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Title: Sink or swim? vol. 3/3
Author: Matilda Charlotte Houston
Release date: December 31, 2023 [eBook #72562]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Tinsley Brothers, 1868
Credits: Sonya Schermann, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SINK OR SWIM? VOL. 3/3 ***
SINK OR SWIM?
A Novel.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“RECOMMENDED TO MERCY,”
ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1868.
[_The right of translation and reproduction is reserved._]
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAP. PAGE
I. “HE COMES TOO NEAR,” ETC. 1
II. A LOVER FOUND AND LOST 21
III. WHAT WAS HONOR DOING? 36
IV. MRS. BEACHAM WRITES A LETTER 46
V. HONOR TURNS REBELLIOUS 54
VI. WHAT, SELL ROUGH DIAMOND! 62
VII. MEA CULPA 77
VIII. JOHN BEACHAM MAKES A DISCOVERY 87
IX. JOHN PROVES HIS RIGHT 104
X. “AS WELL AS CAN BE EXPECTED” 111
XI. FROM LIVELY TO SEVERE 119
XII. MRS. BEACHAM REFUSES TO FORGET 131
XIII. ARTHUR CHEERS UP 136
XIV. ARTHUR FINDS HIMSELF DONE 146
XV. MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY 154
XVI. OUT AT SEA 164
XVII. HONOR MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE 188
XVIII. JOHN DISCOVERS HIS LOSS 202
XIX. ANOTHER ESCAPE 208
XX. POOR SOPHY! 216
XXI. SUSPENSE 227
XXII. JOHN GIVES WAY 237
XXIII. HONOR RECEIVES A LETTER 243
XXIV. THE USES OF ADVERSITY 259
XXV. CONCLUSION 274
SINK OR SWIM?
CHAPTER I.
“HE COMES TOO NEAR,” ETC.
The merrie month of May was speeding onward, and with it--fast and
furious--rattling over stones, and dashing over impediments, ran the
fierce strong current of “London life.” There is an intoxicating
influence, especially on the inexperienced, in the rapid motion, the
ever-changing aspect of pleasure, the atmosphere redolent of poisonous
influences, that is breathed by the upper ten thousand in the month of
May, in busy, half-mad London. By none was this insidious influence more
perilously undergone than by the impressionable, weak-nerved woman who,
through her own folly, considerably aided by “circumstances over which
she had no control,” was standing on the very brink of the abyss, the
name of which is “ruin.”
It was now the middle of May, and during a swiftly-passing fortnight
Honor Beacham, continuing her course of semi-deception regarding her
father’s condition, and entirely concealing from the husband whom she
believed to be exclusively absorbed in his own pursuits and interests
the fact that her days and nights were spent in one continued round of
exciting pleasure, went on her way--if not rejoicing, at least in a
condition of such delightful mental inebriation, that she found barely
sense or time enough to ask herself the serious question, if the life
which she was leading indeed were joy.
John’s answer to her letter, written under the influence of hurt
feeling, and penned by a man utterly destitute, not only of the art to
make a thing appear the thing it is not, but of _l’eloquence du billet_
in general, was one exactly calculated to rouse in a high-spirited
nature a dormant inclination to rebel. In it there was an implied right
to command, a right solely arrogated (to Honor’s thinking) by reason of
the writer’s indifference to her proceedings, and scanty appreciation of
her merits. “You will come back, I suppose,”--so wrote the unwise man,
who, on his side, had so egregiously erred in his estimate of
character,--“you will come back when you have had enough of London. I
don’t say to you, ‘come home,’ for women that are made to do the thing
they don’t like are, as mother says, not over and above pleasant in a
house. We are uncommon busy, too, just now; there is painting to be
done, and the chintz to be calendered, so perhaps you are as well out of
the way of the bother.”
Poor John! Could Honor have heard the heavy sigh that broke from his
full heart as he closed the letter; could she, above all, have looked
into that heart and read its secret sorrows, she could not have doubted
of her husband’s love; and perhaps, removed from the glamour of Arthur
Vavasour’s presence, from the mesmeric influence of a passion which was
becoming terribly overpowering in its hourly-gathering strength, she
might have been again a happy woman in the simple fashion and the humble
sphere to which she had been brought up. Such a “chance,” however, was
not for the foolish, beautiful woman who, with half-tender words (for,
alas, it had come to that) from her high-bred adorer lingering on her
memory, read the simple letter, which it had cost so much pain to write,
in anger and in bitterness. Tossing it on her toilet-table with an
impatient jerk, she told herself that John did not care for her. It was
nothing to him, she said mentally, whether she stayed away or not; but
as she inly spoke the words, the fingers of her little gauntleted
hand--she had just returned from riding in the Park--dashed away
something very like tears that had gathered on her long lashes and
nothing short of the recollection that she was going in a few hours’
time to dine at Richmond with Arthur Vavasour and a few other friends of
her father’s prevented her (for it would be dreadful to make her
appearance with red eyes) from indulging in the luxury of a “good cry.”
That party to London’s prettiest suburb--an evening’s enjoyment which
was to include a row towards Twickenham and Teddington on the clear,
flowing river, and a delicious dinner after dusk in one of the charming
_cabinet particuliers_ appertaining to the Star and Garter, and opening
on its pleasant gardens, had been for days looked forward to with keen
anticipations of delight by Honor Beacham. They were to proceed thither
in two open “_hired_ carriages,” in one of which was to be seated Honor
and the Colonel’s wife, while Arthur Vavasour and a dull, unobservant
Mr. Foley, a gentleman, like Pope’s women, “with no character at all,”
were to occupy the opposite seats. In the second carriage the party
collected was likely to be of a far more noisy, as well as a more
congenial, description. Mrs. Foley--a lady a little on the wrong side of
thirty, and whose animal spirits, being apt occasionally, as the saying
is, to “get the better of her,” were in their full swing of triumph on
such an occasion as a Richmond dinner--arrived at Stanwick-street
punctually as the clock struck four, arrayed in a toilet which, but for
the still more amazing costume of the young lady with whom she was
accompanied, would have decidedly monopolised the attention and wonder
of every female observer in that quiet neighbourhood. Shaking themselves
clear of the straw and _tumble_, consequent on their cab-drive from some
distant locality, Mrs. Foley and her bright-eyed sister Dora Tibbets
stood on the doorsteps of No. 14, laughing noisily--more noisily than
ladies of their stamp often laugh when no one of the male sex is present
to stir their spirits up to boiling point. Their dresses, as they stood
there in the bright sunshine of a May afternoon, were of the kind better
suited to a wedding breakfast than to a “quiet dinner,” as Fred Norcott
had described it, in the country. Light and fair and frolicsome they
looked; women with more _auburn_ frizzled hair about their heads than
could, by the most lively and charitable imagination, have been supposed
to be their own, with bright pink roses mingling with their hirsute
ornaments, and with a _quantum suff._ of _poudre de riz_ softening the
lustre of their complexions.
“How smart they are!” Honor whispered in dismay to Arthur, as the two
caught a glimpse of the lively sisters from behind the muslin curtain of
the first-front drawing-room.
“Awfully. It’s a bore they’re coming, but if there had been nobody it
would have been worse,” said Arthur, leaning over her chair, and
speaking in the low tones which always went so thrillingly to her heart.
“Imagine! I _might_ have been unable, all this evening, to say one word
alone to you. And we have so few more days, Honor! You say that you
cannot expect a much longer holiday; but tell me--do you never, never
think what will become of me when you are gone?”
“Don’t talk in that way,” she said, one of her crimson blushes speaking
far more eloquently than her words, while she tried to hide her
confusion by carefully drawing on finger after finger of her delicate
Paris gloves. “Don’t talk in that way; I must talk to these people now.
You don’t know them, of course?” And rising gracefully, she went through
the ceremony of introduction which her father deemed it necessary to
perform.
The next arrivals (they dashed up to the door in a hansom, and remained
talking up to the balcony during the few minutes that elapsed before
the descent of the major portion of the party) were Mr. Foley, and a
young gentleman of slightly _horsey_ appearance, but who, nevertheless,
contrived to snip his words and lisp as ridiculously as any foolish
would-be fine gentleman in town. Captain Bowles was the son of a general
officer, and was himself, though of small dimensions, and of anything
but military bearing, a soldier. He was plain of feature, with a large
mouth and a beardless face. His appearance was more that of an inferior
order of counter-jumper than of a guardsman; nevertheless he was petted
and made much of, especially by the fair sex. Mrs. Foley and her sister
were “fine women,” and “fast,” so the general’s son--who would have been
voted, under less favourable circumstances, a little snob--was allowed
to stand up before them with his hands in his trousers pockets like a
man; and while he minced his platitudes with graceful ease, was smiled
on as fondly as though he were a hero and a gentleman.
There could scarcely have been found a more good-natured _chaperone_,
_duenna_,--call her what you will,--than the Colonel’s lanky wife,
seated opposite to dull, sleepy Mr. Foley, who, by the way, was an
individual of no particular profession, gaining a precarious livelihood
as “director” to one or two doubtful companies, and having a floating
capital in the same. Mrs. Norcott, under cover of her pink parasol, kept
up a dozy conversation with that harmless man of business, while Arthur
Vavasour, who had no right whatever (seeing that his young wife was in
the most delicate of situations--nervous during his absence, and only
comforted by the certainty that he was within call) to be there at all,
had--alas for the credit of poor selfish human nature!--forgotten every
duty, and ignored the sacred claims of wifehood, for the sake of passing
a few blissful hours by the side of the forbidden woman he adored. And
she--that other wife, who still, strange as it may seem, and eke
impossible to many, kept a large corner in her heart for home and duty,
and the rough, tender-hearted man she called her husband--what were her
thoughts, her feelings, as the tempter, with his bold beseeching eyes
fixed on her blushing face, told her, in looks more dangerous still than
words, the bewildering, but as yet only half-welcome truth that she was
all the world to him, and that, to gain her love, he would cast to the
four winds of heaven every tie on earth, as well as every hope of
heaven?
For it had come to that with this “fond, foolish,” passionate young man.
Made of the stuff that loves in wild extremes, unused to put a bridle on
his fierce desires, restrained by no sweet early home-affections, the
dear love, mother-love, that bids the profligate, sometimes in his
wildest moments, to go no further--only a myth to him--with a God above
but half believed in, and himself the deity on earth he worshipped--who
can wonder that this man, vigorous with the strength and health of his
one-and-twenty years, should make no effort to resist the devil that,
without resistance, _would_ not flee from him?
“How glad I am that you remembered the Park,” Honor said, as they, the
carriages following at a foot’s pace, sauntered slowly along the
beautiful wooded brow beyond Pembroke Lodge; “I would not have missed
this view for the world.”
They were together now,--those two who had been better far had the wide
seas divided them--those two who could not but have owned that so it
was, had any put the question to them in the rare sober moments which
nineteen and twenty-one, in the heyday of folly and of love, are blessed
with. The rest had strolled away in pairs; so that Arthur could speak as
well as look his love into the bewildering eyes of his friend’s lovely
wife.
“Mad,--yes, I suppose I am mad,” he said, in answer to a half-reproach
from his companion; “but who, I ask, would not be mad--mad as you are
beautiful--seeing you as I do, Honor, nearly every day, every hour? It
is my fate--for by the heaven above me I _cannot_ help it--to look upon
your beautiful face, and see you smile, my love, my darling! Ah, do not,
for the love of all that is good and beautiful, be angry with me! From
the moment that I saw you first, Honor, I felt as I never felt before
for mortal woman--I--”
“Don’t say so. All men say that,” put in Honor, who was more versed in
the theory of love-making than its practice, and who, while she felt the
necessity of checking her admirer’s outpourings, was terribly shy and
untutored in the process. “Besides, Mr. Vavasour,”--gathering courage as
she proceeded,--“it is very wicked--_terribly_ wicked, both for you to
talk and for me to listen to such words. There is your wife at home,
poor thing,--I often think of her,--how unhappy she would be could she
only guess that you said such things to any woman as I have just been
wicked enough to listen to!”
Arthur could scarcely repress a sigh as the image of poor neglected
Sophy, stretched on her luxurious couch in the gorgeously-furnished back
drawing-room in Hyde-park-terrace, presented itself to his mind’s eye.
“She knows nothing, guesses nothing,” he said, with an ineffectual
effort at carelessness. “Where ignorance is bliss, you know, it’s worse
than folly to be wise. I suspect there is a Bluebeard’s closet in
almost every house, and as long as women don’t try to look inside, all
goes on smoothly.”
For a moment, whilst Arthur was imparting to his fair companion this
result of his worldly experience, _her_ thoughts glanced back to her own
home, and to the marked exception to her lover’s rule which it afforded.
At the Paddocks--and well did Honor know that so it was--there could be
found no hidden chamber barred off from the investigations of the
curious. The wife of true-hearted John Beacham could pry at her own
wondering will into any and every corner of his big warm heart, and find
there no skeleton of the past, no flesh-covered denizen of the present,
warning her with uplifted finger that he was false.
Very guilty she felt for a second or two, and humbled and odious, as the
consciousness of being a vile deceiver sent a blush to her fair cheek,
and checked any answering words that had risen to her tongue. Time,
however, for useful reflection was denied her. The sound of her father’s
voice announcing that it was five o’clock, and that the boats were
waiting at the Castle-stairs, effectually interrupted a reverie of a
more wholesome description than might, under the circumstances, have
been expected; and, reëntering their respective carriages, the party
were soon on their way down the hill so loved by Cockney
pleasure-seekers, and so be sung by nature-worshipping poets.
* * * * *
Once in the large comfortable wherry which had been hired for the
occasion, Arthur found very little opportunity, beyond that of paying
the most devoted attention to her personal comfort, of making himself
agreeable to his lady-love. That there was _one_ subject, at least,
besides herself of real and almost absorbing interest to Arthur Vavasour
soon became evident to Honor; and that subject was the approaching Derby
race. Since her instalment in Stanwick-street, Honor had heard more talk
of that all-important annual event than--horse-breeder’s wife though she
was--she had listened to through all the many months of her married
life; and naturally enough, seeing that the “favourite” was her father’s
property, and that Arthur Vavasour appeared deeply interested in the
triumph of Rough Diamond, the success of that distinguished animal
became one of the most anxious wishes of Mrs. John Beacham’s heart.
“O, I do so hope he’ll win!” she exclaimed enthusiastically; “he is such
a wonderfully beautiful creature. And he has a brother who, they think,
will be more perfect still;--no, not a brother quite, a half-brother, I
think he is; and I used to watch him every day led out to exercise,
looking so wild and lovely. He is only a year old, and his name is
Faust; and they say he is quite sure to be a Derby horse.”
Poor Honor! In her eagerness on the subject, and her intense love of the
animal whose varied charms and excellences were to be seen in such
perfection in her husband’s home, she had been inadvertently “talking
shop” for the amusement of the spurious fine ladies, whose supercilious
glances at each other were not, even by such a novice as Honor Beacham,
to be mistaken. In a moment--for the poison of such glances is as rapid
as it is insidious--two evil spirits, the spirits of anger and of a keen
desire to be avenged, took possession of our heroine. She saw herself
despised, and--so true is it that we cannot scarcely commit the smallest
sin without doing an injury as well to our neighbours as to
ourselves--she resolved, to the utter extinction of the very inferior
beauties near her, to make the most of the wondrous gift of loveliness
which she was conscious of possessing. Hitherto she had “borne her
faculties meekly;” the consciousness that she was, by marriage, without
the pale of the “upper ten thousand” had, together with an innate
modesty which was one of her rarest charms, kept her silent and somewhat
subdued when in what is called “company.” It had required the looks of
contempt which she had seen passing between the well-got-up sisters to
rouse the spirit of display in Honor Beacham’s heart; but, once aroused,
the intoxication of success encouraged her to proceed, and the demon of
Coquetry was found hard indeed to crush.
The row, slow and dreamy, up-stream to Teddington-lock, would, even had
there been no unlawful and much-prized lover--of whom, explain it as you
will, Honor was more than half afraid--by her side, have been simply
delightful. The river was so purely clear that the water-weeds beneath
its pellucid surface showed brightly, freshly green; and then the long
low islets, with the graceful willow-boughs, vivid with the hues of
early spring, dipping their last-opened buds into the laving stream, and
the banks, verdant and fair, and cattle-sprinkled--all combined to make
a Breughal-like picture of spring verdure and beauty.
Notwithstanding a certain amount of horsey conversation, flirting,
covert as well as open, was the order of the afternoon. Both Mrs. Foley
and her sister were adepts at that truly feminine and easily-acquired
accomplishment. To look the thing they meant not, to understand or not
understand the ingenious _double entendre_, to give the little hope that
hinders from despair, and _only_ the _little_ hope, lest the excited
lover should presume, were arts in which _ces dames_, the
unprofessional demi-monde of gay middle life, were thoroughly skilled.
It required more audacity than Honor would have previously believed that
she possessed to cope with rivals such as these, but, _champagne
aidant_, she got through the female duty well; and the dinner which
succeeded the aquatic excursion owed not a little of its success to the
lively spirits lending added charms to the powerful influence of beauty.
The hour of ten had struck by the town clocks, and the many wine-bottles
on the table of No. 3 room were near to emptying, before it occurred to
any of the party therein assembled that the night was fine and warm and
starlight, and that in the gardens of the hotel a fresher, purer air
could be imbibed than that which reminded them somewhat too forcibly of
the good things they had been imbibing.
At a conjugal hint from the Colonel, his watchful and obedient wife
suggested that the moon had risen, and was looking lovely over the
river. A turn on the terrace would be delightful, she thought; and as
her proposal met with no opposition, they made themselves an impromptu
drawing-room under the starry canopy of heaven.
“What a lovely night! how glad I am to have seen this! The moonlight
never looked to me so soft and beautiful before!”
“Never? I am glad of that,” Arthur said, his face very near to Honor’s
as they leant over the stone balustrade and gazed out upon the tranquil
scene. “I may hope then that, for a little while at least, the memory of
this night will linger with you. It is a day that I at least shall find
it very hard to forget. You smile and shake your head. Perhaps you take
me for one who knows nothing of his own mind,--one whom a fresh face can
stir into new and soon-to-be-changed feelings. But, Honor, listen to
me--listen while we have these few moments we can call our own. I tell
you that the love I feel for you is one that will defy all time and
space and change. You have never been loved, my beautiful one, with such
a love as this. You would tell me, were you not an angel, and too pure
and good for such a world as this, that your husband--”
“Hush, hush! please don’t; I cannot bear to hear you speak of him, Mr.
Vavasour,--well, well, _Arthur_--I know I have been very weak and
wicked; but for my own folly you would never have--have told me that you
loved me; and indeed I did not mean--I--”
He seized both her little hands in his strong grasp, and held them there
as in a vice.
“Honor,” he whispered,--and his voice trembled with concentrated
passion,--“are you going to tell me that I have been a blundering fool,
and that I have mistaken every look and word and smile that led me on to
love you? If so,--but no, I cannot, will not think it possible. Long
ago, my darling,”--and his voice softened into entreaty,--“long ago,
when first I held this precious hand in mine, you might, with cold words
and scanty smiles, have taught me”--and he smiled bitterly--“my place.
But that you did not do, Honor: you _know_ you did not. What your motive
was in leading me on to hope that I was something--a very little--more
to you than a mere acquaintance, you best can say. If it were well meant
on your part, all I can say is that it was cruel kindness; for it will
be a hard fall down again to the place from which your gentle words and
smiles had raised me. But once more, Honor, for the love of Heaven, tell
me that you have not trifled with me. Do not make me lose my faith in
every woman. Tell me before we part to-night that if we were doomed
never to meet again you would sorrow a little, just a very little, for
my loss. Tell me that sometimes, when you are alone, you think of me;
tell me”--and he ventured unreproved to steal his arm round her
waist--“tell me that you love me just a very little, Honor, in return
for the heart’s whole devotion that I feel for you.”
Her bosom heaved, and her heart beat very quickly, under the strong firm
pressure of his hand; but for all that--and perhaps some of my readers
may understand the anomaly--the strongest feeling in Honor Beacham’s
mind at that important crisis was one of relief that she was not _alone_
with her adorer. And yet in one sense she loved him. His touch, his
lingering gaze into the depths of her blue eyes, exercised--and never
more so than at that moment--a strange magnetic influence over her
nerves. She could ill have borne a decree that banished Arthur Vavasour
from her society, and yet she felt that he was to play no actual part in
the misty future of her life--the life which she never doubted she was
to spend with John; the life that _might_ be a tolerably happy one when
Mrs. Beacham was gathered--not to her forefathers, but to the place
allotted to her by her dead husband’s side.
Honor, to do her justice, never imagined an existence apart from her
husband. She was not happy at home; the life there was unsuited to her,
and John, she believed, did not love her well enough to care whether his
mother tormented her or not. In London, on the contrary, she _did_ enjoy
herself, wildly, feverishly, but with a zest and an impulse that had
nothing in it that was natural or lasting. When the day came, she longed
for the hour which should bring Arthur Vavasour to her side; but with
the longing came a kind of nervous dread--a fear of his impatience, an
alarm as of a hunted animal at the thought of finding herself within his
power--all which symptoms might have told a more experienced woman that
in her love for Arthur Vavasour there was an alloy which, had he
imagined its existence, would have deprived the longing for possession
of more than half its value.
It is often a misfortune to all parties concerned that the same symptoms
are indicative of various and opposite complaints. A blush is as often a
sign of innocence as of guilt; and a beating heart beneath a _visibly_
agitated bosom may be a token of other emotions besides the tender one
of love.
When Arthur felt the throbbing pulse bounding beneath the pressure of
his hand, he never doubted that, had he been _tête-à-tête_ with that
most peerless creature, she would have gladly sighed her love out on his
breast, listening in tender ecstasy to his vows of eternal constancy.
Nearer and nearer, happy in this blessed conviction, to his heart he
held her, secured from observation in a shadowy corner, and _safe_ under
the protection of the remainder of the party, who lingered just out of
earshot on the terrace.
Honor, afraid of offending her high-born lover, and sincerely hoping
that never--_never_ under less safe and satisfactory circumstances might
a similar scene be enacted, contrived to stammer out the foolish, false,
and guilty assurance,--an assurance that filled the young lover’s heart
with the wildest hopes--the assurance, namely, that her heart was his,
and that in his love she found her dearest, sweetest happiness!
CHAPTER II.
A LOVER FOUND AND LOST.
“I really am at a loss to make up my mind which is the most
extraordinary--the man behaving in this way without encouragement, or
your being so lost to everything that is--ahem!--due to your position in
life as to allow him to think, to hope, that his proposals--_most_
impertinent ones, I must say--_could_ meet with anything but anger and
contempt.”
Lady Millicent was seated on her presidential sofa, in the room
appropriated in Bolton-square to her especial use. It was a dull, dark,
business-looking apartment. The “third drawing-room” it was called, and
in it milady was wont to receive such visitors as clearly were not there
for purposes of mere pleasure, or with the intention of ephemerally
enjoying themselves--men of law, serious men, with faces fraught with
the care that the craving after six-and-eightpences is wont to impress
on the human countenance divine, were seen entering, clearly with a
purpose, the heavy door (white-painted and gilt, but shabby and
tarnished now) that led to milady’s sanctum. It was a room into which
her young daughters rarely intruded; and when, on the morning in
question (it was that of the very day which Honor passed so feverishly
with Arthur Vavasour by her side), Rhoda, poor, timid, nervous Rhoda,
was summoned to an audience with her awe-inspiring mamma, she made her
_entrée_ with a beating heart, and, though she knew not wherefore, with
a strong presentment of evil. The open letter in Lady Millicent’s hand
was scarcely evidence enough to awaken in her mind anything at all
approaching to the truth. Rhoda was as far as the poles from imagining
that the sedate rector of Switcham, the quiet, unpretending young man,
whose “duties” ever seemed so much above his pleasures, could have so
far allowed his mundane feelings, his passions, that were of the “earth,
earthy,” to overpower his well-regulated mind, as to induce him to offer
to the great lady of Gillingham--the patroness of his living, and one
with whom he knew himself to be _not_ a favourite--his humble proposals
for her daughter’s hand.
Standing droopingly in the august presence, and without a word to say
either in her own behalf or that of her co-delinquent, the poor girl
listened in silence to the stern and very bitter words of reprobation
which fell from her mother’s lips. Perhaps until she so listened--until
she contrasted the hard unsympathising nature of the woman to whom she
owed her birth with that of the good, thoroughly-to-be-relied-on
character of the man whose letter, with dimmed eyes and a very pitying
heart, she had just contrived to read and comprehend--she had never
rightly known how necessary the love of him, who for so many months had
been her only object and point of interest at uncongenial Gillingham,
had become to her.
“I am well aware--no justly-reproachful words of yours can make me more
so” (thus one sentence of poor George’s letter ran)--“that I have no
right, in a worldly point of view, to hope that you would look otherwise
than contemptuously on my humble offer. I have little besides my deep
affection, and my prayers that God would enable me to contribute to your
beloved daughter’s happiness, to lay before one who deserves every good
gift that could be bestowed upon her. A small, _very_ small private
fortune--a few hundreds a year only--in addition to the income derived
from my living, is all that I possess. But, if I mistake not, Miss
Vavasour’s tastes are simple ones, and she _might_, God aiding, be
happier in the quiet home which she would deign to share with me than
in the turmoil of the great world, and amongst the gay and rich, of whom
it is said that it is hard for them to enter the kingdom of heaven.”
“Methodistical stuff!” murmured Lady Millicent, turning over the leaves
of a law-book, and delivering herself of the severe comment on her
would-be son-in-law’s epistle at the moment when she rightly guessed
that poor Rhoda had arrived at its conclusion. “Very bad taste, I think,
my dear, of your admirer, condemning us _en masse_ in this summary way.
But now, _do_ tell me,” laying down the pen with which she had been
making notes, “what _did_ you do at Gillingham to bring upon me such a
letter as that? I should have thought--but one lives and learns--that if
there existed a girl in the world who would have abstained from this
kind of thing, it was you; and now I find that--”
“O, mamma!” began poor Rhoda, whose delicacy (and she was sensitively
delicate) was severely wounded by this exordium,--“O, mamma, I did
nothing! Indeed, indeed, I gave no--I mean--I did not lead--”
And then she stopped, poor girl, from utter inability to make herself
understood by the parent whose cold unwomanly eyes were fixed with such
unassisting scrutiny on her blushing face. There are mothers and
mothers, even as (I was about to say) there are friends and friends: but
in using such a conjunction I was wrong, for of that rare hypostasis
there can be but one variety; degrees of comparison exist not in that
particular noun substantive of the many which signify “to be, to do, and
to suffer.” Either a friend’s love passeth the love of woman, and he
sticketh closer than a brother, or he is that daily-met-with and more
generally-useful thing, _id est_, a good-natured acquaintance, whose
services, should they not chance to interfere with his own requirements,
may possibly be at our disposal. But to return to Rhoda Vavasour’s
natural friend--to the one being who had it in her power, and whose
sacred duty it was, as far as mortal skill can do the heavenly work, to
make the crooked straight and the rough places plain to the weaker and
the tottering vessel, who was less able than herself to bear the burden
and the heat of the day. A few words softly, wisely spoken, a kind
caress, the sweet conviction, in some unknown mysterious way conveyed,
that she, the mother, was the best, the most heaven-deputed guardian for
her child, would have convinced that child, whose experience of life was
_nil_, and who had seen no man save her brothers whom she could compare
with the right-minded young rector of Switcham, that an engagement with
that reverend gentleman might not be exactly a desirable consummation,
or one, save by the good man himself, prudently as well as _devoutly_ to
be wished. Rhoda was a girl thoroughly amenable to reason, as well as
one whom the silken cords of affection could have led with the lightest,
tenderest touch. Delicate of frame, physically as well as mentally, she
could ill bear the wear and tear of either excitement or worry; and
perhaps George Wallingford had said no more than the truth when he
suggested that her life, in the seclusion of a country parsonage, would
probably pass more happily away than were the nervous girl to be thrown
into the whirlpool of stir and fashion, there to be tossed to and fro
amongst the vessels of iron, against which her frailer, humbler self
would be hopelessly, maybe, bruised and broken.
To convince Lady Millicent of this truth would, however, have required
eloquence far greater than that possessed by the lowly-born clergyman,
who certainly had not chosen the very likeliest way in the world to gain
his ends. As milady had truly said, there were but two ways of
accounting for the reverend gentleman’s preposterous conduct, and
neither of those two ways was calculated to throw a roseate hue over the
matter. That Rhoda--her favourite, because her most submissive,
daughter--had degraded herself to the degree of giving encouragement to
“the man” for whose audacity no words were sufficiently severe, caused
as much surprise and indignation to the magnificent widow as if she had
systematically and kindly encouraged her child to pour out into the
maternal breast her cares, her sorrows, and her joys. That a heart,
young and love-requiring, will, in default of home aliment, seek
elsewhere for its natural, and in some cases even necessary, food, this
mother, engrossed by her own plans and projects for personal
aggrandisement and power, had never yet suspected. Lady Millicent--a
stay-at-home, “domestic” woman, a “widow indeed,” and one of those
constitutionally prudent matrons against whom the tongue of scandal
never had for a single instant wagged--was precisely one of those
individuals with whom self-deception is the very easiest thing in life.
Her hopes and wishes, her thoughts and fancies, never--that she could
truly have said--soared above or beyond the boundaries of her own
property; and the interests of her children, she had taught herself to
believe, were the groundwork and the motive power of all the hard,
unwomanly business that she had set herself to do.
“You are not aware, perhaps,” she said coldly to the poor girl who stood
unconsciously doubling down and plaiting with her trembling fingers the
fringe of the table-cover that hung near her,--“you are not aware, I
daresay, that, unless I succeed--for the benefit of my younger
children--in a law-suit which is in progress, your fortune, as well as
Katherine’s, will be very trifling indeed. Had your poor father lived,
there would, of course, have been an opportunity of remedying this evil,
this _injustice_,” she added firmly, and with a stress upon the word
which poor Rhoda was far too much engrossed by her own troubles to
notice. “I tell you this, not that you may suppose that, under _any_
circumstances, you could have been permitted to disgrace your family by
marrying this extraordinarily presumptuous person, but because I wish
you to understand that a _good_ marriage may be positively necessary,
both for you and for Katherine. By the way, now that we are on this
disagreeable subject, will you allow me to ask whether she--whether your
sister, who seems to me to be self-willed and forward enough for
anything--knew of this--this disgraceful entanglement: for entanglement,
Rhoda,” she went on severely, “there must have been. Poor as my opinion
naturally is of the intellect of a person who could write such a letter
as that” (pointing to it contemptuously), “quoting Scripture too in such
a personal and impertinent manner, still I cannot believe that the man
_could_ have been such an egregious fool, could have been so
preposterously silly, as to have written to me, if you--just look at
me, will you, instead of at the carpet--had not said or done something
to authorise his presumption.”
The cold eyes fixed upon the now tearful face before her seemed to
command as well as to expect an answer. None, however, came; so, still
more authoritatively, Lady Millicent--could she find no better way of
improving her talents (_id est_, her children) and of showing her
appreciation of the legacy committed to her charge, than by thus
torturing the feelings of Cecil Vavasour’s young daughter?--Lady
Millicent pressed the question to which she had hitherto received none
but the least comprehensible of replies.
“Answer me. Really I have no more time to waste. Had you any idea that
this Mr. Wallingford intended making the application which strikes me as
so extraordinary?”
With some difficulty, Rhoda managed to stammer forth a negative. “Indeed
no,” she said; “and, mamma, Kate knew no more about it than I did. I
never told her--I mean, I--”
She stopped suddenly, her face the colour of the setting sun when,
“cradled in vermilion,” it throws its red reflection over slope and
mountain, land and river. On her cheek and brow and slender neck the
tell-tale witness rushed; and Lady Millicent--well aware that her
guileless daughter knew and felt that she had committed herself--said,
even more coldly than before:
“You are a poor dissembler, Rhoda. You may go to your room now. Of
course you allowed this man, this hypocritical _good_ clergyman, to lead
you into deception. You let him fancy--for it _is_ only fancy on your
part--that--”
“O mamma,--dear mamma,” the girl cried in an agony of shame and grief,
“if you would only listen to me,--only believe that I never did, never
could have done all you say! I wish I could tell you how it was; and yet
it seems--indeed it does--as if I had nothing--_nothing_ really to tell.
We used to meet--Mr. Wallingford and I--sometimes at the school, and at
the poor people’s cottages. He is so good, mamma,” gaining a little
courage when she found herself listened to without rebuke. “If you could
but know how much the sick and the old think of him, and all he does for
them, you would not wonder at--”
“At his doing one of the most unprincipled acts of which a man can be
capable,” sneered Lady Millicent. “He was perfectly well aware--he says
so in his letter--that I should be intensely angry at his presumption;
and yet--really, Rhoda, I have no patience with your folly and
wrongheadedness--you stand up for this priggish, formal, underhand--”
“But he has not been underhand, mamma. As Mr. Wallingford is not here to
tell you so himself, _I_ must say the truth; and that is, that never
till the day before we left Gillingham did he say one word that you
might not have heard, and then he only”--and the colour deepened on her
cheek--“said that he should miss me--should think of me till I came
back, and that he hoped I would not quite forget Gillingham and--and
‘good things’ while I was away.”
Lady Millicent laughed scornfully.
“For Gillingham read Mr. Wallingford, and for good things the delights,
I suppose, of Switcham Parsonage,--boiled leg of mutton and what is
called, I believe, a parlour-maid to wait upon you. My dear Rhoda, be
thankful that such a fate as becoming the wife of a poor country parson
is not in store for you. And now, my dear, you may go, as I said before,
to your own room. There is no occasion to make this sort of thing
public. _I_ shall of course answer Mr. Wallingford’s letter, and I think
I may venture to say that we are not likely to be troubled further on
the subject. There, there, that will do; I am very much engaged this
morning,”--arresting the words which she could see were hovering on her
daughter’s lips,--“and I can afford to waste no more time on such
nonsense as this.”
The head and eyes resolutely bent upon the folio before her, the decided
tone of a voice whose stern, determined accents Rhoda knew and
understood full well, convinced the timid girl that appeal there was
none, and that nothing remained for her but to obey. With a heavy heart
she ascended the stairs to the chamber that she called her own, and
which, opening into a smaller one appropriated to Kate, enabled that
lighter-spirited young lady to overhear through the keyhole of the door
the hardly suppressed sobs which broke from the breast of the unhappy
Rhoda.
“My darling, what _is_ the matter?” cried the younger girl, rushing in
impetuously,--for Kate’s strong points were certainly neither prudence
nor self-control,--“what is the matter, you poor dear?” And tumbling on
her knees by the side of her weeping sister, Kate began sobbing too by
sheer force of sympathy.
A very few words sufficed to put the latter _au fait_ of the
secret--_secret_, alas, no longer--which Rhoda had so long and so
sedulously kept. Kate listened with eager ears and widely-distended eyes
to the details, stammered forth incoherently, of this first love episode
in the family. _As_ a love affair, it was certainly not without its
interest; but with that interest, and in spite of her sisterly
compassion, Katie certainly did feel a little surprise at the
singularity of Rhoda’s choice. She made no allowance for the utter
absence of competitors for her sister’s favour; all that was patent to
this damsel of fast proclivities--who thought Sunday-schools a bore, and
who hoped some day to be wooed by a lover of a widely different
type--was the fact that Mr. Wallingford had straight hair, was anything
but “jolly,” had the misfortune to possess scanty whiskers, did not
smoke, and, to sum up all his defects in one comprehensive word, was a
“parson.”
“I can’t the least understand how Rhoda can _care_ for him,” she said an
hour afterwards to her eldest brother, to whom she had just narrated the
provoking circumstance that her sister, who was in love with that stupid
Mr. Wallingford, had cried so long and so bitterly that she wasn’t fit
to be seen,--“a man who is always talking ‘good,’ and who, of course,
thinks it’s wicked to be jolly. Can you make it out, Arthur? I suppose
it was all done by staring at each other, for _I_ never saw them
speaking, or seeming as if anything was going on.”
“Of course you didn’t,” her brother said, as he settled his cravat in
the pier-glass over the mantelshelf (he was going to ride--his usual
morning avocation--with Honor Beacham, and naturally wished to look his
best on the occasion),--“of course you didn’t. Girls when they are in
love (and the best girls too) will deceive even other women,--a very
different affair, I can tell you, from taking in a man; and if you
think, my dear Katie--”
“O don’t bother about that now,” Kate said impatiently. “I asked you
whether you _can_ believe that Rhoda really likes Mr. Wallingford. _I_
can’t fancy his being a lover: horrid creature, I call him! Now, Arthur,
do attend one moment. I want to know whether I ought to be glad or sorry
that mamma has put an end to the business, and--”
“Glad, to be sure,” said Arthur, taking up his gloves, and troubling
himself less than was altogether brotherly about poor Rhoda’s first and,
as the preoccupied young man considered, thoroughly uninteresting
love-affair,--“glad! Why it’s the most disgusting piece of folly I ever
heard of. Such bad taste too! But it’s all my mother’s fault. If a
gushing young woman like Rhoda had seen some good-looking young fellows
every now and then, she would never have got spooney on such a slow prig
of a parson as George Wallingford. An excellent young man, I daresay, in
his way; but excellent young men haven’t much of a pull in these days,
except when girls haven’t anyone else to talk to. Trust me, it won’t be
long, if I know anything about such matters, before Miss Rhoda finds
another lover ready to knock this spooney fellow out of her head.” And
Arthur Vavasour, satisfied with this summary settlement of a question
which probably appeared to him in the light of a very commonplace affair
indeed, hurried away to his appointment in Stanwick-street--hurried to
the presence of the still pure-hearted woman, for the love of whose
bright eyes the silly young man was ready to lose his all of peace on
earth, the goodwill of friends and kindred, and that much-prized but
unexplainable thing for which no other nation save our own can boast
even the simple name--the name, that is, of Respectability.
CHAPTER III.
WHAT WAS HONOR DOING?
It was Sunday at the Paddocks,--Sunday afternoon,--rather a ponderous
season in the old silent house; and John was, sooth to say, a trifle
tired of his own thoughts, to say nothing of the sight of his
respectable parent poring, spectacles on nose, over the heavy sermon (a
Sabbath duty with her, and a habit which she was far too old to break),
that kept her in a blissful doze through two hours at least of that long
afternoon of rest.
The early dinner was over; and the house being very quiet--no sound more
startling than the buzz of the flies upon the window-pane breaking the
stillness of the restful time--John Beacham, who had ensconced himself
in his big arm-chair, feeling dull enough, poor fellow, without Honor,
began to experience not only the influence of the heat but of the
Sabbath beef and pudding; and his eyelids, “drawing straws,” as the
saying is, closed gradually over the tranquil scenes before him, and
the deserted husband found himself in the land of dreams.
How long he had slept he knew not, when he was roused by a man’s step in
the entrance-hall near him, and by a voice which in the first
bewilderment of waking he failed to recognise as that of Jack Winthrop,
the owner of the wicked chestnut, and a distant neighbour, whose visits,
few and far between, were usually paid on that _dies non_ to a business
man, a Sunday afternoon.
“Hallo, old fellow! taking a snooze, eh?” was Jack’s jovial greeting;
and then the two men shook hands, while Mrs. Beacham, adjusting her
spectacles, and with rather a scared look in her sharp old eyes,
endeavoured, under the appearance of being still more wideawake than
usual, to hide the fact that she had been asleep.
Jack was not much--as he often remarked himself--of a ladies’ man. He
was far more at home in the stable than the drawing-room. Nevertheless,
and especially when he had on his go-to-meeting coat and hat, he could
shuffle through the usual forms of social good breeding with tolerable
success. Of these forms, a short dissertation on the weather, past,
present, and to come, together with a few polite inquiries regarding the
health and whereabouts of the members of their respective families,
stood first in importance. It was to the last of these conversational
duties that Mrs. Beacham was indebted for some valuable information
regarding the proceedings of the erratic young woman whose continued
absence was to the old lady a perpetual source of mingled anger and
satisfaction.
“Well, and how do you get along without the missus; eh, John?” asked the
visitor. And then, with a rather meaning wink and a jerk of his
smoothly-brushed yellow head, “I expect I’ve seen Mrs. John since you
have; caught sight of her yesterday morning as I was tooling through the
Park. She was a-horseback, looking like paint,--so she was, with such a
colour,--and the young Squire along with her. There was a servant behind
’em on a screwed bay horse; and I didn’t think much of the one the
missus rode either--a leggy brute! She wouldn’t think much of him, I
fancy, after Lady Meg. But you’ll have her--the missus, I mean--back
again soon, I doubt.” And the worthy, stupid fellow--stupid, that is, in
everything but what regarded horse-flesh--pulled up at last, entirely
unconscious that he had applied the match to a train, and that a
“blowing-up” of some kind or other would be the inevitable consequence
of his thoughtlessly-spoken words.
It was not till some hours later, and when Jack--who had been walked
over every acre of the Paddocks, and been encouraged to linger longer
than visitor had ever lingered before in each loose box and
stall--that John Beacham and his mother, each in their several
elbow-chairs, consumed their meal of herbs--_id est_, their tea and
bread-and-butter--in silence and in gloom. John had delayed, with a
cowardice very unusual to his open, natural, fearless character, the
moment, dreaded beyond any previous moment of his life,--_that_, namely,
when Honor’s conduct, her duplicity, her shamelessness, and worst of
all, her dislike to him and to her home, would infallibly come under
discussion between himself and his mother. To describe John’s sensations
during the revelations of Mr. Winthrop would be impossible. To hear that
_his_ Honor,--the fair young wife whom he had pictured to himself living
a secluded life in her father’s dull and poverty-stricken home,--to
hear, I say, from authority undeniable, that she was recreating herself
with horse exercise in the Lady’s Mile with a young gentleman,--_the_
young gentleman of whose designs, or rather the report of whose designs,
upon his wife’s affections, Mrs. Beacham had already more than once
irritated him by hinting at,--was to receive a stab sharp and cruel, as
it was wholly unexpected, in the warm honest heart that still contained
within it such a wealth of love for the backsliding absent one. He had
made no sign--it was his way (a misfortune in some cases) to make no
sign till such time as the gathering stream of passion, defying all
control, burst through its bonds, and spent itself in outward fury--he
made no sign of what he was enduring whilst Honor’s sin of _suppressio
veri_ (to use the mildest term) was shown up in glaring colours by his
officious visitor. From his manner--but then Jack was not an observant
character,--that sporting individual would never have imagined that his
old friend was undergoing torture very difficult to endure with outward
composure; and that John Beacham did so endure it was partly owing to
his dread that the old lady, who was not famous for concealing what she
called her “feelings,” might, by an outburst of indignation, betray the
mortifying fact that his young wife was wronging and deceiving him. That
such a manifestation was to the last degree unadvisable was so clearly
and intentionally demonstrated by John’s demeanour, that Mrs. Beacham,
though sorely against her will, limited the expression of her wrath to
an “Ah, well!” followed by the compressed lips which so often betray
that wrath “to be kept warm” is being nursed within the breast.
It was with curiously different feelings that the mother and son awaited
the time when Honor’s conduct, as revealed by Jack Winthrop, should be
in solemn conclave sat in judgment on, and, as a matter of course,
condemned. For that time--for the _auspicious_ moment when John should
have returned from that interminable walk, when his Brother farmer,
“drat him” (I am afraid that, Sunday though it was, the worthy old lady
did indulge in a mild imprecation or two on the head of her unconscious
visitor), should have taken his departure, and when they two should be
sitting comfortably (?) over their tea, Mrs. Beacham longed with a
feverish and impatient craving. It was so hard, so very hard upon her,
that she was perforce obliged to keep this weighty discovery within the
limits of her own breast. A secret, like a very young man’s forbidden
love affair, is worth nothing unless you can divulge it to the one
friend who promises with such solemn vows to keep it closely (as
closely, poor confiding one, as you have done yourself); and had the
widow Thwaytes chanced to “drop in” that Sunday afternoon--a step which
that scandal-lover would infallibly have taken could the remotest
surmise of the delightful existing field for gossip have reached her
ears--the delinquencies of the absent Honor would very soon have become
public property at Switcham. Such luck, however, as a visit from her
congenial humble friend was not, on that day at least, in store for the
busy irate old woman, who, strong in the strength of her Sabbath silk
gown and great in her conscious dignity of mistress regent at the
Paddocks, sat prepared to make--certainly not the _best_ of her young
daughter-in-law’s shortcomings.
“Well, John, what do you think of _this_?” was her startling exordium
when Hannah had left the room, and John--poor John--had no escape, and
no longer even a reprieve from listening to abuse--abuse, it was to be
feared, only too well merited--of his beloved one. “Well, John, this
looks nice, doesn’t it? So milady stays in Lunnon, not to nurse her
father, as she’d have us believe, but to go tearing about Hyde Park with
Mr. Vavasour! Pretty doings, upon my word! I declare to goodness, if you
take no notice of _this_, I shall think you’re just gone clean out of
your mind, and are only fit for an asylum, so you are.”
She stopped, more from lack of breath to proceed than from any immediate
prospect that appeared of John’s responding to her attack. He felt
called upon, however, to make some reply to what sounded like an implied
accusation of lukewarmness, and of a disposition to “take things” far
more easily than he was in the humour to do. His mother’s abrupt
onslaught had, however, already produced an effect directly contrary to
what the indignant old lady had intended. She had either forgotten or
ignored the sensible proverb which saith “Scald not thy lips in another
man’s porridge,” and had aroused in her son that fraction of masculine
dignity which causes its possessor to resist interference in the
management of his house and _harem_. Besides, John’s love for the
beautiful object of Mrs. Beacham’s jealousy was still far too strong for
him to endure patiently the hearing his wife found fault with by any
other than himself; and this being the case, his reply did not greatly
tend to Mrs. Beacham’s satisfaction.
“Jack Winthrop is a chattering fool. I daresay he mistook Honor for
someone else, for one of young Vavasour’s sisters probably; and even if
she _was_ riding in the Park, where’s the mighty harm? It was but
yesterday he saw her--_says_ he saw her, at least--and it’s quite time
enough to pull her up if she says nothing of it herself next time she
writes, which will be to-morrow if I’m not mistaken.” And John, having
so said, pushed back his chair with the evident intention of closing the
conference. His mother, however, was not to be thus cheated of her
treat. She had not been waiting for six mortal hours to be put off with
such a stupid shuffle as that! No! For once in his life John should hear
reason, let what would come of it, and if there was no one else to tell
him the truth, his mother would do _her_ duty, and point out to the
infatuated man what, in this crisis of his fate, was _his_!
“John, John!” she said, lifting up a stubborn finger warningly; “if I
hadn’t heerd and seen this myself, I never could--and that’s the
truth--have believed it. To think that you, a man grown and with a man’s
blood in your veins, should let a woman lead you by the nose like this!”
“Nonsense, mother!” with an unsuccessful effort to laugh the matter off.
“No one is leading me, or thinking of leading me, by the nose, as you
call it. Honor is a silly girl, I don’t say she isn’t, and she’s fond of
a horse; and if her father--gad! how I hate to speak of the fellow!--if
her father put it into her foolish head to ride, why ride she would, nor
I don’t blame her neither. So, mother, let you and I hear the rights of
it before we blame her; and what’s more--you’ll forgive my
speaking”--approaching nearer, and his breath coming shorter as he
spoke--“but if you would remember, mother dear, not to speak to anyone
in the village about this--story--of Honor and the--the Park, I should
esteem it very kind, and--”
“Oh, my dear, you may make yourself quite easy,” snorted the old lady.
“I’m not the bird to defile my own nest. It won’t be through _me_ if
disgrace comes upon the family, and if _you_ like to encourage your wife
in her goings on with gentlemen--”
“Come, come, mother,” broke in her son; “I must not have my wife spoken
of, before she deserves it, as if she was a--a gay woman. I beg your
pardon, but you make me more angry than I ought to be; and it isn’t
right, mother, God’s book says it ain’t. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’
we are told, and grievous words only stir up anger, they do; so let’s
keep from ’em while we can. I’m expecting to hear from Honor to-morrow,
and if she says she’s coming home and writes about this foolish ride of
hers, why we shall be sorry then, poor pretty creature, that we said a
word against her.” And John, perfectly unconscious of the strangely
mixed feelings, the half fear--a dread unadmitted even to his own
breast--that Honor both deserved and would be visited with punishment,
wished his mother “good-night,” and left her to her reflections.
CHAPTER IV.
MRS. BEACHAM WRITES A LETTER.
The late post on Monday (the eventful Monday it was--for we have
retrograded twenty-four hours in our story in order to recount what
happened on that Sabbath afternoon at the Paddocks--the eventful Monday
it was which Honor spent with Arthur Vavasour on horseback first, and
afterwards in that feverishly enjoyable Richmond dinner), the second
post, brought no letter from the truant, and John’s brow grew ominously
dark as he turned over his numerous business-like-looking epistles, and
amongst them found no dainty missive in a fair running hand, and adorned
with an entwined H. B. in mingled shades of brown and blue, by way of
monogram.
“There now! What did I tell you?” exclaimed his mother triumphantly. “I
was as sure as sure could be, she wouldn’t write. Guilty consciences
never do. And another time, my dear, I hope you’ll attend to your
mother, old as she is, and act accordingly.”
John made no reply to this aggravating little speech. Fortunately for
him, the day was not one of rest, neither was the hour meal-time; so
that the unhappy husband could escape from the irritating attacks of
Mrs. Beacham’s “deadly weapon.” In truth, he was in no mood to listen
patiently to the “I told you so,” and the “You see, I was right,” of the
old lady’s equivocal sympathy. His anger--hard to rouse in downright
earnest against the beautiful girl, young enough, as the poor fellow
often told himself, to be his daughter--had aroused at last to almost
boiling-point; and, as is often the case with self-constrained but
naturally passionate men, the change now lay in the probability that he
would visit still more heavily than they deserved the indiscretions of
the culprit, and that in his anger he would not even _remember_ mercy.
Finding him still silent, Mrs. Beacham, accustomed from long habit to
watch the changes on her son’s countenance, glanced up at it from her
eternal knitting, and was startled, strong-nerved woman though she was,
at its stern rigidity, and at the colour--that of a livid leaden
hue--which had taken place of the usual ruddy brownness of his cheeks.
“John, what _is_ the matter? My gracious me, boy! you look as if you
were going to faint.”
The old woman had risen hastily from her chair, and, standing before
him, had laid her two hands upon his arms, holding him thus, while with
anxious motherly eyes she peered into the face of him who, being all the
world to her, she loved with such a jealous and exacting devotion. For
the first time in his life, John answered her shortly, and with what his
mother, making scant allowance for the condition of his mind, chafed
under as disrespect.
“Bother!” he said gruffly, putting her aside with one hand, while he
donned his wideawake with the other. “I’m all right. What _should_ be
the matter?” And then, in a more collected voice, and with a more
composed manner, he added, “I shall go to town to-morrow, mother, by the
10.30 train. I’ve no end of business to-day--other people’s business, or
I’d let it all go to Hanover, for what I cared. But for that, I wouldn’t
be so many hours before going up to see what that scoundrel Norcott is
after with my wife; for, by Heaven”--and he struck a blow upon the old
oak floor with his ash-stick that was enough to test the solidity of
both--“by Heaven, I begin to think that there’s more than we know of in
his sending for her in the way he did. That illness of his was all a
sham--I’m pretty sure of that by this time; and then his having Vavasour
about her”--and John ground his strong white teeth together as he said
the hateful words--“looks as if there was something devilish up with the
rascal. God knows! I’ve more than once had a fancy--why, I couldn’t tell
you any more than the dead--that all wasn’t square about Rough Diamond.
It was no business of mine to inquire into it. If young Vavasour’s been
stuck, why, I shall be sorry, that is, if--”
He stopped abruptly; for there were circumstances connected with the
possible victim of Colonel Norcott’s rascality that would effectually
check any feelings of pity which John might be inclined to entertain for
him. Could the mother who bore him have looked into the heart of her
only child that day, she would bitterly have repented the stirring-up of
the smouldering fire within which her words--uttered, as so many
dangerous words _are_ uttered, without much thought of future
consequences--had effected. It is easy, terribly easy, to raise the
demon of suspicion and jealousy in the human breast. Were the laying of
the same an equally facile task, or one equally congenial to the
unregenerate nature of men and women, there would be fewer of the crimes
consequent on the strength of our worst passions to record, fewer
blighted lives, fewer consciences burdened with the weight of scarcely
bearable remorse. But though the woman, whose tongue had wagged (without
ulterior design, but simply as a consequence of her own maternal
jealousy) to such fell purpose, could not read the heart she had
unconsciously been working up to madness, she yet experienced something
very like uneasiness when John, with the heavy cloud still lowering over
his brow, and with the ruddy brown half-vanished from his cheeks (so
changed was he since the poison of suspicion had suffused itself through
his veins), left her alone to ruminate on the past, and anticipate
darker doings in the future than she had either hoped or calculated on.
That John--the dearly-beloved of her aged heart, the son of whom she was
so justly proud--could prove himself, under provocation, to be of a very
violent and passionate nature, she had not now to learn. He had done his
best to subdue and conquer his constitutional sin; a sin, however, it
was that might and did lie dormant, and indeed half forgotten, within
him, from the simple fact that it required the great occasions that
happily are comparatively rare in all our lives to bring it into notice
and action. The blow struck in a moment of ungovernable rage at
Frederick Norcott’s unprotected head had for a time, as we already
know, filled John Beacham’s breast with remorse and self-reproach. He
had been very angry with himself, very angry and ashamed; but that shame
and anger had not, in any degree, either softened his nature or disposed
him to any especial leniency towards his victim. On the contrary, the
soreness produced by self-condemnation, and by imagined loss of caste,
only served to better prepare the mind of the man for the reception of
evil suspicions, and of perilously active venom; and when John Beacham
left the quiet little parlour, and the tardily-repentant old lady, who,
when it was too late, would gladly have recalled her words, he was in
the mood of mind that leads, at down-hill pace, to crime.
After his departure Mrs. Beacham picked up the ball of gray worsted that
she had in her agitation allowed to roll away upon the carpet, and
recommenced the task of turning the heel of John’s lambswool sock.
Click, click went the knitting-needles, and steadily jerked the bony
wrinkled hands that held the pins; but, contrary to custom, the thoughts
of the aged woman were wandering far away from the work in hand--away
with the son whose fiery passions she had helped to rouse--away with the
thoughtless girl whose “cunning ways” (Mrs. Beacham’s vials of wrath
were filled to overflowing in readiness for Honor’s devoted head) and
artful, “flirty goings on were hurrying her poor John into his grave.”
Suddenly a novel thought occurred to her, and, laying down her
knitting-needles, the distracted old lady, who was not “good at” doing
two things at a time, set herself to “think it out.” She would
write--such was the idea with which the mother of invention had inspired
her--to Honor herself! It was true that neither caligraphy nor the art
of “composition” were among the gifts which nature and education had
bestowed upon the ever-busy mistress of Pear-tree House, but for all
that she would--so she then and there decided--give “milady” a piece of
her mind that would bring back that “artful faggot”--Mrs. Beacham was
angry enough to apply _any_ names, however opprobrious, to her
daughter-in-law--in double quick time to her husband and her duty.
When a woman--especially one of unrefined mind--sits down under the
influence of wrathful passions to write a letter, the chances are
greatly in favour of her pen running away with her discretion--that is
to say, of her using stronger expressions; and of her doing a good deal
more mischief, than she had intended. The not-over-well-concocted
missive, which occupied the worthy old lady who penned it during two
good hours of the afternoon, and was posted in time for the early
morning delivery in Stanwick-street, proved, as the reader will
hereafter learn, no poor exemplification of the truth of this not very
novel remark. There are moods of mind in which the receipt of even a
judiciously-penned letter irritates and offends the weak vessel that
requires both tender and tactful handling. The missive of autocratic
Mrs. Beacham was neither tender nor tactful, and pretty Honor’s fate and
conduct were terribly influenced for evil by what appeared at first
sight to be one of the most every-day occurrences of every-day life.
CHAPTER V.
HONOR TURNS REBELLIOUS.
It is unfortunate perhaps, and decidedly suggestive, but so it
undoubtedly is, that beauty leads the wisest amongst us terribly astray
in our judgment both of character and motives. What observer,
dispassionate or otherwise, who looked--were such a privilege granted to
him--at lovely Honor’s face and form, lying indolently, lazily if you
will, upon her narrow couch (the iron bedstead in the Stanwick-street
lodging), would have been able to allow, without infinite regret and
caution, either that she was _wrong_, or the least in the world
deserving of punishment? A creamy complexion, slightly tinged with the
most delicate of rose-colours; a tumbled mass of fairest brown
hair--“off the flax and _on_ the golden,” as Miss Pratt would say; blue
eyes, “languid with soft dreams;” and full crimson lips, moist with the
morning dew of youth and health,--composed a sum of attractions very
decidedly calculated to disarm criticism, and to modify the verdict of
“Guilty” with the strongest recommendations to mercy. “Youth” and
“previous good conduct” were pleas which might be safely urged as
extenuating circumstances in the case of poor Honor Beacham’s feminine
sin of truth-suppressing; and as with her fair face slightly flushed,
and her long brown eyelashes sparkling with indignant tears, she read,
for the second time, a letter which Lydia (alias Polly), cross and out
of breath with the labour of mounting the attic stairs, had just
deposited on the bed, it was easy to perceive that the process of
retribution had already, in some sort, commenced.
That letter, as the reader will have no difficulty in guessing, was the
one mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter as the happy result
of old Mrs. Beacham’s interference with the connubial relations of her
children. It took the well-meaning woman, as we already know, two hours
in its concoction, and ran as follows:
* * * * *
“MY DEAR HONOR,--I write this to my great illconvenience, and to tell
you that your conduct is not what it ought to be. John is not at home,
but he was much surprised, as so was I to hear which we did by accident
that you had been seen riding in Hyde Park in the place where I am told
the ladies go, that honest women oughtnt to look at with a gentleman. I
may as well say who Mr. Arthur Vavasour. Knowing the way you useter go
on with that person I am not surprised at this, but John is, and I write
to say that I cant have him vexed nor put out, and that you must come
back directly and learn to behave yourself, and whats more, make
yourself useful as you should do. Of course things wont be pleasant when
you do come home, _that_ isnter be expected, but we must take what
Godamighty sends, and I knew when John married what it would be. I
expect you will come back directly you get this, and I will send Simmons
for you with the taxcart to meet the first afternoon train. John besides
being so put about with what youve been doing is too busy with his
horses to think of going himself.”
* * * * *
A pleasant missive this to receive at early morning-time, when the
recipient’s head, a little turned by flattery and excitement, was full
of fresh plans of pleasure, and was sedulously endeavouring to shut out
intrusive thoughts of home, and to ignore the conscience-pricks against
which it was so hard sometimes to kick! It would have been scarcely
possible for the picture of what awaited her in her husband’s dull _chez
soi_, to have been brought with more unpleasant force before the
luxury-loving, indolent-natured girl, who was becoming hourly more what
is called _spoilt_ by the new life that she was leading. At no time
greatly drawn towards her mother-in-law (could it well, all things
considered, have been otherwise?), Honor, at that inauspicious moment,
almost loathed the domineering, hectoring old autocrat, whose ways were
so very far from being _her_ ways, and who had thus unscrupulously laid
bare to her the treatment that she, Honor, might expect when she should
return tardily, and, alas, not over-willingly, to the sphere of the
irritated old lady’s dominion. It may seem to some of my readers that
the thoughts and feelings, the likings and dislikings of Honor, the
married woman, bore but scanty relation to those of the same individual
who, when a laughing, light-hearted, unselfish girl, had found it so
easy to win, not only golden opinions, but, still surer test of worth,
the affections of the small men and women committed to her youthful
guardianship. But while making this objection, it is well to remind the
critic of the truth, that we none of us show what we really are--either
for evil or for good--till we are tried. With youth, and beauty, and
good spirits,--petted too and much indulged, albeit she was “only a
governess,”--with the lamp of hope burning brightly before her, and with
no shadow darkling over the past, Honor _Blake_ could have claimed
small praise for being cheerful, yielding, and contented. It was in
part, perhaps, owing to that very absence of trial that might be traced
some of the striking changes that had apparently taken place in her
disposition and character. Accustomed to be made much of, and dearly
loving the _evidences_ of being appreciated--well aware that her beauty
was of that high and uncommon order which can be disputed by none, and
that takes the senses, as it were, by storm--Honor, the stay-at-home
wife of a staid and almost middle-aged man, had every chance of becoming
discontented with the lot which at first sight, and before she had been
allowed time to feel its flatness and monotony, had seemed to her all
that was to be desired. That Mrs. Beacham--that the jealous
mother-in-law, whom an angel from heaven would probably, under similar
circumstances, have failed to please--should have had her lines also
cast in the pleasant places of the Paddocks, had proved a real
misfortune to Honor. “If she were _anywhere_ but here!” had been often
and often the girl’s inward cry, when the peace of every moment, and the
bright coming of each returning day, were disturbed and darkened by the
small aggravations of John’s crabbed and exacting mother. It is
wonderful, the power that _one_ person possesses to make or mar the
comfort of a household. The constant _fears_ of “something coming,” the
dread of words being taken amiss, the fretful answer, or even the mute
reproach of shrugged-up shoulders, and a peevish sneer, can make to a
sensitive nature the interior of a home that outwardly seems fair enough
a daily, hourly purgatory. Poor Honor! As she lay upon her bed, thinking
how very near the time had come when she must perforce exchange the
delights, mingled though they were with the bitterness of self-reproach,
of her present existence for the uncongenial company, the harsh
sarcastic words, and the contemptuous looks of her unloving
mother-in-law, her heart sank within her with disgust and fear.
“I cannot do it!” she said half aloud. “And John, too! What will he say
to me?” And at the thought of her husband’s displeasure, the wife who
had lacked moral courage to speak the truth began to feel that, rather
than face those two outraged and indignant spirits, she would gladly
flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest. To be
alone--to work for her bread--to suffer hardship in every miserable and
even degrading fashion--all this appeared to Honor (she being at the age
and of the nature to jump at conclusions, and to imagine no evil equal
to the present ones) infinitely, ay, a thousand thousand times,
preferable to putting her pretty neck again under the yoke of angry Mrs.
Beacham’s thrall, and to the endurance, from morning’s dawn to evening’s
light, of that unpleasant old lady’s disagreeable form of being good and
useful.
The idea of obeying her mother-in-law’s behests, and returning with the
least possible delay, did not, after the first shock of reading the
letter, either form any portion of Honor’s thoughts, or tend in any
degree to increase her troubles. Go, till she had fulfilled one or two
of her remaining engagements, she _would not_. To that conclusion she
had come at _first_, and being one of those exceptional
characters--characters, I suspect, more fanciful than real--whom a
silken thread can lead, but who, like the Celtic animal that shall be
nameless, turn restive when coercion is the order of the day, young Mrs.
Beacham, resenting the old lady’s tone of authority, set herself, with a
determination of which one short year before she never would have
believed herself capable, against that distasteful dose, the swallowing
of which she knew (none better) to be her duty. Perhaps--we do not say
it would have been so--but perhaps had _John_ written to her, even
angrily, this wrong-headed, but still warm-hearted, young woman might
have been a trifle more amenable to reason, and better disposed to bear
with patience the lot that she had drawn; but John, as we well know, did
not write to his young wife at this momentous crisis of her life. He was
busy. Epsom was at hand. Betting, sporting men were daily finding their
way by express trains to the Paddocks, and all John’s interest, time,
attention were taken up, so Honor entirely and _half_-gladly believed,
by other cares and pleasures than those connected with herself. “He does
not trouble himself enough about me either to write or to mind whether I
am here or there,” she said with a sigh, as, standing before her small
mirror, she noted self-complacently each of the undimmed beauties by
which she believed her husband set so little store. “He does not care
enough about me to be displeased if I ride with Arthur Vavasour. His
mother says so--the tiresome old thing!--but I don’t believe her; and
she shall not--no, she _shall_ not--have the satisfaction of thinking
she has frightened me into obedience;” and with that doughty resolution
Honor descended her many flights of stairs to breakfast with her
newly-found and outwardly affectionate relations.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT, SELL ROUGH DIAMOND!
The breakfast meal at No. 13 Stanwick-street, not being either a varied
or a luxurious one, did not occupy much of Colonel Fred Norcott’s
valuable time. It commenced, however, frequently at so late an hour,
owing to the stay-out habits over night of the master of the house, that
twelve o’clock often struck before the table was what Mrs. Norcott
called “cleared,” and the room ready for company.
Which company consisted usually, at the time of Honor’s stay, but of one
visitor--_the_ visitor whom, for reasons best known to himself, Colonel
Norcott was ever on the watch to conciliate and flatter. Arthur
Vavasour’s appearance in Stanwick-street was usually so timed that his
host’s horses--animals chiefly devoted at that period to the use of his
daughter--should be walking up and down before the house in readiness
for Mrs. Beacham’s appearance. On the eventful Tuesday morning--the
Tuesday in Epsom holiday week--which was hereafter to be a strongly
marked one in Honor Beacham’s memory, Colonel Norcott, departing
somewhat from his accustomed habits, was early astir--so early that at a
little after eleven he might have been seen, his cigar between his lips,
standing on the steps of the house he occupied, and evidently waiting
for some person whose coming was longer delayed than the Colonel found
altogether agreeable. At last, walking briskly round a corner, with a
very preoccupied expression of countenance, and swinging in the air a
light riding-whip with the manner of one lost in thought, Arthur
Vavasour, the individual expected by Honor’s impatient parent, appeared
in sight.
“By George! you’re late,” Colonel Norcott said, pulling out his watch
and displaying it reproachfully before his friend. “I haven’t more than
five minutes to spare. Five? I haven’t got three! But if you’ve anything
you want particularly to say to me, I--”
“You will wait--you _must_ wait,” Arthur broke in imperiously. “I tell
you what, Colonel Norcott, I can’t stand the bother and the wear and
tear of this any longer; Rough Diamond, as _we_ know, is all right
again, and the odds are--”
“Five to four on the favourite! We all know that. What then?” and Fred
replaced his cigar between his lips, and smoked away with a
_nonchalance_ which, to an excited man, was not a little provoking.
“What then? Why, simply this: I’d rather sell the horse, upon my soul I
would, than go on in this way. If Rough Diamond loses--”
“Well, if he does?”
“Nonsense, man, what’s the use of asking? you know nearly as much of my
affairs as I do. You know how devilishly I’m dipped, and how everything
depends on my horse winning the Derby to-morrow.”
“Well, and he will win it. Don’t be a fool. I mean don’t be out of
heart. I’m sure if I thought there were the ghost of a chance against
him, I should be pretty considerably down in the mouth too. Why, man,
I’ve backed the favourite with every farthing I’m worth, and--”
“Ah, yes--I know; but my case is different. Only fancy if old Dub was to
find out (which he would be almost sure to do if the horse didn’t win)
that the brute is mine, and has been all along; what a row there would
be! And then there’s that infernal fellow Nathan--it’s ruinous work
renewing--so ruinous that, by Jove, I sometimes think--though of course
I couldn’t decide anything without speaking to you. I sometimes think
whether it wouldn’t be better--you see it would never do for the old
fellow to get wind of these confounded bills--I sometimes think whether
it wouldn’t be the best thing I could do to let Lord Penshanger have
Rough Diamond, and so get out of the infernal bother of the business
altogether.”
Fred Norcott, at these words turning a hot and angry face to his
companion, looked by no means at his pleasantest. “What, sell the
favourite!” he said. “By Jove, you must be mad! I couldn’t allow or hear
of such a thing. I must say that--but I beg your pardon, Vavasour; you
can understand that when a man has so much at stake he loses his head,
and hardly knows what he’s talking about. The fact is that Honor--that
poor girl in there” (and he pointed to the house, before which they had
been slowly pacing to and fro) “is deuced miserable with that brute of a
farmer fellow that she married. She’s staying on with me because he and
an old mother that he has bully her so confoundedly between them; and I
should be glad to know if any tricks were to be played on Rough Diamond
(and I’ll answer for nothing if there’s any change made) what would
become of that poor child? _I_ shouldn’t have a home to offer her,
and--but, by George, there are the horses! Honor will be down in a
minute, and I shall be late,” consulting his watch again, “if I’m not
off to Waterloo in double quick time. Not going down to-day, eh? Well,
there’s no accounting for tastes. See you at Opera to-night, I suppose?”
And on receiving an affirmative nod from Arthur, who already had his
foot on the first step of No. 14, Colonel Norcott went his way towards
the station, where almost countless crowds were waiting to be conveyed
to the same goal--namely, the racecourse on Epsom Downs.
“What a lovely morning! I should like to be out of doors the whole
entire day!” exclaimed Honor, as she and Arthur rode along the least
frequented road within the precincts of the Regent’s Park, “and what is
more, I long to be in the country. Lydia had a holiday on Sunday, and
she says that all the beautiful chestnut-trees in Bushy Park are in full
blossom, and I _should_ so like to go there! Have you ever seen the
avenue? Mrs. Norcott has not, and she would like, she says, to drive
there this afternoon better than anything. Mr. Vavasour, couldn’t we do
it?” in a pretty tone of beseechment. “I have so little more time;
and”--her cheeks flushing, half with anger and half with shame at this
betrayal of her home secrets,--“I have had _such_ a letter to-day! so
cross--so unfeeling! O, Mr. Vavasour, I am afraid,” looking very
piteous, “that it will be all so dreadful when I go home. What _shall_ I
do? I almost wish that I had never come to London, the Paddocks will
seem so dull, so miserable when I go back!”
“Miserable? Are you _quite_ sure of that?” coming nearer, and resting
his hand on the pommel of his companion’s saddle. “Don’t think me _very_
selfish, but I should not like you to be too happy, Honor, not _too_
happy when you are away from me. You sweet, beautiful creature!” gazing
passionately on her downcast eyes, “why did not I see you, know you, in
the lost time gone by, when you _might_ have loved me, Honor? Am I too
bold, too vain, to think, to hope that had we met sooner--met before you
were tied and bound to another man--we two might have been happy? Speak
to me, Honor. How can you be so cold, so quiet, when I--”
He stopped, half afraid, in that public spot, on the well-frequented
road, where the girl’s striking beauty attracted every passer’s eye to
gaze upon her lovely face, of the emotions which his words had so
evidently aroused within her breast. At that moment, judging from
outward signs--from the rapid rise and fall of the bosom, shapely as
that of the glorious statue that entranced the world, and from the
changing colour of her rounded cheek--the accusation of coldness was
not altogether warranted by appearances. And yet from those signs and
symptoms the inference which Arthur drew was very decidedly a wrong, or
rather an exaggerated, one. Honor was not in the least what is called
“in love” with the man whose own passions and wild worship of his
neighbour’s wife were making such desperate work within his inner man.
Almost utterly reckless had those days of constant communion with her
made him. He had cried havoc and let loose the dogs of contending
passions within his breast; and if he had ever, when the waves of
temptation were beginning to rise and swell, said unto them with an
honest and true heart, “So far shalt thou go, and no farther,” that time
was long since gone and over, and the submission of Cecil Vavasour’s son
to the great enemy of mankind was an accomplished and a melancholy fact.
But partly perhaps because the man who really feels an overpowering
passion has less chance of _moving_ the object of that passion than has
the hypocrite who feigns a devotion which he is far from feeling. Honor
Beacham did not, as I said before, _love_ Arthur Vavasour. _Like_ him
she did; and greatly did she prize his devotion, his delicate
compliments, his evident and irrepressible appreciation of the
attractions for which her busy unsophisticated husband, the man whose
affections were not for the moment, but for Time, appeared to care so
strangely little. But although the eloquent blood that rose to neck and
brow had not its source in the inner, and to Arthur the undiscovered,
depths of her affection, although the visible palpitations of her heart
could not with truth be traced to the consciousness of harbouring one
unholy or forbidden thought, still Arthur’s words and sighs and glances
produced upon this child of nature effects precisely analogous to those
which might have been displayed had the love which he professed and felt
been returned tenfold into his bosom.
“I did not mean to be unkind and cold,” she stammered. “Quiet, Nellie!”
(to the mare she rode, and whose mild _caracoles_ her own agitation was
provoking). “It was all my fault for talking about going home; and, Mr.
Vavasour--”
“Call me Arthur,” he broke in impetuously; “even you, who grudge me
every word that is not stiff and formal, even you can see no harm
in--when we are alone together--calling me by my name? Honor, I--”
She put up a warning finger, smiling as she did so after a fashion that
would have turned a steadier head than Arthur Vavasour’s. She did not
mean to be “coquettish;” there was no purpose in her heart to lure him
into folly and madness. Honor’s were very simple, but at the same time
very cowardly, tactics--tactics, however, which have lost ere this more
silly giddy women than even vanity itself. In _public_ glad to please,
and feeling, really feeling pity for the man whose passion she
understood without reciprocating it, Honor would “smile, and smile, and
smile,” and seem to love; whilst in _private_--but then, to the best of
her powers, and with an ingenuity of which none but a frightened woman
could have been capable, she strove, and with good success, to postpone
_sine die_ the evil hour when she would perforce be brought to book, and
when the lover whose _attentions_ she would be more loth to lose than
she the least suspected would insist on the decided answer which would
render further trifling impossible--in private Honor might almost have
been mistaken for a prude.
“How can you want me to call you Arthur,” she said, with the bright
smile that lit up her countenance like a sunbeam, “when you know it
would be wrong--so wrong (and that is the best way to find out what _is_
wrong) that you would, or I should, be always in a most dreadful fright
lest I should forget myself, and say it when other people were present?
O, how I _do_ hate doing underhand things! I wish now, only it is days
and days too late, that I had written everything I was about to the
Paddocks. Then they might have abused me for being wilful and fond of
London, and plays, and amusing things; but they could not have hated and
despised me for being false.”
“But,” said Arthur with a caress in his voice, which Honor, novice
though she was, was at no loss to feel and understand--“but there are so
many things which pass, that one cannot say to everyone--many things
which are not _wrong_, as you call it, but which people at a distance
would not enter into, and had better therefore know nothing about. And
so they have been worrying you with letters, you poor darling, have
they? Wanting you to go back, and--”
“O, yes,” Honor cried, brimming over with her wrongs, her yearning for
kind sympathy, and with the self-pity which ever exaggerates the
misfortunes which our precious _self_ is called upon to endure--“O, yes,
and Mrs. Beacham--she _is_ so disagreeable; you don’t know half how
disagreeable she can be, orders me to come home, and threatens me with
all sorts of horrid things. I am to be scolded and taught my duty, and,”
blushing beautifully, “someone has told _them_ that I have been riding
in the Park with you, and--Ah, Mr. Vavasour, I feel quite frightened,
and I would rather do anything in the world almost than go back again
to the Paddocks!”
“Anything?” he asked, throwing as much meaning into the word as the
human voice was capable of expressing; but Honor, who was far as the
poles from comprehending the evil that was in his thoughts, said
eagerly,
“Indeed yes! anything! I would be a governess--you know I was a
governess before--I would go out to service--be a ‘Lydia,’” and she
smiled a little bitterly, “if I could only never, never see Mrs.
Beacham’s face again.”
An expression which she took for amusement, but which was in reality
indicative of very unholy triumph, passed over Arthur Vavasour’s dark,
handsome face.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Honor said plaintively. “You _can_ have no idea how
hard it is to live with John’s mother. Nothing I do is right, and--and,”
in a lower voice, “I know she sets him against me. She has written to
tell me that I must go home to-day; but my father says I am to lay our
not going upon him, so here I shall stay! I know I shall be in a
dreadful scrape, and that it is only a case of putting off, and--”
“But why _only_ a case of putting off, as you call it? My darling
Honor--forgive me; the words slipt out unawares--you know I would not
offend you willingly; but the best as well as the worst men are liable
to mistakes. Only tell me why you, so young, so beautiful, so formed for
the enjoyment of everything that is bright and happy, should be
condemned to pass your days in such an existence as the one you describe
at the Paddocks? It has always seemed to me,” he went on, leaning
towards her, and looking with eyes of eager passion into her face--“it
has always seemed to me an act of the most miserable folly for
people--married people--who do not _suit_, remaining together: _both_
would often be equally glad to part, to go their respective ways, to
live another and a more congenial life; and yet from some foolish
unreasoning scruple, from fear of what the world would say, or from want
of courage to take the first step, they go on through all their lives,
making each other’s existence a burden, ‘when both might separately have
been as happy’ as we are any of us fated to be in this ill-managed world
of ours, where happiness is so rare a thing.”
Honor glanced at him with rather a puzzled look in her blue eyes.
Strange as it may seem, she did not even now comprehend his meaning.
That he was advising her to leave her home was too plain to be mistaken,
but that there was to be sin--sin, that is to say, greater than that
which she could not but feel would be incurred by deserting her husband
and her duties--never occurred to this poor foolish child of nature. But
although she did not comprehend, and could not fathom, the depths of her
false friend’s guilt, yet her womanly instinct led her to evade the
responding to his suggestion. His last words also, and the tone of
sadness in which they were spoken, riveted her attention, and, catching
almost gladly at an excuse for changing the conversation, she said
sympathisingly,
“What do you mean by ill-managed? Surely _you_ can have no reason to
think this world an unhappy one! If there exists one person in it who
ought to be happy, it is you--you and your wife,” she added, with a
little sigh which again misled her companion into a blind and senseless
belief in his own power over her affections. “You have everything, it
seems to me, that human beings can hope for or desire--youth and health
and riches, living where you like, and always seeing and enjoying the
beautiful things that money can buy; and then going abroad, seeing
foreign countries, and--and--”
“And what? Tell me some more of my privileges, my delights; make me
contented, if you can, with my lot. At present it seems dark enough, God
knows; and if--but I am a fool, and worse, to talk to you of these
things; only, if I thought that you--you, who are an angel of purity and
love and peace--would sometimes think of me with pity, why, it would
give me courage, Honor, would make me feel that I have still something
to live for, something to bind me to an existence which I have begun to
loathe!”
Honor listened to this outpouring of real or fancied sorrows like one
who is not sure whether she dreams or is awake.
“Mr. Vavasour!” she exclaimed, “what _can_ you mean? At your age, with a
young wife who loves you, and with” (blushing slightly) “the hope of the
dear little child that will so soon be born, it seems so wonderful to
hear you talk in this way! What is it?” warming with pity as she watched
the young worn face prematurely marked with lines of care--“would you
like to tell me?--I am very _safe_. I have no one” (sadly) “to confide
in; and you have just said that my sympathy would be a comfort to you.”
She laid her little ungloved hand--she had taken off her gauntlet to
caress the arched neck of the pretty thoroughbred _screw_ she rode--upon
her companion’s arm as she spoke, and so fully occupied was she with her
object (namely, that of inducing Arthur to trust her with his sorrows),
that she was scarcely conscious of the warmth with which he, pressing
his hand upon the caressing fingers, mutely accepted the tribute of her
sympathy.
“Ah, then,” she said--the slight _soupçon_ of a brogue, as was often the
case when she was eager or excited, making itself apparent--“ah, then,
you will remember I am your friend, and say what it is that lies so
heavy on your heart?”
For a moment he looked at her doubtingly; and then, as though the words
broke from him as in his own despite, he said in a low husky tone:
“What purpose would it answer, what good would it effect either for you
or me, were you to learn that I am a villain?”
CHAPTER VII.
MEA CULPA.
A villain! Arthur Vavasour--the “fine,” noble-hearted, brilliant
gentleman to whom this simple-minded Honor had so looked up, and of the
loss of whose friendship she had been so afraid that she had “led him
on”--the silly woman knew she had--to fancy that she loved him better
than she did her husband--was he in very truth a man to be avoided,
shunned, and looked on with contempt? She could not, did not think it
possible. He was accusing himself unjustly, working on her compassion,
speaking without reflection: anything and everything she could believe
possible rather than that her friend should deserve the odious epithet
which had just, to her extreme surprise, smote upon her ears. Before,
however, she could give words to that surprise, Arthur spoke again, and
with an impetuosity which almost seemed to take away his breath poured
forth his explanation of the text.
“Yes, a villain! You may well look astonished; and I expect, when you
know all, that you will turn your back upon me, Honor, as all the world
must; that is, if the world _has_ to be taken into my confidence, which
I still trust it will not be. There are extenuating circumstances
though, as the juries say; and perhaps, if I had been better _raised_, I
shouldn’t have turned out such an out-and-out bad ’un as I have!”
He stopped for a moment to gulp down a sigh, and then proceeded thus:
“I think I told you once before how awfully I was in debt, and that it
was the burden of debt that drove me into marrying poor little Sophy
Duberly--the best girl in the world; but I _did not_ love her (more
shame for me), and whose affection, poor child, is so much more of a
torment than a pleasure to me. Well, enough of that: the worst is to
come; and if _you_ can tell me, after hearing it, that I am _not_ a
villain, why, I am a luckier dog, that’s all, than I think myself at
present!”
Honor, feeling called upon to make some response, muttered at this
crisis a few words which sounded like encouragement; but Arthur, too
entirely engrossed with his _mea culpa_ to heed this somewhat premature
absolution, continued hurriedly to pour forth the history of his sin.
“You would never believe, you who are so young, so ignorant of the
world’s wickedness, what the temptations are which beset a man. Pshaw! I
was a boy when I began life in London, and there were no bounds to my
extravagance, no limits to what you in your unstained purity would call
my guilt. I sometimes think that had my poor father lived, or even if I
had possessed a dear mother whose heart would have been made sore by the
knowledge of my offences, I _might_ (God knows, however; perhaps I was
bad in grain) have sinned less heavily, and have been this day
unburdened by the weight of _shame_ that oppresses me both by night and
day. Darling Honor!--you sweet warm-hearted child! why were there no
loving eyes like yours to fill with tears, in the days gone by, for me?
In those days only guilty women loved, or seemed to love; and not a
single good one prayed for or advised me. And so--God forgive me!--I
went on from bad to worse! For _them_--for those worthless creatures
whose names should not be even mentioned in your hearing--I expended,
weak vain idiot that I was, thousands upon thousands, which, being under
age, I raised from Jews at a rate so usurious that it could scarcely be
believed how they could dare to ask, or any greenhorn be such a fool and
gull as to accept, the terms. And then, reckless and desperate,
_afraid_ to confide in the mother who had never shown me a mother’s
tenderness, I played--I betted on the turf--I--in short, there is no
madness, no insane extravagance, of which, in my recklessness and almost
despair, I have not been guilty. But the worst is yet to come. You
remember that I bought Rough Diamond for a large sum of your husband. I
gave him a bill at six months’ date, renewable, for the amount; and
John--he behaved as well as man could do, I must say that--promised that
it should remain a secret that the colt was mine. Well, some little time
before my marriage--that marriage being a matter to me of absolute
necessity--old Duberly grew anxious and uneasy at my being so much at
the Paddocks. He had an idea, poor dear old fellow, that I could only be
there on account of matters connected in some way with racing. So he
wrote to my mother, of all people in the world, for an explanation, and
she naturally enough referred him to me. Then, Honor, came the moment of
temptation. I _could not_--I positively could not, with my expectations,
my almost certainty, and John Beacham’s too, of Rough Diamond’s
powers--part with him to any man living. So--it was an atrocious thing
to do; I felt it at the moment, and Heaven knows I have not changed my
opinion since--I allowed Mr. Duberly--allowed! humbug!--I told him that
the horse was not mine, and, liar that I was, that I had nothing to do
with the turf!”
“It was very bad,” murmured Honor; “but I suppose that if Mr. Duberly
had thought the contrary, he might have refused his consent to your
marriage, and then his daughter would have been wretched. Still, indeed,
indeed, you had better--don’t you think so now?--have been quite open
with him. If you had said--”
“Yes, yes, I know; but who ever does the right thing at the right time?
And, besides, I could not be sure, as you have just said, and knowing
old Duberly as I do now, that he would have allowed his daughter to be
my wife if he had been told the truth. His horror of what he calls
gambling is stronger than anything you can conceive. I hear him say
things sometimes which convince me that he would rather have given Sophy
to a beggar--a professional one, I mean--than to me; and if he _had_
acted as I feared, what, in the name of all that is horrible, was to
become of me? The tradesmen, the name of whose ‘little accounts’ is
legion, only showed me mercy, the cormorants! because of the rich
marriage which they believed was to come off; while the Jews, the
cent-percent fellows--but what do you know of bills and renewals, of the
misery of feeling that a day of reckoning is coming round--a horrible
day when you must either put the gold for which those devils would sell
their souls into their grasping hands, or by a dash of your pen plunge
deeper and deeper into the gulf of ruin and despair? But there are other
and more oppressive debts even than these, Honor--debts which I have no
hopes of paying, except through one blessed chance, one interposition of
Providence or fate--for I don’t suppose that Providence troubles itself
much with my miserable concerns--in my behalf.”
“And that chance?” put in Honor, imagining that he waited to be
questioned.
“That chance is the winning of the Derby to-morrow by Rough Diamond. I
have no bets, at least nothing but trifling ones, on the race; but if
the horse wins, his value will, as of course you know, rise
immeasurably, and with the money I can sell him for I shall be able, for
a time, to set myself tolerably straight. Your father--whose horse you
have, I suppose, hitherto fancied Rough Diamond to be--has, he tells me,
backed him for all that he is worth. My reason for not doing so has been
that I am not up to making a book, and that the debts of honour I
already groan under are sufficiently burdensome without incurring others
which I might not be able to pay.”
“How anxious you must be and unhappy!” Honor said pityingly. “But there
is one thing which puzzles me, and that is, how you could keep all this
a secret from your wife. Surely she would have been silent; surely she
might have softened her father, and made all smooth between you.”
“She might; but I could not risk it. Sophy is very delicate; and then
there has been such entire confidence between her and her father, that
it would have been almost impossible for her to keep anything from him.
No; as I have brewed, so I must bake. I can only hope the best; and
that, or the worst, will very soon be no longer matter for speculation.
The devil of it is--I beg your pardon, I am always saying something
inexcusable--but really the worst of it is, that the fact of my mother’s
intention of fighting my grandfather’s will is no longer a mystery. Old
Duberly’s fortune is, as all the world believes, very large; but at the
same time he is known to be what is called a ‘character,’ and that his
eccentricities take the turn of an extraordinary mixture of
penuriousness and liberality has been often the subject both of comment
and reproach with people who have nothing to do but to talk over the
proceedings of their neighbours. In short--for I am sure you must be
dreadfully tired of hearing me talk about myself--the world, my cursed
creditors included, would be pretty well justified in believing that my
worthy father-in-law would flatly refuse to pay a sum of something very
like fourteen thousand pounds for a fellow whose extravagance and love
of play were alone accountable for the debt; one, too, who has
nothing--no, not even a ‘whistle’--to show of all the things that he has
paid so dear for. Disgusting, is it not? And now that you have heard the
story,--I warned you, remember, that it was a vile one,--what comfort
have you to bestow on me? And can you, do you wonder at my calling the
world--my world, that is--a miserable one? and is it surprising that, in
spite of outward prosperity, of apparent riches, and what you call good
gifts, I should sometimes almost wish to exchange my lot with that of
the poorest of the poor, provided that the man in whose shoes I stood
had never falsified his word, or lived as I have done and do, with a
skeleton in the cupboard, of which another--one, too (forgive me, dear,
for saying so), whom I not greatly trust--keeps, and must ever keep, the
key?”
Honor paused for a moment ere she answered, and then said, in a gentle
and half-hesitating way (they had turned their horses’ heads some time
before, and had nearly arrived at Honor’s temporary home), “I almost
wish you had not told me this; but we are neither of us very happy, Mr.
Vavasour, and must learn to pity one another. Perhaps--I don’t know much
about such things--but perhaps I ought to say that you were wrong; only,
I am sure of this, that, tempted as you were, _I_ should have done no
better. It must have been so very difficult--so very, very frightening!
In your place I should never have had courage enough to speak the truth;
and I hope--O, how I hope!--both for your sake and my father’s, that
your horse may win! But am I to say,” she whispered, as with his arms
clasped round her slender waist he lifted her from the saddle, “am I to
say to him, to my father, that I know about Rough Diamond? I should be
so sorry, from thoughtlessness, to repeat anything you might wish
unsaid.”
He followed her into the narrow passage, where for a single moment they
were alone, and the craving within him to hold her to his heart was
almost beyond his power to conquer. Perhaps,--we owe so much sometimes
to simple adventitious circumstances,--but for the chance opening of a
door on the landing-place above, Honor would at last have been awakened
to the danger of treating Arthur Vavasour as a friend. She was very
sorry for him; but she would have been more distressed than gratified
had he pressed her to his heart with all the fervour of youthful
passion, and implored her to trust herself entirely to his tender
guardianship. On the contrary, seeing that he simply asked if Mrs.
Norcott were at home, and reminded Honor of her wish to see the famous
chestnut avenue, and of the practicability of realising her wishes,
pretty Mrs. John Beacham tripped upstairs before him with a lightened
heart, in search of the _chaperone_ who was ever so good-naturedly ready
to contribute to her pleasures.
CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN BEACHAM MAKES A DISCOVERY.
People, especially imaginative ones, are apt to talk a good deal about
coming shadows and presentiments of evil, becoming especially diffuse on
the subject of the low spirits which they feel or fancy they have felt
previous to any great and dire calamity. In my humble opinion such
warnings lie entirely in the imagination, and, moreover, those who prate
about this gift of second sight are apt to forget the million cases of
_un_announced misfortunes to be set against the isolated instances of
anticipated evil. Amongst these million cases we may safely cite that of
Honor Beacham on the afternoon of that famous Tuesday when, with
complaisant Mrs. Norcott for her duenna, she strolled with Arthur
Vavasour under the avenue of arching trees, then in their rich wealth of
snowy beauty, which leads, as all the world well knows, to
“The structure of majestic frame
Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes its name.”
Had Honor either been a few years older, less constitutionally light of
heart, or more experienced in sorrow, she would never have been able so
entirely--as was the case with this giddy young woman--to cast off the
sense and memory of her woes. A reprieve after all is _but_ a reprieve;
and the consciousness that each moment, however blissful, serves only to
bring us nearer to its termination, ought to and does fill the minds of
the thoughtful with very sobering reflections. But, as I have just
remarked, Honor’s constitutionally happy spirits buoyed her up
triumphantly on the waters whose under-swell betokened a coming tempest,
and throughout the two swiftly-passing hours which she spent in the
beautiful park with Arthur Vavasour by her side, she, recklessly setting
memory and conscience at defiance, was far happier than she deserved to
be.
The “pale and penitential moon” was rising over the Hyde-Park trees as
the open carriage drove into Stanwick-street, and Honor, half pale and
remorseful too now that the hour was drawing near when she must _think_,
promised, in answer to Arthur’s whispered entreaty, that no commands, no
fatigue, no dangerous second thoughts, should cause her to absent
herself that night from the theatre, where she was to enjoy one of their
_last_ pleasures, he reminded her, together. She ran upstairs--a little
tired, flushed, eager, beautiful. Would there be--she had thought more
than once of _that_ as they drove homewards--would there be any letter
for her upon the table in the little sitting-room where what Mrs.
Norcott called a “heavy tea” was set out for their delectation? Would
there--she had no time to speculate upon chances; for her quick eye soon
detected a business-like-looking missive directed to herself, and lying
on the table in front of her accustomed seat.
With a feeling of desperation--had she delayed to strive for courage the
letter would probably, for that night at least, have remained
unread--she tore it open and perused the following lines, written in her
husband’s bold, hard, rather trade-like writing, and signed by the name
of John Beacham:
“DEAR HONOR,--I suppose you have some excuse to make for yourself,
though _I_ can see none any more than my mother does. You seem to
be going on at a fine rate, and a rate, I can tell you, that won’t
suit me. I have been at the house you lodge at to tell you that I
shall take you home with me to-morrow; so you had better be ready
early in the day. My mother thinks you must have been very badly
brought up to deceive us as you have done, and it will be the last
time that I shall allow you to spend a day under your father’s
roof.”
Poor Honor! Poor because, tottering, wavering between good and ill, it
required but a small impetus, given either way, to decide her course. If
it be true (and true indeed it is) that grievous _spoken_ words are wont
to stir up anger, still more certain is it that angry sentences written
in moments of fierce resentment, and read in a spirit of rebellion and
hurt pride, are apt to produce direful consequences. When Honor, with
the charm of Arthur Vavasour’s incense of adulation still bewildering
her brain, and with the distaste which the memory of old Mrs. Beacham’s
society inspired her with strong upon her, read her husband’s terse and
unstudied as well as not particularly refined epistle, the effect
produced by its perusal was disastrous indeed. Dashing the passionate
tears from her eyes, and with a wrench throwing off the dainty little
bonnet and the airy mantle in which Arthur Vavasour had told her she was
so exquisitely “got up,” she prepared herself to meet again at the New
Adelphi the man whose influence over her, aided by the unfortunate
circumstances in which she was placed, had more than _begun_ to be
dangerous. On that night, her _last_ night--but--and here Honor laid
down the brush with which she was smoothing out her rich rippling
tresses--but must it be indeed, she asked herself, the last night that
she would be free? The last night that she might hope to pass away from
the wretched thraldom, the detested daily, hourly worry of her unloved
and unloving mother-in-law? Must she indeed return (and at the unspoken
question her heart beat wildly, half with terror and half with the
joyful flutter of anticipated freedom), must she obey the _order_--for
order it was, and sternly, harshly given--to place herself once more in
Mrs. Beacham’s power, in the home which that domineering and unkind old
woman had rendered hateful to her?
To do Honor only justice, there was no glimmering, or rather, to use a
more appropriate word, no overshadowing, of guilt (of guilt, that is to
say, as regarded the straying of the thoughts to forbidden pleasures) in
her desire--a desire that was slowly forming itself into an
intention--of making a home for herself elsewhere than at the Paddocks.
She had arrived, with the unreflecting rapidity of impulsive youth, at
the decision that John had ceased to love, and was incapable of
appreciating either her beauty or her intellect. His mother, too--and in
this decision Honor was not greatly in the wrong--wished her anywhere
rather than in the house where _she_ had been accustomed to reign
supreme; and this being the case, and seeing also that poor Honor could
expect (for did not those two threatening letters proclaim the fact?)
nothing but unkindness on her return, there remained for her only the
alternative--so at least she almost brought herself to believe--of
separating herself from those with whom she lived in such continued and
very real unhappiness.
During all the time that was employed in tastefully arranging the hair
whose rich luxuriance scarcely needed the foreign aid of ornament, and
in donning the dress fashioned after the _décolletée_ taste of the day,
but which Mrs. Norcott--who entertained an unfortunate fancy, common to
bony women, of displaying her shoulders for the public benefit--assured
her was the _de rigueur costume_ for the theatre,--during all the time
that Honor was occupied in making herself ready for the evening’s
dissipation, the idea of “living alone” haunted and, while it cheered,
oppressed her. Of decided and fixed plans she had none; and whether she
would depart on the morrow, leaving no trace to follow of her
whereabouts, or whether she would delay her purpose till a few days
should have elapsed after her enforced return to Pear-tree House, were
subordinate arrangements which this misguided young woman told herself
that she would postpone for after consideration. For the moment, the
prospect of listening to the most exciting of dramas, and of seeing (for
she was easily pleased) the well-dressed audience of a popular theatre,
bore their full share in causing the future, as it hung before Honor’s
sight, to be confused and misty. The convenient season for thought was
to be _after_ this last of her much-prized pleasures; and when this
bouquet of the ephemeral delights by which her senses had been so
enthralled would be a memory and a vision of the past, the young wife
told herself that the time for serious reflection should begin.
An hour later, in a box on the pit tier, listening with every pulse (for
Honor was too new and fresh not to take an almost painful interest in
the half-tragic and perfectly-acted play) beating responsive to
newly-aroused sensations, the young wife of the Sandyshire farmer
attracted a good deal more attention and admiration than she--entirely
engrossed with the scene and the performance--could, vain daughter of
Eve though she was, have supposed to be possible. Her dress, made of
inexpensive materials, but of pure, fresh white, and unadorned, except
with a bunch of pale-blue convolvulus, matching another of the same
flower in the side of her small, fair head, was a triumph of
unpretending simplicity. Alas, however, for the fashions of these our
days! For well would it have been--before one pair of eyes, gazing on
Honor’s attractions from the pit, had rested on her beauty--could some
more efficient covering than the turquoise cross, suspended from her
rounded throat by a black velvet ribbon, have veiled her loveliness from
glance profane! Honor little knew--could she have had the faintest
surmise that so it was, her dismay would have been great indeed--Honor
little knew whose eyes those were that for a short ten minutes--no
more--were riveted, with feelings of surprise and horror which for the
moment almost made his breast a hell, upon the box in which she was
seated. John Beacham--for the individual thus roused to very natural
indignation was no other than that much-aggrieved husband--had learned
from chattering Lydia, on his visit to Stanwick-street, that Mrs.
Beacham was on that evening to betake herself to the New Adelphi
with--the name went through honest John’s heart like a knife--Mr.
Vavasour and Mrs. Norcott. They were gone--“_them three_,” Miss Lydia
said--to “’Ampton Court” for the afternoon; but the Colonel--he was
expected back before the others. Perhaps the gentleman--the parlour-maid
was totally ignorant of the visitor’s right to be interested in Mrs.
John Beacham’s movements--perhaps the gentleman would wait, or it might
be more convenient to him to call again when the Colonel would have come
back from the races. She didn’t believe that Colonel Norcott would go to
the theatre. She’d heard some talk of his going to the club; but if--
John, who had heard with dilated and angry ears the main points of these
disclosures, and who was very far from desiring to come in contact with
the man whom upon earth he most despised and disliked, waited to hear no
more, but, striding hastily away, surrendered himself, not only to the
gloomiest, but to the most bitter and revengeful thoughts. That this
man--unsuspicious though he was by nature, and wonderfully ignorant of
the wicked ways of a most wicked world--should at last be roused to a
sense of the terrible possibility that he was being deceived and wronged
was, I think, under the circumstances, only natural; and in proportion
to the man’s previous security--in proportion to his entire trust, and
complete deficiency of previous susceptibility regarding Honor’s
possible shortcomings--was the amount of almost uncontrolable wrath that
burned within his aching breast. For as he left that door, as he walked
swiftly down the street, and remembered how he had loved--ay,
worshipped--in his simple, inexpressive way, the lovely creature who was
no longer, he feared, worthy either of his respect or tenderness, no
judgment seemed too heavy, no punishment too condign for her who had so
outraged his feelings and set at naught his authority. Full of these
angry feelings, and boiling over with a desire to redress his wrongs,
John Beacham repaired to the tavern where he was in the habit, when
chance or business kept him late in London, of satisfying the cravings
of hunger. Alone, at the small table on which was served to him his
frugal meal of beefsteak and ale, John brooded over his misfortunes,
cursing in bitterness of spirit the hour when he first saw Honor Blake’s
bewildering face, and exaggerating--as the moments sped by, and his
blood grew warmed with one or two unaccustomed “tumblers”--the offences
of which she had been guilty.
He was roused from this unpleasant pondering by the clock that ticked
above the tall mantelshelf of the coffee-room sounding forth the hour of
eight. Eight o’clock, and John, who never passed a night if he could
help it in London, had not yet made up his mind where to spend the hours
which must intervene before his morning meeting with his wife. Enter the
doors of Colonel Norcott’s abode--save for the purpose of carrying away
the headstrong, deceitful girl whom he, John’s enemy, had so meanly
entrapped--the injured husband mentally vowed should be no act of his:
not again would he trust his own powers of self-command by finding
himself, if he knew it, face to face with the object of his hatred. From
the hour, and to that effect he registered a vow--from the hour when he
should regain possession of his wife, all communication of every kind
whatsoever should cease between Honor and the bold bad man in whose very
notice there was contamination and disgrace. From henceforward Honor, so
he told himself, would find a very different, and a far less yielding,
husband than the fool who had shut his eyes to what his mother’s had so
plainly seen. Henceforward the young fop and spendthrift, whom for the
boy’s father’s sake he had encouraged to visit at his house, should find
it less easy to make an idiot of him. Henceforward--but at this point in
his cogitation a sudden idea occurred to him; it was one that would in
all probability have struck him long before, and would certainly have
shortened the modest repast over which he had been lingering, if he had
entertained--which certainly was not yet the case--any doubts and
suspicions of a really grave character relative to Arthur Vavasour’s
intimacy with his wife. That she had deceived him with any design more
unpardonable than that of temporarily amusing herself was a thought
that had not hitherto found a resting-place within the bosom of this
unworld-taught husband; though that Honor had so deceived him was a blow
that had fallen very heavily upon him. Thoroughly truthful in his own
nature, and incapable of trickery, he had been so startled and engrossed
by the discovery in Honor’s mental idiosyncrasy of directly opposite
qualities, that for a while he was incapable of receiving any other and
still more painful impression concerning her. To some men--especially to
those unfortunately-constituted ones who see in “trifles light as air”
“consummation strong” of their own jealous fantasies--it may seem
strange that John Beacham should not have sooner taken the alarm, and
vowed hot vengeance against the destroyer of his peace. That he had not
done so was probably owing to a happy peculiarity in his constitution.
He was a man too well aware of his own hasty temperament to rush without
reflection into situations to which I can give no better or more
expressive name than that of _scenes_. To quarrel with, also, or to
offend the son of Cecil Vavasour would have been a source of infinite
pain to the man whose respect and affection for his dead landlord would
end but with his life; his wish, therefore, that Arthur had been and was
no more to Honor than the companion, in all innocence, of her girlish
follies, was the father to the conjecture as well as to the belief that
so it was.
Probably, had John been returning for business purposes that day to the
Paddocks, the idea which did then and there occur to him, of hurrying
off to the New Adelphi, in order to _judge for himself_--as if in such a
case any man could judge justly!--of Honor’s conduct and proceedings,
would never have entered his head. It was a sore temptation only to look
again, sooner than he had expected, at his wife’s beautiful face; and
as, in memory as well as in anticipation, he dwelt upon it, the strong
man’s heart softened towards the weak child-like creature whom he had
sworn to honour as well as to love, and it would have required but one
smile from her lips, one pressure of her tender arms, to persuade him
once again that _she_ was perfect, and that if fault or folly there had
been, the error lay in himself alone.
Perhaps in all that crowded house--amongst that forest of faces that
filled the boxes and gallery to the roof--there was not one, save that
honest countryman, whose attention was not fixed and absorbed that night
on one of the most sensational melodramas that have ever drawn tears
from weak human eyes. At another time and under other circumstances John
Beacham who, strong-bodied and iron-nerved man though he was, could
never keep from what he called making a fool of himself at a dismal
play, would not have seen unmoved the wondrous tragic acting of one of
the very best (alas, that we must speak of him in the past!) of our
comic actors: but John Beacham, on the night in question, was not in the
mood to listen with interest to the divinest display of eloquence that
ever burst from human lips. He was there for another and less exalted
purpose: there as a spy upon the actions of another--there to feast his
eyes (for, as I said before, in spite of all her errors, his heart was
very soft towards the one woman whom he loved) on the wife who had
defied his authority, and, possibly, made him an object of ridicule.
He had not been long in the unconspicuous place he had chosen before,
not far removed from him--in a box, as I before said, on the pit
tier--he descried his unsuspecting wife. Such a start as he gave when
first he saw her! Such a start that, had not his neighbours on the next
seat been fully occupied with the Stage, they must have perceived and
wondered at his agitation. At first he could hardly bring himself to
believe--so changed was she, and so wondrously beautified--that it could
in reality be his own Honor whom he saw there, radiant in her glorious
loveliness, and with that loveliness--ah, poor, poor John
Beacham!--displayed, in a manner which almost took away his breath, to
the gaze of hundreds upon hundreds of admiring eyes.
Until that moment--the moment when he saw her the admired of all
beholders, in the evening toilet which so enhanced her attractions, it
may be doubted whether John had ever entirely realised the exceeding
beauty of the wife whom he had chosen. In her simple morning-dress, and
especially in the little coquettish hat which he had sometimes seen her
wear, the honest farmer was quite willing to allow that Honor was
prettier by far than nine out of ten of the pretty girls that tread the
paths of life; but it was in the dress, or rather undress, that evening
dissipation rendered (according to Mrs. Norcott’s dictum) necessary that
young Mrs. Beacham became--in her husband’s eyes--not only a marvel and
miracle of loveliness, but a source of such exceeding pain to that
inexperienced rustic that in his agony of jealous susceptibility he
clenched his muscular hands together till the blood well-nigh burst from
his finger-ends with the strong though all involuntary compression of
his fingers.
For there was more than the sight of those white shoulders to rouse the
demon of anger in his breast; there was more than the memory of the
woman’s deceit to harden his heart against her; for beside, or rather
behind her, leaning over those same white shoulders in most lover-like
and devoted fashion, stood Arthur Vavasour, the man of whom his mother
had in her rude fashion warned him, the man whose father had been not
only his (John Beacham’s) friend, but his benefactor!
Whispering in her ear, calling the crimson blush to her fair cheek--the
husband saw it all! And ah, how at that moment poor John hated that dark
handsome face--the face of one looking so like a tempter sent to try the
faith and virtue of an angel only too ready, so it seemed, to fall!
Will any of my readers--any, that is to say, who have in their own
persons borne the burden and the heat of human passions--marvel that
this man, spurred by the spectacle before him--the spectacle not of
_fictitious_ crimes and sorrows, for there was a side-scene in which a
deeper melodrama was being enacted for his benefit--should have “lost
his head” under the pressure of such unwonted excitement?
Something--it was not common sense or reason, for he was long past any
safeguard they could render him--_something_ retained the man, whose
passions were so rapidly growing to be his master, in the place which,
between two elderly playgoers who were entirely absorbed by the “scene,”
had been assigned to him--retained him, that is to say, till such time
as, the act being over, he could move from his place without causing
public excitement and commotion.
When the curtain fell, and the rushing, rustling sound betokened that
the spectators, over-wrought and excited, were stretching their limbs
and refreshing their brains by a change of scene and posture, John
Beacham, following a sudden and uncontrollable impulse, and with no
fixed purpose within his brain or choice of words upon his lips,
staggered like a drunken man to the box where Honor, breathless with
eagerness and her fair face flushed with excitement, had just--in entire
and happy ignorance of her husband’s proximity--turned her glossy head
to talk over the startling incidents of the play with Arthur Vavasour.
CHAPTER IX.
JOHN PROVES HIS RIGHT.
As he opened the box-door, a ray of reason--there is often on such
occasions something sobering in the mere presence of strangers--threw a
composing light over John Beacham’s troubled brain. He was not, as we
already know, a man who loved excitement and “went in” for sensation; on
the contrary, his country habits and his rather matter-of-fact nature
unfitted him for taking part in any emotional scene, of what kind soever
it might be.
Entering the box, he took off his hat with instinctive politeness; but
that duty performed, he laid his hand--it was as we know an honest one,
but heavy enough withal--on Honor’s snowy shoulder. What followed was
the work almost of moments; but rapid though it was, the scene remained
engraved on Honor’s memory for ever. As the iron fingers pressed into
the delicate flesh--he could not guess, poor man, that her _first_
feeling when he entered had been one of gladness--she uttered a sharp
cry of pain, and cast an appealing glance--for John’s wild looks and
violent action frightened her--at Arthur.
Was it in mortal man, or rather was it in the man who loved her, and who
almost believed his love returned, to remain neuter, absolutely neuter,
in such a case as this? It was true, quite true, that the husband was
_dans son droit_, and had a right to resent as an insult the
interference in his wife’s behalf of any man that lived. Of this
important truth, however, Arthur remembered nothing. Blinded by passion,
disturbed at a moment when, forgetful of all the world beside, he was
distilling what he believed to be successful poison into the ear of the
woman he adored, this spoilt child of sin, who had never denied himself
a pleasure, or made during his whole stormy manhood a single sacrifice
either to others or to duty, resented the entrance of Honor’s
unconventional husband into his private box, as if that husband were in
fact the encroacher, and _he_ the lawful possessor of the prize.
White, ay, almost livid with rage, he wrenched away the hand that held
the woman whom he delighted to protect, and would have spoken words of
violence suited to the intemperate action, had not John Beacham, subdued
for the moment by the sight of passions even stronger than his own,
commanded him in a tone of startling energy to be silent.
“For your father’s sake, young man,” he said, laying his broad hand for
an instant on Arthur’s thin white lips--“for your dead father’s sake,
make no ugly scandal here. If I believed you worse than foolish, I would
kill you as you stand there! but I do not believe such evil of your
father’s son. Go, sir, to your young wife; go and repent you of your
sins; and when we meet again, God grant that I may have a better opinion
than I hold now of the boy that Cecil Vavasour loved in his life so
well!”
Startled, overcome, and terribly confused, Arthur stood as if
transfixed; while John, after hastily wrapping the trembling Honor in
her opera-cloak, led her, without another word spoken, from the box.
In perfect silence--a silence only broken by the woman’s violent
trembling as she hung helplessly on her husband’s arm--the re-united
pair left the crowded theatre together. Honor moved along as if
mechanically, dreading the moment when she would be alone with the man
of whose violence she had just experienced such unpleasant proof, and
feeling already, with terrible force, the bitter contrast between her
lot as it had lately been, and her fate as it loomed darkly, wearily
before her. _Resigned_ she did not feel. The contrast was too great, too
sudden; and, to speak the truth, the aspect of John in his rough
overcoat, his driving-gloves, and country-made hat, did not exactly tend
either to put Honor in good humour with her husband, or to reconcile her
to the loss of half her evening’s amusement.
Had there been in the woman’s conscience the load of even the smallest
secret guilt, _fear_ would have usurped the place of anger, and all idea
of rebellion would have banished from her mind. But Honor’s fit of
trembling arose from no such hidden cause. No “sin,” even of thought,
hitherto “unwhipt of justice,” caused her cheek to pale and her limbs to
quake with fear. She was simply over-wrought, over-excited; and more
than all, she was indignant. A woman--a beautiful one, that is to
say--does not always calmly submit, even from a husband, to rudeness,
when she has been accustomed to adulation; or to coercion, when she has
been placed upon a throne, and learned to think herself a “queen for
life.”
She was the first to speak--the woman usually is in embarrassing cases
such as that I am describing. The man, who is as a rule less nervous and
excitable, and who generally speaking has his senses more under his own
command, is apt to hold his tongue, and rather dread the breaking of
the ice--the prelude to the startling and unpleasant plunge from which
he greatly doubts that any good can possibly result.
“O, John!” Honor said, “where _are_ you taking me to? You might have
waited till to-morrow, and--and--I see you are so angry.” And bursting
into tears, she leant her shapely little head against the side of the
cab in which John had placed himself and her, and sobbed with almost
hysterical violence.
“Angry? I should think so,” was his reply, as he endeavoured to harden
his heart against the wilful girl whom yet (he was terribly ashamed of
the uxorious weakness) he ardently longed to take to his heart and
whisper the fond assurance that she was forgiven. “I should think I
_was_ angry--ay, and precious angry too. Why, now, I should like to know
how you came to act underhand in the way you have done, and that, too,
from first to last? Why didn’t you write that you were riding about and
amusing yourself? Why did you allow us--my mother and I--to think that
your father was in difficulties, while all the time he could afford to
keep horses, and give you all sorts of amusements? By George!”--and he
gave a blow on the floor of the cab with his stout stick which must have
sorely tested the strength of both--“by George! if anyone--if the best
friends I have on earth--if the mother that bore me had said a month ago
that she had seen what I have seen this night, I would not have believed
her; and now--”
“And now,” interrupted Honor, her tears checked as if by magic, and
turning her large indignant eyes full upon her husband, “and _now_,
what, pray, have you seen? You talk to me as if I had done something
wicked, something disgraceful; whereas the worst crime of which I can
excuse myself is a dread, a _horror_--I had better say the truth at
last--of living with, and being tormented by, your mother. It is more
than I can bear to live with her. I would rather beg my bread, rather be
a servant a hundred thousand times, than go back to Mrs. Beacham and be
treated as she has treated me. But,” suddenly letting down the window of
the cab, and looking out into the street, “you are not really taking me
back to Updown? John,” clasping her hands in wild entreaty, “I implore
you not to let me live again at Pear-tree House. I don’t know why it
is--I can’t account for it--but besides my being frightened at your
mother, I have a fear upon me, a great dread, of that old house.
Something, I am certain of it, as certain of it as that I am praying to
you for kindness now, will happen if you take me home to Updown. I--”
“You are a goose, my dear, and don’t know when you are well off. There,
there, don’t cry any more. We are close upon the station now, and people
will think I have been beating you.”
The cab drew up to the entrance of the South-Western terminus as he
spoke, and Honor, feeling that remonstrance was useless, allowed her arm
to be passed through that of her legitimate guardian, and herself to be
seated, with a very unwilling mind, in the carriage that was to convey
her, luggageless and nervous, to the country home which she had learnt
to loathe.
CHAPTER X.
“AS WELL AS CAN BE EXPECTED.”
The great day of the sporting year, the “maddest,” if not exactly the
“merriest” day, was close at hand; and the world, both high and low,
rich and poor, one _against_ another, were on the _qui-vive_ of
excitement and the very tip-toe of expectation. Among these variously
interested beings, one of those who had in reality most at stake, was
Arthur Vavasour. Fortune, honour, credit, all were involved, and that to
no limited extent, in the winning of the Derby race by that big-boned,
coarse-made, but wonderfully _staying_ horse, Rough Diamond. Time was
(before the master passion had laid hold of, grappled with, and finally
taken possession of this impulsive and ill-trained young man) when the
result of the morrow’s racing would have occupied his every thought, and
would have seemed to his eyes the most important of all earthly
considerations. And all-important indeed it was; for spurred on thereto
by money difficulties, and being but of a weak and unstable character,
Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader must have already gathered, deceived,
and to a certain degree outwitted, the shrewd and rather obstinate old
man, whose ideas of honour and morality were so widely different from
his own. By marrying Sophy Duberly he had for a time escaped the
consequences of his own reckless extravagance, and of the gaming
propensities, the knowledge of which would, as he well knew, have
entirely prevented the union between himself and one of the richest
heiresses of the day; but happiness had not followed upon his sin, nor
had a sense of security been the consequence of his deception.
That Mr. Duberly was not wholly without his misgivings on the score of
the young aristocrat on whom his daughter’s maiden affections were fixed
was evidenced by the fact that “nothing was left,” as the saying is, in
Arthur’s “power.” The allowance that “old Dub” made to his future
heiress was liberal to profuseness; and Arthur himself, had he desired
such an indulgence, might have had his path paved with gold, provided
always that he, the retired Manchester man, was perfectly _au courant_
of how the money was disposed of, and that his dearly-beloved Sophy trod
the same brilliant way, side by side and lovingly with the partner of
her life. More than this, however, for his son-in-law at least, old Dub
was never likely to do. To have his penny-worth for his penny, to keep
his accounts regularly and systematically, were, in his opinion, among
the first duties of man; and any _known_ neglect of these duties by his
daughter’s husband would have annoyed and disquieted him. Well aware of
this “absurdity,” as he considered it, on the part of his father-in-law,
Arthur had for some short time after his marriage gone through certain
minor forms calculated to convey the impression that he was a “business
man.” A room, called by courtesy his study, had been devoted to his use;
and a book dignified by the title of an “account-book” was disfigured by
certain scrawling entries in Arthur’s large illegible hand, and was
supposed to contain a record of Mr. Vavasour’s daily expenditure.
Happily for him, old Duberly had hitherto either taken his business
talents for granted, or, like many other good-natured, as well as
slightly indolent people, had shrunk from discoveries which might only
tend to his own discomfort, and the possible unhappiness of his child.
Sophy--the darling of his age, and the sunshine of his luxurious
home--was blithe and joyous as a bird which has just found its mate; and
this being so, why was he to disturb her from her security, and fill
her unsuspecting mind with doubts and fears which never might be
realised? As long as Sophy, who was a very _girl_ still in simplicity
and buoyant spirits, went singing about the house (a little heavy in
step now, poor thing, for she was very near to her hour of pain and
travail), old Duberly was well content to let everything remain as it
was, and to hope the best regarding his young and outwardly very
likeable son-in-law. That there was any _great_ harm in one who seemed
so frank, and who was too young as well as too well-born (the Manchester
man thought a great deal of birth) to have had either much opportunity
or much temptation to sin, Mr. Duberly never for a moment suspected; but
in spite of this trust, and gladly as he would have entirely confided in
his daughter’s husband, there lingered, almost unknown to himself, a
grain--the very shadow of a shade it was--of doubt; a doubt born of the
former visits of Arthur Vavasour to the Paddocks, where lived the most
beautiful woman that Mr. Duberly had ever seen, and where the “tempting”
yearlings put on strength and muscle for the arduous work that lay
before them. That such a doubt did linger in the old man’s mind was a
fact of which he himself was almost ignorant. Had any human being
ventured to hint a syllable in disparagement of Arthur Vavasour the
blood of the quondam cotton lord would have been up at once, and he
would have indignantly repelled the insinuations of the enemy. According
to his own belief he had placed implicit faith in Arthur’s assurances
that the turf and he were strangers, and that his “occasional” visits to
Pear-tree House were either purely business ones, or were the natural
consequences of his dead father’s respect and liking for honest,
straightforward John Beacham.
It was the certainty that his father-in-law had so believed, and in
consequence of that belief had consented to the already arranged
marriage, which was the main cause of Arthur’s anxiety that Rough
Diamond should, by winning the Derby, diminish the chance--a very
slender one he hoped and trusted--of Andrew Duberly’s discovering the
trick--for trick it was--that had been played upon him. “Manchester man”
though he was, and somewhat rough in manner--to say nothing of his
living out of the pale of Arthur’s “world”--that young man nevertheless,
such is the force of moral worth, dreaded, more than he would have cared
to own, the betrayal to his wife’s father of the secret which, for all
his seeming carelessness, had not lain altogether lightly on his bosom.
His debts--barring those of _honour_, considerable though they
were--troubled him but little. Tradesmen, however careful of their own
interests, will never press inconveniently for payment when they know
for a certainty that in the family of their debtor there are assets
sufficient to defray ten thousandfold the “little account” which added
interest is yearly swelling. It was the floating paper, his debts to
so-called friends, and above all, as I have just said, it was the
guarding of his disgraceful secret, which, even under other
circumstances than the present, would, on the day before the Derby, have
made Arthur Vavasour’s brow a clouded one by day, and broken his natural
sleep by night. And even now--madly, passionately as he loved the woman
of whom it was guilt even to think, and from whom, to his intense
annoyance, he had been so suddenly and violently separated--Arthur could
not avoid the frequent recurrence of the oppressive thoughts connected
with his own falsehood, and the morrow’s all-important event. Even on
his way home on foot from the theatre--walking, contrary to his custom,
because he desired time for thought previous to his return to home and
Sophy--even then, with the memory of Honor’s bewildering beauty still
fresh within his brain, reflections born of his complicated troubles
forced themselves upon his unwilling mind. What would happen to him if
the favourite--a chance quite, of course, upon the cards--were
distanced? What would happen to him if--and the idea was not by any
means a novel one--he could not trust the unprincipled associate in his
scheme? what would happen if Honor’s father should in some way or
other--Arthur had never gone the lengths of guessing _how_--play him at
the eleventh hour false?
These and sundry other such-like questions were easy enough--as
tormenting questions usually are--to ask, but the responses to them were
not in the present case forthcoming. Plodding on, with anything but a
young man’s elastic spring, Arthur wended his way to Hyde-park-gardens;
and grievous as the truth must seem, there was not, in the certainty
that one warm woman’s heart would throb with joy at his return, a drop
of balm to soothe the wounds from which he suffered. And reason good was
there that so it should be, for those wounds were of his own
inflicting--dealt by his own guilty hand, and not to be healed save by
the slow and painful process of repentance and atonement. Slowly, then,
and with a troubled spirit, this man, who to the world’s eye appeared
one of the most favoured of Fortune’s adopted darlings, proceeded on his
way. Arrived at the grand spacious house, with its marble portico, its
solid pillars, and its sculptured ornamentation, which he called his
home, he paused for a moment, looking up with some feeling of undefined
surprise at the more than usual amount of light which found its way
through the closed shutters of the several windows. Almost before,
however, he had time to lay his hand on the bell, the door was softly
opened by a servant who had evidently been on the watch for his arrival,
and a low voice--the voice of the hall-porter, softened and subdued in
compliment to the momentous occasion--informed the young master of the
house that Mrs. Vavasour had half an hour before given birth to a fine
boy, and was “as well as could” reasonably “be expected.”
CHAPTER XI.
FROM LIVELY TO SEVERE.
On the whole it was a relief to Arthur that _les convenances_, according
to old Dub’s view of the matter, stood in the way of his being an
eyewitness of Rough Diamond’s capabilities on the Derby-day. His first
feeling on hearing that Sophy’s trial was over, and that he had a
paternal interest in the small pink-faced fraction of humanity which the
nurse introduced to him as his son, had been one of unmixed
satisfaction. As he silently kissed the pale but wondrously contented
face of the young mother lying so still and motionless on the pillow,
Arthur’s heart was full for the moment of the purest happiness that it
had ever known; but the past--the inexorable and ever-pursuing
past--treading on the heels of the present, embittered his transient
joy, and destroyed, or at least darkened, all his prospects for the
future. Almost before he had left the bedside of his trusting and
silently rejoicing wife, the thought of the evil which a few short
hours might bring about struck through him with an icy chill, while
conscience with her probing pricks told him that he was unworthy of
life’s choicest blessings. For even then--even at the instant when his
mind and heart should have been wholly occupied with the fair young
mother of his child--a vision of his Irish love--of Honor’s sweet
caressing smile, and the exquisitely-moulded shoulders that had been,
but one short hour before, so dangerously near to his caressing
hand--rose up before him, and caused the bonds which united both him and
her to objects unbeloved to be hateful in his sight. On the following
morning old Mr. Duberly, in radiant spirits, and rejoicing over his
grandson with a delight which struck Arthur as almost puerile in its
character, gave his son-in-law plainly to understand that his place, for
that day at least, was one within call of his marital duties. To watch
by Sophy, to be ready if she should perchance express a wish to press
his hand, or gaze lovingly on his face, were privileges which the
affectionate old man would have found it hard to believe that Arthur
might prize less highly than he did himself. The circumstance of that
especial Wednesday being the Derby-day escaped his recollection
altogether. Being himself totally uninterested in sporting matters, the
idea that Arthur would by any possibility place the result of the great
race side by side as an affair of note with the all-important event of
the previous day, namely, the birth of his son and heir, would have
struck “old Dub” as simply ridiculous, and he was therefore quite
prepared for Arthur’s ready acquiescence in his views. The real truth
was, as we already know, that Vavasour’s interests were far indeed from
being centred on Epsom Downs. To gain _the_ race by means of his own
good horse, Rough Diamond, was certainly to him an affair of vital
importance; but, unaware of the fact that Honor had been taken from
Colonel Norcott’s house, and was already safe under her husband’s
protection, the desire to see her once again, by stealth or otherwise,
was stronger than any other feeling, and to remain in the neighbourhood
of the woman he adored was the dearest wish of his unregenerate heart.
Meanwhile, what was the reality regarding Honor Beacham’s whereabouts,
what her feelings, and how had her husband’s sudden exertion of marital
power affected her conduct?
The night-train by which she and John travelled homewards was due about
midnight at Leigh, at which town it stopped for a few hurried minutes
only, and then proceeded at express speed on its course south-westward.
Happily for Honor, they were not _tête-à-tête_ in their compartment.
Childlike, she caught at any delay, any postponement of the explanation
which was the inevitable consequence of her folly and--in some sort--her
falsehood. To keep back the truth--not to tell that “whole,” when on
that “whole” depends the _spirit_ of the facts left half undisclosed and
to be guessed at--is, disguise it, mystify ourselves with what sophistry
we may, _to lie unto our neighbour_, and to deceive the one who trusts
us. It was the consciousness that she had so lied and deceived, together
with a certain amount of uninvestigated self-reproach as regarded the
delight which Arthur Vavasour’s society had afforded her, that caused
Honor to shrink with nervous trepidation not only from her husband’s
questionings, but from the very sight of the keen-witted and
sharp-tongued old woman who already, as Honor had every reason to
believe, looked on her with no favourable eyes. Under these
circumstances, the presence in the carriage which they occupied of a
sleepy old gentleman and a wideawake young girl, who was in all
probability his daughter, was a relief not only to Honor but to John;
for he too, with all an honest, strong-nerved Englishman’s dislike to
tears and domestic tragedies, recoiled from the duty of saying harsh
words to the young wife, whose worst offence he felt inclined to
believe had been a love of hitherto undreamt-of gaieties, the
consequence of which very natural tastes was the sin--one of omission
rather than commission--of giving a false colouring to the state of
affairs in Stanwick-street.
Already, so kindly was the man’s nature, and so strong was his dislike
to being what he called “ill friends” with those about him,--already had
his displeasure begun to subside, and already had he begun to accuse
himself of harshness in thus summarily dealing out hard measures against
his wife. As she sat there silently by his side, the outline of her
perfect profile just visible under the scarlet hood of her opera-cloak,
and her pale lips quivering with the effort to conceal her emotion and
check the tears that from moment to moment were on the point of escaping
from their “briny bed,” it would have required but little to persuade
the strong man near her that in his dealings with that frail but fairest
flower he had been little better than a brute.
They were within a mile or two only of Leigh before the silence that
reigned between them was broken, and then it was John’s clear and rather
loud voice that awoke the elderly sleeper, and startled Honor from a
very perplexing and wretched train of thought.
“Twelve o’clock, all but two minutes,” Mr. Beacham said, replacing a
solid silver watch in his waistcoat-pocket. “We shall be at Leigh
directly, and if there doesn’t happen to be a fly there,” he added,
addressing himself more particularly to his wife, “we shall have to put
up at the Dragon. The old lady expects _me_, and Simmons will be there,
of course, with the trap; but you’d catch your death o’ cold without
wraps, and--”
“O, I don’t mind! What _does_ it signify?” Honor said impatiently, and
even, as it seemed to John, a trifle crossly: whereas the hasty-sounding
words were simply the result of the broken reverie, the seriousness of
which made the question of a covering more or less upon her shoulders
appear in the light of a very trivial affair indeed. Before, however, he
could make any rejoinder to her impetuously-spoken reply the speed began
to slacken, and a loud deafening “whistle” proclaimed the fact that
their journey’s end was reached, and that unless something like a
miracle were wrought in her favour, a very short period of time must in
the common course of things elapse before poor Honor would find herself
once more in the dreaded presence of her exacting and unloving
mother-in-law.
“Now, then, my dear,” John said _kindly_, as Honor thought and hoped,
when he returned to the train after a rapid investigation of the
waiting carriages; “now, then, come along! look sharp; there is a
fly--the one from the Dragon--so bundle in. It wouldn’t have done,” he
went on, after they were seated, and the windows closed to shut out the
night air, “to have kept mother up while I sent for this old rattletrap
from the inn. Mother’s put out enough as it is, and I don’t know--upon
my soul, I don’t--how she’ll take our coming in upon her like this. I
tell you what it is, Honor, my dear, you must try--indeed you must--to
pull better with the old lady. I thought you would at first; but somehow
everything seems to have gone wrong; and then this business--this
staying in London--and--”
He stopped abruptly at this crisis in his discourse,--stopped because,
his momentary passion being over, the old feeling of inferiority to his
wife, the undefinable consciousness of her refinement, her delicacy, her
“good blood,” her _ladyhood_, as opposed to his roughness and plebeian
birth, gained ground again, and checked the well-deserved reproaches
that were hovering on his lips. Had Honor been at that moment clad in
her customary dress of neatly-made linsey, had there been no blue
flowers in her rippling hair, and had there been no “jewelled cross”
glittering on her “snow-white breast,” John would have been twice the
man he was--twice the man, that is, in his power to speak out to his
young giddy wife the truth which it was good for her to know. But this
simple-minded rustic felt, as we all of us more or less have probably
done, the influence of show, of adornment, of superior dress, above all
of a soft, gentle _retenue_ of manner which puts to shame and utterly
condemns the violence of the more impulsive and the outspoken. Angry,
justly angry as he had so lately felt with Honor, John’s courage failed
him when he commenced to reason with her on her shortcomings, and he
paused, not knowing how to pursue a subject which could not fail to be
displeasing to the youthful beauty whom he had so lately seen the
admired of all beholders in the London playhouse. John little
guessed--well would it have been for all parties had it been
otherwise--what a very coward was at that moment the woman who, all
unconsciously to herself, was making a poltroon of him. Trembling,
shivering inwardly at the thought of the dreaded interview with her
stern and relentless judge, Honor would have given much at that moment
to have been certain of a friend and ally in her husband. It was her
ignorance on this point, and not, as John suspected, the increased
“fine-ladyism” which, unknown to herself, was evident in her air and
tone, that kept her silent, even from mild words of apology and
self-justification. Ashamed, frightened, and thoroughly detesting the
companionship to which her husband was about to condemn her, it was
little to be wondered at that John Beacham, believing her to have taken
refuge in a “fit of the sulks,” relapsed into a silence which lasted
till the wheels of the lumbering, misnamed vehicle, after grating for a
few seconds along the well-known gravel, came to a stand before the
ivy-covered porch of Pear-tree House.
If Hannah had seen that often-talked-of object of her awe and curiosity,
an actual ghost, she could hardly have been frightened into a more
violent start than that which jerked her stoutly-built person at the
sight of her young mistress.
“My good gracious me! Who ever would have thought it?” she exclaimed, as
she followed Honor’s lagging footsteps into the little parlour. “Why
missus never expected you, mum, not for a moment--and everything going
on so quiet! Dear, dear! it was only this very day as missus was a
saying--”
“O, I don’t want to know, Hannah,” said Honor wearily, as she threw
herself on a sofa, a degree harder (if possible) and more comfortless
than the one appertaining to the first-floor front in deeply-regretted
Stanwick-street. “Please not to tell me what Mrs. Beacham said. And
make me a cup of tea, will you? I am very tired, and I shiver so!”
She shuddered as she spoke, but that she did so was more from inward
cold than from the effects of the outer atmosphere. There was certainly
something terribly chilling to this young and impressionable creature in
the dingy, half-lighted room, with its dusky curtains, its faded carpet,
and, above all, the work-a-day table covered, as was its wont, with
evidences of the old lady’s unflagging industry--with piles of
house-linen, placed there in readiness for the morrow’s inspection, for
darning, marking, or the like; and with batches of John’s strong gray
socks--articles of toilet far more useful than ornamental. On these
uninteresting evidences of an active as well as a frugal mind a solitary
tallow-candle shed its feeble light; and Honor, from whose vivid
imagination the picture of the brilliant theatre with its dazzling
footlights and bright array of meretricious beauty had not altogether
faded away, gazed around with feelings nearly akin to loathing and
disgust.
A momentary gaze almost it was, for before she had time _quite_ to
realise the melancholy truth that she was at home, John had settled
accounts with the Leigh charioteer, and was once more by her side, and
speaking in subdued tones to Hannah, who, after the manner of her kind,
was bustling about, and making as much noise in the doing so as
possible.
“Don’t make more row than you can help, there’s a good woman,” John
whispered anxiously; “there’s no use in waking up the missus. Bring a
cup of tea, hot and strong, as quick as you can, and then take yourself
off to bed.”
Hannah made no reply to this exhortation, save by throwing a knowing
glance at Honor, which that bewildered young person did not even attempt
to comprehend. The mystery, however, did not take long to solve, for ere
another minute had elapsed there was the sound of a creaking step upon
the stairs, and Mrs. Beacham’s chronic cough (a cough which the doctors
said she would never lose but in her grave) heralded the approach of
Honor’s enemy.
Instinctively the young wife, as the gaunt figure of the old woman, clad
in the sternest of nightcaps and the most uncompromising of flannel
gowns, made its appearance in the doorway, turned an appealing face to
her husband, thus mutely claiming his protection and support.
Unfortunately, however, for this weak vessel, whose conscience was
assisting to render her a coward, the language of _looks_ was an unknown
one to single-eyed John Beacham. In addition also to this ignorance, it
would have been hard to make him understand that it was against his own
mother that Honor, in that piteous glance of hers, entreated that he
would array himself. He was experiencing at that moment one of the
effects of a long habit of filial obedience and respect, and that effect
was a real regret that his aged parent should have her rest disturbed,
and her mind harassed by his wife’s--to say the least of it--thoughtless
conduct. John’s affection for his mother was too deeply rooted to be
easily shaken; and though he had, for a passing moment, been softened,
quelled, subdued by his tenderness for his wife--though he had for a
short while forgotten that Honor had, in more ways than one, braved,
disobeyed, and utterly deceived him--yet, with the presence of the
respectable and unimpeachably virtuous woman who had first opened his
unwilling eyes to the culprit’s errors, the remembrance of those errors
crowded once more thick and fast upon him; so thick and fast that his
very face grew darker and more serious, whilst Mrs. Beacham, happily
unconscious that her appearance was not precisely a dignified one,
advanced slowly, candle in hand, into the room.
CHAPTER XII.
MRS. BEACHAM REFUSES TO FORGET.
“Well, mother,” John said airily, and with the laudable desire of making
things pass off with ease and comfort to all parties--“well, mother,
we’ve got Honor back again, you see; but I’m sorry you got up. I tried
to keep Hannah quiet, but she’s got a foot like a cart-horse, and a
voice like a peacock, hang her!”
“I wasn’t asleep, my dear,” sighed the old lady, seating herself with a
dignified air--the effect of which was slightly neutralised by the
above-named dressing-gown and cap--“I wasn’t asleep; it ain’t easy to be
with all that is going on;” and she folded her aged hands before her
with an air of patient resignation, which was not without its effect
upon poor John. For that excellent man, at this crisis of his hitherto
unexciting life, was really very greatly to be pitied. Longing, above
all things, for peace and quietness--loving his young wife with a deep
and passionate fondness, and sincerely wishing that his respected parent
might find a dutiful daughter in his precious Honor--it was to him a
terrible thought that a “scene” of some kind must inevitably take place
before matters could run smoothly again between his womankind.
“Mother,” he said desperately, “let bygones be bygones. Honor has been
foolish enough, I know, and she had better not have made things out
different from what they were; but there’s no manner of use hammering on
about what’s past and over. So, Honor--there’s a good girl--just tell
mother you’re sorry for what’s happened, and let us all be friends
again. It’s the best way, to my thinking, times and over.”
He laid his hand very lightly on his wife’s bare shoulder as he spoke,
giving the slightest of impulses to his touch; but, to his dismay,
Honor, instead of obeying that impulse, recoiled from the pressure of
his hand, and said in a low tone, but resolutely:
“I have done no harm. I am sorry, of course, if she is angry; but, John,
you do not know--if you did, you would understand it all better--what
your mother wrote to me. I would do anything for you--I would, indeed,”
she added passionately; “but _she_ hates me--she always did; and I will
not--no, I _will_ not humble myself before her!”
“You _will_ not? There’s for you!” cried the indignant old woman, roused
to fury by Honor’s resistance to her husband’s wishes. “Didn’t I tell
you how it would be? Didn’t I say that you had got rather more than you
could manage in milady there? Why, only to look at her is enough, and
more than enough for me. If _you_ call _that_”--and she pointed with a
fierce trembling finger at Honor’s polished shoulders--“if you call
_that_ the dress of a modest woman, why you are a bigger fool, John,
than I took you for. I should have liked to see _my_ husband’s face if
_I_ had made such a wanton of myself as to--”
“Come, come, mother, enough said,” interposed John. “I don’t like the
way that young women get themselves up nowadays a bit better than you
do; but she’s in the fashion--Honor is, and anyway I won’t have her
called hard names even by you.--Honey, my dear,” he went on more gently,
as he noticed his wife’s quivering lip, “you mustn’t be so foolish as to
think what you said just now. Mother doesn’t hate you; she couldn’t be
so wicked, letting alone that you’re not one that the worst woman--which
God knows she isn’t--could dislike. So, now _do_, for Heaven’s sake, let
us have done with it all. You’re looking as pale and as cold”--wrapping
the opera-cloak round her carefully, in order to conceal the smooth
white shoulders which were so obnoxious in his mother’s sight--“as cold
as death, my dear. Here, take a cup of tea; and, mother, suppose you
have a drop of something warm?--Here, Hannah, bring in the
‘matarials’--as Joe Connor calls ’em--and let’s make ourselves
comfortable.”
His voice--it was a very pleasant one at all times--sounded loud and
cheerful through the ill-lighted room--it was a voice that his old
mother dearly loved to hear; but, just then, so uncongenial were her own
feelings, and so hardened was her heart against the girl whom she
_really_ believed to be “gay and giddy,” if not worse, that she refused
to be softened by her son’s cordial tones.
“You may do as you please,” she said, rising in what was intended for a
stately manner from her chair, “but _I_ shall not remain in the same
room with Mrs. John. Hate her, indeed! I never heard such words. ‘He
that hateth his brother is a murderer!’--and nobody before ever evened
me to that. I wish you good-night, John; and I hope that God will give
you both better thoughts. I may forgive--but it isn’t likely I should
forget.”
The door closed behind the jealous wrong-headed old woman; and John,
preparing mechanically to mix his nightly jorum of weak
brandy-and-water, heaved a more weary sigh than had often escaped his
lips. There was something touching in the sound--proceeding as it did
from one so habitually (at least to outward semblance) cheerful and
_insouciant_--and Honor, hearing it, suddenly felt penitent and
sympathetic.
“I am so sorry,” she said softly. “I know I was wrong--and, John, I
should be so much happier if your mother would be kind to me. It was
more that--I mean more because of her--that I seemed to care to stay
away--I--”
“There, there, my dear,” he said, his arm round her waist, and drawing
her towards him tenderly, “don’t bother yourself any more about it. We
must all try to bear and forbear; and mother is old now--and old people
have their fancies. You, poor little thing,” gazing pityingly on the wet
eyelashes that swept her pallid cheeks, “I would make you happy, God
knows, if I could. You are such a child still--and somehow, it seems to
me that you were not made for this rough life of ours;” and John,
loosening the hand that pressed the slender waist, sighed again even
more discontentedly than before.
CHAPTER XIII.
ARTHUR CHEERS UP.
The news that John Beacham had carried his wife into the country,
without even allowing that ill-used young woman to return to
Stanwick-street, was communicated on the following morning by Colonel
Norcott to his young friend, to whom he wrote a hurried note as follows:
“Only fancy! John Beacham, after behaving like a bear, carried off
my poor girl, just as she was, to Updown. I had half a mind to
interfere; but the Derby before everything! We shall meet on the
course, I suppose. If not, at the club afterwards. Good luck to
Rough Diamond, and to us! We are in the same boat. Sink or
swim?--with me, at least.
“Yours in haste,
“F. N.”
Many hours sped by after the receipt by Arthur of this note ere the
important telegram arrived which told the world remaining in London
which horse had won “the race.” In spite of his mad love for Honor
Beacham, Arthur Vavasour heard the news with all-absorbing rapture.
There were “take-offs,” it is true, from his joy. He was deprived of the
pleasure of openly revelling in the fact that a horse of his had won the
Derby by a head. Rough Diamond, running in the name of Colonel Norcott,
was generally supposed to be the _bonâ-fide_ property of that fortunate
individual; but although he could not hold his head high as the owner of
a Derby winner, Arthur could, and did, rejoice with exceeding joy over
the result of the race. He was, virtually, free from the debts of honour
which had so long oppressed and disgraced him. The sale of the winner to
the highest bidder would enable him to walk once more with a free step,
and boldly, amongst the young men his fellows. That the heir-apparent of
so fine a property as Gillingham Chace should have been reduced to such
shifts, and have suffered from such pecuniary anxieties as had sometimes
rendered sleepless the luxurious couch of Arthur Vavasour, may seem to
some an abnormal, if not, indeed, an impossible, state of things; but it
must be remembered, in the first place, that the heir to many thousands
per annum had been but for a short period legally “of age;” and in the
next, that the raising of money by that individual would have been at
all times--in consequence of Lady Millicent’s well-known intention to
dispute her father’s will--an affair very difficult of arrangement. Ever
since his purchase of John Beacham’s powerful and, as his former
owner--one of the best judges in England--boldly affirmed, most
promising colt, Arthur had seen, with the confident eye of youth, a
limit to the annoyance which had so long pressed upon his spirits. They
had been very good-natured to him, those sporting friends of his to whom
he owed some fifty, some a hundred, and _one_ more hundreds than it was
pleasant to remember. They had bided their time. Arthur Vavasour had
been such a mere lad when he became their debtor, and the men were,
without an exception, far older, both in years and experience, than Lady
Millicent’s thoughtless son; so, as I said, they had treated the young
man tenderly. No cold shoulders had been turned to him either at the
clubs or on the racecourse; and Arthur, thankful for the indulgence, was
doubly glad of the opportunity which his success afforded him of paying
with grateful thanks those who, somewhat singular to say, had not ceased
to be his friends.
Five minutes had scarcely elapsed after Arthur read the welcome
telegram, when he betook himself to the gratifying business of
preparing for his long-delayed settling-day. His first act was to put
himself in indirect communication with the sporting earl who, as all the
world was well aware, possessed a purse long enough to gratify his
lordship’s desire to become possessor of the Derby winner; and his next
object of interest was the promised visit of Colonel Norcott, who,
although he did not greatly admire his character, had, both as the
nominal owner of Rough Diamond and the father of Honor Beacham, peculiar
claims on his time and attention. Very early on that day, and soon after
receiving Fred Norcott’s billet, he had despatched a note to that
gentleman’s abode, and in that note he had informed his friend of the
interesting domestic reason of his absence on the previous day from
Tattenham Corner on that all-important occasion.
“I will call in Stanwick-street about nine P.M.,” so wrote the
newly-made father, “when I hope to find you at home, and shall be truly
glad if there is good news for us in the interim.” Arthur was well
pleased to escape a meeting at “the club,” _id est_, _his_ club, with
Colonel Norcott. That gentleman was in the habit--a propensity which was
rather annoying to Arthur Vavasour--of showing off, at the Travellers’,
his intimacy with the popular young heir of Gillingham, the former being
well aware that he stood on unsafe ground, and that it behoved him to
make the most of such respectable acquaintances as fade, or rather
conduct, had left him. The indomitable Fred, not content with linking
his arm within that of Arthur Vavasour, when the two chanced to meet in
the haunts of fashionable men and women, would, whenever he could either
seize or make an opportunity for so doing, parade his acquaintanceship
with his young friend in the most unwarrantable manner. It was in order
to prevent a repetition of this inconvenience that Arthur Vavasour (who
would probably have been more careful of hurting the Colonel’s vanity
had Honor Beacham still remained under his protection) indited the
epistle above alluded to, namely, that which appointed Stanwick-street
as a place of rendezvous between himself and the owner of his most
cherished secret. Well aware of the fact that Colonel Norcott, who
belonged to no regular “club,” but only to a sporting _réunion_ of
doubtful respectability, was in the habit of making the best of his
lodging-house dinner at home, Arthur Vavasour entertained but little
doubt of finding his middle-aged friend (whose health, albeit he would
have strenuously denied the fact, was beginning to betray some of the
consequences of an ill-spent life) resting from the excitement of the
day in the bosom, so-called by courtesy, of his family.
Sophy--the happy, grateful Sophy--watched over by loving eyes, and
surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries that wealth could procure,
was “going on,” as the hall-porter was now officially instructed to say,
“as well as could possibly be expected.” Old Duberly, whose heart, in
spite of the strength of his prejudices, had in it some very soft and
tender spots, had as yet only partially recovered from the state of
almost frantic ecstasy into which the birth of his grandson and the
certainty of his daughter’s safety had thrown him. It is true that he no
longer insisted upon shaking hands (each time that he encountered them
on the stairs or in the passages) with Arthur, the doctor, or maybe the
nurse--anyone and everyone, in short, who could by any possibility
sympathise with his grandpaternal joy. He was less demonstrative, and
more quietly thankful to the God of all mercies for the great blessing
that He had bestowed upon him; but for all that he was more outwardly
composed; the old man’s inward condition--whether sleeping or waking,
alone or in company with his fellow-rejoicer by Sophy’s bedside--was one
of exceeding gratitude and bliss.
“I am thinking of going out for an hour, sir,” Arthur said, suppressing
with some difficulty one of the troublesome and desperate yawns which a
lengthened dialogue with his respected father-in-law was apt to induce.
“Sophy is asleep, the nurse says, and I want to stretch my legs and have
a smoke.”
Mr. Duberly, who as a rule was rather an enemy to the favourite vice of
the day, and who had sometimes felt a little jealous when he had seen
his “girl’s” white fingers busy in Arthur’s tobacco-jar, and pressing
down with her dainty thumb the _weed_ into her husband’s meerschaum, was
at that especial moment in too good a humour not only with Arthur, but
with the world in general, for any idea of opposition to enter his
brain.
“Want a smoke, do you, eh?” he said good-humouredly. “I don’t know what
you young fellows are made of to stand drawing so much poison into your
lungs. And what you’ll all be like when you come to be my age is more
than I can guess. But get along with you, boy--only don’t be long, for
Sophy may wake up and want to say ‘good-night.’ _I_ shall be in the
_boudore_ though, ready, if anything’s wanted.” And so saying, the
doating old man, gathering up his spectacles, and the newspaper which he
was in the habit of digesting with his dinner, a meal which at that
moment sat--if the truth must be told--rather heavily on his stomach,
toddled out of the room, to pass a dozy hour or two within hearing of
his daughter’s gentle voice.
Meanwhile Arthur--his heart, despite of pretty Honor’s absence, lighter
than it had been for months--wended his way with the brisk step which is
so sure a sign of youth and good spirits to not-far-distant
Stanwick-street. As he approached the house he experienced a slight
feeling of depression at the thought that it no longer contained the
lovely woman by whom he fondly believed that his passion was more than
beginning to be reciprocated. It was a melancholy fact, too, that as
matters at present stood between him and John Beacham, there seemed
little hope of resuming those _friendly_ relations with the Paddocks
which had been so fraught with happiness to himself, and, as he hoped,
to the wife of his trusting friend. To the chapter of accidents only
could Arthur--with the sanguine expectations of youth (of youth
especially when backed by good looks and a winning tongue)--look, with
any well-grounded hope, that his luck would in this instance befriend
him, and point the way for further attempts to--what? Why to _ruin_,
soul and body, the still innocent creature, the possession of whose
beauty would soon be to him a worthless toy, and who, but for his
selfish pursuit, might still be a valued wife and a happy woman in the
sphere in which Providence had placed her.
As Arthur Vavasour stood on the doorstep of the house which only a few
short hours before contained the being who possessed the terrible power
of inducing within him the forgetfulness of his most sacred duties, keen
regret for her loss was within his breast a stronger sensation than the
satisfaction with his present lot, as regarded the relief from his
dishonouring obligations which, in some natures, _might_ have superseded
all other and less commonplace considerations.
“He will know nothing more about _her_,” was the thought that most
occupied Arthur Vavasour when the door opened, and Lydia, more off-hand
even and coquettishly dressed than usual, stood before him with the
handle in her hand, barring, as it almost seemed--though _that_ could
hardly be, so intimate was Arthur in that unaspiring lodging-house--his
further passage to the Colonel’s presence.
“There’s a note for you, sir,” the parlour-maid said, in answer to
Arthur’s look of surprised inquiry; “they’ve gone out of town, both of
’em, and the Colonel said I was to give you the letter when you comed.
I’ll run and fetch it if you’ll be so good as wait.” And so saying
Lydia skipped away down the “back stairs” leading to the regions below;
while Arthur, with a vague sense of uneasiness creeping slowly over him,
silently, but not over patiently, awaited her return.
CHAPTER XIV.
ARTHUR FINDS HIMSELF DONE.
The letter produced, after five minutes’ delay, by the faithful Lydia,
ran as follows:
“MY DEAR VAVASOUR,--You will be surprised to find that I have
_absquattulated_. Beggars mustn’t be choosers, and I should have
been only too glad if circumstances had allowed of my remaining in
England; but the fact is, I made a bad business of my book--hedged,
and that kind of thing; so, having no chance left but to sell Rough
Diamond, I did it on the nail. My beastly creditors have made
London too hot to hold me, and as debts are transferable in these
days, and be hanged to them! I must keep dark for the present, or
they’ll have me in _quod_ in some confounded foreign place or
other. Of course you are an exception; and when I am settled
anywhere you shall hear from me. The missus desires to be kindly
remembered. Nothing new about Honor--the man is a brute. Ta-ta, old
fellow, and believe me yours truly,
“F. NORCOTT.”
Arthur, after making himself master of the contents of this flippant
epistle, stood for a moment like one turned, after the manner of Lot’s
wife of old, into a statue.
“When did they go?” he said at last. “I came by appointment; this must
have been quite a sudden start. G--! I can’t understand it! Gone, do you
say? Impossible!”
Miss Lydia sniggered conceitedly at this assertion.
“The Colonel never came back at all,” she said; “he sent for Mrs.
Norcott--or else they’d settled it between them afore, which missus she
thinks they did. Any way, Mrs. Norcott she packed up, and paid all that
was owing the first thing this morning, and by two o’clock she was off,
and missus, she had the bill put up at onst.”
To this short but lucid explanation Arthur listened as one who heareth
not. The melancholy truth that he had--in vulgar parlance--been _done_
was beginning to dawn upon his mind. That Fred Norcott--base and
unprincipled as he suspected him to be--could have the unparalleled
audacity to deny and ignore the fact of his (Arthur’s) ownership of the
Derby winner was, however, almost too wonderful to be true. His estimate
of Honor Beacham’s father, though about as low a one as it is possible
for one person to entertain about another, did nevertheless fall short
of believing this man capable of actual felony. That he had trusted him
so completely--had confided so entirely in the honour of his associate,
was alone a sufficient proof that he did not consider Fred Norcott to be
capable of an act of fraud. The transfer of Rough Diamond from Arthur’s
ownership to the nominal possession of the quondam cavalry officer had
been made in a decidedly loose and unbusiness-like manner--the very
nature of the transaction necessitating to a certain extent this
unsatisfactory mode of proceeding. There was a secret to be kept--a
secret which was of vital importance to the well-being of one of the
contracting parties--and therefore it followed that “all things” were
not, on this occasion, “done decently and in order.”
The suspicion, that was destined gradually to become a settled belief in
Arthur’s mind, that the man in whose power he knew himself to be was a
villain of the least creditable die, was anything but agreeable.
Pondering on this certainty, he, as he sauntered with lingering steps
towards the splendid home which, in right of his wife, he called his
own, felt about as unhappy a young aristocrat as ever trod the broad
flagstones of the Tyburnian pavement. His furious indignation against
the rascal by whom he had been deceived passes the bounds of
description. Had Fred Norcott chanced at that moment to present himself
within his reach, there is no saying to what lengths the passion of the
younger man might have led him. But happily the Colonel--his faithful
wife by his side, his ill-gotten gains in his pocket, and his unrepented
sins upon his head--was far away by that time--far away to the land
where roguery is at a premium, and cheating is dignified by the
agreeable name of “smartness”--to the land where to be a villain is no
disgrace, and where every sin save that of failure is condoned and
pardoned.
* * * * *
“Now, Atty, let me look at you again--I am sure that something is the
matter--_quite_ sure. Daddy dear, doesn’t Arthur look worried? And he
_will_ go out so early. I thought you _would_ stay just a tiny half-hour
till I have had my arrowroot, but--”
“Stay, dear--of course I will, if you wish it,” Arthur replied in answer
to his wife’s appeal, spoken in the low and feeble voice which made her
faintest wish a law.
“I _was_ going out on business, but I can put it off till the
afternoon,” and he tried to speak as if the sacrifice were no sacrifice,
and as if acting the part of deputy sick-nurse was quite in the usual
course of events for a young man about town, who had but lately
completed his twenty-second year.
Sophy was, as I have said, the least selfish of human beings--she would
at all times have been ready to make any sacrifice for those she loved;
but a young heiress smiling over her first-born babe may be pardoned if
for once in her life she failed to see that her exacting wishes
militated against those of her husband, and if, while she rejoiced over
the happy consciousness of his devotion, she forgot that he might have
other duties to perform and other interests at stake than the one to
which her entreaty had devoted him.
It was late in the afternoon before Arthur Vavasour, seizing the
opportunity of a sound sleep into which the invalid had fallen, stole
from the pretty morning-room adjoining that where his wife lay, stepping
softly; for old Duberly--who dearly loved, after the fashion of the
aged, to _talk_--might, had he heard his step upon the stairs, have
intercepted his departure, and, slipping his bald head out of the
half-opened study-door, have chained him--an unwilling listener--for an
hour at least, in the close and stuffy atmosphere of his private
sanctum.
At that moment, with his brain positively whirling with suppressed
excitement, and with the fever caused by anxiety and suspense boiling
in his veins, Arthur felt that, had he been stopped by his respected
father on his outward way, he would have been capable of laying violent
hands upon that well-meaning but officious personage. To rush into the
fresh air--to throw himself into a passing hansom--to be carried as fast
as wheels could bear him to the first emporium of sporting news where he
was likely to obtain authentic intelligence regarding the respective
fates of Rough Diamond and the Colonel--were the ends that Arthur
Vavasour had in view while stepping on tiptoe down the broad stone
staircase, with a flushed face, and a heart that beat fast with
long-controlled emotion. The heaviness that had endured through the
night (for, for the first time in his life, Arthur had been kept awake
by care) was not succeeded by the joy which “cometh in the morning,”
and--during the weary hours that he had passed, book in hand, on the
luxurious sofa, among the pretty and expensive nicknacks which adorned
his wife’s boudoir--the heir to countless thousands had given himself up
to the most disastrous convictions regarding his future fate. To his
then thinking--and he too soon discovered that his forebodings had not
overstepped the truth--it seemed the most probable of misfortunes that
Frederick Norcott, taking advantage of the carelessly-effected contract
regarding the Derby colt, had shamelessly appropriated to his own use
the proceeds of the sale of that invaluable animal. That the man who had
sunk so deep in the mire of infamy would hesitate a moment to make
merchandise of the secret which he was well aware his dupe and victim
was keenly desirous to preserve, Arthur could neither hope nor believe.
He was in the power--poor young fellow!--(and miserably did he shudder
under the disgraceful yoke)--of one of the most unprincipled genteel
villains that ever walked about in well-made boots and broadcloth,
and--a grievance for the moment still more keenly felt--his debts of
honour--those debts which he had hoped and intended by the sale of the
Derby winner to discharge--would still remain unpaid, whilst he, under
the cloud which his own folly had gathered above his head, must endure,
with such patience as he could muster, the consequences of a bad man’s
guilt.
It took but little time, and a very few inquiries, to make sure of the
fact that Colonel Norcott, with whom no respectable sporting man (a
degradation of which Arthur was ignorant, so blind had his passion for
Honor made him) would bet--it took but little time, I say, to make sure
of the, at first, only floating news, to wit, that the nominal owner of
Rough Diamond, after securing the amount paid by Lord Penshanger for
that illustrious animal, had left England for foreign parts. Where he
had gone, no one appeared able to divulge; nor did the ascertaining of
the chosen spot to which he had betaken himself appear a matter of
importance to the greatest sufferer by Colonel Norcott’s disappearance.
Arthur knew enough of law to be convinced that, even were it possible
for him to brave the consequences of irritating Fred’s not-over-placable
disposition, the law could in this case do little or nothing towards the
recovery of the stolen cash. It was horribly provoking--annoying to a
scarcely endurable extent, and the more unendurable from the
circumstance that to no human being could he venture to pour forth the
history of his wrongs; but there was, alas, no help for it. If it should
ever chance that his lucky stars might place him within arm’s-reach of
the “swindler,” whose real character was now laid bare before him, why,
then--and Arthur (who was the man to keep such an oath both to the
letter and in the spirit) swore a vow between his clenched teeth, that
if Frederick Norcott left his hands alive, it was about as much as that
ignoble personage could reasonably expect.
CHAPTER XV.
MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY.
On his return home, two hours later, and after gleaning all the slender
information in his power regarding the proceedings of his enemy,
Arthur--his pocket full of certain ugly-looking letters which he had
found to his address at the Travellers’--was in anything but a
quietly-domestic frame of mind. With the exception of Honor--whose
lovely eyes, as he had last seen them, tearful and full of piteous
pleading--the idea of contact with no single human creature with whom he
was connected afforded him the slightest pleasure. On the contrary, the
thought of his young wife, ready, longing even to throw her weak white
arms round his neck, was positively distasteful to him; the prospect of
listening to old Dub’s paternal twaddle he turned from with disgust;
whilst the feeble cry of his one-day old heir-apparent was likely to
awaken no responsive feelings in his agitated breast. On the whole, the
state of feeling in which Arthur Vavasour found himself on that bright
May afternoon may be described as a reckless one. He was soured,
discontented, almost despairing. Lines of care were deepening on his
brow, and it needed not the fresh blow that awaited him in
Hyde-park-terrace to convince Arthur Vavasour that he was doomed to
misfortune, and marked out for a large share of the miseries to which
flesh is heir.
“A letter that looks like business,” Mr. Duberly said, as his son-in-law
opened a missive of large dimensions, sealed with a big seal, and
altogether portentous of aspect. “From the lawyers,” continued the old
man, “ain’t it?”
Mr. Duberly took a great and very natural interest in the law-suit which
was in progress between Lady Millicent Vavasour and her next heir. He
did not like, or, rather, he did positively dislike the haughty woman
who had never treated _him_ with the simple civility due from one
educated individual to another, and who now, in old Dub’s opinion, was
conducting herself not only with a very blamable absence of natural
motherly feeling, but with what the good man considered in the light of
something very like dishonesty. According to his old-fashioned ideas,
the will of a dead man was a sacred thing, a document not to be lightly
set aside, and, above all, not to be set aside for reasons of cupidity,
self-interest, or love of power on the part of the pleader. In his
opinion there were stringent and reciprocal duties, binding alike the
parent and the child; and that foolish, prejudiced old Dub could as
little understand Lady Millicent’s conduct towards her offspring, as he
could excuse her disrespectful and aggressive acts as regarded the dead
earl her father.
Without being possessed of any inordinate fondness for wealth, Andrew
Duberly was nevertheless keenly desirous that Lady Millicent should not
succeed in the difficult and arduous task that she had undertaken. He
was entirely ignorant of the points of law which might or might not be
brought to bear favourably on her case, and was well aware that, in the
event of her obtaining judgment in her favour, Arthur’s mother would
certainly not be inclined to treat her eldest son with any marked
liberality. But it was not for that cause--or, rather, to be entirely
honest--it was not for that cause only, that Andrew Duberly hoped and
trusted that Earl Gillingham’s will should remain _in statu quo_, and
that milady should, to use his own expression, be pulled down a peg from
the high horse she was so fond of mounting. The real reason for the
fervour of zeal into which he had worked himself might be sought for,
however, as is so often the case, in personal motives. Lady Millicent
had wounded and mortified both himself and the child he loved; which
being the case, it was only natural that the old millionaire, excellent
Christian though he was, should have viewed with complacency the
possible chances of her discomfiture.
“Well?” said Mr. Duberly interrogatively, for the terms on which he
lived with his son-in-law warranted the reality as well as the
appearance of curiosity,--“well, what says the enemy? We’re never going
to say die, eh? I’ll tell you what, Arthur; rather than that, I’d pay
five thousand pounds for you to the lawyers--five thousand! I’d pay ten
to help keep your rights. It isn’t the money, but the principle that I
think so much of. But, I say, what _does_ the old quill-driver write to
you about? Let’s see the letter; or if you’d rather not, I--”
“O no, sir; take it. It isn’t that, but it’s all such a beastly bore.
You see he says that Houndsford’s opinion is against my chance; and if
it is, what’s the use of not giving in? I don’t like the scandal of the
thing, fighting a case against one’s own mother; and--”
“Stuff and nonsense, boy; it’s milady’s doing, and not yours. It’s _her_
that’s setting it all a-going; and if you’ll take my advice, you’ll not
give in till you’re obliged to. However, there’s time enough to talk of
that by and by. Sophy’s been asking for you more than once, poor girl,
whilst you was away; and as for the boy, he’s been holloring like a good
’un. _His_ lungs are sound enough, at any rate, bless him!” And
“grandpapa,” after fixing his gold spectacles once more upon his nose,
returned to the perusal of the newspaper, in which his soul delighted.
Perhaps among the minor difficulties of social life there are none which
are more often or more painfully felt than that almost insurmountable
one of concealing from the watchful eyes of affection the heavy cares
and inward anxieties from which we may be suffering. By the weaker sex,
who are trained from infancy to the art of hiding their feelings under
the cloak of reticence and decorum, the task is comparatively an easy
one. Almost unconsciously, and as an affair of habit, they daily
practise it, till practice makes perfect, and art becomes to them a
second, and sometimes a more winning and graceful nature. But with men
it is widely different. Even the best performers among them are apt to
forget, to stumble over, or to overact their parts; and though they may
sometimes succeed in deceiving one of their own sex, it rarely happens
that the least observant of the other does not possess the moderate
clear-sightedness requisite to lay a finger on the truth at once.
Conscious as he was of this masculine imperfection, and well aware that
he could not keep up before his wife the appearance of a contentment
which he was far from feeling, it was a relief to Arthur that the
autocratic guardian of his wife’s health--the stout, somniferous lady,
who looked the higher order of monthly nurse all over--objected strongly
to any conversation taking place between her patient and the
inexperienced young husband, who was “so attentive, bless you,” as she
said afterwards to the Mrs. Harris of her elevated sphere, and who was
“one of the best of ’usbands to the nicest young lady she had ever
nussed.”
Nor did Sophy, in her “mother’s prime of bliss,” desire and crave for
more than the privilege of looking at her well-loved Arthur’s handsome
face, of pressing very softly and tenderly the dear hand that held her
own, and of murmuring into his bent-down ear that she was very, very
happy.
“Isn’t he a darling?” she whispered, alluding to the precious object of
her new-found hopes; “I am sure--quite sure, though nurse said he
didn’t--that he looked at me just now. You can see his dear little face.
There!” And that Arthur might enjoy this privilege, the happy young
creature turned away a few inches of the bedcovering, gazing down the
while with touching fondness on her sleeping treasure.
And Arthur--who really was goodnatured, and who, but for the anxieties
and annoyances which were oppressing him, would probably have been
almost as contented and joyous as herself--did his best to seem
interested in the small atom of humanity which he could hardly bring
himself to believe he had the right to call his son; but smile and
flatter tenderly as he might, Sophy, with the intuitive perception that
love alone can give, heard a something in his voice which told her that
all was not as it should be with the father of her child.
“Now, Atty,” she said, pressing his hand to her soft lips, “you have
been teased and worried again, I know you have, by something or
somebody. It isn’t poor papa, is it, dear? I daresay he is tiresome,
poor old man, just now; but you musn’t mind. It is all so new to him,
you know, and he thinks baby such a wonderful thing.”
“Well, and so he is,” Arthur said with a smile, which quite reassured
the young mother, who was so willing to see everything _en rose_, “and
your father is a brick, and doesn’t bore me the least in life. What made
you fancy such nonsense, you foolish child? O, I’m to go, am I? I wish
we had you downstairs again, dear. The governor and I miss you
dreadfully at dinner. By Jove, there’s the bell, and I haven’t even
washed my hands--all your fault, Fee,” and he left her with the memory
of another kiss to brighten her hours of silence.
Poor, gentle, unsuspicious Sophy! She little guessed the troubled heart,
the wearisomeness of spirit, on which the door of that spacious chamber
closed when Arthur Vavasour went out from her presence. She loved the
man who only liked, respected, _cared_ for her, with a passion almost
equal to _his_ for the beautiful woman of whose very existence the
trusting wife had ceased to think; loved him with a love which was
rapidly superseding, crushing, nay well-nigh annihilating with its rapid
and luxuriant growth the lowlier flowerets of a daughter’s
tenderness--flowerets that had grown with her growth and strengthened
with her strength till such time as the stronger seed was sown, the
produce of which was destined, according to the law of nature, to
suppress, if not indeed actually to destroy, the weaker herbage amongst
which it had chanced to take root and flourish. Already was this girl,
the child of a doting father, apologising for and more than
half-regretting the presence of that father in the home which the old
man’s excessive fondness for herself might render less agreeable to her
husband; already she was giving to Arthur proofs, open and
unrestrained, that he, and he alone, reigned paramount in her
affections; and could the loving old man, to whom she was all in all,
have looked into the young heart he thought he knew so well, the father
would have learned there some very bitter truths. For the ignorance that
was bliss to him, Andrew Duberly paid afterwards a heavy price. The wish
to believe in what rendered him a happy man was father to the joyful
thought that in his daughter’s affections her young and handsome husband
held but a secondary place, and in that belief old Dub continued to his
dying hour. But a day of reckoning--a day which, in the full flush, in
the almost fever of his prime of bliss, the millionaire was far as are
the poles asunder from anticipating--was, alas, very near at hand! The
day of retribution for time misspent and wasted, for wealth abused, for
golden opportunities neglected, for benefits unthankfully enjoyed,
for--to sum up all--the myriad sins which render it no easy thing for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Yes, the day of
retribution for the minor and unnoticed sins of this “just man” was near
at hand; but in the mean time not a care oppressed him, nor did a single
foreboding of evil to come mar his keen enjoyment of the present.
The game at picquet with Arthur, who, poor fellow, was all the while
wishing his father-in-law, if not exactly in his grave, at least a
hundred miles away, was played by this light-hearted grandpapa with a
zest and spirit which set Arthur (who was at that time taking rather a
gloomy view of human life) wondering how any man in his senses could
have lived to the age of three-score years and ten without having
arrived at the conclusion that all things (including a dull game with
painted pasteboard) here below are, with no single exception, only
vanity and vexation of spirit.
CHAPTER XVI.
OUT AT SEA.
The sun rose bright and cloudless on the day following Honor’s return;
and John Beacham, whose hands were, as usual, brimful of business, and
who moreover had decided, after a short consultation with himself, that
his womankind were more likely to come to a good understanding without
him, betook himself, immediately after breakfast, to the hay-fields,
which were ripe for the scythe, and only waited the master’s fiat to lie
in promising swaths upon the rich meadow-land which called John Beacham
owner.
Honor saw him depart with a weary sigh. The prospect of a lengthened
_tête-à-tête_ with the stern old lady, whose brow never relaxed for a
passing moment from its rigidity, and who had not even vouchsafed a
distant “good-morning” in answer to her civil greeting, was a penance
which it almost made her blood run cold to think of. Her own
courage--the temporary boldness which was the offspring of hurt feeling
and great but temporary excitement--had oozed out either at the ends of
her taper fingers, or with the tears with which she had watered her
morning pillow. When she found herself alone with her dreaded foe, poor
Honor had not--as the saying goes--a word to throw at a dog; she was in
the mood to cry her eyes out, and in the temper to long earnestly for
pity and tenderness. One kind and encouraging word, one look even of
sympathy, would have brought the poor thing on her knees before her
natural enemy, and all might have been well between the pair whom God
had joined together in bonds that nought save sin could sever.
For three days--three miserable days--during which John, engrossed by
business cares, and hoping, as sanguine men in spite of appearances
will, that all would come right at last, appeared to take no notice of
the silence only broken by sarcastic speeches, and by the “talking at”
(which to some women is a positive accomplishment) on his mother’s part,
which reigned between her and Honor--during those three miserable days,
the seeds destined to produce very bitter fruit were being sown with
terrible certainty in Honor Beacham’s breast. She was the last woman in
the world to endure without evil consequences the description of torture
to which she was being subjected. Fond of popularity--eager to be
loved--impulsive--passionate if you will, this girl, who could only be
what she called angry for a passing moment, would, for anyone who, to
use her own expression, have been “kind to her,” have been the most
docile and tenderest of friends and dependents.
But unfortunately--_most_ unfortunately, as the sequel will prove--it
was not in Mrs. Beacham’s nature to forgive. She believed herself to be
a Christian; she thought, so little did she know her own feelings, that
she harboured neither malice nor hatred in her heart, but all the while
there was scarcely a harder (and certainly there could scarcely be a
harder _seeming_) idiosyncrasy than that which was owned by this
_soi-disant_ believer in the Christian faith. Mercy for Honor--pity for
the wicked wife who had shown herself so false and flighty--she had
none. The pale delicate face, bending over her woman’s-work, appealed to
this unrelenting woman’s heart in vain. The days--even supposing them
ever to have existed--when Mrs. Beacham knew what temptation was, had
long since passed away, and were forgotten; all she remembered was that
_she_ had through all her married life been blameless, industrious, and
submissive, and that these virtues endowed her with the right to be the
judge and condemner of others was neither to be removed nor shaken.
Poor Honor, poor little impressionable, impulsive girl! Her spirits felt
very heavy, and her heart beat with almost painful quickness when, on
the fourth morning after her compulsory return, Mrs. Beacham brought her
work (it was her first time of doing so) and established herself
alarmingly near to the broad old-fashioned window-seat, Honor’s favorite
and accustomed working-place. Dragging after her the big sheet on which
she was about to perform the housewifely operation of “turning,” her
tortoiseshell spectacles fixed on her keen hawklike nose, John’s mother
did indeed appear in the light of a terrible object to her timid and
easily-subdued daughter-in-law. Honor did not possess (and well she knew
her weakness) the courage requisite for self-defence; and during the
short period of silence which followed on Mrs. Beacham’s establishment
of herself in front of her own special little work-table, Honor, had she
dared, would gladly have taken flight, and betaking herself to her room,
have there waited in silence and solitude for her husband’s return. But
to make this move required an amount of hardihood of which poor Honor
was utterly incapable. She felt entirely subdued--oppressed beyond the
power of description, by the very presence of her mother-in-law.
Whatever resolutions--whatever plans of resistance she might have
formed whilst alone, or in the presence only of her husband, faded away
entirely when those light-gray, aged, but still penetrating eyes were
fixed upon her, and when she knew with the intuition of fear that Mrs.
Beacham was about to give her what is vulgarly called a “piece of her
mind.”
The dreaded exordium began after this fashion:
“When you was a child, Mrs. John,” the old lady said, pushing up her
spectacles and peering at Honor through her half-closed eyelids--“when
you was a child, did you get any Bible learning? and was anybody good
enough to teach you your catechism?”
“They were,” Honor replied, opening her large blue eyes in wonder, and
using, to the old lady’s disgust, the peculiar Irish form of assent
which, singularly enough, seemed indigenous in this girl who had had so
little experience of her fatherland--“they were;” and then she stopped,
poor child, marvelling greatly to what these singular opening questions
were about to lead.
“Well, then,” continued Mrs. Beacham, spreading out two bony hands in
simulated horror, “all I can say is, that _I_ can see _no_ excuse for
you. If, besides being what I won’t defile my lips by naming, you had
been turned out into the streets, as many of them creatures are, without
eddication, and without knowing how to read your Bible, I _might_ have,
and so might John have, passed over something; but when a gell has been
taught her dooty, and, more than that, when a gentleman as is
respectable is good enough to make an honest woman of her, all I can say
is, that when she can behave as you have done, when she can lie and
deceive, and act light with other men, why she ought--and there ain’t a
decent person that wouldn’t say as much--she ought to be ashamed of
herself!”
To this coarse attack Honor vouchsafed no reply. The violence of
invective employed by the determined old woman positively stunned her.
The only feeling of which she was at all conscious was one of anger, of
anger stirred up by grievous words in as gentle a breast as ever
belonged to woman. The silence with which her words were received was
very irritating to the speaker. She had looked forward, with very
considerable satisfaction, to the moment when she should overwhelm her
recreant daughter-in-law with a fire of well-merited reproaches; and
now, to her infinite annoyance, her shots seemed to miss fire, and not a
single one was returned as a proof that the volley had in any way been
felt by the enemy.
“If anyone had told me,” the old lady went on to say, speaking very
calmly and deliberately now, and as if determined that every word
should tell--“if anyone had told me, fifteen months ago, that my son’s
wife would bring his family--_my_ family, that is to say, that has lived
respectable time out of mind--to disgrace, I wouldn’t, no, _I wouldn’t_
have believed it! It’s the first time (though I say it, as perhaps
shouldn’t) that a Turton or a Beacham has numbered such a one as you
among them; and I never thought to live to see the day when folks could
point at one as bears my name, and even her to a wanton!”
The word was out at last, the ugly shocking word that struck through
Honor’s brain like a knife, and which, when it had passed the lips that
spoke it, the irritated woman, when it was too late, possibly wished
unsaid. In very truth, there was something startling in the sight of
Honor’s livid face and flashing eyes, something almost painful even to
the unsympathising witness of her agony in the change which a few
outspoken syllables had wrought in that young girl’s countenance.
Rising suddenly from her chair, tossing aside with reckless hand the
woman’s-work with which she had been occupied, her pretty taper fingers
pressed against her throat (for there was a tightening there that felt
like suffocation), Honor Beacham stood erect before her stepmother.
“You are wicked!” she stammered forth. “A wicked, cruel woman! John
would not have used me so--John knows I do not deserve such words. I
will go to him--to my husband--I will--”
“You will do nothing of the kind. If you do not know your duty, I must
teach it to you,” almost shrieked the passionate old woman, losing all
command over herself, as the idea of Honor’s appealing to John against
his mother presented itself to her mind. “You think, do you, that
John--that _my_ son is going to indulge you in all your good-for-nothing
ways? Why, girl, he said to me himself that it was high time something
was done to bring milady to her senses; he said--”
But Honor--nervous, excited, and scarcely mistress of her
actions--waited to hear no more. With a cry like that of a hare hard
pressed by the hounds, she rushed from the room, leaving the startled
old woman to ponder with some trepidation on the mischief she had
wrought. Long, and not very comfortably, did she think over her words;
but after a considerable amount of putting two and two together, and no
little leaning towards herself as an oracle to be respected, the balance
of opinion being on the whole decidedly in favour of her own
proceedings, Mrs. Beacham arrived at the conclusion that she was fully
justified in speaking as she had done to the erring Honor. Judging that
strong-minded woman according to the average truthfulness of her sex,
John’s respected parent could not, on the whole, be accused, while
quoting John’s indignant words, of the sin of mendacity. According to
the letter of those words, she was justified in repeating as a fact her
son’s awful threat--the one which more than any other of her angry
vituperations had told upon Honor’s feelings--the threat, namely, that
her husband would, instigated thereto by his mother, bring his pretty
young wife “to her senses.”
There was something very vague and terrible in this menace; and Honor,
after locking the door of the pretty bedroom which John, little more
than one short year before, had taken such pleasure in making ready for
his darling, brooded over them with a sick heart and miserably. She was
utterly in the dark, as I have already and more than once endeavoured to
explain, regarding her husband’s character generally, and his feelings
towards herself in particular. Could anyone at that particular
moment--when she was brooding over her wrongs--over her husband’s
coldness of heart and heat of temper; over his cruelty in delivering her
over to the tormentor, _id est_, the mother who bore him, and her own
misery in being condemned to live _en tiers_ with two people who
disliked and despised her--had anyone, I repeat, at that especial moment
whispered in Honor Beacham’s ear that John the _in-compris_ possessed in
reality the very tenderest of hearts; that his apparent coldness towards
herself was the result of a keen sense of personal and educational
inferiority; and that a few sweet smiles on her dear lips, and a few
kind loving words whispered in his ear, would make poor John not only
the happiest, but the most demonstrative of husbands, Honor would simply
have told that well-intentioned comforter that he knew not what he said,
and, turning on her restless pillow, would have sternly refused to
credit the fact that she was otherwise than a victim.
I fear me much that the behaviour of Honor at this crisis of her life
will find few to excuse it; and yet to the thinking of the lenient there
will be found some plausible reasons for her folly. In the first place,
she was both mentally and bodily out of health. Of neither truths,
patent though they were, had she any real or wholesome suspicion. She
was too young, too ignorant of cause and effect, to be aware that the
life she had been leading had thrown her into a mental fever, the which,
seeing that it was a malady of weakness, required the nicest care and
the most judicious of treatments in order to effect its cure. Neither
could she give a name to the _malaise_, showing itself in languor, in
nervous headaches, and in occasional heart-palpitations; all of which,
with the carelessness so common to the young, she had hitherto allowed
to pass unnoticed. That she was in no frame, either of mind or body, to
do battle successfully against the violence of her own feelings and
forebodings is very certain; and as certain is it that, though she did
not yet what is called _love_ the man who had conspired so selfishly
against her peace, the image and the memory of Arthur Vavasour formed no
small portion of her troubled thoughts, as she lay sobbing on her bed,
and repeating to herself that she could not, would not bear the lot that
lay before her.
“To the old,” as someone--I know not who--has truthfully said, “sorrow
is sorrow, while to the young it is despair.” Despair at least as they
to whom sorrow is new count the extreme of human suffering. The smallest
insect, as the inspired poet tells us, “feels a pang as great as when a
giant dies;” and Honor, frail little vessel as she was, could, she
believed, endure no heavier or more wearing woe than that of submitting
in her fresh young beauty--the beauty that Arthur Vavasour
worshipped--to the tyranny of her mother-in-law, and the cold
displeasure of a husband who loved her not.
As she dwelt--with the pleasure which under twenty is so often felt in
the indulgence of a mournful self-pity--on her unmitigated woes, the
idea, once before entertained, and never wholly forgotten, of finding a
home for herself--of working for her bread--of escaping from the
tyranny, the evil-speaking, the taunts and evil suspicions of her
mother-in-law, flashed through her mind. At first, with something very
like a shock--for to Honor the leaving of her husband’s house and home
appeared (distinction without a difference though it was) a far more
adventurous and desperate act than that which she had before, with
tolerable calmness, contemplated--the act, that is to say, of separating
herself whilst under her father’s roof from the husband who, in her
opinion, neither loved, appreciated, nor understood her; from the man
who could see her wronged, insulted, and put upon by the hard-tempered
old woman, who, from the hour of her introduction to Updown Paddocks,
had never ceased to make Honor’s life a misery and a burden to her;--the
act and deed of remaining hidden in some obscure London lodging, had, as
I said before, seemed simple and easy enough to the young wife when,
encouraged and buoyed-up by the devoted attentions of Arthur Vavasour,
she vaguely contemplated a future in which Mrs. Beacham had no share,
but which was to be cheered by the unfailing friendship (Honor knew so
little of men’s nature that she had faith in constancy, and dreamed of
friendship as a delicious possibility) of her kind and disinterested
adviser. But the prospect before her was a trifle changed by the point
of view from which she now contemplated it; and far greater courage and
strength of mind seemed required to induce her to leave her husband’s
home than had been needed to enable her to stay away from it. As her
fever of passion cooled, so did the power within her to take a step so
decided and so desperate fade away likewise. Honor’s nature was
naturally an indolent one--indolent and yielding. Should she be led, by
the force of her own rebellious temper, to do that which would blight
her name and ruin her hopes of future happiness, the guilt of that act
would lie--as such guilts so often do--more at the door of another than
at her own. Already the quiet tears of self-pity and womanly submission
were taking the place of hysterical sobs and passionate ejaculations;
already she was subsiding into the dull calm which is the natural
consequence of over-excitement, when the voice, harsh-sounding and
dreaded, of the domestic tyrant--whose will had grown to be law, and
whose ways were not as the ways of her young daughter-in-law--smote
suddenly on Honor’s sensitive ear, and awoke again within her the evil
spirit of resistance. Mrs. Beacham was only, at that unlucky moment, in
the exercise of her right; she was but scolding the girl-of-all-work,
the female “odd boy” of the establishment, for some trifling neglect of
her multifarious duties; but the evil done by that loud high-pitched
voice was as surely effected, and its baneful influence on the
listener’s mind was as great and fatal, as though the most inexcusable
deed of injustice and cruelty had been then and there by John’s
hasty-tempered parent committed. Rising in a sitting posture on her bed,
Honor, with shaking fingers, pushed the hair back from her aching
forehead, and repeating to herself more than once, as if in excuse for
her premeditated sin, that she could not, could not bear her life at
Updown, she slowly slid down her feet upon the floor, and (half
mechanically at first) commenced her preparations for departure. For
departure? Yes; but to what place, and with what ulterior end, she knew
not. All she cared for was escape--escape from the sight and sound of
the woman who had always hated her, and who, as Honor firmly believed,
had begun to undermine her husband’s love and trust, and would
eventually succeed in turning his heart against her. To live any longer
under the same roof with one who had accused her of the vilest sin--who
had reproached her in the coarsest terms, for acts of which she was
utterly incapable--was, as Honor kept repeating to herself, more than
she could endure. _More_ unhappy, the foolish child believed she could
not be. It might be hard, trying at first, and humiliating, to work as a
servant, or in other ways, for her bread; but anything, to her then
thinking, was better than her present life; and Arthur Vavasour--(it is
to be feared that, innocent though in truth she was, that young
gentleman played rather a conspicuous part in the programme of her
future plans)--Arthur Vavasour would be ever at hand to aid, advise, and
encourage her. On one subject only did Honor from the first, and wholly
without reservation, make up her disturbed and rather bewildered mind.
She would not, under any circumstances, take refuge under her father’s
roof. That John would immediately commence the strictest search to
discover her whereabouts Honor was well assured, and therefore it was
above all things necessary for the preservation of her secret, that in
Stanwick-street they should know positively nothing of her proceedings.
The only individual--alas, for this poor silly girl--this frail, weak
vessel about to put to sea without a pilot, and with no chart or compass
to guide it on its way--the only individual to whom the mystery of her
setting sail on her adventurous cruise was to be no mystery, was the
last person in the world to whom she should have confided the secrets of
her life. To Arthur Vavasour--to the man whose “brotherly” kindness (he
had been very cautious in his love-making of late, and Honor had in
consequence grown proportionally off her guard)--to Arthur Vavasour only
would she at once apply in this emergency for counsel and support. From
him, she was well assured, she would never fail to meet with gentleness
and respect. When she looked back upon his deferential manner--on his
unceasing _kindness_, as Honor in her simplicity considered it--above
all, when she compared that kindness and that deference with the
aggressive treatment which from John’s unendurable parent had so greatly
angered her, and also with the absence, for reasons which she knew not,
of demonstrative affection from her husband--it is scarcely matter for
surprise that Honor Beacham should have loved and cherished the man who
gave to her--such was her woman’s faith--the offering which she prized
the most; the offering, that is to say, of an affection on which,
through evil report and through good report, and while life should
last, she could confidently rely.
Honor Beacham would have been no true woman if she had not, before
making the first commonplace preparations for flight (which, of course,
she being _pro tem._ a heroine, included counting out the money, and
putting on the inevitable cloak and bonnet), written a few lines to
announce her resolution to the person whom she deemed, in her insane
delusion, to be the most deeply interested therein. There is something,
to many of the softer sex, very reassuring in wielding that dangerous
instrument of feeble woman, the one to which it is so fatally easy in
moments of passionate excitement to have recourse--to wit, the pen; and
Honor, with the following note written, stamped, and ready for posting
in her pocket, felt far more prepared than she had done (previous to its
production) for the difficulties and dangers with which her path was
strewed:
“DEAR MR. VAVASOUR,--I am afraid you will think me foolish” (Honor
did not entertain any such alarm, but the sentence appeared to her
in the light of the proper thing, so she allowed it to stand), “but
since my return home--which was very sudden, as Mr. Beacham would
not even allow me to say good-bye to my father--I have been made
too unhappy and too angry to stay here any longer. It is not so
much because of my husband, who would be good to me if he was
allowed, but on account of old Mrs. Beacham, who has grown crosser
than ever, and who quite hates me now, I am sure. I would bear it
if I could, but I cannot; so to-day I go up to London, and shall
soon, I hope, get a place of some kind through your help. I should
like to be nursery governess best, as I was before, at the Clays’,
and should like to begin directly, as I have not much money. I
shall be called Honor Blake, as I was before; and John will know
nothing, any more than my father or other friends, excepting you,
where I am. When I am in London, I will write again to you, to say
where I am. Please to burn this; and believe, with a great many
thanks, that I am your grateful friend,
“HONOR BEACHAM.
“P.S.--I was so sorry to leave the play; you will tell me when we
meet how it ended.”
After writing this letter, the child of impulse by whom it was penned
felt, for the time requisite to perfect her arrangements, equal to any
emergency. With the letter directed to Arthur Vavasour in her pocket, a
something of his actual presence seemed to support and strengthen her.
That letter, she doubted not, would bring joy--not guilty joy--that, to
do her only justice, Honor never suspected--to the heart that desired
her happiness, and was glad to sun itself in her presence. That any
wrong was done to the trusting wife of her friend, by that friend’s
kindly feelings towards herself, Honor was innocent of imagining. She
believed in this young man’s virtuous attachment, and gratefully enjoyed
the comfort of her convictions.
The hardest task which she had to perform--for she could not wholly
divest herself of the idea that John, in his blundering, unattractive
way, did cherish, and would for a time grieve over her loss--was the
inditing of a farewell missive to her husband. Two attempts did she make
ere she could express in a few words the contradictory sentiments which
caused, in spite of herself, the tears to fall over the paper, and which
made the pen with which she wrote look misty between her agitated
fingers. At last the painful duty was over, and the words that were so
soon to shake the frame of the strong man who read them like a reed, ran
as follows:
“DEAR JOHN,--I hope you will forgive me for not being able to stay
at the Paddocks any longer. I could have lived with you, and
perhaps have been happy; for I know you are good, and you would
not have been hard upon my silliness. What drives me away I leave
it to yourself to guess. I have had a good deal to bear; but what
hurt me the most was your mother telling me that you meant to be
hard upon me too. Do not, please, try to find out where I am. I
shall go into service, and try to keep an honest name, though your
mother says I have brought disgrace on hers. I should like to think
that you forgave me, John. Perhaps I shall some day; or I may not
till we are both in another world, where I pray that we may meet,
and that you may be happier without me than they say I have made
you here. I cannot keep from crying over this letter; for, John, we
might have been happy, if only your mother had not had bad thoughts
of me from the beginning. God bless you, John; and believe that I
am your foolish, but not your wicked wife, as your mother says I
am,
“HONOR BEACHAM.”
By the time that this letter was finished it wanted but an hour of noon
(they kept old farmhouse hours at the Paddocks), and the striking by the
big hall-clock of the time o’ day warned Honor that if she wished to
catch a certain train that touched, on its way to London, for a few
minutes at the small station of Switcham, she must waste no more time,
either in thinking over her plans, or in making ready for her journey.
Accordingly, with a steadiness which, under the circumstances, was
surprising, she put together a very few articles of dress--and leaving
behind her the simple ornaments, poor John’s wedding-gifts--over which
she was so little of a heroine that she heaved a faint sigh of
regret--this wife of little more than a year left the shelter of her
husband’s roof, and, apparently with the intention of taking one of the
quiet country walks to which she was accustomed, sauntered slowly, till
she was out of sight of the Peartree-house occupants, across the fields
that lay between them and the village.
Once the station reached, she cared little either for notice or
discovery. The desperate step she had taken could not long remain a
secret from the neighbourhood at large; but by the time that John
received her letter, she would--according to her present
expectations--be already lost to him, and far beyond reach of discovery,
in some well-chosen but, of course, very humble retreat, which Arthur
Vavasour’s thoughtful kindness would, she doubted not, speedily provide
for her. With her mind full of these projects, but with a heart only
half rejoicing over her newly-found freedom, Honor went on her way. Her
head ached, and a strange sense of weariness rendered her steps slow and
lagging; but, for all that she both felt and looked ill, there was about
her air and walk (her face was too hidden by a thick veil for strangers’
eyes to gaze upon it) that nameless charm which commands attention, and
excites the notice of the curious. Unconscious of, and at the moment
utterly indifferent to, admiration, Honor turned her eyes neither to the
right hand nor to the left as she passed slowly along the
village-street. On her arrival at the post-office, she dropped--without
allowing herself a moment’s reflection--the two letters she had written
into the box; and then feeling a little more frightened and bewildered
than she had done before--for there was a sense of the inexorable in
this apparently unimportant act--she walked forward, erect, and
outwardly with something of defiance in her mien, towards the station.
There may be some among my readers who perhaps will consider that
Honor’s proceedings--her intemperate conduct in thus suddenly giving up
home-ties and the respectability attendant thereon, and her apparent
absence of womanly feeling regarding her husband--are overstrained and
unnatural. But let it be remembered that she was young--young and
inexperienced--impulsive too, as well as a little vain and exacting. To
understand the young, however, the investigator into character must be
young himself. When youth has passed, we forget not only the feelings
that dwelt within us in the days of the long-ago past, but the excuses
for our sins and follies, which then seemed to us as sands by the
sea-shore in number. We forget the craving after the storms of life, the
desire to be “for ever climbing after the climbing wave,” together with
the loathing of sad satiety, the satiety which a quiet and unbroken
existence awakens in the breast of those who are yet idle and untried
enough to talk of indulging in grief, and who have still to learn the
bitter truth that to endure is hard enough. Honor Beacham was so
romantic and simple that she could hug to her breast the discontent
which she had dignified into despair. Very like a heroine she felt as
the swift train bore her onwards into the unknown regions of the future.
With the sharp and scolding voice of her mother-in-law still ringing in
her ears, and with the _certainty_ (for Honor was of an age and nature
to believe in every result she wished for) of having escaped from Mrs.
Beacham’s tyrannic rule, it was surely natural that she should feel a
keen sense of triumph at her own success, and that an involuntary smile
should flit over her lips as she thought of the old woman’s face of
discomfiture when the startling and unwelcome discovery would be made,
that her victim was already far beyond the precincts of her power.
Of John--of the husband who, excepting in rare moments of anger, had
always been kind to her, and considerate, as far as he comprehended
them, of her feelings, it was not quite so pleasant to think; and Honor
endeavoured to the best of her ability to put aside the obtrusive
reflections connected with his probable regret by repeating to herself
the scarcely-believed truth that her husband would soon forget her. “His
mother is all in all to him,” the young wife told herself: “had she not
been, he never would have allowed me to be so tormented; and besides, he
is so busy, so always, always busy;” and Honor heaved a little sigh over
the enjoyment by honest John of one of the greatest blessings that can
fall to the lot of any human being, whether he or she be young or old,
rich or poor, gentle or simple. If idleness be, as the Book of books
informs us, the root of all evil, so surely is _work_, wholesome,
needful work, the surest and best safeguard against the ills of life. It
is the idleness of the rich which, more than any other cause, renders it
harder for them than for their fellows to “enter into the kingdom of
heaven.”
CHAPTER XVII.
HONOR MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
“Contentment,” to quote the words of the wisest of mankind, “is great
gain;” and true enough also is often the converse of the
assertion--namely, that in “discontent there is exceeding loss.” In Lady
Millicent Vavasour’s case, however, there seemed every chance that an
exception to both rules would be found; for the desire and determination
to reverse a decree which angered her, and which had for years been the
mainspring and motive of one of the most unwomanly of actions, seemed
likely to be crowned with success. Very wonderful, as well as
praiseworthy (had her motive been a nobler one), were the exertions
which, quite _sub rosa_, and working like a mole beneath the soil, she
had made to effect that always extremely difficult result--namely, the
setting aside of an obnoxious will. The money she had spent--the fees
she had paid--the consultations with eminent lawyers that she had
undergone--the perseverance and clear-sightedness of which she had
given proofs, were worthy, one and all, of a better cause. At
last--whether it was that by her continual coming she wearied them--or
whether the great law lords did really--partly incited thereto, perhaps,
by the prestige enjoyed by the wealth and “standing” of the grandiose
Lady Millicent--consider that she had right and justice on her side,
certain it is that opinions favourable to her cause were placing Arthur
Vavasour’s position as heir-apparent of Gillingham in rather a
precarious and unsatisfactory point of view. Between himself and his
mother there had never, as we well know, existed, either on this or any
other subject, any great amount either of confidence or affection; nor
was it probable that the small degree of both, that it was only fair to
suppose might be lying latent in those two antagonistic breasts, would
be much increased and strengthened by the approaching triumph (for such
all visible tokens announced it to be) of the already vain-glorious Lady
Millicent.
That triumph--for such news ever travels quickly--began speedily to be
noised abroad, to the annoyance of Arthur, whose creditors grew once
more on the alert, and to the extreme displeasure of Mr. Duberly, whose
usually placid temper would, but for his ever-increasing delight in his
new toy, _i.e._ his grandson, have betrayed outward signs of
discomposure and annoyance.
“I guessed how it would be, boy, all along,” he said to Arthur, on the
third morning after the one which had first thrown light upon the baby’s
tiny face; “I knew how it would be. Milady would never rest, not she,
till she made her father out to be _non compos_, or some such devilment.
Well, I thank my stars that we old-fashioned folks that you grandees
call snobs, would be long enough before they tried-on such a thing as
that comes to;” and the old man, so saying, looked as savage as it was
possible for a round-faced, kindly, elderly gentleman, who was in
reality brimming over with the milk of human kindness, to do.
A little to his surprise, and also, if the truth must be owned, to his
disappointment, Arthur appeared not nearly so interested in this
all-important matter as might have been reasonably expected. Neither
while his father-in-law was giving utterance to the above very decided
opinion, nor when the old gentleman, laying down the fork on which he
had fixed a tempting morsel of toasted breakfast-bacon, clearly awaited
a reply, did Arthur think proper to evince any tokens of a congenial
spirit. The fact was (and surely the cause will be considered a
sufficient one) he had that moment received the second and promised
note from Honor, informing him of her address, and asking him very
humbly, and with none of the old playfulness and evident sense of
something like equality between them which had characterised her former
proceedings, whether he could in any way assist her to gain her
livelihood. “For I feel very forlorn and helpless,” the poor girl wrote,
“and almost think that I had better have borne with Mrs. Beacham’s
temper. But it is too late now; and if you can in any way help me, I
shall be very, very grateful for your aid.”
It was with this short missive, touching in its tone of lowliness and
impuissance, safe in his waistcoat-pocket, that Arthur, with an absent
and preoccupied air, listened to the old man’s words. That the sound of
them, however, lingered in his ear, and in some sort made their way
through it to his understanding, was evidenced by his saying in answer
to Mr. Duberly’s lengthened stare of surprise:
“I beg your pardon, sir; I was thinking of something else. I ought”--and
his colour rose as he told the falsehood which Honor’s letter demanded
of him--“I have, that is to say, to go out this morning on business
connected with this horrid law-affair. There is a proposal from my man
to settle it amicably, and--”
“Amicably be hanged!” cried Mr. Duberly, rising from the table in a pet.
“If I was you, I wouldn’t hear of being amicable; and I wonder those
rascally lawyers have the face to propose such a thing.”
“O, _they_ have face enough for anything!” said Arthur, who was
anxiously humouring the old gentleman, to keep him in a tolerably
acquiescing mood. “There is nothing, sooner or later, that any one of
them, if it suited his book, wouldn’t propose. One has to look deuced
sharp after them, I can tell you, sir; so I am off directly after
breakfast to Lincoln’s Inn. Any commands?” pausing at the door, which,
in his anxiety to escape, he had already reached. “I shall just take a
look at Sophy and the brat, and then I’m off.”
“Good young fellow,” Mr. Duberly muttered to himself as the sound of
Arthur’s footsteps died away on the marble pavement of the inner hall;
and Arthur, who was well aware of the admirable impression that his last
words had made, felt no shadow of remorse for the deception of which he
had been guilty. Nor did his cheek tingle with tardy shame when pretty
Sophy (for she did look really pretty in the delicate paleness of
invalidism) called him her darling Arthur, and whispered half fearfully
(she did not wish, poor child, to be troublesome) that she would not be
quite happy till she saw his face again.
Glad to be released, and eager to commence with the least possible delay
his new office of protector and sole friend of his beautiful Honor,
Arthur, who had waited since the previous night in sleepless eagerness
for his summons, bade his wife good-bye with ill-dissembled haste, and
was speedily on his way to the obscure street, somewhere in the
direction of the Strand, where Honor had found a temporary home. It was
a narrow and certainly not an inviting-looking place that to which she
in her ignorance had betaken herself. She had passed it in a
four-wheeled cab on her way from the Waterloo station to--she knew not
where; and reading on a bill in the front window of what looked to her
inexperienced eye a respectable house, that there were lodgings to let,
she desired the driver to stop, and forthwith commenced inquiries
regarding the apartments in question.
The mistress of the house, a rather forbidding-looking person in a
tumbled black-net cap, and just the _soupçon_ of a moustache on her lip,
looked slightly surprised at Honor’s appearance; and at her demand
whether she would receive her as an inmate, Mrs. Casey (for so was the
woman called) promptly replied in the affirmative, adding irrelevantly,
as Honor thought, that though her name was Irish, she was English born
and bred.
“And I am Irish too,” Honor said eagerly, “and my name is Blake. I am
just come from the country” (there was little necessity for telling Mrs.
Casey _that_), “and I know nobody--except one person,” she added with a
pretty blush, the suddenness of which was not lost upon her
quick-sighted interlocutor--“one person who will get me a situation,”
she went on hurriedly--“a situation as nursery governess. I was that
before; and till I get a place, I should like very much” (Honor already
began to dislike the idea of wandering far afield in search of a
domicile) “to stay with you.”
To this request, after a slight demur on the part of the owner, or
rather lessee of No. 29 Sussex-street--a demur occasioned by her
unwillingness to appear over-anxious to possess her new acquaintance as
a tenant--Mrs. Casey graciously acceded. The terms were not moderate--a
pound per week for two very small rooms on the second story; but Honor
made no objection. She was too glad to get over as well as she had done
the awkward question of a reference, for any idea of bargaining to
obtrude itself on her mind; and thus, in the space of little more time
than it has required to scribble down this page, the bargain was
concluded, and Honor Beacham, feeling very strange, and not a little
lonesome, took quiet possession of her apartments.
By this time it was nearly two o’clock, and Honor, in a solitude only
broken by the ceaseless roll of wheels, and by all the multifarious
uproar of a crowded London thoroughfare, began, against her will, to
think over what was going on at Peartree House. It was just possible,
seeing that she and the old lady had parted on such extremely bad terms,
that the latter, deeming it more dignified to leave her adversary to
herself, had never even made any inquiries concerning her; and even had
she done so, Honor felt no fear that any inquiries of the enemy would
lead either to curiosity or discovery. There was nothing contrary to her
habits in taking an ante-meridian walk, whether to the village for a
skein of wool or other such trifling errand, or simply for the sake of a
stroll to the garden or in the meadows, where the foals were playing by
their mothers’ feet. Honor felt persuaded, therefore, that unless any
chance observer, any officious gossip, after tracing her to the station,
returned to spread through the village the intelligence of her flight,
that all-important event would not, in all probability for several hours
after, be discovered. The return of John Beacham to his dinner, which
he was in the habit of doing, unless detained on business, punctually
at four, would of course be the signal for a search after the missing
woman; and Honor, as the hours wore on (and they passed very slowly
after the inditing and taking to the nearest post of her second note to
Arthur Vavasour), could scarcely keep her mind for many minutes together
from wandering back again to home, and to the imagined scene of grief
and consternation which the certainty of her flight would cause. She
found herself for the first time in her life alone; alone, and left
solely to her own resources, not only for the support of existence (that
was to be an after and less important consideration), but left to
provide her own thoughts, to steady her own nerves--the nerves on which
a few short hours of loneliness were beginning to tell; left, in short,
to what is so unnatural a condition for the young and feeble--left to be
mistress of herself.
Two circumstances alone enabled Honor in that dreary upper chamber,
smelling of the stale tobacco used by a very inferior class of
“gentlemen lodgers,” and displaying in its dingy furniture and generally
shabby gentility unfailing evidences of wear and tear as well as of
slovenly and uncleanly habits--two circumstances alone enabled Honor to
bear with tolerable patience the situation in which she had voluntarily
plunged herself. In the first place, so prone are we to judge and draw
our decisions from effects without seeking after causes, Honor still
took a curious kind of comfort from the conviction that she was, in her
humble way, a martyr and a victim. This belief, which she hugged
perseveringly to her heart, was for a time a decided but gradually
lessening set-off against the _ennui_ which, creeping gradually over her
spirits, caused her to long exceedingly for the second and more tangible
form of consolation--namely, the advent of the only friend that in that
vast metropolis she could boast of possessing. The ideas of this young
woman from the country regarding the time requisite to convey a letter
from one district to another were somewhat vague and methodless; and
therefore it was that, long before the dainty little epistle, which she
trusted would bring Arthur to her side, had (in all probability) been
taken from the pillar-box into which she had thrown it, Honor had begun
to hope that her friend would ere long be by her side. In thus hoping it
never occurred to her that she was acting wickedly. It was true that
Arthur had, at the commencement of their friendship, uttered foolish
words that had startled, if not angered her; but she had given him to
understand plainly, though kindly, that such words were an offence and
an annoyance, and since that he had never--no, _never_, Honor repeated
to herself as the recollection of certain meaning glances and too tender
pressings of her yielded hand crowded thick upon her, and gave the lie
(deny the impeachment though she might) to her assertion--he had _never_
once appeared to view her in any other light than as a valued friend. Of
the birth of Arthur’s little son, and of the semi-imprisonment to the
house to which Mr. Vavasour had in consequence been condemned, Honor
knew nothing. To her the fact of his being a father, one with such a
title to respect and consideration as that name bestowed, would, had she
been aware of the event that had occurred in Hyde-park-gardens, have
probably checked her eagerness to make known her whereabouts to Arthur.
She was one of those women by whom the possession of a child is looked
upon as a very sacred thing--one of the many of her sex was she who are
not and cannot be wholly and completely women till the ineffable joys,
the pains, and pleasures of maternity, have set their stamp upon the
youthful brow, and called forth the slumbering but best and deepest
feelings of their nature.
Strange as it may seem, Honor’s liking--friendship, call it what you
will--was but another phase and form of mother’s love. Arthur
was, or at least he said he was, unhappy; he was in debt and
difficulty--possibly, too, in disgrace; surely these were reasons for
the granting him the tender pity that is akin to love--the pity that
every true and devoted mother feels for the helpless children of her
affection.
Thinking of Arthur Vavasour--thinking of him alternately with her
gradually-increasing sorrow for the husband she had deserted--Honor
passed the hours wearily enough away, and it was something of a relief
when, about five o’clock, Mrs. Casey, slightly improved in appearance by
the afternoon’s “cleaning,” knocked at the door, and a good deal more
familiarly than was altogether agreeable to Honor, inquired of that
mysterious young person whether she didn’t feel inclined to take
anything.
“Only some tea,” Honor said, “and soon, please.”
She was beginning to feel rather faint from fasting, and the thought of
tea and bread-and-butter, albeit the cates to be provided by Mrs. Casey
were little likely to be tempting, was rather agreeable to her
imagination.
“Directly,” was the prompt reply of the woman whom Honor, though she
could not have told the reason why, liked less well every time she saw
her. And Mrs. Casey was as good, and indeed, to Honor’s annoyance, even
better than her word; for with “the tea,” which made its appearance in
the form of battered Britannia metal, cracked and cemented crockery,
damp bread, and sky-blue milk, came in due form, and with a manner that
was decidedly patronising, the landlady herself. Seating herself on the
comfortless little sofa by Honor’s side, the Widow Casey (Honor might,
if she had cared to listen, have speedily known a good deal concerning
that respectable person’s antecedents) commenced a series of what _she_
imagined to be highly ingenious and diplomatic queries regarding her
lodger’s birth and parentage, her education and her antecedents. To the
best of her ability, Honor warded off the danger of making any direct
reply to these troublesome investigations. She had taken the precaution
to remove her wedding-ring, and could therefore pass herself off as Miss
Blake, an orphan whose friends were tired of supporting her, and who was
therefore desirous of finding her own living in the best way she could.
The person she was expecting was a _married_ gentleman. Honor laid
especial stress on that fact, though it was quite evident that Mrs.
Casey’s “O, indeed!” did not proclaim any very satisfactory effect
produced upon _her_ mind by the knowledge of Mr. Vavasour’s connubial
condition. After that trifling episode, the self-invited visitor
remained for a good hour, as if glued to the piece of furniture of which
she had taken uninvited possession; and it was owing to no absence of
loquacity on her part if, before that hour was over, Honor was not well
aware of certain interesting portions of her landlady’s family
history--namely, that she too had the bad luck to be an “orphan;” that
Casey, poor fellow, loved his drop, which was often a loss and a
hindrance to _her_ well-doing; that her favourite son had been drowned
at sea, and her daughter had just five months before married a gentleman
in the surveying line, who had his horse and shay, and could keep her,
bless you! like a lady.
CHAPTER XVIII.
JOHN DISCOVERS HIS LOSS.
Four o’clock had long ago struck,--for those were busy times for John,
and people who could not be put off came to him at all hours on matters
connected with his _industrie_,--four o’clock had long ago struck before
John’s hearty voice--it was the kind of voice that sent a feeling of
serenity through the whole house in which it had a right to
resound--made itself heard in the hall and passages of Pear-tree House.
“Mother! Hallo! O, there you are.” And then it was, “Where’s Honor,
mother? Upstairs, eh?”
Mrs. Beacham both looked and felt uncomfortable. It was now many hours
since she had seen the daughter-in-law whose feelings she was well aware
she had galled and wounded to the utmost. Where those hours had been
spent by Honor--whether in the solitude of her own room, or wandering
out into the fields--whether in paying a visit to her friends the Clays
(at which news Mrs. Beacham would have secretly greatly rejoiced), the
latter knew not. All of which she felt quite certain was, that John
would demand a strict account of his wife’s proceedings, whether those
proceedings were voluntary or otherwise; and if Honor had in very truth
been some seven or eight hours alone and without food, the old lady did
not doubt that he would be very seriously displeased. John was not
habitually an observant man; but there was that in his mother’s face
which made him suspect that something was wrong. That she had been,
during his absence, harsh with, if not, indeed, positively unkind to,
his young wife, was, however, the worst of John Beacham’s fears; but
these were disagreeable and annoying enough; and it was with the evident
irritation of a hasty-tempered man that he repeated the words:
“Where is Honor? She isn’t ill, mother, is she? Or” (more nervously
still) “is anything the matter?”
“Nothing, that I know of,” replied Mrs. Beacham ceremoniously. It always
provoked her to see John “fussing,” as she called it, over his wife.
“Honor is in her own room, I suppose, looking over her finery, as usual.
If you want her, you had better call her down.”
John waited not to hear this piece of advice. A strange but faint
presentiment of evil--not the evil that _had_ overtaken him, that was
too terrible to have entered even the outside confines of his
imagination, but a sense that some annoyance was preparing--oppressed
and worried him. Mounting the stairs with hasty footsteps, and calling
his wife’s name the while, he was very speedily at the chamber-door,
where he tapped--as was his wont--very softly for admittance,--softly at
first; and then, receiving no reply, he repeated the summons more
noisily; but still without the desired effect. Then, and not till then,
he entered, and was surprised--though not yet roused to a state of
alarm--by the condition in which he found the usually neat and
well-ordered sleeping-room. On the bed, which, tossed and tumbled, bore
marks of having been pressed by the weight of a reclining and very
restless figure, lay near the pillow a handkerchief still wet with
abundant tears; while open drawers, a small, very small, jewel-casket
standing--not its usual place--conspicuously upon the toilet-table, and
a certain general disarray suggestive of departure, made, for a single
moment, John’s heart to stand still within him for fear.
“Mother!” he cried, calling loudly from the top of the stairs, “for the
love of God come here, and, if you can, tell me,” he went on excitedly,
and laying his hand heavily on the bannisters to steady himself (the old
lady, after making what haste she could, stood beside him on the
landing)--“tell me, if you can, what has become of Honor.”
“What has become of her? Why, what makes you think that anything has
become of her?” retorted his mother, endeavouring to hide her own alarm
by ill-acted bluster. “Nothing ever becomes of anybody that I know of.
What in goodness’ name do you mean?”
But in spite of her attempts to carry off matters with a high hand, Mrs.
Beacham’s courage did begin to fail her at sight of the evidences of a
sudden and desperate resolution with which, to her thinking, the room
abounded. John, watching her countenance narrowly, drew his own auguries
from what he read there.
“Mother,” he said sternly, “may God forgive me if I am wrong, but I
fear--I cannot help fearing--that you have something to do with--with
what Honor--with what my poor wife may have done.”
“I? What should I have to do with it?” she asked; but her voice trembled
as she spoke, and sitting down hastily on the nearest chair, she waited
in silence for what was to follow.
“I don’t know--I can’t tell; my head seems in a whirl; but tell
me--that at any rate you can do, mother--when did you see Honor last?”
“At about ten o’clock, or thereabouts. You had been gone about half an
hour when she went upstairs.”
“And have none of the servants seen her since?”
“I don’t know; you had better ask. I daresay it will turn out that she
is somewhere close by--or gone to the Clays perhaps,--and that you have
been making a great deal of fuss about nothing.”
On this hint John at once acted. The idea that Honor might be paying a
visit to her old friends was a possible, though scarcely a probable,
solution of his difficulty; and he caught at it with eager hope. From
the servants, when questioned, he could learn but little. Hannah had
seen her young mistress with her hat on walking across the garden
towards the village. She had not noticed whether Mrs. John had anything
in her hand or not. She might have, _sure-ly_, for anything that Hannah
knew. She didn’t take much heed, not she, being busy at the time, and
thinking the missus was only going for a walk like.
“Which I daresay she was,” John said more hopefully; “and, mother, if
you’ll go to your dinner--I am very sorry I kept you so long
waiting--I’ll look about a bit for Honor; and if it happens that I don’t
find her, why I’ll ride over to the Clays and bring her back.”
Acting on this resolution,--for it was a matter of _necessity_ to search
actively for Honor, since sitting down quietly under his suspense would
drive him mad he thought,--John hurried away down the sweet-brier hedge
that ran at right-angles with the porch--hurried away so quickly that
his mother had no time to reiterate her urgent entreaty that he would
have something to eat before he went.
“Just a mouthful, John!” she screamed at the very top of her voice, as
she caught a last glimpse of his tall figure turning an angle in the
path.
But her anxiety was entirely thrown away. A shake of the head was all
the answer that John vouchsafed; for the miserably anxious man, whose
appetite for his dinner was usually of the healthiest and keenest, felt
at that moment that he should not care either to eat or sleep again till
he had found the wife that he had lost.
CHAPTER XIX.
ANOTHER ESCAPE.
“A gentleman, please, miss, as wants to see you.”
Such was the announcement, on the morning succeeding Honor’s instalment
in her new abode, of the fastidious Arthur Vavasour’s visit to that very
untempting “bower of beauty.”
It was nearly noon, an early hour for _him_ to be abroad; but to
Honor--who had passed a sleepless night, and who had been up and about
for ages, as it seemed to her--the day appeared to be already well-nigh
spent; while as regarded him, and her chance of seeing him in her
wretched home, she had begun almost to despair of any such blissful, and
now apparently improbable, event. When he _did_ appear therefore, when
her hand was clasped in his, and when his kind voice whispered softly,
“I could not come before, dear; and now I _am_ come, what a place I
find you in!” her heart went forth with grateful joy to meet him, for
she felt no longer unprotected and alone.
“And so they have been ill-using you, you poor little thing?” he went on
softly, her hand still in his, as they sat side by side on what Mrs.
Casey called the couch. “I guessed how it would be; I did not like the
way he looked when he took you away that night.”
“O, but it isn’t John--_indeed_ it isn’t!” Honor said eagerly, her sense
of justice roused to defend her husband; “it was his mother, as I told
you, who behaved so to me. It was she that made me go. I know it was
wrong; but what could I do?”
“What indeed?” stroking tenderly the little hand he held in his. “But,
Honor, it will never do for you to remain here. The place is not
respectable--I am certain it is not; and the woman looks like an ogress.
I think I can manage something better for you than this. There is an old
servant of my father’s--a Swiss--an excellent man, with one of the
cleanest and most cheerful of little wives; and if he happens to have
room in his house, I am sure he will be only too delighted to devote
himself to making you comfortable. Really, the nicest of old men. I
will go there this afternoon, and try to make arrangements for the
change.”
“Thank you--how good you are!” Honor said fervently; “they certainly do
not seem like nice people here; but I stopped at the first place where I
saw a bill up. I believe I was afraid to meet my father. What I fear
most now is his seeing me; for he would perhaps tell John--John would go
to him first, you know, and--”
“Your father! Why, Honor, haven’t you heard? But I don’t know how you
should. Your father is--has--” and then he stopped, feeling it scarcely
decent to disclose to Honor the facts that proclaimed her father to be a
villain.
But his companion, who was _quoad_ curiosity a true daughter of Eve,
refused on this occasion to allow her filial feelings to be spared. She
insisted (and as a natural consequence not only of that insistence, but
of the wronged man’s easily-to-be-comprehended satisfaction in giving at
least words to his sorrow) on hearing all that Arthur could tell her of
her father. In breathless silence she listened to a detail of his
villany; and deep indeed and painful was her regret at the injury which
had been done to the man who had so blindly trusted him.
As Arthur noted the quivering lip, the turbulent heaving of the pitying
breast, he could not but feel he was in one respect a gainer by his
loss; for Honor _could_ hardly be hard and distant to the friend who had
fallen a victim to the machinations of her father. Arthur felt that he
had claim on, an actual right to, her sympathy and kindness now, and
therefore did not hesitate to make the very most of the injuries, the
losses, and the embarrassments which the Colonel’s baseness had entailed
upon him.
“I am _so_ sorry--so very grieved. Is there nothing that I could do?
Perhaps if I were to see my father, I might--”
Arthur interrupted her with a laugh. “See him?” he said; “why, it would
require the best detective in London, I suspect, to find him out; and if
we did, there is nothing, not even _your_ persuasions, which would be
likely to work up such a man as Fred Norcott to his duty. But we have
wasted time enough over him, dear Honor: and as I am not my own master
just now--since Sophy’s confinement, I mean--”
“Since _that_? O, Mr. Vavasour, why _did_ you not tell me before? You
knew I should care so much to hear it! Think of your having a dear
little child!” and she sighed involuntarily, a faint but very mournful
sigh (which Arthur fancied in his folly that he comprehended), and then
added, with an attempt at playfulness, “Perhaps I may be thought clever
enough to teach your children some day; but I must learn a great deal
myself first. The Miss Vavasours will want all sorts of accomplishments
that a humble nursery governess knows nothing about; and that reminds
me--” speaking very quick, as she noted a crimson flush that mounted to
her companion’s brow, and a something in his eyes which her woman’s
instinct taught her was alarming--“that reminds me that I have no time
to lose in looking for the means of providing for myself. I have a good
deal of money” (there were exactly seven pounds in her portemonnaie),
“but still I want to begin. It will be no trouble to me to teach and
take care of children. I love them so dearly; and the little things
always take to me.”
“It would be strange, I think, if they did not,” Arthur ventured to say,
as he gazed with such passionate fondness on her face, that Honor was
forced to veil her eyes with their white lids for very shame.
“O no, it isn’t that,” she said hastily, and hardly knowing what words
were falling from her lips. “You see, I have been so used to them,
and--and I cannot bear to be idle. If I have nothing to do, I begin to
think--to think of poor John--”
Arthur, at this unexpected mention (a very _mal à propos_ one in his
opinion) of an absent husband’s name, rose abruptly from his place by
Honor’s side. He was very young, very little conversant in the ways and
means of defence of such women as Honor, or he would have seen through
this simple _ruse_. He would have understood that this beautiful and
defenceless creature, with an instinctive dread of her pursuer, had
thrown up this rampart against attack, and would have drawn, through
that very alarm, good augury for eventual success.
It was fortunate for Honor that no such ideas as these entered at that
moment the mind of the man who was gradually coming near enough to
be--there is no medium course, let women believe in its existence if
they will--either accepted or denied. It was well, too, that Arthur,
roused by his own movement from the dream of passion in which he had
been indulging, once more began to have some thought and memory for
outward things, and especially for the lapse of time since he had left
his home.
Looking hastily at his watch, he perceived to his dismay that it was
four o’clock, so swiftly had time passed--is it not ever so?--while he
had been occupied by talking about himself, and been busied with his own
sentimental interests.
“Four o’clock already!” he exclaimed, “and I have so much to do for
you, Honor! It is impossible for you to remain here. I could not answer
for the consequences. I only wish that I had met you at the Waterloo
station, and prevented your coming here at all. However, I am off now to
see about old Schmidt, and directly I have settled anything, I will
return. In the mean time, do not leave the house, and if you can, avoid
seeing the woman that it belongs to.”
“I can hardly help seeing her,” Honor said with a smile; for she was
both amused and flattered by his solicitude on her behalf. “She _will_
bring in the few things that I want herself, and--”
“Your poor little dinner solitary among the rest, I suppose?” said
Arthur pityingly. “O Honor!” he continued--and how at that moment he
longed for the hundredth time to take her in his arms and whisper to her
his love, the object of that love was happily never destined to know--“O
Honor!” he said, “my love, my darling! how unfitted you are to do battle
for yourself in this rough, wicked world! It is so hard to leave you, so
hard to think of you, in this sordid miserable place, alone,
unprotected, and--God help both you and me!--so very, very beautiful!”
He drew a long, almost a gasping breath, as the last passionate words
burst from his white quivering lips, and, almost before Honor could
even look her surprise at the utterly unexpected outburst, the door had
closed upon his retreating figure, and Honor once more found herself
alone.
CHAPTER XX.
POOR SOPHY!
“I am so glad they have let me see you, though I _am_ only to speak in a
whisper, and to stay just one half-hour and no more. You darling thing!
How pretty you look in that dear little cap!” And Katie Vavasour, who
had been allowed, as a great favour, to visit her much-loved
sister-in-law, pressed her fresh young lips to the invalid’s forehead,
and took her seat beside the bed preparatory to a “quiet talk.”
“I am glad you came too, dear,” Sophy rejoined. “It is so dull without
Arthur, and he has been gone away so long--many hours, I am sure. What
o’clock is it now? Three, I am sure; and he left me long before twelve.
Where do you think he is?”
“O, I don’t know. Gone somewhere about horses, I daresay,” rejoined
Kate, who was rather glad of Arthur’s absence, since it enabled her to
have Sophy to herself. “But tell me, does he love the baby _very_ much?
Does he often kiss it?”
“No, not often; indeed, I don’t think he ever has; but I shouldn’t mind
that, if he would but come back,” said poor Sophy, whose nerves were
weak (a malady which her young sister-in-law found it hard to
understand), and whose impatience at her husband’s absence was often a
little trying to those about her.
“O, never mind him. There is no use ever in wondering what men are
about,” said unsympathising Kate. “I want to tell you about poor Rhoda.
I am certain she is pining for that stupid Mr. Wallingford. It would not
have been a nice match, of course; but as she liked him, that ought to
be enough; and Rhoda was never strong, and now she looks like a ghost.”
“Poor thing!” murmured Sophy. “But if I remember right, Mr. Wallingford
had straight hair and a long neck, and seemed terribly _poky_.”
“Exactly; but if Rhoda did not think so, what did it signify?” was
Kate’s somewhat involved rejoinder. “All I know is, that if anything bad
happens, it will be mamma’s fault. O, she is so dreadfully hard and
proud and unfeeling! And she will be worse than ever, if she gets the
better of poor Arthur about the property. O, Sophy! is it not too bad
that she should have things all her own way like this? Do you know, I
would give ten years of my life--”
“To be taken in your old age, of course,” put in Sophy, with something
of her former girlish playfulness.
“O, yes; that of course,” said Kate; “and besides--”
But the current of her confidences was at that moment checked by the
entrance through the adjoining boudoir of Mrs. Vavasour’s maid, who, in
a hesitating voice, made the whispered announcement that a person
calling himself Mr. Beacham was below, and was very anxious to have
speech with one of the family. Both Mr. Duberly and Mr. Vavasour were
out of the way, the woman said, so she had thought it best to come to
Miss Catherine about it.
“I will go down directly,” Kate said; but of this, Sophy, with the
caprice common to invalids, would not hear. She insisted, for some
reason best known to herself, on Mr. Beacham being shown into the
boudoir.
“You can see him there, dear,” she said to Kate; “he is a sort of
gentleman you know” (poor, _poor_ John!); “and I shall not be left
alone, which I hate.”
Foreseeing no reason for objecting to her sister-in-law’s wish, Kate
gave the necessary directions, and in a few more moments a man’s
strong, vigorous step was heard treading the Aubusson carpet in Sophy’s
“morning-room.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Vavasour,” John said aloud--he was totally
ignorant of the fact that within earshot lay the sick and nervous wife
of the man he had come to seek, the man against whom he felt as an enemy
so bitter that blood could neither wash out the offence, nor quench the
rage that burnt so madly in his veins--“I beg your pardon, but I require
to know if you will have the goodness to tell me where I am likely to
find your brother, Mr. Arthur Vavasour. The people down below, the
servants, seem too grand to answer questions, so I am driven to the
masters for information. He is not, I suppose, in the house, hiding
behind his wife’s apron-string? He--”
“Hush! For Heaven’s sake speak lower,” said Kate in an eager whisper. It
was so dreadful to think that Sophy _might_ hear, although the rooms
were large and there was no great probability of such a catastrophe, but
still the sound of John’s angry words _might_ reach the ears of Arthur’s
wife; and Kate, girl though she was, could foresee and dread the
consequences of such a terrible calamity. “Speak lower,” she said a
little proudly, for there was a spice of her mother’s _hauteur_ in her
veins, and Kate Vavasour chafed under the familiar _brusquerie_ of one
beneath her.
“Speak lower, do you say? And why? Is this man, this base betrayer
of--but I beg your pardon once more. You are a young lady, Miss
Vavasour; one of a class that is protected from insult and wrong by the
shield of position and a great name. A name, forsooth! Why _mine_ was,
in its humble way, respected once; respected till your brother
came--your brother, whose father was my friend--and dragged the honour
of my house, _my_ honour--” and he dealt a savage blow on his broad
breast--“in the dust! My wife has left me,” he groaned out; “_that_ can
be no secret now--left me for him, although I never knew it was so till
to-day. It was yesterday I lost her; lost the poor child I loved so
well: and in the evening I inquired for her at her rascal father’s
house, but they could, or perhaps would not tell me anything. But to-day
I went again, and forced them to be more explicit. Then I learnt how
_he_ had, while she was with her father, how he had spent his days, his
evenings, all his time, with Honor. I came here three hours ago, and
tried to learn something of the man’s movements--something which would
guide me to my wife; but all the answer was that he had been out for
hours, no one could tell me where; but the rascal that I spoke to
grinned, and hinted of a lady’s letter till I was almost driven mad; and
here I am, hoping that you, at least, will not--”
He was interrupted by a cry--a cry, feeble it is true, but so piercing
and peculiar in its tone that it haunted his brain afterwards for weeks;
then there was the sound of a heavy fall--a fall which Kate knew, in the
twinkling of an eye, was that of poor Sophy’s lifeless body on the
floor. In a moment all was wild confusion; a very Babel of cries and
consternation; and John Beacham (awakened, when too late, to a sense of
the evil which his intemperate words had wrought) lifted the inanimate
form of the poor young wife in his strong arms, and laid her gently on
the bed from which a fatal curiosity had roused her. Verily in the old
tale of Bluebeard there is much and truthful knowledge of female nature,
for to every woman there is a subtle and terrible attraction in the
_bloody key_; and to know that which it is well for their peace that
they should ignore, has ever been an insatiable craving amongst the fair
daughters of Eve.
Poor Kate proved herself fully equal to the emergency in which she found
herself. Forgetful of John Beacham’s hasty and passionate revelations,
she could only think of him in the light of an able-bodied man, ready
and willing to do good service to the helpless.
“Try and find her father,” she said imploringly; while the monthly
nurse, who had already despatched a messenger for the physician in
attendance, was endeavouring, with no apparent result, to restore
animation to poor Sophy’s apparently lifeless body. “Try and find Mr.
Duberly. Perhaps he will be at the Union Club; and Arthur, poor Arthur!
_he_ ought to be here. Mr. Beacham,” she continued with imploring
eagerness, the thought of her brother bringing back the memory of the
man’s desperate words, “Mr. Beacham, at such a moment you cannot, will
not, think of yourself. You see what your words have done. Poor, poor
Sophy!” And the tears fell in torrents from her blinded eyes. “You will
find Arthur for _her_. I do not believe in his wickedness. He may have
been foolish, but he loved his wife and little child; you have been
deceived; and it is all a dreadful, dreadful mistake.”
John shook his head gloomily. He was too convinced of his former
friend’s share in his wife’s flight for any words to alter his
convictions. Men who are habitually unsuspicious are often the most
tenacious of a dark idea when once it has taken root within their
breasts; and John’s present belief was, he then felt assured, for
_life_. But certain although he was of Arthur Vavasour’s guilt, he
could not view, without the bitterest remorse, the wreck that his
untamed passion had wrought in that so lately happy and prosperous home.
There was no need now for Kate to press upon him the duty of
forbearance. God, the Judge of sinners, had taken the task of
retribution into His own hands; for if it were indeed true, as Miss
Vavasour had asserted, that Arthur loved his wife, why, in that pale
corse lying lifeless before him, his own wrongs, the wrongs inflicted by
the bereaved husband, would indeed be fearfully and terribly avenged.
Well he knew that to himself, as the acting cause of that dire
catastrophe, poor Sophy’s death (if, as seemed only too probable, her
pale head was never to be raised in life again) might be traced; and it
was with his already heavily-burdened spirit weighted with another load,
that John Beacham, with the purpose of fulfilling Kate Vavasour’s
behest, and endeavouring to seek out poor Sophy’s father, prepared to
leave the house where his presence had been productive of results as
unexpected as they were deplorable. But he was not destined to go many
steps before a fresh call was made upon his patience and his temper. On
the threshold of that splendid mansion, drawing forth the latch-key with
which he had just opened the door, there stood, confronting the
departing visitor, no less important a personage than Arthur Vavasour
himself. On seeing John, he started visibly and turned pale--not with
the pallor of fear, for at that instant very thankful was the younger
man that he had no serious wrongs, as regarded his father’s friend, with
which to reproach himself; but the sight of John Beacham perplexed and
startled him. It was connected, of course, with Honor’s flight from
home; and there existed, undoubtedly, a certain awkwardness in the fact
that he, Arthur, was so much better informed regarding Honor’s
whereabouts than was the husband from whom that misguided young woman
ought, in the opinion of sticklers for marital rights, have had no
secrets of any kind whatsoever.
“_You_ here! Beacham, how is this?” Arthur said, holding out a hand
which was not taken; and then the anger of the older man, a moment
controlled by the sight he had just witnessed above-stairs, burst out
afresh. Drawing Arthur Vavasour’s slender form back into the house, and
holding the arm of his enemy with the fixedness of a vice, he said in a
voice tremulous with concentrated passion,
“You ask me, do you, why I am here? What if, in return, I call you
_scoundrel_, and ask you where you have taken my wife? for you have
been with her; I see it in your face--your white, cowardly face. God,
that I should live to speak so to your father’s son!” And,
half-overpowered with contending emotions, John sank upon a chair that
stood in the large empty hall, and gazed for a moment helplessly upon
the young handsome features, which at that terrible moment reminded him
strangely of Cecil Vavasour, of the man whom in all his life he had most
loved and respected.
“John,” Arthur exclaimed, “do not, for God’s sake, talk in this way. I
declare before Heaven that you are mistaken. I swear to you that your
wife--”
“Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?” cried John impetuously.
Poor fellow! he would have caught only too gladly at the belief that his
suspicions were unfounded, and that his still dearly loved Honor had
been foolish only, but not guilty. O no, not guilty! the thought of that
evil was too dreadful to be endured; so he said very eagerly, and with a
touching entreaty in his tone, “Mr. Vavasour, only say--swear it to me
by your father’s memory--that within these three days you have neither
seen nor heard from my wife, and I will thank and bless you to my dying
day.”
But Arthur could not, dared not, swear to this. With all his longing,
not only to save Honor, but to console and reassure the excellent man
who had ever treated him with such frank and cordial kindness, he could
not take the oath required of him. He could not, even for the woman whom
he loved, _quite_ drag what he called his honour in the dirt.
The sight of his hesitation was enough, and more than enough, to confirm
the husband’s worst apprehensions; and to what lengths his passion would
have carried him, had not this stormy interview been interrupted, it
would be hard to say. Already John had begun to pour a torrent of
invectives on the young man’s head, when the sight of Kate Vavasour
running, almost flying, down the broad marble staircase, arrested his
words.
“Arthur, Arthur!” she screamed, “for the love of Heaven, for poor
Sophy’s sake, come away. She is dying--dead, they think,” she added
distractedly, for, in very truth, she scarcely knew what she said; “and
_you have killed her_!”
CHAPTER XXI.
SUSPENSE.
Alas, alas for the young creature that was taken, and for the old man
that was left behind! Kate’s words were only too true; and Sophy, the
loved of many hearts--the wealthy heiress, on whose bright blooming face
the winds of heaven had never been allowed to play too roughly--was
numbered with the dead. She never spoke again, after they laid her upon
her bed by the side of her sleeping infant; and that she died
unconscious of the truth--that the frantic denials poured forth in his
agony by Arthur of the guilt and treachery of which he had been accused,
fell upon ears that heard them not--was, perhaps, the bitterest portion
of his punishment. That he had been accused unjustly, and that he had in
reality never what is called _wronged_ the tender wife who had paid for
her jealous curiosity with her life, was Arthur’s only consolation in
his hour of trial and bereavement. He forgot that his freedom from
actual guilt was owing to no virtue on his own part; forgot that in his
heart he had committed the sin the bare accusation of which, overheard
by his poor Sophy, had consigned her to an early grave; forgot that
while _she_ was tender, loving, and true, his heart, ever since he had
led her to the altar, had been bound up in, and wholly occupied by,
another. But if, in his yearning for self-comfort, and in the natural
longing of cowardly mortals to escape from the sharp stings of
conscience, Arthur Vavasour could find consolation in the reflection
that he had escaped _actual_ guilt, there was one who, from the hour
when he was first prostrated to the earth by the intelligence of poor
Sophy’s death to the day when his own sorrows were buried in the grave,
could never bring himself to see any mitigation of Arthur Vavasour’s
offence, or any plea for mercy on the ground that he had not been, in
_fact_, faithless to his marriage-vows. To describe the grief, the
frantic despair it might rather be called, of the father whose only
child was thus, in the bloom of her innocent and happy youth, torn from
his arms and from his love, would be impossible. The blow had, indeed,
fallen with terrible suddenness on the aged head that never, never again
rose erect, as it had done before, with the proud, glad look that
prosperity and domestic content are wont to lend to their possessors.
“Old Dub” (there was such a touching solemnity, a sacredness as it were,
thrown around his undying grief, that the name seemed no longer to suit
him, and died away speedily, as do the nicknames of children when age
and wisdom renders their foolish _petits noms_ inappropriate and
absurd), “old Dub” was never the same man again after he had seen the
delicate limbs of his dead daughter laid out for her burial. It was a
touching sight to witness, that of the gray hairs falling over the white
closed eyelids of the corpse, while the scant tears of age wrung from a
father’s agony fell slowly one by one upon poor Sophy’s marble forehead.
At the foot of the bed Arthur, pale almost as the dead that lay in its
dread immovability before him, stood with folded arms, and with ever and
anon a strong shiver shaking him from head to foot. He felt (it is the
nature of his sex and kind) a good deal for himself, even in those
moments of deep grief and self-reproach; and certain questions _would_
intrude themselves on his mind which were out of place in the breast of
a newly-made widower, and in the chamber of mourning. Would Mr. Duberly,
who knew nothing at present of the share which he (Arthur) had in poor
Sophy’s death,--would he be _very_ hard upon him if, which was only too
probable, he should come to know the truth? Would he believe in
Arthur’s assurances, on his oath, that John Beacham’s visit had been the
act of a madman, an act unjustified by any conduct, any intentions on
Arthur’s part to injure or to wrong him? That the old man, sorrowing
with a grief which would not be comforted, and lamenting over his lost
treasure with “groanings that could not be uttered,” would not so
believe, Arthur more than suspected. Well did he remember the jealous
watchfulness, the unceasing solicitude, with which this doting father
had striven to guard his child from even a transient sorrow; and it was
not difficult to imagine the fury that would rage within his breast when
the truth should be revealed to him that Arthur was, as Kate Vavasour
had in her agony of fear and love exclaimed, his daughter’s murderer!
Meanwhile, these two were not alone in enduring, with such patience as
in the first dark moments of bereavement we can summon to our aid, the
consequences of guilty passions, of deceit, of vanity, and of folly.
Watching, waiting, grieving,--watching and waiting for the friend who
came not, and grieving with bitter tears over her past folly,--Honor sat
in the dismal chamber of that dirty and barely respectable
lodging-house--a piteous sight, indeed, to look upon. As usual, the
sense of error had been the result of mortification and of sorrow. _Le
remord est né de l’abandon et non pas de la faute_; and if Arthur
Vavasour had not been prevented in a manner as yet undreamt-of by Honor
from keeping his engagement with her, and aiding her in the course which
she had faintly marked out for herself, it is probable that Honor would
have been far longer than was actually the case in arriving at a due and
contrite sense of her _mistakes_. The hours after Arthur’s departure
dragged on very wearily for the imprudent girl who, a prisoner in that
dismal room, began, as the time wore on and she heard nothing either of
or from him, very seriously and repentantly to commune with her own
thoughts. It was then that the mist of prejudice in favour of a class
above her cleared away for ever; then that she no longer craved to be
what is conventionally termed a “lady;” then that she learned (the
teaching was a severe and uncompromising one, but none the less
effectual because of the heavy hand that had been raised in teaching
her)--then it was that she learned the valuable truth that sterling
worth is more to be desired than the outside graces of a soft manner and
a flattering tongue, and that the heart of gold is better than the
glitter of a refined and fair appearance. Instead of inwardly glorying
in her near kindred to the well-born, and in lieu of rejoicing over the
fact that _she_ came of a gentle race, and that in her veins ran the
pure Norman blood of the well-descended “Norcotts of Archerfield,” Honor
Beacham would henceforth shrink in shame from the memory of her
parentage, bearing ever before her the unwelcome and dishonouring truth,
that the man to whom she owed the birth on which she had been weak
enough to pride herself was, in very truth, nothing better than a
swindler!
And out of the painful conviction that so it was there grew another, and
if possible a still more harrowing thought--the thought, namely, of the
more than possibility which existed of a life-long separation (the
consequence of her own impatience under what appeared to her now
chastened spirit in the light of very minor grievances) from the husband
whose excellence she was tardily beginning to value as it deserved. It
was true that she had committed no act which must of necessity cause an
eternal breach between them, and equally true was it that she had,
previous to her departure, written a half-protesting, half-apologetic
letter--_the_ letter of which the reader is already cognisant, and which
(on such apparently trifling causes do the most important events of our
lives depend) was not delivered at Pear-tree House till _after_ its
owner’s fatal visit to London--it was true, I repeat, that Honor had
written a letter which _might_, she felt, eventually soften John’s
heart towards her. In it she had explained, as well as she was able--she
could not abuse as heartily as she wished John’s mother to John
himself--but in it she had not disguised the fact that the old lady’s
unkindness was the sole motive cause of her departure; nor had she
hesitated to assure the husband she was leaving that she might, under
other circumstances, have lived happily beneath his roof.
How keenly, as Honor strove to call to mind the only half-remembered
expressions in that hastily-written epistle, did she regret that she had
not endeavoured to fix them more firmly on her memory; for every
syllable that she had written seemed to her of importance now, when
wondering to herself what John was thinking of her, and whether or not
she was beyond the reach of pardon.
Of Mrs. Beacham she had not yet brought herself to think with charity.
If the possibility of a return to the Paddocks lingered for a moment in
her mind, that possibility was rendered so dark and unattractive by the
image of her mother-in-law, that Honor, although beginning to long for
reconciliation with John, turned from it with as much detestation as it
was in her gentle and affectionate nature to feel. Not yet was she
thoroughly and effectually subdued; not yet had the chastening rod of
affliction done its perfect work. Honor still found herself, when the
_good_ spirit within was drawing her to an _entire_ oblivion of her
wrongs--to a perfect pardon of the past, and to a self-effacing sense of
her own unworthiness--she still, I say, in spite of her sometimes
conviction that she ought, in deep humility, to entreat forgiveness of
her aged persecutor, shrunk with very natural repugnance from such an
act of self-abasement. The provocations she had received _would_ rise up
in her memory, like evil ghosts that refused to be _laid_ to rest; while
it was as yet, I fear, only in theory that Honor regarded the endurance
of wrong with patience, as one of the first of Christian virtues. The
time, however, came when she not only believed, but demonstrated her
faith by practice, that the great duty of bearing and forbearing may be
so gracefully, as well as rigidly practised, that the fruits of such
forbearance can scarcely fail to be those of mutual affection,
confidence, and good-will.
The obtrusive and constant visits of Mrs. Casey did not tend to render
poor Honor better satisfied with her condition. That quick-sighted and
not over-charitable personage had drawn her own conclusions from the
lengthened stay of a young and handsome gentleman in the “second-floor
front,” and those conclusions had not tended to increase her show of
respect for the young lady--the “Miss Blake” who was so beautiful and
_so befriended_.
When the long day was at last over, and all chance of seeing Arthur till
the following morning was at an end, Honor prepared herself for bed,
with the heaviest heart for company she had ever known. With the
impatience of suspense so common at her age, she asked herself how it
was possible to wear through the hours till morning--the long and lonely
hours in which she had naught to do save to turn and twist, and twist
and turn again, the arguments for and against each possible reason for
Arthur’s breach of faith--the miserable hours during which she would be
for ever saying with the sleepless victim of unrest recorded in Holy
Writ: “Would God it were light! Would God it were the morning!”
But when morning came it brought with it no comfort for the lonely
watcher. The hope which she had nourished that the early post would
bring to her some explanation of the absence of her only friend proved a
fruitless one; for though the sharp tap-tap of the postman’s summons
sounded dear and loud at the door of No. 29, there was no letter, so the
little dirty drab of a servant-girl informed Honor, for _her_; and again
the unhappy and restless creature, seated before her untempting and
scarcely-tasted breakfast, was forced to summon all her fortitude to
endure the scarcely endurable torments of uncertainty.
CHAPTER XXII.
JOHN GIVES WAY.
When John Beacham, after his worse than fruitless search after his
missing wife, returned, which he at once did, to the Paddocks, Mrs.
Beacham, though by no means addicted to sudden alarms, was startled by
the change which a few short hours had wrought in his outer man. The
soft spring evening was beginning to draw in, and the scent of the
honeysuckle was filling the air, when the old lady, catching the sound
of horse’s hoofs (Tom Simmons’s thoughtful care for the master whom he
loved had prompted him to have Black Jenny in waiting at Switcham for
the chance of John’s return), laid down the knitting which was her
unfailing occupation after dark, and stood beneath the blossoming
woodbine that Honor loved, waiting to greet her son. He rode forward
very slowly--so slowly that Mrs. Beacham, who had been accustomed for
years to the brisk walk, verging on a trot, at which the best rider in
Sandyshire was in the habit of bringing in his horse, imagined for a
moment that it could not be really John who came at such a lingering,
lagging pace towards his home. But if the mother, who knew his ways so
well, thought that the step of her son, or rather that of his good black
steed, was strangely altered, how much greater was the shock of surprise
when, by the failing light, she looked upon John’s careworn face!
Throwing himself in a listless fashion, widely different from his
accustomed energetic movements, from the saddle, he stood by the old
woman’s side beneath the rustic porch, she looking up with sad inquiry
(for the suspense and worry of the last six-and-thirty hours had quelled
her spirit) into her son’s dulled and altered eyes.
“O, John!” she said pitifully, “dear, dear John!” and then turning her
head aside, for the strong-minded old woman scorned her own weakness,
she in secret wiped away the tears which the sight of poor John’s misery
had wrung from her aged eyes.
He put her very gently aside, so gently that none could see the action,
and then striding in with a firm step to his own business-room, he
closed and locked the door. Truly he was in no mood either to endure
pity or submit to the questionings even of the mother who bore him. The
return to his home, to the sight of familiar faces gazing at him with
the compassion which was so hard to bear, had been in itself a severe
trial to the proud man, to whom a good name was a treasure beyond,
price, and who could never--never, as he repeated with a terrible
monotony to himself--hold up his head again. But grievous as these
trials were, there was worse, much worse remaining behind; for the death
of that poor young woman, who had so short a time before been full of
life and happiness, lay (indirectly, it is true, but still it _did_
lie--John never deceived himself on that point) on his own miserable
head; and the weight of that death and the dread of it pursued him as
might the swift footsteps of an avenging spirit, even into the stillness
of his closet. Turn which way he would, all seemed dark around him.
Alone henceforth, and while life should last (for since the evident
impossibility on Arthur Vavasour’s part to deny that he had seen Honor
in London, the last ray of hope as regarded her virtue had been swept
away)--alone in his deserted home--alone with his shame and his
disgrace--what wonder was it that John Beacham, in the silence and
solitude of his chamber, should have given way to a despondency that was
twin-brother to despair?
A tap at the door, not a delicate or gentle one, for there were no
genteel and well-trained servants at the Paddocks, roused the master of
the house from the kind of stupor of grief into which he had fallen.
“A letter, please, sir,” said a voice outside--the voice of Hannah, who,
not finding her summons for admittance, promptly answered, had “tried
the door,” and _that_ method of ingress having proved an unsuccessful
one, she, with laudable perseverance, had hit upon another plan for the
attainment of her object.
“A letter, please, sir,” and, in a lower voice at the key-hole, “I think
it is from the young missus.”
The words, as Hannah had anticipated, acted like a charm. In a moment
the door flew open under John’s eager hand, and seizing the letter (it
was the one which Honor had written previous to her departure, and which
had remained ever since its delivery under Hannah’s watchful care), he
speedily succeeded, though the daylight was waning fast, in making
himself master of its contents.
As he read the simple words--very simple they were, and childish, but
each one carrying with it a proof of the writer’s innocence and
truth--the light of hope dawned once more on poor John’s darkened
brain, and big tears of gratitude broke from his wearied eyes.
Surprised, worn out both physically and mentally, for he had been more
than thirty hours without rest or food, he could at first scarcely bring
himself to understand the relief which, nevertheless, he felt was a
great and blessed one. Laying his head down on his folded arms, with one
short but fervent ejaculation of thankfulness hovering on his parched
lips, the man whose iron frame had hitherto seemed almost impervious to
fatigue, and proof against the ordinary ills that flesh is heir to, grew
gradually insensible to outer things, losing all sense whether of joy or
sorrow, in the heavy and lethargic slumber which is too often the
precursor of serious illness.
Once and again, treading softly and on tiptoe, the old woman, anxious
and miserable, stole to the side of the motionless figure, wondering at
this unnatural quiet. But Hannah bade her not to worry herself.
“It’s just nothing but being fairly worn out,” she said, “and who’s to
wonder, I should like to know?” she went on defiantly. “A man, if he’s
as strong as Samson, can’t abear being worritted for ever. Any way,” the
worthy creature said to herself, “I’m glad I kept the letter, maybe
missus would have nobbled it; so she might. There’s never no knowing
what some folks is up to;” and Hannah chuckled inwardly, as she set the
tea-things in preparation for the master’s waking.
But neither on that occasion, nor for many a day afterwards, did “the
master,” who was so beloved by all who knew him, join in the daily
meals, the regular partaking of which those who lead a simple life in
farmhouses are wont to consider as absolutely necessary for the
sustainment of the vital principle existing within the human frame. John
awoke from the death-like slumber into which he had fallen with
shivering limbs and an aching head; symptoms which even Mrs. Beacham’s
limited experience told her denoted the commencement of a violent fever;
and such in fact it proved. For many days John’s life was in serious
danger; in such danger that the country folk, coming from miles around
to learn news of his condition, lingered about for hours near the door,
expecting--fearing to hear the worst. In such danger, that the poor old
woman, his mother, knew no rest either by night or day, for at the
pillow on which the fevered head lay tossing restlessly, she listened
remorsefully to his delirious ravings, ravings in which were mingled in
strange confusion the names of his lost Honor and of Arthur’s “murdered”
wife.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HONOR RECEIVES A LETTER.
In the mean while Honor, unconscious of the events that had occurred,
and the calamities which had befallen those in whom she was so deeply
interested, had supported for another weary night and day the suspense
which she found hourly more difficult of endurance. Then the courage
that had hitherto supported her began to flag, and she half
resolved--wholly objectionable as was the plan, and revolting to every
feeling of womanly modesty--to endeavour by inquiry at Arthur’s house to
obtain some information concerning him. That some evil, some sudden
accident or grievous sickness, had overtaken her only friend, Honor
could not but believe; and it was this belief, joined to a certain pride
which lingered in her still (for, after all, Arthur _might_ be simply
false), that prevented her from having recourse to her former
plan--namely, that of writing to Arthur at his house or at his club. To
sally forth after dark; to call a cab, and to be driven to within a few
yards of Mr. Duberly’s house; and when there to make a few insignificant
inquiries of the servant which might lead to something like elucidation
of her doubts and fears, seemed a plan not very difficult of execution;
and Honor was still pondering on its expediency when to her surprise
(for she had ceased to expect such consolations) a letter was put into
her hand by Mrs. Casey--a letter, too, which she perceived at once was
from Arthur Vavasour.
Hurrying with her treasure into the inner room, which was her
bedchamber, and utterly regardless of Mrs. Casey’s feelings as a friend
and would-be confidante, Honor tore open the envelope, when the first
writing that met her eye was her own! Casting the note directed by
herself impatiently on one side, she opened another inclosure--one of
deeply-bordered mourning-paper, and read as follows:
“MY DEAR HONOR,--For for the last time I may venture to call you
so; I write you this letter to bid you a last farewell. A heavy
blow has fallen on us all. My poor wife--I did love her, Honor,
more than I ever thought--is dead. It was very sudden. She
overheard words--I trust you may never know from whom--which must
have made her think that I was false to her, for she fell down as
one dead, poor girl, and never spoke again. All this grief and
wretchedness, and the sight of poor Mr. Duberly’s misery, and
knowing he must hate me soon, is more than I can bear, so I have
resolved that after the funeral is over I will have an
explanation--I mean, that I will confess everything--about the
horse and my debts, and all my horrible deceptions to the poor old
man; and after that, it is my intention to go abroad, to America or
some distant country; and my best hope is that nobody will ever
hear of me again. Writing, as I am, with the poor thing that I have
killed so near me, there are but few words, Honor, that I can dare
to say to you. One wish, one prayer, however, I _may_ breathe, and
that prayer is, that you will go home to John. It is with the hope
that you will do so, that I send you back your own innocent, simple
notes, the only ones you ever wrote to me, and which, but for the
help that they may be to you, I would never, _never_ have parted
with. Send them to your husband, dear Honor. They will convince
him, if he is ever so positive, that I was not a liar when I swore
that you were pure as the angels of Heaven from the guilt of which
he dared suspect you. And now, dear Honor, fare you well, and if in
the days to come, when you are happy, as I pray you may be, you
should ever think of these past wretched times again, let there be
forgiveness in your heart for one whose crime towards you has been
followed by a punishment almost too heavy to be borne.”
Twice did Honor Beacham, with eyes blinded by tears, read over this
miserable letter, before the whole and entire sense of it came home to
her understanding. The shock of hearing of the death, under such pitiful
circumstances, of Arthur’s wife, was very great, and the mournful
tragedy stood out in terrible and bold relief from amongst the mist and
confusion which at first (for Honor’s intellects were then not in the
clearest possible condition) seemed to envelope the other portions of
Arthur’s letter. But very soon--_too_ soon for the unhappy woman to whom
the clearing up of the mystery seemed almost the signal for
despair--light dawned upon her bewildered mind, and with a cry of agony,
she accused herself aloud as the wretched cause of the young mother’s
untimely end. At that moment, in the first keen torture of her
self-reproach, she would have hailed as an act of mercy from on high the
relief which death, her own death, would have brought to her. Flinging
herself on her knees beside the bed, and burying her face in its
covering, she strove, but strove in vain, to stifle the violent
hysterical sobs that _would_, in spite of all her efforts, force
themselves from her ice-cold lips. Ah, Heaven! so the poor tortured
creature asked herself, how _could_ she bear the life that was before
her--the life burdened with such a dreadful, dreadful weight of guilt?
Verily, to use the concluding words of Arthur’s letter, her punishment
seemed greater than she could bear--greater by far, in one respect, than
that which had overtaken _him_; for while her fellow-culprit could take
comfort from the thought that he _might_ have (yet had not) sinned more
heavily, she in her despairing humility exaggerated her guilt, and
sorrowed as one that had no hope.
* * * * *
Life, as has been said a thousand times, is made up of
contrasts--healthy, invigorating contrasts sometimes--contrasts which,
while they often jar upon the feelings, and even sometimes tinge with a
faint and humiliating colouring of ridicule the “situations” which they
mar, are, nevertheless, as I said before, highly useful in their way,
acting as a mental _douche_, the benefit of which may be as lasting as
it is immediate. It was such a shock as this, a trifling one in
appearance, yet not altogether without its use, that roused Honor from
the kind of trance of despair into which she had fallen. The sound of
Mrs. Casey’s voice, and the commonplace inquiry of “Please, _miss_, is
there anything partiklar that you’d like for dinner?” smote upon Honor’s
ear like a summons from a world that she had left, and in the interests
of which she had ceased to have a share. But although this _was_ the
case, and albeit her grief and repentance were as deep and scarcely less
agonising than they had been at first, the necessity of rising from her
knees, of hiding the traces of her agitation, and, more than all, the
obligation under which she lay, both of replying to Mrs. Casey’s
well-meant inquiries, and of baffling as best she might that
investigating person’s very natural curiosity, all these things were, to
a certain extent, good for Honor. That they were beneficial was
evidenced by the fact that, after Mrs. Casey had, with a very
dissatisfied look, which increased the always somewhat repulsive
expression of her face, left her lodger to herself, that, to the
landlady’s thinking, very mysterious and unsatisfactory young person
felt far more equal than she had done ten minutes before to the task of
thinking, with some degree of calmness and common sense, not only on the
difficulties and necessities of her present position, but on what manner
it had become her duty at this crisis of her affairs to act.
Perhaps the strongest feeling (next to her own bitter self-reproach)
which she was conscious of entertaining was one of deep compassion for,
and sympathy with poor John’s wholly undeserved sorrows. All that had
passed, and the deeds which had led with such fearful rapidity to fatal
and irretrievable results, appeared in all their miserable distinctness
to Honor’s mind. She could understand now that John, in his eagerness to
discover her whereabouts, had found his way to the house where Arthur
lived; and that, then and there, worked up to unjust suspicion by his
mother’s hints and accusations, he had with the vehemence of unbridled
passion uttered the words which, overheard by Arthur’s wife, had proved
a death-blow to that ill-fated woman. How deeply and how lastingly the
remorse of such a deed (all-unintentional though it was) would crush
down the spirit of one of whose tenderness of heart Honor had had
abundant proofs, she did not need in that unhappy hour to be reminded;
while to act to the best of her ability the part of comforter, to strive
with all the means in her power to obtain her pardon, and to induce her
husband to _believe_ her, and to forget the past, were now the dearest
wishes of her heart. But would he--ah! there lay the _one_ terrible and
ever-recurring thought--would he, even after he had read the letters
which “poor” Arthur, with what Honor was still weak enough to style his
“unselfish kindness”--had returned to her--credit the truth that her
worst faults were those of folly, of vanity; her most unpardonable
errors those arising from a quick and rebellious temper? If she could
but see him, Honor sometimes told herself, it would not be _very_
difficult--in defiance of his mother--to make John judge her rightfully;
but though in her more sanguine moments this was the poor girl’s
persuasion, there were other, and far more frequent occasions when she
despaired of forgiveness, and when a dread of even a chance meeting with
her husband made her heart sink within her for fear.
In this miserable fashion, alternating between hope and depression,
haunted by night as well as by day with the memory of the dead, and with
her heart made every hour sorer by thinking on the living, four more
painful days and nights sped by.
She had been more than a week an inmate of Mrs. Casey’s house, when that
thrifty personage--who had not yet, as she elegantly termed it, “seen
the colour of Miss Blake’s money”--made her usual afternoon _entrée_
into her lodger’s sitting-room, with an ominous long-shaped piece of
bluish-white paper in her hand. Mrs. Casey--whose wits were, like those
of many others of her class and kind sharpened by the instincts of
self-preservation necessary for her calling--was surprised on her
entrance by a change in her lodger’s countenance and manner, for which,
seeing that Miss Blake had to the best of her belief, received neither
visitor nor letter, the worthy landlady could by no means account. There
was a feverish flush; a light which, though it was scarcely joy, was
wonderfully revivifying in that beautiful face; and Mrs. Casey, who had
entered the room with one of the least tender of human purposes, felt
even _her_ prosaic fancy warm beneath its softening influence. Nor was
the woman’s surprise concerning her mysterious tenant lessened when the
latter said with a faint blush, and hurriedly:
“Mrs. Casey, I was going to ask for you; ah, that is your bill; and,”
glancing at it slightly, “perhaps you will help me to pack up my few
things, for _I am going home_!”
She said the words, there was no mistaking _that_, exultingly; and Mrs.
Casey (wondering greatly, for had not this to the end mysterious young
person told her that she had _no_ home?) uttered what was intended to be
a civil congratulation on this apparently altered condition in her
affairs. But Honor heard her not. With a nervous eagerness which
permitted of no pause either for thought or speech, she continued the
few and simple preparations for her departure. Drawing forth her purse,
she paid, with an absence of all prudence, and a degree of submission to
exorbitant charges which caused Mrs. Casey bitterly to regret her own
moderation, the “little account” which that lady obsequiously handed to
her, and, when all was ready, she shook hands nervously with the woman
with whom one of the thousand chances of life had made her acquainted,
and whom she was never likely, on this side the grave, to meet again.
“I wish you good-day, miss, and a pleasant journey,” Mrs. Casey said,
taking her last inquisitorial survey of her late lodger through the open
window of the cab which had been summoned to convey “Miss Blake” to the
station--“and if you should know any friends, gentlemen preferred, who
want a quiet lodging, good attendance, and everything found, perhaps
you’d be good enough to think of No. 29.”
“Indeed I will,” said Honor, answering the request, as such questions
usually are answered, at random; and in another moment the owner of the
dirty net-cap and incipient moustache returned, the impersonation of
baffled curiosity, into the underground precincts of the “quiet
lodging,” while Honor, Hope having at last come out conqueror over
Fear, pursued her way--a thousand conflicting feelings surging in her
breast--towards _home_! Home at last, home again, for all that in her
husband’s house Honor expected still to find the unloving woman who had
once made that home so hard to bear. Home again, though John’s anger
might still be hot against her, and though she had her pardon yet to
seek. Home once more; for on that never-to-be-forgotten day Honor had
discovered that which changed for her, in some mysterious way, the
entire aspect of her life, had made sure of that which she fondly hoped
would not only make her peace with John, but would perhaps even soften
his mother’s stony heart towards her.
“They can never, never be hard upon me _now_,” she kept repeating to
herself as visions of a great joy yet to come, a joy that would gild
over the dark and mournful outlines of the past, rose up before her.
Visions they were of a fair child--the peacemaker--a child with tender
limbs, rounded and soft, whose little cheek was pressed to hers, John
all the while looking at them both, the child and her, in wonder and in
love.
But, unfortunately for the sustainment of poor Honor’s courage, other
and less agreeable thoughts and anticipations took their place as she
drew nearer and more near to the home that she was gilding with her own
fancy’s rays. At a distance, and buoyed up by the inward consciousness
that, in her humble way, she was blessed among women, it had seemed no
such hard matter to fall at honest John’s feet and cry, “Husband, I have
sinned before thee, and am no more worthy--inasmuch as I have been
proud, passionate, and ungrateful--to be called thy wife:” but as the
moment for confession approached, stern reality usurped the place of
fancy, and the task grew to her thinking very hard indeed to perform.
Nor was it rendered easier by the reception--real or imaginary--which
awaited her at Switcham--Switcham, where, a twelvemonth before, at that
self-same hour, she had returned from her bridal tour in happiness and
half in triumph, to her home, and where, now a disgraced and lonely
wanderer, she had to endure as best she might cold looks and
disrespectful stares, from the sight of which she escaped with eager
haste into the first closed carriage that she found in waiting.
It was then that in dread and trembling she began to repent of the
impetuous haste with which she had acted--then that she regretted her
folly in not having prepared the way for her return by writing all she
had to say to John; for of course, so she whispered sadly to herself,
she was despised and utterly condemned. Public opinion, she could not
doubt, was against her, for John was beloved and respected by all;
while she--well, what, she asked herself, had _she_ done to deserve one
single emotion of affection or esteem? Nothing--to her awakened
conscience told her--absolutely nothing. She had held herself aloof from
her neighbours with a pride which she now knew was both mean and wicked;
and she had crowned all by bringing disgrace and sorrow on the man who,
from his youth upwards, had lived as a friend amongst his neighbours,
gaining by his good deeds, his honesty and kindliness, the hearts of all
who knew and understood his worth.
The short half-hour requisite to traverse the up-hill road that lay
between Switcham and Pear-tree House sped away with cruel rapidity for
Honor, who would gladly--to postpone the now dreaded moment of
arrival--have deserted the lumbering “fly,” which that well-known old
gray mare dragged on so wearily, and, resting by the wayside, have
striven better to prepare herself for the coming trial.
A cowardly wish it was, and senseless as it was cowardly, for what
change, what power to endure, what gift of boldness, would time or
thought bestow on one who for so many days and nights of solitary
thought had been picturing to herself the meeting that was now so near
at hand--the meeting which only the courage lent her by her newly-born
hopes could, she now felt, enable her to support?
As each well-remembered object, while drifting with terrible rapidity
towards the home she had so recklessly abandoned, met her eyes, the
nervous tremor which had begun, from the moment when she neared the
Switcham station, to oppress her, became gradually more difficult of
control. The hour, the season, the soft evening air, the bright green of
the opening leaves, the thousand tokens of the blithesome spring, all
these, instead of cheering and supporting Honor’s sinking spirits,
lessened through the touching of some tender chord of memory, some link
connected with the happy Past, her feeble powers of self-control.
When the carriage from the Dragon drew up before the woodbine-covered
porch, Honor’s agitation had arrived at its highest pitch, and when, at
the sound of wheels upon the gravel, Hannah made her appearance at the
door, and uttered, at the unexpected sight of the “young missus,” a
half-suppressed exclamation of astonishment, there came no sound from
Honor’s lips, while her feet, so incapable was she of movement, seemed
glued to the time-worn sheepskin on which they rested.
With noiseless fingers--Hannah was usually a bustling servant, and the
strange quiet of her movements, together with a peculiar and unwonted
stillness that reigned through the house, filled Honor’s mind with a
great, but undefined, uneasiness--with noiseless fingers then the old
servant opened the door of the vehicle, and in a low, boding whisper,
her face close to Honor’s ear, said pityingly:
“Keep a good heart, dear; he ain’t worse, thank God; and the doctors,
they _do_ say--”
But Honor waited to hear no more. The force of _reality_, the call for
immediate action, suddenly loosened her tongue and rendered her limbs
pliant. In a moment she was by Hannah’s side, and saying in tones,
unconsciously imitative of those which had been so full of startling
meaning:
“O, Hannah! what is it? O, Heaven! he is not ill! Tell me he is not
ill!” and she strove to steady herself by clinging convulsively to the
old servant’s arm.
“Hush, my dear, hush! You mustn’t take on so. I thought you’d a’ known
that master was lying in the fever, or you wouldn’t, maybe, be here. But
come in, there’s a dear. This is the fifth day, and Doctor Kempshall
says there’ll be a chrisus, I think he calls it, soon, but whether for
life or death, the God that rules us only knows.”
Hannah, who was a pious woman, and one who held to the belief that no
misfortunes happen to us by the power that is lightly called _chance_,
spoke the last words with almost devotional earnestness, adding thereby
to the wild alarm that Honor was beginning to entertain.
“In danger!” she cried, “and I never knew it! O, John, dear John!” and
she was hurrying to the stairs, when another step treading still more
softly, and a voice more whisperingly low than even Hannah’s, checked
her progress.
“You musn’t go, _my dear_,” said Mrs. Beacham, for she it was who,
looking like the ghost of her former self, pressed Honor’s white cheek
to hers. “You must not see John now. The fever may, the doctors say, be
infectious, and if it please God to spare his life, why--” with a very
sad smile, but one that was meant to be reassuring--“we may want you
yet.”
This reception, and the unlooked-for kindness of the broken-down old
woman, was too much for Honor. Falling on her knees, and with a feeble
cry of, “Forgive me! O forgive me!” she buried her face in her
mother-in-law’s gown, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE USES OF ADVERSITY.
Two more days and nights sped by--a time passed almost literally by
Honor in tears and fasting--when the anxiously-looked-for crisis came at
last; came in fear, and passed away in tearful hope, and the joyful news
went forth that John Beacham was out of danger. Out of danger, and
certain (humanly speaking) to walk forth again amongst his fellows;
certain too--ay, of that there could be no doubt--that his duty to God
and to his neighbours would be, to the best of his powers, as simply and
faithfully performed by this honest, simple-hearted man as it had been
in the days before sorrow came, and shame had visited his house. Shame,
but not guilt. Ah, in that lay John’s best consolation, when, with his
head a little lower than had been his wont, he for the first time, with
languid step and sadly altered face, sauntered in his garden between the
lines of fragrant roses, leaning upon Honor’s arm.
They were serious, as well as sad, those two, between whom there had
been so perfect a reconciliation, and on one side a forgiveness so
entire and unqualified. Honor’s sweet young face looked older, paler,
and far more thoughtful than of yore. She could not forget, neither
could the chastened man beside her, that through _their_ faults
tribulation had fallen upon the innocent, and that a motherless infant,
a bereaved father, were left to bear witness to the terrible fact that
they had failed, grievously failed, in their duty to God and to their
neighbour. Through all their lives the memory of these calamities would
darken their joys, and cast a cloud even while the sun shone brightest,
and the sky was bluest above their heads. Never again would Honor be the
bright, light-hearted girl who had first won John’s love when she played
with the merry children in the woods, laughing and shouting in their
joyous mirth. Never again would he, secure in his home happiness, and
with a conscience not only void of offence towards God and towards man,
but with a heart unburdened by a sense of wrong done to any soul that
lived, wear upon his kindly face the genial smile which gladdened his
many acquaintances, men as well as women, young as well as old, when he
waved them a cordial greeting on his onward way. The zest, the freshness
which makes life a thing to be enjoyed as well as endured, was over for
ever; over, not only for the man verging on middle-age, but for the
woman who, on the very threshold of existence, had looked out on coming
storms, and had learned to dread the distant warning of the tempest.
But if not happy--happy, that is to say, with the bliss which, like the
joys of childhood, is simply the result of ignorance, and sometimes the
consequence of want of feeling or want of sense--there were yet
sufficient elements of happiness remaining in John Beacham’s home for
hope to crop out greenly from the arid sands of past regret. Not yet had
the time, the dreary time when no pleasure is taken in any created
thing, arrived for them; not yet had the hour struck when in the voice
of Nature there is no joyful sound, when the opening spring, the song of
birds, the murmur of the rippling water, appeal to the heart in vain,
and when the man who has striven through life to do his duty, and has
failed to reap the reward of peace and the fruition of content, tells
himself, in bitterness of spirit, that from the first step in life he
had chosen the wrong path, and whispers sadly to his heart that it is
all too late, alas, to retrace his steps.
“He writes very unhappily, John,” Honor was saying. Her husband had a
letter that they had been reading in his hand--a letter to John from
Arthur Vavasour. It was the second that they had received from him; the
first having been one so touchingly penitent that John Beacham for a
long while after reading it was more than usually silent, keeping its
contents to himself, and not alluding afterwards, in any way whatsoever,
to the young man’s letter. But, if possible, he was after receiving it
still more tender to Honor than he had been before; watching her, as she
flitted about his sickroom, with eyes that glistened as they looked on
her.
As soon as he was equal to the exertion, John answered the humble
letter, which, coming as it did from the son of one whose memory was
very dear to him, and whose good works were embalmed with the myrrh,
aloes, and cassia of deep respect in the righteous man’s heart, gave
deep and sincere pain to its recipient; and in his reply to the penitent
effusion poor John took, as such an unselfish man was certain to do, a
great portion of the blame, the guilt indeed, of all that had occurred
upon himself. Had a stranger read John’s simple letter, he would very
naturally have believed that the writer was guilty of other and worse
offences than that of an impulsive yielding to first impressions, and of
speaking hasty words with his tongue.
“I shall never forgive myself,” he wrote. “I was a brute and a
fool, and don’t deserve the happiness of having _my_ poor wife at
home with me. Would to God, dear Mr. Arthur, that any prayers of
mine and Honor’s could bring back _yours_; but it was God’s will
that she should be taken, poor young lady; but I don’t understand
how you can make things better by leaving your little one as well.
I hope you will excuse my advising you; but I loved your father
well, dear Mr. Arthur, as you know; and it grieves me to think that
his son is going into banishment like for my fault. Surely the old
gentleman would be best pleased for you to stay at home; and
besides, from all that I can hear, America is not the best place
for a young gentleman to live in. The young ladies, too, at the
Castle would find it hard to lose you; and I should be always
remembering, seeing your empty place at church, that it was me that
was the cause you went. No, no, dear Mr. Arthur, you will think
better of it still, I hope; and we shall see you riding with the
young ladies about the Chace this summer, not exactly as if nothing
had happened--for that could not be, even if it was right--but as
your late lamented father would approve of, and as your ancestors
did before you. I hope that you will be so good as excuse my
boldness, and will believe me, with respect and affection,
“Your obedient servant,
“JOHN BEACHAM.”
“P.S. There is one of the beautifullest foals ever dropped, out of
Mad Flora by the Old Shekarry, in the five-bar paddock. I should
like you to see her, so I should. You’d say you never saw a neater
nor a cleaner made one. The stock is good, and no mistake.”
This letter--a letter written from the fulness of a kind and
sympathising heart--found Arthur Vavasour at Liverpool, to which city he
had resorted for the purpose of taking steam to the great republic--the
land of _soi-disant_ liberty--the land of the “stars and stripes,”
“unwhipped and unwhippable for ever.” (I wonder, writing of that
self-same flag, that some zealous descendant of the Pilgrim
Fathers--some red-hot Yankee, friend and supporter of his black-bodied
brethren--has not ere this voted for the suppression of the ruled,
gingham-suggestive portion of the “glorious flag,” for now that the
negro back is free from suffering, and the weary “son of Afric” need no
longer toil, the stripes would seem, one might suppose, a worse than
unnecessary, because a painful, reminder of the disgraceful past.) But
to return to Arthur Vavasour in the half-Americanised city, and in the
big hotel to which the love of the turtle has drawn many a man who, like
me and, perhaps, you, O gentle reader, has no thought whatever of
crossing the broad Atlantic in a Cunard steamer. Had those afflicted
ones, who so deeply commiserated the forlorn lot of this poor widower,
been enabled at that moment (Asmodeus-like) to look upon his saddened
face, and form their own opinions, unbiassed either by prejudice or
pity, they could hardly have decided that the events of the past month
had told very severely upon this young British Sybarite. At twenty-two
it is very easy to forget, and with the world (a considerable portion of
it, that is to say) untried and unexplored before him, a young man of
good birth, the eventual possessor of such an estate as Gillingham (for
even Lady Millicent could not prevent the family property from
descending after her death to her eldest son)--with, I repeat, such
prospects as these, to say nothing of good health and a handsome person,
it is hardly surprising that Arthur Vavasour should have felt very far
from utterly cast down by the changes and chances of this mortal life,
of which he had lately had such painful as well as mortifying
experience. He was not alone, for, seated by the open window in a
rocking-chair, and reading the last number of the _Field_, then a new
publication, sat a young man whose name was Godfrey Tremlett, and who,
having been a college friend--the _fidus Achates_ of his semi-boyish
days--had kindly consented to share the wanderings of the disappointed
man in the lands beyond the sea, where the heavy foot of the buffalo
tramples the silent prairie, and where, flying slowly but surely before
civilisation, the red Indian (baptised with the baptism of the
Christian’s “fire-water”) endures his lot with patience, looking, with
stolid face and all a wild man’s stupid singleness of heart, to a
better, that is, a more sporting country in the happy hunting-grounds
where a good savage meets his due reward; in other words, Arthur and his
companion’s point was Fort Jasper, and their intentions were to witch
the world at home with accounts of their adventures, with details of
their narrow escapes, and with the counting over daily of the head of
game which they with their bow and spear had bagged.
It was exciting work that talking over their plans, examining maps of
the country (rather vague ones, it is true, but not on that account the
less interesting to the travellers), and slaying in anticipation
countless numbers of harmless animals then roaming unsuspectingly over
their native wilds.
Mr. Godfrey Tremlett was a rather heavily-built young man,
fresh-complexioned, with a fat, beardless, good-humoured face. His
appearance was not precisely that of a sportsman; indeed, that very
morning, when he had tried on a certain hunting-suit, very short in the
skirts and slightly eccentric in fashion (he had invented it himself,
and took much credit to himself for the idea), Arthur, forgetful for the
moment of his recent affliction, went off into roars of laughter at the
singularity of his friend’s appearance. Neither abashed nor affronted by
this proof of intimacy, Godfrey spun round before the glass in an
_accès_ of self-satisfaction, which no friendly ridicule had power to
check. He was essentially and invariably good-tempered. His high spirits
were proof against the normal ills, the daily worries, the hourly
_contretemps_ of existence. He had no taste for what is generally called
society. Ladies, as a rule, he considered a bore, and “fine ladies” he
held in absolute, nay almost physical, dread and horror. He was not
extravagant; on the contrary, he made the most of a small patrimony
which had descended to him from his deceased father, and contrived to
save yearly out of an income of something less than five hundred per
annum a sufficient sum to enable him to enjoy in some sporting-fields or
other--in Scotland, Norway, or wherever the fancy led him--a few months
of excitement and variety.
To Mr. Godfrey Tremlett the idea of accompanying such a “real good
fellow” as Arthur Vavasour in the search of the latter after change and
a forgetfulness of his troubles was simply delightful. He pitied his
poor friend immensely, and did not at all intend that Arthur should give
way to the low spirits which are generally supposed to be incidental to
his situation. Neither, it must be owned, did the young widower himself
betray any signs that the task of consolation would be either an
impossible or a difficult one. Already change of scene, of projects, and
of mode of life had produced their normal effects (as regards the young,
at least) on Arthur Vavasour; and, judging by his frequent laugh, the
zest with which he entered into the arrangements for his approaching
campaign, and, more than all, his evident enjoyment of the good things
that were set before him (namely, the _calipash_ and _calipee_, which
were pronounced by these two young _gourmands_ to be as the nectar and
ambrosia of the gods), it would have been easy for the least observant
of lookers-on to convince himself that the affliction with which (for
his own selfishness, his own want of moral principle, his own vanity and
folly) Arthur Vavasour had been visited was but for a season, and only
lightly felt by this voluntary exile.
“He does not recover his spirits,” Honor said to her husband, after
reading the short farewell letter in which Arthur had recapitulated his
reasons for leaving England, and had dwelt in touching terms on his
loneliness and his repentance. They little thought, that husband and
wife, whose peace had been blighted, and whose mutual confidence shaken,
if not destroyed, by this man’s indulgence in vile and selfish passions,
how little call there really existed in this case for compassion, and
how easy it had been for Arthur Vavasour to feign a sorrow he had ceased
to feel.
But while the man who had been the chief cause (humanly speaking) of
this one amongst the thousand tragedies wrought by human selfishness and
frailty bore his burden with such a light and unreflecting spirit, the
chief sufferer by the calamity was he who was in no way--as far, that
is, as short-sighted mortal eyes can see--deserving of punishment. The
grief of poor Sophy’s bereaved father was _for life_. For him, for the
aged man, who could no longer look to new ties, new hopes to bind him to
this earthly tabernacle, the loss of his child was a blow from the
effects of which he never could recover. He was a Christian in thought
as well as in outward belief and conduct, and he strove earnestly not
only _to forgive_, but to manifest the forgiveness which he tried, not
with entire success, to feel not only towards Arthur Vavasour, but
towards the beautiful woman whom he ever considered, with the tenacity
of faith that is characteristic of old age, as the fellow-culprit of
poor Sophy’s faithless husband. It is a hard thing even for the young to
have their belief in all human excellence, in all human honesty,
destroyed; but it is harder still upon the old, when faith and trust,
the _virginities of the soul_, are for ever taken away, and when in
loneliness of heart, with mistrust and suspicion usurping the place of
former confidence and unquestioning credulity, they wend their weary way
towards the grave in silence and in gloom. Nor was that unhappy father
the only one who, mourning for the child who would not return to him,
became a changed and saddened character. Mrs. Beacham, though, as might
have been supposed, rather too old to learn, had yet, during the anxious
days and nights when John lay between life and death, laid her
shortcomings to heart, and, making some allowance for a
stiff-neckedness, which had become a chronic evil of her idiosyncrasy,
had reviewed the past without a certain proper sense of her own sins
regarding her daughter-in-law. To confess those sins was more than could
be expected of one who had arrived at the age of seventy with the
conviction that all she said and did was right, beyond the possibility
of question; but Mrs. Beacham did endeavour, as much as in her lay, to
make amends for the past; and although she could not wholly overcome her
former jealousy of Honor’s influence over her son, she kept her temper
in tolerable subjection, and instead of (as was the case with Arthur)
throwing the occurrences of the painful past into the waste-basket of
memory, she--it was the woman’s nature so to do--kept them alive with
persevering industry in her breast, knowing well that with forgetfulness
might come a relaxation of her constant efforts to obliterate the evil
she had wrought--evil to the son she loved, and to the woman with whom,
come what come might, the happiness of his future life was bound up.
Happily, both for the peace--such peace as they could henceforth hope
for--of John Beacham and his wife, the little world of Sandyshire
remained in ignorance of the main facts attendant on the death of young
Mrs. Vavasour. She had died in childbed it was reported, and unhappily
such deaths are of too common occurrence for especial wonder to be
created thereby. Any reports of a close connection between John
Beacham’s domestic affairs and those of Arthur Vavasour and his dead
wife were put a stop to by Honor’s return, and by the restored affection
and trust which, after John’s recovery, were seen to exist, not only
between the husband and wife, but between Honor and her hitherto
implacable mother-in-law. They left the Paddocks for a time, a few not
unhappy weeks, change of air and scene having been recommended by the
doctors for the perfecting of John’s recovery; and during that absence
from their home the bonds of affection, strengthened by the ties of a
great sorrow shared between them, were knit very closely together. The
dawn of their wedded life had been overcast with clouds; the morning had
been dull, and doubts of whether fine weather would even come at noon
had strengthened as the day grew older. But the “morning gray,”
according to the old shepherd’s adage, will not, let us hope, fail to
end in the “fine day” that ofttimes follows. The grieving over love’s
decay is of all griefs the gloomiest. To be shedding--I speak of a wife
now (men’s eyes are not formed for weeping)--to be shedding secret tears
over the memory of an affection passed away is a very hopeless form of
sorrow. The
“Distilling bitter, bitter drops
From sweets of former years”
formed, however, no part of the trials to which Honor Beacham was
henceforth exposed. _Her_ duty was, by undying efforts to efface the
memory of past error, and to strive by every act and word to render
herself worthy of a good man’s love. The memory of the bitter past--of
the past, unconnected by any lack of love on John’s part--could never,
never be washed away; but to “redeem the time,” the present that was
left to her, became, because of the evil of the days that were past, a
still more sacred duty. Sorrow had done good service in forming while it
humbled the character of our poor little impulsive heroine, for “la
vertù è simile ai perfumi, che rendono più grato odore quando-riturati.”
Heaviness had indeed endured for the morning, but content, if not joy,
had come to her and hers with the quiet evening light.
CONCLUSION.
If the reader of this half-true story has followed with any portion of
just indignation the tortuous ways through which an insane craving after
power has lead the nominal heroine of these pages, he or she will not
regret to learn that, in consequence of a high legal opinion--_the_
highest, indeed, in the land--having been given, at the eleventh hour,
against the possibility of setting aside Earl Gillingham’s last will and
testament, Lady Millicent was forced, with a reluctance comparable only
to the pang of plucking out a right eye or wrenching out a wrong tooth,
to abandon the unfilial as well as unmotherly intention which she had so
long secretly as well as avowedly harboured.
The intense though silent wrath of Lady Millicent when she found that
the great law-lords were not to be led--albeit the forceps or chain,
call it what you will, was held and drawn by a lady of great estate,
strong courage, and ancient name--by the nose may be better imagined
than described. Misfortunes never, according to the old adage, come
singly, and this autocratic lady found the proof of the proverb to her
cost. In her youth she had never cared to provide herself with friends,
and, when it was too late, she made the unwelcome discovery that there
are certain manufactures of which the art cannot be learned save in the
freshness and elasticity of early womanhood. The world, too, which had
interested itself a good deal in Lady Millicent’s efforts, and which was
hesitating as to its decision from a laudable desire to side with the
strongest, bore rather hardly in her discomfiture on the baffled and
indignant woman. That she had been unmotherly, grasping,
avaricious--everything that was least feminine and most odious--everyone
was more than willing to allow; whereas Arthur--regarding whom heads had
been ominously shaken, and of whose scampishness so many (while the
great affair was in abeyance) had a word, more or less severe, to
say--became once more the popular “young fellow,” the idol of fair
women’s hearts, and the object of future attacks from prudent mammas and
half-despairing _demoiselles à marier_.
It was while smarting under the first wounds inflicted by disappointed
ambition and frustrated love of power that Lady Millicent discovered the
bitter truth that as we sow so we must reap, and that there can be no
harvest of affection where the seeds of tenderness have been neglected
to be sown. The news--very melancholy intelligence it was to his brother
and his sisters--that Arthur Vavasour had, for an indefinite period,
bade farewell to home and country, child and kindred, was communicated
to Lady Millicent by her son Horace. He, the younger brother, who had
always been in secret very impatient of parental control, and whose
strong affection for his elder brother had ever been a marked and
amiable feature of his character, was roused by the departure of Arthur
to the strongest feelings of displeasure against the mother whose
unfeeling conduct had, in his opinion, been the cause of her son’s
expatriation. Walking one morning unannounced into the dull morning-room
in which Lady Millicent, now that the occupation of her life was over,
sat brooding over the turpitude and cowardice of lawyers, and the
general injustice and stupidity of all connected with wills and
will-making, Horace Vavasour took the liberty of giving his mother a
piece of his mind.
“So, ma’am,” he began, his lips pale with agitation, and his voice
(Horace was a little shaken by a year’s dissipation) a trifle difficult
to steady,--“so, ma’am, Arthur’s off--gone--bolted. This confounded
law-business put the finishing-stroke to his affairs, poor fellow! I
knew how it would be. He never had a chance of doing well--never, by
G--!” and Horace, who was standing near some greenhouse plants in full
flower, whirled his light riding-whip lasso-like over their heads,
thereby ruthlessly severing some half-dozen from their parent stems.
Lady Millicent looked up in mute dismay. The outbreak was so unexpected,
and disrespect to her person and authority an occurrence so entirely
new, that for a moment she found no words either sufficiently powerful
or cutting for the expression of her indignation. At last she said,
drawing herself up haughtily:
“You forget yourself strangely. What have I to do with Arthur’s--with
your brother’s--eccentricities? Gone, is he? And where, pray? On some
self-indulgent freak or other, I suppose, to escape the sight of that
poor old man’s miserable face; but what this ‘law-business,’ as you call
it, has to do with the matter, is more than I either understand, or wish
to have explained.”
She rose from the sofa as she spoke, but was arrested by her son’s hand
laid lightly on her shoulder.
“Mother,” he said almost sternly, “for once in my life I will speak to
you openly. It will be the first time and the last; for you are not
one, or I am greatly mistaken, to forgive the words that I shall use.
From our childhood you never, _never_ treated us as if you loved us. As
a little fellow, so little, I remember, that I could scarcely reach the
table with my hand--as a small boy--troublesome, I daresay, as all young
children are, but not _more_ depraved and wicked than others--I
longed--O, _how_ I used to long!--for love and tenderness from you. When
I saw other mothers kiss and pet their children, holding them upon their
knees, and looking with delight and pride upon their play and laughter,
I can never describe to you the bitter envy that I felt, and with what a
sore, sad heart I thought upon the difference between them and me! And
it was the same with all of us. We have compared notes many times since
those days, and have told each other--we four children, whom my father
left a legacy to you; ah, shall I ever forget his dying words?--that we
only wanted love, only the common tenderness shown by all God’s
creatures to their young, and that, having it, we would return it fifty,
ay, a hundredfold! But--and well you know it, mother--we had it not,
that love we yearned for; and failing the boon we craved, we all
went”--and he smiled bitterly--“more or less, and in different ways,
according to our respective powers and sexes, to the bad. There is
Arthur, poor dear Atty,” and his lip quivered painfully, “gone, without
a word--excepting that he confessed some things to that poor
broken-hearted old man which would make your cheek, ma’am, grow red with
shame, although you love him not, to hear of. It seems, he was
reduced--I and some others think that the fault was not _quite_ all his
own--to do some ugly thing which, but for the law-business of which you
speak so lightly, need never have been known, and--”
“Ah, I understand,” put in Lady Millicent, endeavouring to hide her
confusion and annoyance under a mask of carelessness and sarcasm.
“Difficulties in the way of raising money, eh? But that is over now,”
she added bitterly, “and I suppose that your brother need not, as
matters now stand, fly the country because he does not happen to be able
to pay his bills.”
“No, ma’am, you are right there,” rejoined her son; “but, unfortunately,
poor Arthur, almost maddened by grief and worry, and believing, as so
many did, that the ‘high legal opinion’ (on which depended your
continuance or otherwise in the disputing of my grandfather’s will)
would be, when given, adverse to his interests, had not moral courage,
or rather his pecuniary embarrassments were too great to admit of any
longer delay; so he has gone, poor dear fellow.” And Horace drew a long
troubled breath, for, like many others, he believed in the reality as
well as the endurance of Arthur’s grief. “He has gone away, poor old
boy, for years, he says; and--and old Dub told me this morning that
Arthur was--a villain!”
He was very young, that warm-hearted Horace, whose admiration of and
love for his elder brother had truly grown with his growth and
strengthened with his strength. For a long hour that morning he had
stoutly fought Arthur’s battles with the old man, who, embittered by
misfortune, and rendered thereby callous to the feelings of others, had
dilated in no measured terms on his son-in-law’s utter want of
principle, his selfishness, his mendacity, and his general and
irretrievable unworthiness. It was in vain that Horace endeavoured to
convince the obstinate and sorely-tried millionaire--the wealthy
merchant-prince, whose gold had been unavailing to purchase an hour of
life for the child of his old age--that Arthur’s offences were less dark
than they appeared, and that excuses might, if sought for _with a will_,
be found even for this self-exiled sinner. To all the arguments, all the
recapitulations of the affectionate brother tending to throw a light on
the manifest disadvantages attendant on poor Arthur’s “raising,” “old
Dub” would only shake his gray head with the mournfullest of dismal
gestures, and with a “Well, well,” which betokened alike a weariness of
spirit and an absence of conviction that irritated Horace, while filling
his heart with a pity beyond the reach of words.
He was very young, as I before said, or not only would these things not
have taken such a strong effect upon his temper and his mind, but it may
be that, after the utterance of the last terrible word, he would not--an
act which he was weak enough to commit--have flung himself upon a
lounging-chair near him, and, burying his face in his hands, have
striven hard, yet ineffectually, to conceal his emotion.
Lady Millicent meanwhile looked on in silence; but, although apparently
unmoved, she was, perhaps, nearer to giving way to a burst of sorrow
than she had ever been in all her life before. It had, indeed, been a
shock to her to learn that one of the ugliest of accusing words had been
applied by a person on whom she looked down as the dust beneath her
feet, to son of hers. The sight, also, of Horace--his face buried in his
hands, and the tears trickling between his clenched fingers--acted, if
not upon her heart, upon her nerves; and even as the melting of the
winter’s snow tears up the stones most deeply buried in the torrent’s
bed, Lady Millicent, moved by those hard-wrung drops to pity and to
grief, could, had she yielded to one of the best and purest impulses she
had ever known, have fallen on her son’s neck and wept aloud.
For everything--turn which way she would, to the right hand or the
left--everything at which she looked, whether in the past, the present,
or the future, seemed against the unhappy woman who had so long hardened
her heart and stiffened her neck against reproof. Her children--the sons
and daughters whom, strange to say, she now, in the days of her defeat
and in the hour of her humiliation discovered _were_ of some value in
her sight--became to her as instruments of punishment. It was surprising
to what extent the love of power, and the dread of abdicating to another
the sceptre of her rule, had blinded this woman to a sense not only of
her duties, but of her affections. The hope, the aim that she had so
long in view, of still retaining within her grasp the dominion that she
so dearly loved, had absorbed every faculty, both of mind and heart; but
when that hope had vanished, and when the purpose of her life was at an
end, then--when, with the natural yearning of every woman who still
retains some of the characteristics of her sex, for an object on which
to expend the hopes and fears, the energies and anticipations of a still
vigorous mind, she turned with almost a passionately longing heart to
the children whom God had given her--they in their turn refused the
tardy boon thrown _faute de mieux_ for their acceptance.
The children of Cecil Vavasour refused--tacitly, it is true, and with
the firm protest of silent apathy--the offering of a mother’s interest
in their affairs, a parent’s sympathy with their sorrows. Many a year
too late there sounded, for those neglected children of a good and
Christian father, the cry of nature in the breast of that world-hardened
and power-loving woman. They could not--_could_ not love her. Like
stunted trees, blighted by long exposure to cold winds and nipping
frosts, the feeble sap within had ceased to rise, and no new shoots, no
tender buds of love and tenderness, had opened beneath the warmth of
maternal love, even as in the joyous spring the young leaves turn
towards the sun their grateful tribute.
In other words, Lady Millicent’s children, albeit they did not openly
either resist her authority or turn a cold shoulder to her tardy
advances, were what is vulgarly called “no comfort” to her at this
trying season of her life--a season when disappointment rendered still
more unendurable to others a temper already none of the sweetest, and
when consciousness of failure subdued a spirit that had hitherto risen
proudly above the threatened ills of life.
Perhaps, had Lady Millicent’s children been enabled to look within the
heart that had at last begun to melt beneath the influence of maternal
tenderness, their feelings might have been softened, moved by the
knowledge that, in spite of bygone proofs to the contrary, they were
nevertheless beloved; but no such fairy-gift being bestowed upon them,
and it being a boasted peculiarity of Lady Millicent’s idiosyncrasy that
she never betrayed to others the feelings that were making havoc in her
breast, it followed that not only the son whose grief for his brother’s
departure had first aroused her maternal sympathies, but that the
daughters--the sickly Rhoda and the more spirited Katherine--should have
remained in ignorance of their mother’s yearnings after affection,
while, in a silence full of reproachful meaning, they brooded over the
events of the past.
Of the three who so often met together to talk in saddened whispers of
their banished brother, of poor Sophy’s death, and, when Rhoda was not
present, of _her_ failing health, her broken spirits, she who was the
most rebellious, the least willing to submit to the gloom which death
and failure had cast around their home, was Kate--Kate, the gay-hearted
and the _insouciante_--Kate who had expected to marry, and had hoped to
be happy--Kate, to whom the idea of a return, _in statu quo_, to the
dulness and monotony of Gillingham was as a sentence of banishment to a
desert land beyond the seas. And after all they did not return, at least
for the _dead_ season, to Gillingham; for a medical opinion, demanded
with an anxiety carefully hidden from her children, on the condition of
Rhoda’s health pronounced that for the _chance_ of life it was
absolutely necessary that before the autumn should set in Miss Vavasour
must be in the sunny island where so many victims to east winds and
defective lungs retire to die.
They are at Madeira now, those three sad and silent women; sad and
silent, for Lady Millicent was too old to change the habits of a life,
and Rhoda--depressed not only by a blighted attachment but by the
sickness which is unto death--makes no effort to seem the thing she is
not. Only Kate still longs and pines to be happy, but it is hard to
fight against reality, and very hard to kick against the pricks. She
_knows_ that the fiat has gone forth, and that her poor pale Rhoda--the
Rhoda who might, so Katie thinks, have been the contented wife of stupid
George Wallingford--is to die. She foresees a dismal future with the
mother whom she believes to be the cause of all their various sorrows,
and Katherine’s rosy face begins to lose its freshness, and her voice
its joyous tone while dwelling on the sadness of the days to come.
* * * * *
Reader, there is no crime related in these volumes; no commandment has
been ostensibly and boldly broken; and yet the consequences of hidden
sins, of sins unwhipped of justice, have proved terribly disastrous both
to the “living that now live, and to the dead that have been called to
judgment.” It is not always, it is not even often, that the results of
an indulgence in evil passions, in iniquitous desires, and in the
hungering after the things that belong neither of our own peace nor to
that of others, are brought immediately before us. It may be that while
we, in a safe haven from the storms of life at the season when
“Age steals to its allotted nook,
Contented and serene,”
are ignorant of the fact that the errors of others may be visited on our
heads, “some forlorn and shipwrecked brother,” some poor deluded sister
may be rueing the consequences (indirectly) of our shortcomings. Even of
our very words--our thoughtlessness and apparently unmeaning
remarks--evil may arise. The French proverb says, “_Oui et non sont
bien courts à dire, mais avant que de les dire il y faut penser
longtemps._” Alas, how few amongst us are there who think before they
_act_, how fewer still before they speak! A precious life may be lost, a
child may be rendered motherless, the hearth of the old may be made
desolate, and all because of thoughtless words spoken to foolish ears;
while the truth of the old historian’s words “Cupido dominandi cunctis
affectibus flagrantior est,” is to a certain degree verified by the
evils which a love of power and a mean jealousy of rule have entailed
upon more than one deserving character in the foregoing pages. Truly,
seeing that we are but links in the great chain of human events, it
behoves us to take good heed, not only to our _ways_ but to the seeing
that we offend not with the unruly member, which, according to high
authority, never has and never can be brought under subjection. The
characters in my story, whose future is darkened, and whose past has
been made miserable by the great mischief which their busy tongues,
their truant fancies, have wrought, can hardly (at least in the world’s
opinion) be stigmatised as desperate and grievous sinners. They had
_only_ not bridled the “little member, which boasteth great things,” had
only _listened_ when duty should have caused them to close their ears
to words which were dangerous because either too tender or too hard!
Such had been amongst the sins of those whose punishment would be
life-long--life-long, because for them the past is embittered by vain
regrets--life-long, for neither to the mother who was false to her
trust, nor to the old, the middle-aged, or the young whose faults and
follies have been cited in this story, can _remorse_ be divorced from
the sad paths of memory--life-long because, looking back upon the stream
of life, they, with heavy hearts, could not fail to see, midst the soft
rippling waves, the heavy stone that
“some devil threw
At their life’s mid-current, thwarting God!”
THE END.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
the precess=> the process {pg 10}
John Beachman=> John Beacham {pg 99}
Mr. Duberley=> Mr. Duberly {pg 155}
suppposing them=> supposing them {pg 166}
In was nearly noon=> It was nearly noon {pg 208}
said Honour, answering=> said Honor, answering {pg 252}
faults tribulalation=> faults tribulation {pg 260}
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