in the long mirror, and smiled back slightly
at her own tall, graceful reflection. Diamonds always looked well in
dark hair. She was but little more than nineteen, and had the natural
feminine instinct for adornment. She smiled still more radiantly; and
what do we hear her saying in a whisper, and with a rapid stealthy
glance round the room? It is this: “I wonder how you will look in a
diamond tiara, Mrs. Wynne?”
END OF VOL. I.
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