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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Victorian Short Stories
+by Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Victorian Short Stories
+       Stories Of Successful Marriages
+
+Author: Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
+
+Release Date: March 4, 2005 [EBook #15252]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIAN SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, S.R.Ellison and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES
+
+
+THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+A MERE INTERLUDE Thomas Hardy
+
+A FAITHFUL HEART George Moore
+
+THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED Walter Besant
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE Henry James
+
+
+
+
+_Elizabeth Gaskell_
+
+THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE
+
+(_Household Words_, Christmas 1858)
+
+
+Mr and Mrs Openshaw came from Manchester to settle in London. He
+had been, what is called in Lancashire, a salesman for a large
+manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and opening a
+warehouse in the city; where Mr Openshaw was now to superintend their
+affairs. He rather enjoyed the change; having a kind of curiosity
+about London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in his brief
+visits to the metropolis. At the same time, he had an odd, shrewd
+contempt for the inhabitants, whom he always pictured to himself as
+fine, lazy people, caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy, and
+lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such places; ruining good
+English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The
+hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalized him too,
+accustomed as he was to the early dinners of Manchester folk and
+the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he was pleased to go to
+London, though he would not for the world have confessed it, even to
+himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded
+of him by the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him by a
+considerable increase of salary. This, indeed, was so liberal that he
+might have been justified in taking a much larger house than the
+one he did, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to
+Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show.
+Inside, however, he furnished it with an unusual degree of comfort,
+and, in the winter-time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires as
+the grates would allow, in every room where the temperature was in
+the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such
+that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave
+the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in
+the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated; for their
+master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to comfort;
+while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed habits and
+individual ways, in defiance of what any of his new neighbours might
+think.
+
+His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He
+was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she soft and
+yielding. They had two children; or rather, I should say, she had two;
+for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs Openshaw's child by Frank
+Wilson, her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who
+could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the
+broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep
+up what he called the true Saxon accent.
+
+Mrs Openshaw's Christian name was Alice, and her first husband had
+been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain
+in Liverpool; a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal
+attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and
+a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to
+be very stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt,
+her own uncle's second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came
+home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to
+her; secondly, attentive; and thirdly, desperately in love with her,
+she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true, she
+would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of
+behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle
+neither helped nor hindered the love affair, though it was going on
+under his own eyes. Frank's stepmother had such a variable temper,
+that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would
+like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of
+crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush
+blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by
+a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in the
+world, except her uncle (who was at this time at sea), she went off
+one morning and was married to him, her only bridesmaid being the
+housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was that Frank and his wife
+went into lodgings, and Mrs Wilson refused to see them, and turned
+away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid, whom they accordingly took
+into their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage he
+was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at
+their lodgings, smoking his pipe and sipping his grog; but he told
+them, for quietness' sake, he could not ask them to his own house; for
+his wife was bitter against them. They were not, however, very unhappy
+about this.
+
+The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank's vehement,
+passionate disposition, which led him to resent his wife's shyness and
+want of demonstrativeness as failures in conjugal duty. He was already
+tormenting himself, and her too in a slighter degree, by apprehensions
+and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching
+absence at sea. At last, he went to his father and urged him to
+insist upon Alice's being once more received under his roof; the more
+especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her
+husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself
+expressed it, 'breaking up', and unwilling to undergo the excitement
+of a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to
+his wife. And before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of seeing his
+wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house. To have
+placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs Wilson's
+powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however,
+was that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as
+housemaid had been filled up; and, even if it had not, she had
+forfeited Mrs Wilson's good opinion for ever. She comforted her young
+master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would
+have a household of their own; of which, whatever service she might
+be in meanwhile, she should be sure to form a part. Almost the last
+action Frank did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see
+Norah once more at her mother's house; and then he went away.
+
+Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced.
+She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him;
+and although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was,
+perhaps, more of peace than there had been for years, for Mrs Wilson
+had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death
+to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the
+young creature expecting her first confinement in her husband's
+absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come
+and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain and attend on
+Captain Wilson.
+
+Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for
+the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always glad to
+remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed
+it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into
+the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less
+property than people had been led by his style of living to expect;
+and what money there was, was settled all upon his wife, and at her
+disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank
+was now first mate of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, would
+be captain. Meanwhile he had left her rather more than two hundred
+pounds (all his savings) in the bank.
+
+It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the
+Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in
+India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship
+having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain's
+wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her
+fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to
+her inquiry at the shipping office, they told her that the owners had
+given up hope of ever hearing more of the _Betsy-Jane_ and had sent in
+their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone for ever,
+she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the
+dear friend, the sympathizing protector, whom she should never see
+again;--first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom
+she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself--her own sole
+possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet--rather to the
+scandal of Mrs Wilson who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had
+always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought
+it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she
+saw; dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state, and the
+helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction as if she liked
+the excitement of the sorrowful story.
+
+So passed away the first days of Alice's widowhood. By and by things
+subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as if the young
+creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to
+be ailing, pining, and sickly. The child's mysterious illness turned
+out to be some affection of the spine, likely to affect health but not
+to shorten life--at least, so the doctors said. But the long, dreary
+suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child,
+is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suffered; no
+one but God knew.
+
+And so it fell out, that when Mrs Wilson, the elder, came to her one
+day, in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution in
+the value of the property that her husband had left her--a diminution
+which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less
+Alice--the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not
+touch health or life could cause such grief; and she received the
+intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the
+little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother--who, after all,
+loved it well--began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious
+ears--saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and
+to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now
+all chance of this had passed away--Alice's heart was touched, and she
+drew near to Mrs Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not
+unlike to that of Ruth, entreated that, come what would, they might
+remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was
+arranged that Mrs Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing
+it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with
+Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs Wilson was herself a
+Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town;
+some connexions of her own, too, at that time required lodgings, for
+which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook
+the active superintendence and superior work of the household;
+Norah--willing, faithful Norah--offered to cook, scour, do anything in
+short, so that she might but remain with them.
+
+The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with
+them, and all went smoothly--with that one sad exception of the little
+girl's increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, it is
+not for words to tell!
+
+Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one
+succeeded to them. After some months, it became necessary to remove
+to a smaller house; and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea
+that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out
+and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came
+like the sweeping boom of a funeral-bell over her heart.
+
+By and by, Mr Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life
+as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up
+through all the grades of employment in it, fighting his way through
+the hard, striving Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of
+character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to
+self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German
+scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman--understanding markets and the
+bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade; and yet, with such
+vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a
+group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colour
+would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring
+muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself
+with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must
+be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and
+overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language
+than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee
+in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee
+motto--'England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs England.' Such
+a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or
+any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their
+courting and matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and
+was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was
+in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as
+encumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little
+to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct,
+and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. 'A pretty,
+yea-nay kind of woman', would have been his description of her, if he
+had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning,
+that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of
+character, which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active,
+energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality with which
+his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called
+in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water
+scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar
+fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his theory about
+everything based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly
+original)--then he began to think: not that Alice had any particular
+merit, but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings; his
+restlessness wore away, and he began to consider himself as almost
+settled for life in them.
+
+Mr Openshaw had been too busy, all his days, to be introspective. He
+did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and if he had
+become conscious of its abstract existence he would have considered it
+as a manifestation of disease in some part of him. But he was decoyed
+into pity unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. That little
+helpless child--always carried about by one of the three busy women
+of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair
+from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move--the great
+grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving
+to the small delicate face a look beyond its years--the soft plaintive
+voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a
+child--caught Mr Openshaw's attention in spite of himself. One day--he
+half scorned himself for doing so--he cut short his dinner-hour to go
+in search of some toy, which should take the place of those eternal
+beads. I forget what he bought; but, when he gave the present (which
+he took care to do in a short abrupt manner, and when no one was by
+to see him), he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that
+came over that child's face, and he could not help, all through that
+afternoon, going over and over again the picture left on his memory,
+by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl's face. When
+he returned home, he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room
+fire; and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was
+habitual in those model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his
+tea-things away--she had been silent as usual till then--she stood for
+an instant with the door in her hand. Mr Openshaw looked as if he
+were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but
+was heartily wishing the woman would go, and not make any palaver of
+gratitude. But she only said:
+
+'I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much,' and was
+gone, even before he could send her away with a 'There, my good woman,
+that's enough!'
+
+For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child. He even
+hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flush of colour and
+little timid smile of recognition, when he saw her by chance. But,
+after all, this could not last for ever; and, having a second time
+given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy
+having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to the
+child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the
+mother. He was aware of this change of feeling--despised himself for
+it--struggled with it; nay, internally yielded to it and cherished
+it, long before he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word,
+action, or look to escape him. He watched Alice's docile, obedient
+ways to her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough
+Norah (roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but, above
+all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her
+and her child. They spoke little to anyone else, or when anyone else
+was by; but, when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and
+cooed, and chattered so continually, that Mr Openshaw first wondered
+what they could find to say to each other, and next became irritated
+because they were always so grave and silent with him. All this time
+he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child. His
+thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before
+her; and often he came back from his day's work loaded with the very
+thing Alice had been longing for, but had not been able to procure.
+One time, it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along
+the streets; and, many an evening that following summer, Mr
+Openshaw drew her along himself, regardless of the remarks of his
+acquaintances. One day in autumn, he put down his newspaper, as Alice
+came in with the breakfast, and said, in as indifferent a voice as he
+could assume:
+
+'Mrs Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our
+horses together?'
+
+Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he mean? He had
+resumed the reading of his newspaper, as if he did not expect any
+answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly
+arranging his breakfast, without another word passing between them.
+Just as he was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual,
+he turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen,
+where all the women breakfasted in the morning:
+
+'You'll think of what I said, Mrs Frank' (this was her name with the
+lodgers), 'and let me have your opinion upon it tonight.'
+
+Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking
+together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think
+about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not to
+think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his
+tea. But Mr Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was going out
+at the door, by pushing past her and calling out, 'Mrs Frank!' in an
+impatient voice, at the top of the stairs.
+
+Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to
+his words.
+
+'Well, Mrs Frank,' he said, 'what answer? Don't make it too long; for
+I have lots of office work to get through tonight.'
+
+'I hardly know what you meant, sir,' said truthful Alice.
+
+'Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. You're not new
+at this sort of work, and I am. However, I'll make it plain this time.
+Will you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me,
+and honour me, and all that sort of thing? Because, if you will, I
+will do as much by you, and be a father to your child--and that's more
+than is put in the prayer-book. Now, I'm a man of my word; and what I
+say, I feel; and what I promise, I'll do. Now, for your answer!'
+
+Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her reply was a
+matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was done,
+he became impatient.
+
+'Well?' said he.
+
+'How long, sir, may I have to think over it?'
+
+'Three minutes!' (looking at his watch). 'You've had two already--that
+makes five. Be a sensible woman, say Yes, and sit down to tea with me,
+and we'll talk it over together; for, after tea, I shall be busy;
+say No' (he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same
+tone), 'and I shan't say another word about it, but pay up a year's
+rent for my rooms tomorrow, and be off. Time's up! Yes or no?'
+
+'If you please, sir--you have been so good to little Ailsie--'
+
+'There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let's have our tea
+together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took you
+for.'
+
+And this was Alice Wilson's second wooing.
+
+Mr Openshaw's will was too strong, and his circumstances too good,
+for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs Wilson in a
+comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of
+lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans was in
+Norah's behalf.
+
+'No,' said Mr Openshaw. 'Norah shall take care of the old lady as long
+as she lives; and, after that, she shall either come and live with us,
+or, if she likes it better, she shall have a provision for life--for
+your sake, missus. No one who has been good to you or the child shall
+go unrewarded. But even the little one will be better for some fresh
+stuff about her. Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse; one who
+won't go rubbing her with calf's-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting
+good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors'
+directions; which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah
+won't; because they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I'm not
+above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow,
+and never change colour; but, set me in the operating room in the
+infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would
+hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it
+were to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks
+for the time when it comes--I don't say it ever will. But this I know,
+Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor, if she can. Now, I
+say, give the bairn a year or two's chance, and then, when the pack of
+doctors have done their best--and, maybe, the old lady has gone--we'll
+have Norah back or do better for her.'
+
+The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. She was beyond
+their power. But her father (for so he insisted on being called, and
+also on Alice's no longer retaining the appellation of Mamma, but
+becoming henceforward Mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner,
+his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of humour,
+added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, infused
+a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, though
+her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, and
+Alice--never going beyond a smile herself--had the pleasure of seeing
+her child taught to laugh.
+
+As for Alice's own life, it was happier than it had ever been before.
+Mr Openshaw required no demonstration, no expressions of affection
+from her. Indeed, these would rather have disgusted him. Alice could
+love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement
+of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence
+into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former married
+life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her
+husband's strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year
+their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came
+back to them as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post
+she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of
+the proud and happy father, who declared that if he found out that
+Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him
+nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day. Norah and
+Mr Openshaw were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms; neither of
+them fully recognizing or appreciating the other's best qualities.
+
+This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now
+removed to London.
+
+They had been there about a year, when Mr Openshaw suddenly informed
+his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had
+asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and
+see London. Mrs Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her
+husband's. Years before she had married him, there had been a quarrel.
+All she knew was, that Mr Chadwick was a small manufacturer in a
+country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased that the
+breach was to be healed, and began making preparations to render their
+visit pleasant.
+
+They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event to them,
+that Mrs Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion--from
+night-caps downwards; and as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she
+might have been going into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is,
+so large was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure
+for London, she had formally called to take leave of all her
+acquaintance; saying she should need every bit of the intermediate
+time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination;
+and, to complete the resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made
+between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester,
+on the last market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and
+amethyst brooch, saying, 'Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew
+a handsome thing when they saw it.'
+
+For some time after Mr and Mrs Chadwick arrived at the Openshaws'
+there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they
+obtained an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty
+demanded that Mrs Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting
+the abode of her sovereign. On her return she hastily changed her
+dress; for Mr Openshaw had planned that they should go to Richmond,
+drink tea, and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o'clock,
+Mr and Mrs Openshaw and Mr and Mrs Chadwick set off.
+
+The housemaid and cook sat below, Norah hardly knew where. She was
+always engrossed in the nursery in tending her two children, and in
+sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. By and
+by the housemaid Bessy tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her,
+and they spoke in whispers.
+
+'Nurse! there's someone downstairs wants you.'
+
+'Wants me! who is it?'
+
+'A gentleman--'
+
+'A gentleman? Nonsense!'
+
+'Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rang at the front-door
+bell, and has walked into the dining-room.'
+
+'You should never have let him,' exclaimed Norah. 'Master and missus
+out--'
+
+'I did not want him to come in; but, when he heard you lived here, he
+walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, "Tell her
+to come and speak to me." There is no gas lighted in the room, and
+supper is all set out.'
+
+'He'll be off with the spoons!' exclaimed Norah, putting the
+housemaid's fear into words, and preparing to leave the room; first,
+however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly and calmly.
+
+Downstairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before she
+entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, with
+it in her hand, she went in, looking around her in the darkness for
+her visitor.
+
+He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked at each
+other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes.
+
+'Norah?' at length he asked.
+
+'Who are you?' asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm and
+incredulity. 'I don't know you'; trying, by futile words of disbelief,
+to do away with the terrible fact before her.
+
+'Am I so changed?' he said pathetically. 'I dare say I am. But, Norah,
+tell me!' he breathed hard, 'where is my wife? Is she--is she alive?'
+
+He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand; but she backed
+away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if
+he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed,
+good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a
+foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those
+eager, beautiful eyes--the very same that Norah had watched not half
+an hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them.
+
+'Tell me, Norah--I can bear it--I have feared it so often. Is she
+dead?' Norah still kept silence. 'She is dead!' He hung on Norah's
+words and looks, as if for confirmation or contradiction.
+
+'What shall I do?' groaned Norah. 'Oh, sir! why did you come? how
+did you find me out? where have you been? We thought you dead, we did
+indeed!' She poured out words and questions to gain time, as if time
+would help her.
+
+'Norah! answer me this question straight, by yes or no--Is my wife
+dead?'
+
+'No, she is not,' said Norah, slowly and heavily.
+
+'Oh, what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But perhaps you don't
+know. Why did you leave her? Where is she? Oh, Norah, tell me all
+quickly!'
+
+'Mr Frank!' said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her
+terror lest her mistress should return at any moment and find him
+there--unable to consider what was best to be done or said--rushing
+at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state:
+'Mr Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said
+you had gone down, you and everyone else. We thought you were dead, if
+ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child!
+Oh, sir, you must guess it,' cried the poor creature at last, bursting
+out into a passionate fit of crying, 'for indeed I cannot tell it. But
+it was no one's fault. God help us all this night!'
+
+Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands
+in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, by physical pressure, the truth
+could be wrung out.
+
+'Norah.' This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. 'She has
+married again!'
+
+Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had
+fainted.
+
+There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr Frank's
+mouth, chafed his hands, and--when mere animal life returned, before
+the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts--she lifted him
+up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs
+of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy, into his
+mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
+
+'Where is she? Tell me this instant.' He looked so wild, so mad, so
+desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her
+time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth,
+and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the
+sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity
+him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he
+must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity
+stood clear before her.
+
+'She is not here: that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say
+exactly where she is' (which was true to the letter if not to the
+spirit). 'Go away, and tell me where to find you tomorrow, and I will
+tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and
+then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?'
+
+Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.
+
+'I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man,
+he must feel for me--poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years
+a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife
+and my home--dreaming of her by night, talking to her though she
+could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put
+together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who
+salved over her wickedness to her, as you do to me!'
+
+The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.
+
+'If you will leave the house now, I will come to you tomorrow and tell
+you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping
+upstairs. Oh, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet--a
+little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We
+have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought
+for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard
+thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her.
+And now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush
+it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father--Mr
+Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do
+anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats;
+and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is
+happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing
+stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother
+languishes. If she dies--well, I don't know; it is not everyone can
+lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, Mr Frank, and see
+your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away,
+in God's name, just this one night; tomorrow, if need be, you can do
+anything--kill us all if you will, or show yourself a great, grand
+man, whom God will bless for ever and ever. Come, Mr Frank, the look
+of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.'
+
+She led him upstairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they
+came near the nursery door. She had wellnigh forgotten the existence
+of little Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light
+fell over the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of the
+room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie.
+The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she
+lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight
+nightgown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked
+wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she
+slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes,
+into which the big tears came swelling up slowly and dropped heavily
+down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry
+with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long
+lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half an
+hour before Frank stirred. And then--instead of going away--he sank
+down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes.
+Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She
+could afford no more time, even for prayer, in her extremity of fear;
+for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She took
+him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the
+other bed; he stopped. Intelligence came back into his face. His hands
+clenched.
+
+'His child?' he asked.
+
+'Her child,' replied Norah. 'God watches over him,' she said
+instinctively; for Frank's looks excited her fears, and she needed to
+remind herself of the Protector of the helpless.
+
+'God has not watched over me,' he said, in despair; his thoughts
+apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. But Norah
+had no time for pity. Tomorrow she would be as compassionate as her
+heart prompted. At length she guided him downstairs, and shut the
+outer door, and bolted it--as if by bolts to keep out facts.
+
+Then she went back into the dining-room, and effaced all traces of his
+presence, as far as she could. She went upstairs to the nursery and
+sat there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all
+this misery. It seemed to her very long before her master and mistress
+returned; yet it was hardly eleven o'clock. She heard the loud,
+hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs; and, for the first time, she
+understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so
+lately gone forth in lonely despair.
+
+It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs Openshaw come in,
+calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her
+children.
+
+'Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?' she whispered to Norah.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes
+of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! Then she
+went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance,
+but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper.
+Norah saw her no more that night.
+
+Beside having a door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened
+out of Mr and Mrs Openshaw's room, in order that they might have
+the children more immediately under their own eyes. Early the next
+summer's morning, Mrs Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie's startled call
+of 'Mother! mother!' She sprang up, put on her dressing-gown, and went
+to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, and in a not unusual state
+of terror.
+
+'Who was he, mother? Tell me!'
+
+'Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming, love. Waken
+up quite. See, it is broad daylight.'
+
+'Yes,' said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to her mother,
+'but a man was here in the night, mother.'
+
+'Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!'
+
+'Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. A man with hair and a
+beard. And he knelt down and said his prayers. Norah knows he was
+here, mother' (half angrily, as Mrs Openshaw shook her head in smiling
+incredulity).
+
+'Well! we will ask Norah when she comes,' said Mrs Openshaw,
+soothingly. 'But we won't talk any more about him now. It is not five
+o'clock; it is too early for you to get up. Shall I fetch you a book
+and read to you?'
+
+'Don't leave me, mother,' said the child, clinging to her. So Mrs
+Openshaw sat on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and telling her of what
+they had done at Richmond the evening before, until the little girl's
+eyes slowly closed and she once more fell asleep.
+
+'What was the matter?' asked Mr Openshaw, as his wife returned to bed.
+
+'Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man having been
+in the room to say his prayers--a dream, I suppose.' And no more was
+said at the time.
+
+Mrs Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got up
+about seven o'clock. But, by and by, she heard a sharp altercation
+going on in the nursery--Norah speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most
+unusual thing. Both Mr and Mrs Openshaw listened in astonishment.
+
+'Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; never let
+me hear you tell that story again!'
+
+Ailsie began to cry.
+
+Mr Openshaw opened the door of communication, before his wife could
+say a word.
+
+'Norah, come here!'
+
+The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had been
+heard, but she was desperate.
+
+'Don't let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again,' he said
+sternly, and shut the door.
+
+Norah was infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning;
+and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if
+cross-examination was let alone.
+
+Downstairs they went, Mr Openshaw carrying Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin
+coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother's
+hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast-table, and
+then Mr and Mrs Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting their
+visitors' appearance and making plans for the day. There was a pause.
+Suddenly Mr Openshaw turned to Ailsie, and said:
+
+'What a little goosy somebody is with her dreams, wakening up poor,
+tired mother in the middle of the night, with a story of a man being
+in the room.'
+
+'Father! I'm sure I saw him,' said Ailsie, half-crying. 'I don't want
+to make Norah angry; but I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I
+had been asleep--and I wakened up quite wide awake, though I was so
+frightened. I kept my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain.
+A great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then looked
+at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after
+they had whispered a bit together.'
+
+'Now, my little woman must be reasonable,' said Mr Openshaw, who was
+always patient with Ailsie. 'There was no man in the house last night
+at all. No man comes into the house, as you know, if you think; much
+less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has
+happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first
+person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really
+happened.'
+
+'But, indeed, it was not a dream!' said Ailsie, beginning to cry.
+
+Just then Mr and Mrs Chadwick came down, looking grave and
+discomposed. All during breakfast-time they were silent and
+uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and
+the children had been carried upstairs, Mr Chadwick began, in an
+evidently preconcerted manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain
+that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs Chadwick had that
+morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the
+day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from
+Buckingham Palace. Mr Openshaw's face contracted into hard lines; grew
+like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang
+the bell, even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by
+the housemaid.
+
+'Mary, was anyone here last night, while we were away?'
+
+'A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.'
+
+'To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay?'
+
+'I'm sure I can't tell, sir. He came--perhaps about nine. I went up to
+tell Norah in the nursery, and she came down to speak to him. She let
+him out, sir. She will know who he was, and how long he stayed.'
+
+She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not,
+so she went away.
+
+A minute afterwards Mr Openshaw made as though he were going out of
+the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm.
+
+'Do not speak to her before the children,' she said, in her low, quiet
+voice. 'I will go up and question her.'
+
+'No! I must speak to her. You must know,' said he, turning to his
+uncle and aunt, 'my missus has an old servant, as faithful as ever
+woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes,--but at the same time,
+who does not speak truth, as even the missus must allow. Now,
+my notion is, that this Norah of ours has been come over by some
+good-for-nothing chap (for she's at the time o' life when they say
+women pray for husbands--"any, good Lord, any") and has let him into
+our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m'appen
+many another thing beside. It's only saying that Norah is soft-hearted
+and doesn't stick at a white lie--that's all, missus.'
+
+It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face was
+changed, as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through
+all. She knew better than to oppose him; so she went upstairs, and
+told Norah that her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would
+take care of the children in the meanwhile.
+
+Norah rose to go, without a word. Her thoughts were these:
+
+'If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through me. He may
+come--and then, just Lord have mercy upon us all! for some of us are
+dead folk to a certainty. But _he_ shall do it; not me.'
+
+You may fancy, now, her look of determination, as she faced her master
+alone in the dining-room; Mr and Mrs Chadwick having left the
+affair in their nephew's hands, seeing that he took it up with such
+vehemence.
+
+'Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?'
+
+'Man, sir!' As if infinitely surprised; but it was only to gain time.
+
+'Yes; the man that Mary let in; that she went upstairs to the nursery
+to tell you about; that you came down to speak to; the same chap, I
+make no doubt, that you took into the nursery to have your talk out
+with; the one Ailsie saw, and afterwards dreamed about; thinking, poor
+wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I'll be bound, was
+further from his thoughts; the one that took Mrs Chadwick's brooch,
+value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don't go off. I'm as sure as my name's
+Thomas Openshaw that you knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think
+you've been imposed on, and that's the truth. Some good-for-nothing
+chap has been making up to you, and you've been just like all other
+women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came
+last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made
+use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way
+down! Come, now, Norah; it's no blame to you, only you must not be
+such a fool again! Tell us,' he continued, 'what name he gave you,
+Norah. I'll be bound, it was not the right one; but it will be a clue
+for the police.'
+
+Norah drew herself up. 'You may ask that question, and taunt me with
+my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw.
+You'll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of
+theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy
+you to prove, and deny), he'd be just as much above doing such a thing
+as you yourself, Mr Openshaw--and more so, too; for I'm not at all
+sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours
+long, if every man had his own.' She meant, of course, his wife; but
+he understood her to refer to his property in goods and chattels.
+
+'Now, my good woman,' said he, 'I'll just tell you truly, I never
+trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, and I thought you had
+many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I'll have
+the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if
+you'll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now, the best thing
+you can do is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man
+comes to my house; asks for you; you take him upstairs; a valuable
+brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are
+honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed, you've told
+me one lie already about him, saying no one was here last night. Now,
+I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this,
+or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my
+good woman.'
+
+'There's never the creature born that should get it out of me,' said
+Norah. 'Not unless I choose to tell.'
+
+'I've a great mind to see,' said Mr Openshaw, growing angry at the
+defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again:
+
+'Norah, for your missus' sake I don't want to go to extremities. Be a
+sensible woman, if you can. It's no great disgrace, after all, to have
+been taken in. I ask you once more--as a friend--who was this man that
+you let into my house last night?'
+
+No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no
+answer. Norah's lips were set in determination not to speak.
+
+'Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a
+policeman.'
+
+'You will not,' said Norah, starting forward. 'You shall not, sir!
+No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know
+this: ever since I was four-and-twenty, I have thought more of your
+wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl, put
+upon in her uncle's house, I have thought more of serving her than
+of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody
+ever cared for me. I don't cast blame on you, sir, but I say it's ill
+giving up one's life to anyone; for, at the end, they will turn round
+upon you, and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to
+suspect me? Maybe, she is gone for the police? But I don't stay here,
+either for police, or magistrate, or master. You're an unlucky lot.
+I believe there's a curse on you. I'll leave you this very day. Yes!
+I'll leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good ever will come to
+you!'
+
+Mr Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was
+completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he
+could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left
+the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for
+the police to this old servant of his wife's; for he had never for a
+moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel
+her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was,
+consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a
+state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get
+nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the
+night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment
+his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to
+Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and
+left the house.
+
+'This looks suspicious,' said Mr Chadwick. 'It is not the way in which
+an honest person would have acted.'
+
+Mr Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs Openshaw
+turned round on Mr Chadwick, with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw
+in her before.
+
+'You don't know Norah, uncle! She is gone because she is deeply hurt
+at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had seen her--that I had spoken to
+her myself. She would have told me anything.' Alice wrung her hands.
+
+'I must confess,' continued Mr Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower
+voice, 'I can't make you out. You used to be a word and a blow,
+and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for
+suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus is a very good woman,
+I grant; but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I
+suppose. If you don't send for the police, I shall.'
+
+'Very well,' replied Mr Openshaw, surlily. 'I can't clear Norah. She
+won't clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash
+my hands of it; for I am sure the woman herself is honest, and she's
+lived a long time with my wife, and I don't like her to come to
+shame.'
+
+'But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will
+be a good thing.'
+
+'Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come,
+Alice, come up to the babies; they'll be in a sore way. I tell you,
+uncle,' he said, turning round once more to Mr Chadwick, suddenly and
+sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice's wan, tearful, anxious
+face, 'I'll have no sending for the police, after all. I'll buy my
+aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day; but I'll not have Norah
+suspected, and my missus plagued. There's for you!'
+
+He and his wife left the room. Mr Chadwick quietly waited till he was
+out of hearing, and then said to his wife, 'For all Tom's heroics, I'm
+just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need'st know nought
+about it.'
+
+He went to the police-station and made a statement of the case. He was
+gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed
+to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be
+immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they
+suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance,
+was her lover. When Mr Chadwick asked how they would find her out,
+they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible
+ways and means. He returned to his nephew's house with a very
+comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a
+penitent face.
+
+'Oh, master, I've found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in
+the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in
+a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in
+the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the
+brooch! I am very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost!'
+
+Her husband, muttering something very like 'Confound thee and thy
+brooch too! I wish I'd never given it thee,' snatched up his hat, and
+rushed back to the station, hoping to be in time to stop the police
+from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the
+errand.
+
+Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she
+had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done.
+Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie's questions, showing
+that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her father.
+Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than
+crazy as she ran upstairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl; leaving
+all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not
+stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see
+the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She dreaded above
+everything Mr Frank's return to claim his wife. She could not tell
+what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to
+witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger
+motive for her departure, than her soreness about the suspicions
+directed against her; although this last had been the final goad
+to the course she took. She walked a way almost at headlong speed;
+sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night
+for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she
+stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London
+altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She
+felt in her pocket for her purse as she drew near the Euston Square
+station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head
+aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, and
+think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps.
+Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find
+out poor Mr Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before,
+though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his
+telling her, when she inquired for his address, almost as she had
+pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant
+from Euston Square. Thither she went: with what intention she scarcely
+knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she
+pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel,
+or restrain, or assist, or do aught else but sympathize and weep. The
+people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only
+the day before; had gone out soon after arrival, leaving his luggage
+in their care; but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit
+down, and await the gentleman's return. The landlady--pretty secure in
+the deposit of luggage against any probable injury--showed her into
+a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly
+worn out, and fell asleep--a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber,
+which lasted for hours.
+
+The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she
+entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to
+detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing
+his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for
+having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report
+his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object was,
+if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed
+the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and
+consequently did not care to return.
+
+Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in, Then
+started up. Someone was at the door. It would be Mr Frank; and she
+dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair which had fallen over her
+eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came in Mr Openshaw
+and a policeman.
+
+'This is Norah Kennedy,' said Mr Openshaw.
+
+'Oh, sir,' said Norah, 'I did not touch the brooch; indeed I did not.
+Oh, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of'; and very sick
+and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr
+Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay
+her on the sofa; and, at Mr Openshaw's desire, he went for some wine
+and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead
+with weariness and exhaustion.
+
+'Norah,' said Mr Openshaw, in his kindest voice, 'the brooch is found.
+It was hanging to Mrs Chadwick's gown. I beg your pardon. Most truly
+I beg your pardon, for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost
+broken-hearted. Eat, Norah--or, stay, first drink this glass of wine,'
+said he, lifting her head, and pouring a little down her throat.
+
+As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting
+for. She suddenly pushed Mr Openshaw away, saying, 'Oh, sir, you must
+go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back, he will kill you.'
+
+'Alas, Norah! I do not know who "he" is. But someone is gone away who
+will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you
+cared for.'
+
+'I don't understand you, sir,' said Norah, her master's kind and
+sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The
+policeman had left the room at Mr Openshaw's desire, and they two were
+alone.
+
+'You know what I mean, when I say someone is gone who will never come
+back. I mean that he is dead!'
+
+'Who?' said Norah, trembling all over.
+
+'A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning--drowned.'
+
+'Did he drown himself?' asked Norah, solemnly.
+
+'God only knows,' replied Mr Openshaw, in the same tone. 'Your name
+and address at our house were found in his pocket; that, and his
+purse, were the only things that were found upon him. I am sorry to
+say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and identify him.'
+
+'To what?' asked Norah.
+
+'To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be
+discovered for the suicide--if suicide it was. I make no doubt, he was
+the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I
+know.' He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and
+bring back her senses, which he feared were wandering--so wild and sad
+was her look.
+
+'Master Openshaw,' said she, at last, 'I've a dreadful secret to tell
+you--only you must never breathe it to anyone, and you and I must hide
+it away for ever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see
+I cannot. Yon poor man--yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr
+Frank, my mistress's first husband!'
+
+Mr Openshaw sat down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a
+while, he signed to Norah to go on.
+
+'He came to me the other night, when--God be thanked!--you were all
+away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was
+a brute, and thought more of your all coming home than of his sore
+trial; I spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very
+content and happy. I all but turned him away: and now he lies dead and
+cold.'
+
+'God forgive me!' said Mr Openshaw.
+
+'God forgive us all!' said Norah. 'Yon poor man needs forgiveness,
+perhaps, less than any one among us. He had been among the
+savages--shipwrecked--I know not what--and he had written letters
+which had never reached my poor missus.'
+
+'He saw his child!'
+
+'He saw her--yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start;
+for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here,
+as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he never
+came in. Oh, sir, it must be him!'
+
+Mr Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder
+at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and
+then said to Norah:
+
+'I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent for a
+few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your
+love, and will come home tomorrow. You must go with me to the police
+court; you must identify the body; I will pay high to keep names and
+details out of the papers.'
+
+'But where are you going, sir?'
+
+He did not answer her directly. Then he said:
+
+'Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I
+have so injured--unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I
+had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave as if he were my only
+brother: and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife
+till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful
+secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days
+are over. I know you will not, either.' He shook hands with her; and
+they never named the subject again, the one to the other.
+
+Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the
+cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been
+charged by her husband, in his letter, not to allude to the supposed
+theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she
+loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject,
+only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for
+unjust suspicion.
+
+Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr Openshaw had been absent
+during his uncle and aunt's visit, after he had once said that it was
+unavoidable. He came back grave and quiet; and from that time forth
+was curiously changed. More thoughtful, and perhaps less active;
+quite as decided in conduct, but with new and different rules for the
+guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice he could hardly be more kind
+than he had always been; but he now seemed to look upon her as someone
+sacred, and to be treated with reverence, as well as tenderness. He
+throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was
+settled upon her.
+
+Long years after these events--a few months after her mother
+died--Ailsie and her 'father' (as she always called Mr Openshaw)
+drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was carried to
+a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage.
+There was a headstone, with F.W. and a date upon it. That was all.
+Sitting by the grave, Mr Openshaw told her the story; and for the sad
+fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, he shed the only
+tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+_Thomas Hardy_
+
+A MERE INTERLUDE
+
+(_The Bolton Weekly Journal_, 17 and 24 October 1885)
+
+
+I
+
+
+The traveller in school-books, who vouched in dryest tones for the
+fidelity to fact of the following narrative, used to add a ring of
+truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's
+personality. People were wrong, he declared, when they surmised
+that Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions or
+character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hate--so
+ran the general opinion. That she showed few positive qualities was
+true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces
+of active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still
+waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early
+maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a
+mine.
+
+She was the daughter of a small farmer in St Maria's, one of the Isles
+of Lyonesse beyond Off-Wessex, who had spent a large sum, as there
+understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland for
+two years. At nineteen she was entered at the Training College for
+Teachers, and at twenty-one nominated to a school in the country, near
+Tor-upon-Sea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas examination
+and holidays.
+
+The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista
+applied herself to her new duties as best she could, till an
+uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her
+bearing as she walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the
+traits of a person who had something on her mind. A widow, by name
+Mrs Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a
+sitting-room and bedroom till the schoolhouse should be built, noticed
+this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last ventured to
+press her with a few questions.
+
+'It has nothing to do with the place, nor with you,' said Miss
+Trewthen.
+
+'Then it is the salary?'
+
+'No, nor the salary.'
+
+'Then it is something you have heard from home, my dear.'
+
+Baptista was silent for a few moments. 'It is Mr Heddegan,' she
+murmured. 'Him they used to call David Heddegan before he got his
+money.'
+
+'And who is the Mr Heddegan they used to call David?'
+
+'An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St Maria's, with no relations
+whatever, who lives about a stone's throw from father's. When I was a
+child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some day.
+Now I am a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious to do
+it. And father and mother say I can't do better than have him.'
+
+'He's well off?'
+
+'Yes--he's the richest man we know--as a friend and neighbour.'
+
+'How much older did you say he was than yourself?'
+
+'I didn't say. Twenty years at least.'
+
+'And an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps?'
+
+'No--he's not unpleasant.'
+
+'Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement
+if it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable here, in my little
+house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so
+cheerful, since my poor husband left me to wear his wings, as I've
+been with 'ee as my lodger.'
+
+The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the
+sentiment. 'But here comes my perplexity,' she said. 'I don't like
+keeping school. Ah, you are surprised--you didn't suspect it. That's
+because I've concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate school. I don't
+care for children--they are unpleasant, troublesome little things,
+whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen
+down dead. Yet I would even put up with them if it was not for the
+inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly.
+And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you
+don't know what to teach, and what to leave untaught. I think father
+and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress
+if I dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by
+marrying Mr Heddegan. Between us two, I like him better than school;
+but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to marry him.'
+
+These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till
+at length the young girl's elderly friend and landlady threw in her
+opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things considered,
+she declared, the uncertainty of the school, the labour, Baptista's
+natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take what fate
+offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her father's old
+neighbour and prosperous friend.
+
+The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as
+usual in her native isle, going by train into Off-Wessex and crossing
+by packet from Pen-zephyr. When she returned in the middle of April
+her face wore a more settled aspect.
+
+'Well?' said the expectant Mrs Wace.
+
+'I have agreed to have him as my husband,' said Baptista, in an
+off-hand way. 'Heaven knows if it will be for the best or not. But I
+have agreed to do it, and so the matter is settled.'
+
+Mrs Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the
+subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them.
+Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time
+to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending;
+that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had given notice of
+leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on she announced more
+specifically that her marriage was to take place immediately after her
+return home at the beginning of the month aforesaid.
+
+She now corresponded regularly with Mr Heddegan. Her letters from him
+were seen, at least on the outside, and in part within, by Mrs Wace.
+Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional sentences
+shown her by Baptista she would have perceived that the scratchy,
+rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed conveyed little more
+matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his preparations
+for the same, with innumerable 'my dears' sprinkled in disconnectedly,
+to show the depth of his affection without the inconveniences of
+syntax.
+
+
+II
+
+
+It was the end of July--dry, too dry, even for the season, the
+delicate green herbs and vegetables that grew in this favoured end of
+the kingdom tasting rather of the watering-pot than of the pure
+fresh moisture from the skies. Baptista's boxes were packed, and one
+Saturday morning she departed by a waggonette to the station, and
+thence by train to Pen-zephyr, from which port she was, as usual, to
+cross the water immediately to her home, and become Mr Heddegan's wife
+on the Wednesday of the week following.
+
+She might have returned a week sooner. But though the wedding day had
+loomed so near, and the banns were out, she delayed her departure till
+this last moment, saying it was not necessary for her to be at home
+long beforehand. As Mr Heddegan was older than herself, she said, she
+was to be married in her ordinary summer bonnet and grey silk frock,
+and there were no preparations to make that had not been amply made by
+her parents and intended husband.
+
+In due time, after a hot and tedious journey, she reached Pen-zephyr.
+She here obtained some refreshment, and then went towards the pier,
+where she learnt to her surprise that the little steamboat plying
+between the town and the islands had left at eleven o'clock; the
+usual hour of departure in the afternoon having been forestalled in
+consequence of the fogs which had for a few days prevailed towards
+evening, making twilight navigation dangerous.
+
+This being Saturday, there was now no other boat till Tuesday, and it
+became obvious that here she would have to remain for the three days,
+unless her friends should think fit to rig out one of the island
+sailing-boats and come to fetch her--a not very likely contingency,
+the sea distance being nearly forty miles.
+
+Baptista, however, had been detained in Pen-zephyr on more than one
+occasion before, either on account of bad weather or some such reason
+as the present, and she was therefore not in any personal alarm. But,
+as she was to be married on the following Wednesday, the delay was
+certainly inconvenient to a more than ordinary degree, since it would
+leave less than a day's interval between her arrival and the wedding
+ceremony.
+
+Apart from this awkwardness she did not much mind the accident. It was
+indeed curious to see how little she minded. Perhaps it would not be
+too much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed
+of her life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at
+the postponement of her meeting with Heddegan. But her manner after
+making discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, even to
+passivity itself; as was instanced by her having, at the moment of
+receiving information that the steamer had sailed, replied 'Oh', so
+coolly to the porter with her luggage, that he was almost disappointed
+at her lack of disappointment.
+
+The question now was, should she return again to Mrs Wace, in the
+village of Lower Wessex, or wait in the town at which she had arrived.
+She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great;
+moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically,
+to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have
+been a trifle humiliating.
+
+Leaving, then, her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to
+secure a respectable, or rather genteel, lodging in the popular
+seaside resort confronting her. To this end she looked about the town,
+in which, though she had passed through it half-a-dozen times, she was
+practically a stranger.
+
+Baptista found a room to suit her over a fruiterer's shop; where she
+made herself at home, and set herself in order after her journey.
+An early cup of tea having revived her spirits she walked out to
+reconnoitre.
+
+Being a schoolmistress she avoided looking at the schools, and having
+a sort of trade connection with books, she avoided looking at the
+booksellers; but wearying of the other shops she inspected
+the churches; not that for her own part she cared much about
+ecclesiastical edifices; but tourists looked at them, and so would
+she--a proceeding for which no one would have credited her with any
+great originality, such, for instance, as that she subsequently showed
+herself to possess. The churches soon oppressed her. She tried the
+Museum, but came out because it seemed lonely and tedious.
+
+Yet the town and the walks in this land of strawberries, these
+headquarters of early English flowers and fruit, were then, as always,
+attractive. From the more picturesque streets she went to the town
+gardens, and the Pier, and the Harbour, and looked at the men at work
+there, loading and unloading as in the time of the Phoenicians.
+
+'Not Baptista? Yes, Baptista it is!'
+
+The words were uttered behind her. Turning round she gave a start,
+and became confused, even agitated, for a moment. Then she said in her
+usual undemonstrative manner, 'O--is it really you, Charles?'
+
+Without speaking again at once, and with a half-smile, the newcomer
+glanced her over. There was much criticism, and some resentment--even
+temper--in his eye.
+
+'I am going home,' continued she. 'But I have missed the boat.'
+
+He scarcely seemed to take in the meaning of this explanation, in
+the intensity of his critical survey. 'Teaching still? What a fine
+schoolmistress you make, Baptista, I warrant!' he said with a slight
+flavour of sarcasm, which was not lost upon her.
+
+'I know I am nothing to brag of,' she replied. 'That's why I have
+given up.'
+
+'O--given up? You astonish me.'
+
+'I hate the profession.'
+
+'Perhaps that's because I am in it.'
+
+'O no, it isn't. But I am going to enter on another life altogether. I
+am going to be married next week to Mr David Heddegan.'
+
+The young man--fortified as he was by a natural cynical pride and
+passionateness--winced at this unexpected reply, notwithstanding.
+
+'Who is Mr David Heddegan?' he asked, as indifferently as lay in his
+power.
+
+She informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of
+Giant's Town, St Maria's Island--her father's nearest neighbour and
+oldest friend.
+
+'Then we shan't see anything more of you on the mainland?' inquired
+the schoolmaster.
+
+'O, I don't know about that,' said Miss Trewthen.
+
+'Here endeth the career of the belle of the boarding-school your
+father was foolish enough to send you to. A "general merchant's" wife
+in the Lyonesse Isles. Will you sell pounds of soap and pennyworths
+of tin tacks, or whole bars of saponaceous matter, and great tenpenny
+nails?'
+
+'He's not in such a small way as that!' she almost pleaded. 'He owns
+ships, though they are rather little ones!'
+
+'O, well, it is much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious
+to stand still. I thought you would be a failure in education,' he
+continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. 'You never showed
+power that way. You remind me much of some of those women who think
+they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the stage, because
+they have a pretty face, and forget that what we require is acting.
+But you found your mistake, didn't you?'
+
+'Don't taunt me, Charles.' It was noticeable that the young
+schoolmaster's tone caused her no anger or retaliatory passion;
+far otherwise: there was a tear in her eye. 'How is it you are at
+Pen-zephyr?' she inquired.
+
+'I don't taunt you. I speak the truth, purely in a friendly way, as
+I should to anyone I wished well. Though for that matter I might have
+some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you've
+been in. I hate a woman who is in such a hurry.'
+
+'How do you mean that?'
+
+'Why--to be somebody's wife or other--anything's wife rather than
+nobody's. You couldn't wait for me, O, no. Well, thank God, I'm cured
+of all that!'
+
+'How merciless you are!' she said bitterly. 'Wait for you? What does
+that mean, Charley? You never showed--anything to wait for--anything
+special towards me.'
+
+'O come, Baptista dear; come!'
+
+'What I mean is, nothing definite,' she expostulated. 'I suppose you
+liked me a little; but it seemed to me to be only a pastime on your
+part, and that you never meant to make an honourable engagement of
+it.'
+
+'There, that's just it! You girls expect a man to mean business at the
+first look. No man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any
+definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is
+meaning a vulgar mercenary marriage. However, I did at last mean an
+honourable engagement, as you call it, come to that.'
+
+'But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a
+woman's position and credit, sooner than you think.'
+
+'Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked
+you to marry me.'
+
+She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very
+uncomfortable. Presently he said, 'Would you have waited for me if you
+had known?' To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, 'Yes!'
+
+They went still farther in silence--passing along one of the beautiful
+walks on the outskirts of the town, yet not observant of scene or
+situation. Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped
+his fingers round the small of her arm--quite lightly, and without any
+attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, 'Now I hold you, and my
+will must be yours.'
+
+Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, 'I have merely run
+down here for a day or two from school near Trufal, before going off
+to the north for the rest of my holiday. I have seen my relations at
+Redrutin quite lately, so I am not going there this time. How little
+I thought of meeting you! How very different the circumstances would
+have been if, instead of parting again as we must in half-an-hour or
+so, possibly for ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my
+wife, on our honeymoon trip. Ha--ha--well--so humorous is life!'
+
+She stopped suddenly. 'I must go back now--this is altogether too
+painful, Charley! It is not at all a kind mood you are in today.'
+
+'I don't want to pain you--you know I do not,' he said more gently.
+'Only it just exasperates me--this you are going to do. I wish you
+would not.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Marry him. There, now I have showed you my true sentiments.'
+
+'I must do it now,' said she.
+
+'Why?' he asked, dropping the off-hand masterful tone he had hitherto
+spoken in, and becoming earnest; still holding her arm, however, as if
+she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will. 'It is never
+too late to break off a marriage that's distasteful to you. Now I'll
+say one thing; and it is truth: I wish you would marry me instead
+of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me so
+badly.'
+
+'O, it is not possible to think of that!' she answered hastily,
+shaking her head. 'When I get home all will be prepared--it is ready
+even now--the things for the party, the furniture, Mr. Heddegan's new
+suit, and everything. I should require the courage of a tropical lion
+to go home there and say I wouldn't carry out my promise!'
+
+'Then go, in Heaven's name! But there would be no necessity for you to
+go home and face them in that way. If we were to marry, it would have
+to be at once, instantly; or not at all. I should think your affection
+not worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to Trufal
+this evening, where we could be married by licence on Monday morning.
+And then no Mr. David Heddegan or anybody else could get you away from
+me.'
+
+'I must go home by the Tuesday boat,' she faltered. 'What would they
+think if I did not come?'
+
+'You could go home by that boat just the same. All the difference
+would be that I should go with you. You could leave me on the quay,
+where I'd have a smoke, while you went and saw your father and mother
+privately; you could then tell them what you had done, and that I
+was waiting not far off; that I was a schoolmaster in a fairly good
+position, and a young man you had known when you were at the Training
+College. Then I would come boldly forward; and they would see that it
+could not be altered, and so you wouldn't suffer a lifelong misery by
+being the wife of a wretched old gaffer you don't like at all. Now,
+honestly; you do like me best, don't you, Baptista?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Then we will do as I say.'
+
+She did not pronounce a clear affirmative. But that she consented
+to the novel proposition at some moment or other of that walk was
+apparent by what occurred a little later.
+
+
+III
+
+
+An enterprise of such pith required, indeed, less talking than
+consideration. The first thing they did in carrying it out was to
+return to the railway station, where Baptista took from her luggage a
+small trunk of immediate necessaries which she would in any case have
+required after missing the boat. That same afternoon they travelled up
+the line to Trufal.
+
+Charles Stow (as his name was), despite his disdainful indifference
+to things, was very careful of appearances, and made the journey
+independently of her though in the same train. He told her where she
+could get board and lodgings in the city; and with merely a distant
+nod to her of a provisional kind, went off to his own quarters, and to
+see about the licence.
+
+On Sunday she saw him in the morning across the nave of the
+pro-cathedral. In the afternoon they walked together in the fields,
+where he told her that the licence would be ready next day, and would
+be available the day after, when the ceremony could be performed as
+early after eight o'clock as they should choose.
+
+His courtship, thus renewed after an interval of two years, was
+as impetuous, violent even, as it was short. The next day came and
+passed, and the final arrangements were made. Their agreement was to
+get the ceremony over as soon as they possibly could the next morning,
+so as to go on to Pen-zephyr at once, and reach that place in time for
+the boat's departure the same day. It was in obedience to Baptista's
+earnest request that Stow consented thus to make the whole journey
+to Lyonesse by land and water at one heat, and not break it at
+Pen-zephyr; she seemed to be oppressed with a dread of lingering
+anywhere, this great first act of disobedience to her parents once
+accomplished, with the weight on her mind that her home had to be
+convulsed by the disclosure of it. To face her difficulties over the
+water immediately she had created them was, however, a course more
+desired by Baptista than by her lover; though for once he gave way.
+
+The next morning was bright and warm as those which had preceded it.
+By six o'clock it seemed nearly noon, as is often the case in that
+part of England in the summer season. By nine they were husband and
+wife. They packed up and departed by the earliest train after the
+service; and on the way discussed at length what she should say on
+meeting her parents, Charley dictating the turn of each phrase. In her
+anxiety they had travelled so early that when they reached Pen-zephyr
+they found there were nearly two hours on their hands before the
+steamer's time of sailing.
+
+Baptista was extremely reluctant to be seen promenading the streets
+of the watering-place with her husband till, as above stated, the
+household at Giant's Town should know the unexpected course of events
+from her own lips; and it was just possible, if not likely, that some
+Lyonessian might be prowling about there, or even have come across the
+sea to look for her. To meet anyone to whom she was known, and to have
+to reply to awkward questions about the strange young man at her side
+before her well-framed announcement had been delivered at proper time
+and place, was a thing she could not contemplate with equanimity. So,
+instead of looking at the shops and harbour, they went along the coast
+a little way.
+
+The heat of the morning was by this time intense. They clambered up on
+some cliffs, and while sitting there, looking around at St Michael's
+Mount and other objects, Charles said to her that he thought he would
+run down to the beach at their feet, and take just one plunge into the
+sea.
+
+Baptista did not much like the idea of being left alone; it was
+gloomy, she said. But he assured her he would not be gone more than a
+quarter of an hour at the outside, and she passively assented.
+
+Down he went, disappeared, appeared again, and looked back. Then he
+again proceeded, and vanished, till, as a small waxen object, she saw
+him emerge from the nook that had screened him, cross the white fringe
+of foam, and walk into the undulating mass of blue. Once in the water
+he seemed less inclined to hurry than before; he remained a long time;
+and, unable either to appreciate his skill or criticize his want of
+it at that distance, she withdrew her eyes from the spot, and gazed at
+the still outline of St Michael's--now beautifully toned in grey.
+
+Her anxiety for the hour of departure, and to cope at once with the
+approaching incidents that she would have to manipulate as best she
+could, sent her into a reverie. It was now Tuesday; she would reach
+home in the evening--a very late time they would say; but, as the
+delay was a pure accident, they would deem her marriage to Mr Heddegan
+tomorrow still practicable. Then Charles would have to be produced
+from the background. It was a terrible undertaking to think of, and
+she almost regretted her temerity in wedding so hastily that morning.
+The rage of her father would be so crushing; the reproaches of her
+mother so bitter; and perhaps Charles would answer hotly, and perhaps
+cause estrangement till death. There had obviously been no alarm about
+her at St Maria's, or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for
+her. She had, in a letter written at the beginning of the week, spoken
+of the hour at which she intended to leave her country schoolhouse;
+and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such timing
+she would run a risk of losing the Saturday boat. She had missed it,
+and as a consequence sat here on the shore as Mrs Charles Stow.
+
+This brought her to the present, and she turned from the outline of St
+Michael's Mount to look about for her husband's form. He was, as far
+as she could discover, no longer in the sea. Then he was dressing. By
+moving a few steps she could see where his clothes lay. But Charles
+was not beside them.
+
+Baptista looked back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her
+senses were the victim of some sleight of hand. Not a speck or spot
+resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was
+alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond
+the scene of her husband's bathing a small area of water, the quality
+of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the
+coarse vegetation of some foul patch in a mead differs from the fine
+green of the remainder. Elsewhere it looked flexuous, here it looked
+vermiculated and lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to her in
+a moment that two currents met and caused a turmoil at this place.
+
+She descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow. The way
+down was terribly long, and before reaching the heap of clothes it
+occurred to her that, after all, it would be best to run first for
+help. Hastening along in a lateral direction she proceeded inland till
+she met a man, and soon afterwards two others. To them she exclaimed,
+'I think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger. I cannot see
+him as I could. Will you please run and help him, at once, if you will
+be so kind?'
+
+She did not think of turning to show them the exact spot, indicating
+it vaguely by the direction of her hand, and still going on her way
+with the idea of gaining more assistance. When she deemed, in her
+faintness, that she had carried the alarm far enough, she faced about
+and dragged herself back again. Before reaching the now dreaded spot
+she met one of the men.
+
+'We can see nothing at all, Miss,' he declared.
+
+Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of
+Charley's clothes. The other men whom she had besought to come had
+disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had
+not met them going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought
+her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the quest.
+
+Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand. Where Charley had
+undressed was now sea. There could not be the least doubt that he was
+drowned, and his body sucked under by the current; while his clothes,
+lying within high-water mark, had probably been carried away by the
+rising tide.
+
+She remained in a stupor for some minutes, till a strange sensation
+succeeded the aforesaid perceptions, mystifying her intelligence, and
+leaving her physically almost inert. With his personal disappearance,
+the last three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up,
+also his image, in her mind's eye, waned curiously, receded far away,
+grew stranger and stranger, less and less real. Their meeting and
+marriage had been so sudden, unpremeditated, adventurous, that she
+could hardly believe that she had played her part in such a reckless
+drama. Of all the few hours of her life with Charles, the portion that
+most insisted in coming back to memory was their fortuitous encounter
+on the previous Saturday, and those bitter reprimands with which he
+had begun the attack, as it might be called, which had piqued her to
+an unexpected consummation.
+
+A sort of cruelty, an imperiousness, even in his warmth, had
+characterized Charles Stow. As a lover he had ever been a bit of a
+tyrant; and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung
+her into marriage with him at last. Still more alien from her life did
+these reflections operate to make him; and then they would be chased
+away by an interval of passionate weeping and mad regret. Finally,
+there returned upon the confused mind of the young wife the
+recollection that she was on her way homeward, and that the packet
+would sail in three-quarters of an hour.
+
+Except the parasol in her hand, all she possessed was at the station
+awaiting her onward journey.
+
+She looked in that direction; and, entering one of those
+undemonstrative phases so common with her, walked quietly on.
+
+At first she made straight for the railway; but suddenly turning she
+went to a shop and wrote an anonymous line announcing his death by
+drowning to the only person she had ever heard Charles mention as a
+relative. Posting this stealthily, and with a fearful look around her,
+she seemed to acquire a terror of the late events, pursuing her way to
+the station as if followed by a spectre.
+
+When she got to the office she asked for the luggage that she had left
+there on the Saturday as well as the trunk left on the morning just
+lapsed. All were put in the boat, and she herself followed. Quickly
+as these things had been done, the whole proceeding, nevertheless,
+had been almost automatic on Baptista's part, ere she had come to any
+definite conclusion on her course.
+
+Just before the bell rang she heard a conversation on the pier, which
+removed the last shade of doubt from her mind, if any had existed,
+that she was Charles Stow's widow. The sentences were but fragmentary,
+but she could easily piece them out.
+
+'A man drowned--swam out too far--was a stranger to the place--people
+in boat--saw him go down--couldn't get there in time.'
+
+The news was little more definite than this as yet; though it may as
+well be stated once for all that the statement was true. Charley, with
+the over-confidence of his nature, had ventured out too far for his
+strength, and succumbed in the absence of assistance, his lifeless
+body being at the moment suspended in the transparent mid-depths of
+the bay. His clothes, however, had merely been gently lifted by the
+rising tide, and floated into a nook hard by, where they lay out of
+sight of the passers-by till a day or two after.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In ten minutes they were steaming out of the harbour for their voyage
+of four or five hours, at whose ending she would have to tell her
+strange story.
+
+As Pen-zephyr and all its environing scenes disappeared behind
+Mousehole and St Clement's Isle, Baptista's ephemeral, meteor-like
+husband impressed her yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a
+trance-like state that she had been an hour on the little packet-boat
+before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr Heddegan was
+on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped from her left hand the
+symbol of her wifehood.
+
+'Hee-hee! Well, the truth is, I wouldn't interrupt 'ee. "I reckon she
+don't see me, or won't see me," I said, "and what's the hurry? She'll
+see enough o' me soon!" I hope ye be well, mee deer?'
+
+He was a hale, well-conditioned man of about five and fifty, of the
+complexion common to those whose lives are passed on the bluffs and
+beaches of an ocean isle. He extended the four quarters of his face
+in a genial smile, and his hand for a grasp of the same magnitude. She
+gave her own in surprised docility, and he continued:
+
+'I couldn't help coming across to meet 'ee. What an unfortunate thing
+you missing the boat and not coming Saturday! They meant to have
+warned 'ee that the time was changed, but forgot it at the last
+moment. The truth is that I should have informed 'ee myself, but I was
+that busy finishing up a job last week, so as to have this week free,
+that I trusted to your father for attending to these little things.
+However, so plain and quiet as it is all to be, it really do not
+matter so much as it might otherwise have done, and I hope ye haven't
+been greatly put out. Now, if you'd sooner that I should not be seen
+talking to 'ee--if 'ee feel shy at all before strangers--just say.
+I'll leave 'ee to yourself till we get home.'
+
+'Thank you much. I am indeed a little tired, Mr Heddegan.'
+
+He nodded urbane acquiescence, strolled away immediately, and minutely
+inspected the surface of the funnel, till some female passengers of
+Giant's Town tittered at what they must have thought a rebuff--for the
+approaching wedding was known to many on St Maria's Island, though to
+nobody elsewhere. Baptista coloured at their satire, and called
+him back, and forced herself to commune with him in at least a
+mechanically friendly manner.
+
+The opening event had been thus different from her expectation,
+and she had adumbrated no act to meet it. Taken aback she passively
+allowed circumstances to pilot her along; and so the voyage was made.
+
+It was near dusk when they touched the pier of Giant's Town, where
+several friends and neighbours stood awaiting them. Her father had a
+lantern in his hand. Her mother, too, was there, reproachfully glad
+that the delay had at last ended so simply. Mrs Trewthen and her
+daughter went together along the Giant's Walk, or promenade, to the
+house, rather in advance of her husband and Mr Heddegan, who talked in
+loud tones which reached the women over their shoulders.
+
+Some would have called Mrs Trewthen a good mother; but though well
+meaning she was maladroit, and her intentions missed their mark. This
+might have been partly attributable to the slight deafness from which
+she suffered. Now, as usual, the chief utterances came from her lips.
+
+'Ah, yes, I'm so glad, my child, that you've got over safe. It is all
+ready, and everything so well arranged, that nothing but misfortune
+could hinder you settling as, with God's grace, becomes 'ee. Close to
+your mother's door a'most, 'twill be a great blessing, I'm sure; and
+I was very glad to find from your letters that you'd held your word
+sacred. That's right--make your word your bond always. Mrs Wace seems
+to be a sensible woman. I hope the Lord will do for her as he's doing
+for you no long time hence. And how did 'ee get over the terrible
+journey from Tor-upon-Sea to Pen-zephyr? Once you'd done with the
+railway, of course, you seemed quite at home. Well, Baptista, conduct
+yourself seemly, and all will be well.'
+
+Thus admonished, Baptista entered the house, her father and Mr
+Heddegan immediately at her back. Her mother had been so didactic that
+she had felt herself absolutely unable to broach the subjects in the
+centre of her mind.
+
+The familiar room, with the dark ceiling, the well-spread table, the
+old chairs, had never before spoken so eloquently of the times ere she
+knew or had heard of Charley Stow. She went upstairs to take off her
+things, her mother remaining below to complete the disposition of the
+supper, and attend to the preparation of tomorrow's meal, altogether
+composing such an array of pies, from pies of fish to pies of turnips,
+as was never heard of outside the Western Duchy. Baptista, once alone,
+sat down and did nothing; and was called before she had taken off her
+bonnet.
+
+'I'm coming,' she cried, jumping up, and speedily disapparelling
+herself, brushed her hair with a few touches and went down.
+
+Two or three of Mr Heddegan's and her father's friends had dropped in,
+and expressed their sympathy for the delay she had been subjected
+to. The meal was a most merry one except to Baptista. She had desired
+privacy, and there was none; and to break the news was already a
+greater difficulty than it had been at first. Everything around her,
+animate and inanimate, great and small, insisted that she had come
+home to be married; and she could not get a chance to say nay.
+
+One or two people sang songs, as overtures to the melody of the
+morrow, till at length bedtime came, and they all withdrew, her mother
+having retired a little earlier. When Baptista found herself again
+alone in her bedroom the case stood as before: she had come home with
+much to say, and she had said nothing.
+
+It was now growing clear even to herself that Charles being dead, she
+had not determination sufficient within her to break tidings which,
+had he been alive, would have imperatively announced themselves. And
+thus with the stroke of midnight came the turning of the scale; her
+story should remain untold. It was not that upon the whole she thought
+it best not to attempt to tell it; but that she could not undertake so
+explosive a matter. To stop the wedding now would cause a convulsion
+in Giant's Town little short of volcanic. Weakened, tired, and
+terrified as she had been by the day's adventures, she could not make
+herself the author of such a catastrophe. But how refuse Heddegan
+without telling? It really seemed to her as if her marriage with Mr
+Heddegan were about to take place as if nothing had intervened.
+
+Morning came. The events of the previous days were cut off from her
+present existence by scene and sentiment more completely than ever.
+Charles Stow had grown to be a special being of whom, owing to his
+character, she entertained rather fearful than loving memory. Baptista
+could hear when she awoke that her parents were already moving about
+downstairs. But she did not rise till her mother's rather rough voice
+resounded up the staircase as it had done on the preceding evening.
+
+'Baptista! Come, time to be stirring! The man will be here, by
+Heaven's blessing, in three-quarters of an hour. He has looked in
+already for a minute or two--and says he's going to the church to see
+if things be well forward.'
+
+Baptista arose, looked out of the window, and took the easy course.
+When she emerged from the regions above she was arrayed in her new
+silk frock and best stockings, wearing a linen jacket over the former
+for breakfasting, and her common slippers over the latter, not to
+spoil the new ones on the rough precincts of the dwelling.
+
+It is unnecessary to dwell at any great length on this part of the
+morning's proceedings. She revealed nothing; and married Heddegan, as
+she had given her word to do, on that appointed August day.
+
+
+V
+
+
+Mr Heddegan forgave the coldness of his bride's manner during and
+after the wedding ceremony, full well aware that there had been
+considerable reluctance on her part to acquiesce in this neighbourly
+arrangement, and, as a philosopher of long standing, holding that
+whatever Baptista's attitude now, the conditions would probably
+be much the same six months hence as those which ruled among other
+married couples.
+
+An absolutely unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind
+about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the
+midday dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of
+starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up
+inside Pen-zephyr new pier about six at least.'
+
+'What--are we going to Pen-zephyr?' said Baptista. 'I don't know
+anything of it.'
+
+'Didn't you tell her?' asked her father of Heddegan.
+
+It transpired that, owing to the delay in her arrival, this proposal
+too, among other things, had in the hurry not been mentioned to
+her, except some time ago as a general suggestion that they would go
+somewhere. Heddegan had imagined that any trip would be pleasant, and
+one to the mainland the pleasantest of all.
+
+She looked so distressed at the announcement that her husband
+willingly offered to give it up, though he had not had a holiday off
+the island for a whole year. Then she pondered on the inconvenience of
+staying at Giant's Town, where all the inhabitants were bonded, by the
+circumstances of their situation, into a sort of family party, which
+permitted and encouraged on such occasions as these oral criticism
+that was apt to disturb the equanimity of newly married girls, and
+would especially worry Baptista in her strange situation. Hence,
+unexpectedly, she agreed not to disorganize her husband's plans for
+the wedding jaunt, and it was settled that, as originally intended,
+they should proceed in a neighbour's sailing boat to the metropolis of
+the district.
+
+In this way they arrived at Pen-zephyr without difficulty or mishap.
+Bidding adieu to Jenkin and his man, who had sailed them over, they
+strolled arm in arm off the pier, Baptista silent, cold, and obedient.
+Heddegan had arranged to take her as far as Plymouth before their
+return, but to go no further than where they had landed that day.
+Their first business was to find an inn; and in this they had
+unexpected difficulty, since for some reason or other--possibly the
+fine weather--many of the nearest at hand were full of tourists and
+commercial travellers. He led her on till he reached a tavern which,
+though comparatively unpretending, stood in as attractive a spot as
+any in the town; and this, somewhat to their surprise after their
+previous experience, they found apparently empty. The considerate old
+man, thinking that Baptista was educated to artistic notions, though
+he himself was deficient in them, had decided that it was most
+desirable to have, on such an occasion as the present, an apartment
+with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often heard in use
+among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room on
+the first floor, from which a bow-window protruded, for the express
+purpose of affording such an outlook.
+
+The landlady, after some hesitation, said she was sorry that
+particular apartment was engaged; the next one, however, or any other
+in the house, was unoccupied.
+
+'The gentleman who has the best one will give it up tomorrow, and then
+you can change into it,' she added, as Mr Heddegan hesitated about
+taking the adjoining and less commanding one.
+
+'We shall be gone tomorrow, and shan't want it,' he said.
+
+Wishing not to lose customers, the landlady earnestly continued that
+since he was bent on having the best room, perhaps the other gentleman
+would not object to move at once into the one they despised, since,
+though nothing could be seen from the window, the room was equally
+large.
+
+'Well, if he doesn't care for a view,' said Mr Heddegan, with the air
+of a highly artistic man who did.
+
+'O no--I am sure he doesn't,' she said. 'I can promise that you shall
+have the room you want. If you would not object to go for a walk for
+half an hour, I could have it ready, and your things in it, and a nice
+tea laid in the bow-window by the time you come back?'
+
+This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman,
+and they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite
+direction to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on
+her wan face, had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret
+her sacrificial step for mending matters that morning.
+
+She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to
+inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman
+who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.
+
+The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just
+handed Baptista a newspaper on which she discerned the heading, 'A
+Schoolmaster drowned while bathing', when her husband turned to join
+her. She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion;
+but it was more than flesh and blood could do, and completing a small
+purchase almost ran out of the shop.
+
+'What is your terrible hurry, mee deer?' said Heddegan, hastening
+after.
+
+'I don't know--I don't want to stay in shops,' she gasped.
+
+'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go
+back and have some tay!'
+
+They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a
+sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily
+spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the
+midst, and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the
+meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view
+had been engaged, regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's
+pleasure, she did not direct any keen attention out of the window. Her
+gaze as often fell on the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere,
+and on the table as much as on either, beholding nothing at all.
+
+But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which
+her eyes presently became riveted like those of a little bird upon a
+snake. For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such
+a hat--surely, from its peculiar make, the actual hat--that had been
+worn by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when she saw a
+railway ticket sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket
+there--she had noticed the act.
+
+Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her
+husband jumped up and said, 'You are not well! What is it? What shall
+I get 'ee?'
+
+'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at the chemist's
+shop you were in just now.'
+
+He jumped up like the anxious old man that he was, caught up his own
+hat from a back table, and without observing the other hastened out
+and downstairs.
+
+Left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door, then
+spasmodically rang the bell. An honest-looking country maid-servant
+appeared in response.
+
+'A hat!' murmured Baptista, pointing with her finger. 'It does not
+belong to us.'
+
+'O yes, I'll take it away,' said the young woman with some hurry 'It
+belongs to the other gentleman.'
+
+She spoke with a certain awkwardness, and took the hat out of the
+room. Baptista had recovered her outward composure. 'The other
+gentleman?' she said. 'Where is the other gentleman?'
+
+'He's in the next room, ma'am. He removed out of this to oblige 'ee.'
+
+'How can you say so? I should hear him if he were there,' said
+Baptista, sufficiently recovered to argue down an apparent untruth.
+
+'He's there,' said the girl, hardily.
+
+'Then it is strange that he makes no noise,' said Mrs Heddegan,
+convicting the girl of falsity by a look.
+
+'He makes no noise; but it is not strange,' said the servant.
+
+All at once a dread took possession of the bride's heart, like a
+cold hand laid thereon; for it flashed upon her that there was a
+possibility of reconciling the girl's statement with her own knowledge
+of facts.
+
+'Why does he make no noise?' she weakly said.
+
+The waiting-maid was silent, and looked at her questioner. 'If I tell
+you, ma'am, you won't tell missis?' she whispered.
+
+Baptista promised.
+
+'Because he's a-lying dead!' said the girl. 'He's the schoolmaster
+that was drowned yesterday.'
+
+'O!' said the bride, covering her eyes. 'Then he was in this room till
+just now?'
+
+'Yes,' said the maid, thinking the young lady's agitation natural
+enough. 'And I told missis that I thought she oughtn't to have done
+it, because I don't hold it right to keep visitors so much in the
+dark where death's concerned; but she said the gentleman didn't die
+of anything infectious; she was a poor, honest, innkeeper's wife, she
+says, who had to get her living by making hay while the sun sheened.
+And owing to the drowned gentleman being brought here, she said, it
+kept so many people away that we were empty, though all the other
+houses were full. So when your good man set his mind upon the room,
+and she would have lost good paying folk if he'd not had it, it wasn't
+to be supposed, she said, that she'd let anything stand in the way.
+Ye won't say that I've told ye, please, m'm? All the linen has been
+changed, and as the inquest won't be till tomorrow, after you are
+gone, she thought you wouldn't know a word of it, being strangers
+here.'
+
+The returning footsteps of her husband broke off further narration.
+Baptista waved her hand, for she could not speak. The waiting-maid
+quickly withdrew, and Mr Heddegan entered with the smelling salts and
+other nostrums.
+
+'Any better?' he questioned.
+
+'I don't like the hotel,' she exclaimed, almost simultaneously. 'I
+can't bear it--it doesn't suit me!'
+
+'Is that all that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the
+first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such
+trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about
+from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like
+the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od
+dang it all, 'tis enough to--But I won't say any more at present, mee
+deer, though it is just too much to expect to turn out of the
+house now. We shan't get another quiet place at this time of the
+evening--every other inn in the town is bustling with rackety folk
+of one sort and t'other, while here 'tis as quiet as the grave--the
+country, I would say. So bide still, d'ye hear, and tomorrow we shall
+be out of the town altogether--as early as you like.'
+
+The obstinacy of age had, in short, overmastered its complaisance, and
+the young woman said no more. The simple course of telling him that
+in the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their
+own might, it would have seemed, have been an effectual one without
+further disclosure, but to allude to that subject, however it was
+disguised, was more than Heddegan's young wife had strength for.
+Horror broke her down. In the contingency one thing only presented
+itself to her paralysed regard--that here she was doomed to abide,
+in a hideous contiguity to the dead husband and the living, and her
+conjecture did, in fact, bear itself out. That night she lay between
+the two men she had married--Heddegan on the one hand, and on the
+other through the partition against which the bed stood, Charles Stow.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the
+present of Baptista Heddegan. It was ten o'clock in the morning; she
+had been ill, not in an ordinary or definite sense, but in a state of
+cold stupefaction, from which it was difficult to arouse her so much
+as to say a few sentences. When questioned she had replied that she
+was pretty well.
+
+Their trip, as such, had been something of a failure. They had gone
+on as far as Falmouth, but here he had given way to her entreaties
+to return home. This they could not very well do without repassing
+through Pen-zephyr, at which place they had now again arrived.
+
+In the train she had seen a weekly local paper, and read there a
+paragraph detailing the inquest on Charles. It was added that the
+funeral was to take place at his native town of Redrutin on Friday.
+
+After reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal
+neighbourhood of the tragedy, only stipulating that they should
+take their rest at a different lodging from the first; and now
+comparatively braced up and calm--indeed a cooler creature altogether
+than when last in the town, she said to David that she wanted to walk
+out for a while, as they had plenty of time on their hands.
+
+'To a shop as usual, I suppose, mee deer?'
+
+'Partly for shopping,' she said. 'And it will be best for you, dear,
+to stay in after trotting about so much, and have a good rest while I
+am gone.'
+
+He assented; and Baptista sallied forth. As she had stated, her first
+visit was made to a shop, a draper's. Without the exercise of much
+choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil, also a black stuff gown;
+a black mantle she already wore. These articles were made up into a
+parcel which, in spite of the saleswoman's offers, her customer said
+she would take with her. Bearing it on her arm she turned to the
+railway, and at the station got a ticket for Redrutin.
+
+Thus it appeared that, on her recovery from the paralysed mood of the
+former day, while she had resolved not to blast utterly the happiness
+of her present husband by revealing the history of the departed
+one, she had also determined to indulge a certain odd, inconsequent,
+feminine sentiment of decency, to the small extent to which it could
+do no harm to any person. At Redrutin she emerged from the railway
+carnage in the black attire purchased at the shop, having during the
+transit made the change in the empty compartment she had chosen. The
+other clothes were now in the bandbox and parcel. Leaving these at the
+cloak-room she proceeded onward, and after a wary survey reached the
+side of a hill whence a view of the burial ground could be obtained.
+
+It was now a little before two o'clock. While Baptista waited a
+funeral procession ascended the road. Baptista hastened across, and
+by the time the procession entered the cemetery gates she had
+unobtrusively joined it.
+
+In addition to the schoolmaster's own relatives (not a few), the
+paragraph in the newspapers of his death by drowning had drawn
+together many neighbours, acquaintances, and onlookers.
+
+Among them she passed unnoticed, and with a quiet step pursued the
+winding path to the chapel, and afterwards thence to the grave. When
+all was over, and the relatives and idlers had withdrawn, she stepped
+to the edge of the chasm. From beneath her mantle she drew a little
+bunch of forget-me-nots, and dropped them in upon the coffin. In a
+few minutes she also turned and went away from the cemetery. By five
+o'clock she was again in Pen-zephyr.
+
+'You have been a mortal long time!' said her husband, crossly. 'I
+allowed you an hour at most, mee deer.'
+
+'It occupied me longer,' said she.
+
+'Well--I reckon it is wasting words to complain. Hang it, ye look so
+tired and wisht that I can't find heart to say what I would!'
+
+'I am--weary and wisht, David; I am. We can get home tomorrow for
+certain, I hope?'
+
+'We can. And please God we will!' said Mr Heddegan heartily, as if he
+too were weary of his brief honeymoon. 'I must be into business again
+on Monday morning at latest.'
+
+They left by the next morning steamer, and in the afternoon took up
+their residence in their own house at Giant's Town.
+
+The hour that she reached the island it was as if a material weight
+had been removed from Baptista's shoulders. Her husband attributed
+the change to the influence of the local breezes after the hot-house
+atmosphere of the mainland. However that might be, settled here, a few
+doors from her mother's dwelling, she recovered in no very long time
+much of her customary bearing, which was never very demonstrative. She
+accepted her position calmly, and faintly smiled when her neighbours
+learned to call her Mrs Heddegan, and said she seemed likely to become
+the leader of fashion in Giant's Town.
+
+Her husband was a man who had made considerably more money by trade
+than her father had done: and perhaps the greater profusion of
+surroundings at her command than she had heretofore been mistress of,
+was not without an effect upon her. One week, two weeks, three weeks
+passed; and, being pre-eminently a young woman who allowed things to
+drift, she did nothing whatever either to disclose or conceal
+traces of her first marriage; or to learn if there existed
+possibilities--which there undoubtedly did--by which that hasty
+contract might become revealed to those about her at any unexpected
+moment.
+
+While yet within the first month of her marriage, and on an evening
+just before sunset, Baptista was standing within her garden adjoining
+the house, when she saw passing along the road a personage clad in a
+greasy black coat and battered tall hat, which, common enough in the
+slums of a city, had an odd appearance in St Maria's. The tramp, as he
+seemed to be, marked her at once--bonnetless and unwrapped as she was
+her features were plainly recognizable--and with an air of friendly
+surprise came and leant over the wall.
+
+'What! don't you know me?' said he.
+
+She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not
+acquainted with him.
+
+'Why, your witness to be sure, ma'am. Don't you mind the man that was
+mending the church-window when you and your intended husband walked
+up to be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and I
+came and did my part by writing my name and occupation?'
+
+Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That
+would have been of less importance but for the fact that the wedding
+witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr.
+Heddegan, but the one on the day previous.
+
+'I've had a misfortune since then, that's pulled me under,' continued
+her friend. 'But don't let me damp yer wedded joy by naming the
+particulars. Yes, I've seen changes since; though 'tis but a short
+time ago--let me see, only a month next week, I think; for 'twere the
+first or second day in August.'
+
+'Yes--that's when it was,' said another man, a sailor, who had come up
+with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it necessary to join in (Baptista
+having receded to escape further speech). 'For that was the first time
+I set foot in Giant's Town; and her husband took her to him the same
+day.'
+
+A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which
+Baptista could not help hearing.
+
+'Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,' repeated the decayed
+glazier. 'Where's her good-man?'
+
+'About the premises somewhere; but you don't see'em together much,'
+replied the sailor in an undertone. 'You see, he's older than she.'
+
+'Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,' said
+the glazier. 'He was a remarkably handsome man.'
+
+'Handsome? Well, there he is--we can see for ourselves.'
+
+David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the
+garden; and the glazier, looking in bewilderment from the husband to
+the wife, saw the latter turn pale.
+
+Now that decayed glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man--too
+far-seeing and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and
+straightforward means--and he held his peace, till he could read
+more plainly the meaning of this riddle, merely added carelessly,
+'Well--marriage do alter a man, 'tis true. I should never ha' knowed
+him!'
+
+He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to
+where he could again address her, asked her to do him a good turn,
+since he once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant
+money, she handed him some, at which he thanked her, and instantly
+went away.
+
+
+VII
+
+
+She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been
+an awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or
+later the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any
+rate she had not heard the last of the glazier.
+
+In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the
+other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and
+the worthy witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second
+time.
+
+'It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery--hours!' he said
+with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply.
+'But thanks to a good intellect I've done it. Now, ma'am, I'm not a
+man to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I'm
+going back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as
+rain on thirsty ground.'
+
+'I helped you two days ago,' began Baptista.
+
+'Yes--but what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage
+to Pen-zephyr. I came over on your account, for I thought there was a
+mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this--'twould
+be very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He's a queer
+temper, though he may be fond.'
+
+She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the
+hush-money she paid was heavy that day. She had, however, the
+satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him
+diminish out of sight. But Baptista perceived that the system into
+which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her
+peace of mind, particularly if it had to be continued.
+
+Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past.
+But another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant's
+Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in
+the company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.
+
+'This is the lady, my dear,' he said to his companion. 'This, ma'am,
+is my wife. We've come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we
+can find room.'
+
+'That you won't do,' said she. 'Nobody can live here who is not
+privileged.'
+
+'I am privileged,' said the glazier, 'by my trade.'
+
+Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the
+man's wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours,
+the necessity for keeping up the concealment.
+
+'I will intercede with my husband, ma'am,' she said. 'He's a true man
+if rightly managed; and I'll beg him to consider your position. 'Tis a
+very nice house you've got here,' she added, glancing round, 'and well
+worth a little sacrifice to keep it.'
+
+The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as
+she had done on the previous two. But she formed a resolve that,
+if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a
+revelation--worse though that must now be than before she had
+attempted to purchase silence by bribes. Her tormentors, never
+believing her capable of acting upon such an intention, came again;
+but she shut the door in their faces. They retreated, muttering
+something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan
+was.
+
+She looked at him, unconscious of all. The case was serious; she knew
+that well; and all the more serious in that she liked him better now
+than she had done at first. Yet, as she herself began to see,
+the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself. Her name and
+Charles's stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a month
+only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union
+with her had not already been discovered by his friends. Thus spurring
+herself to the inevitable, she spoke to Heddegan.
+
+'David, come indoors. I have something to tell you.'
+
+He hardly regarded her at first. She had discerned that during
+the last week or two he had seemed preoccupied, as if some private
+business harassed him. She repeated her request. He replied with a
+sigh, 'Yes, certainly, mee deer.'
+
+When they had reached the sitting-room and shut the door she repeated,
+faintly, 'David, I have something to tell you--a sort of tragedy I
+have concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but
+perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better
+of me than you would do otherwise.'
+
+'Tragedy?' he said, awakening to interest. 'Much you can know about
+tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!'
+
+She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder.
+But on she went steadily. 'It is about something that happened before
+we were married,' she said.
+
+'Indeed!'
+
+'Not a very long time before--a short time. And it is about a lover,'
+she faltered.
+
+'I don't much mind that,' he said mildly. 'In truth, I was in hopes
+'twas more.'
+
+'In hopes!'
+
+'Well, yes.'
+
+This screwed her up to the necessary effort. 'I met my old sweetheart.
+He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were
+coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was
+drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married
+you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I've tried to keep it
+from you, but have found I cannot. There--that's the substance of it,
+and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!'
+
+She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or
+blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and
+began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.
+
+'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his
+fingers over his head. 'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my
+trouble--ha-ha!'
+
+She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still
+continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'O--what do you mean? Is it done
+to torment me?'
+
+'No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching
+quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--_I've_
+got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never
+have seen my way to tell mine!'
+
+'What is yours--what is it?' she asked, with altogether a new view of
+things.
+
+'Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the
+ground and wiping his eyes.
+
+'Not worse than mine?'
+
+'Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the
+past alone; and I don't mind it. You see, we've been married a month,
+and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day
+or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--'
+
+'Past, present, and future!' she murmured. 'It never occurred to me
+that you had a tragedy too.'
+
+'But I have!' he said, shaking his head. 'In fact, four.'
+
+'Then tell 'em!' cried the young woman.
+
+'I will--I will. But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. Well--I
+wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any more than you were a
+spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.'
+
+'Ah!' said she, with some surprise. 'But is that all?--then we are
+nicely balanced,' she added, relieved.
+
+'No--it is not all. There's the point. I am not only a widower.'
+
+'O, David!'
+
+'I am a widower with four tragedies--that is to say, four
+strapping girls--the eldest taller than you. Don't 'ee look so
+struck--dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman,
+their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and--to cut a long story
+short--I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept
+the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by
+degrees. I've long felt for the children--that it is my duty to have
+them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break
+it to 'ee, but I've seen lately that it would soon come to your ears,
+and that hev worried me.'
+
+'Are they educated?' said the ex-schoolmistress.
+
+'No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth,
+they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young
+schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach 'em,
+and bring 'em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they
+are growed up too tall to be sent to school.'
+
+'O, mercy!' she almost moaned. 'Four great girls to teach the
+rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their
+books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished--I am,
+I am!'
+
+'You'll get used to 'em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets--mine
+against yours--will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I
+could send for 'em this week very well--and I will! In faith, I
+could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my
+difficulty!'
+
+Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned.
+Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to
+her room she wept from very mortification at Mr Heddegan's duplicity.
+Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a
+young wife so!
+
+The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer
+her eyes to turn towards him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her
+reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled
+with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. 'How very well matched we
+be!' he said, comfortably.
+
+Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush
+down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall,
+hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the
+eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them
+standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his
+whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, 'Now come forrard,
+and shake hands properly with your stepmother.'
+
+Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them
+together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only
+plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such
+a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly
+inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could
+only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress
+was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years
+she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without
+prospect of reward.
+
+She went about quite despairing during the next few days--an
+unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married
+six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been
+amongst the few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his
+secret, and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready-made
+household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support
+them in their remonstrances.
+
+'No, you don't yet know all,' she said.
+
+Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of
+this issue. For some time, whenever conversation arose between her and
+Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, 'I am miserable, and
+you know it. Yet I don't wish things to be otherwise.'
+
+But one day when he asked, 'How do you like 'em now?' her answer was
+unexpected. 'Much better than I did,' she said, quietly. 'I may like
+them very much some day.'
+
+This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of
+Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the
+crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their
+Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that
+were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to
+their young lives before their mother's wrong had been righted, had
+operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal
+ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely
+objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of
+certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather
+than suffered.
+
+This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of
+Baptista's nature, that her attention, from being first arrested
+by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart
+expanded in sympathy with theirs. The sentences of her tragi-comedy,
+her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in humanity,
+as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but
+infinitely much to pity, she learnt with the lapse of each week in
+their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and
+from liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point
+of junction between her own and her husband's interests, generating a
+sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there
+had threatened to be neither friendship nor love.
+
+
+
+
+_George Moore_
+
+A FAITHFUL HEART
+
+(_The Speaker_, 16 April 1892)
+
+
+Part I
+
+
+It was a lovely morning, and Major Shepherd walked rapidly, his toes
+turned well out, his shoulders set well back. Behind him floated the
+summer foliage of Appleton Park--the family seat of the Shepherds--and
+at the end of the smooth, white road lay the Major's destination--the
+small town of Branbury.
+
+The Major was the medium height; his features were regular and cleanly
+cut. He would have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been
+two dark mud-coloured dots, set close together, wholly lacking in
+expression. A long brown moustache swept picturesquely over bright,
+smoothly shaven cheeks, and the ends of this ornament were beginning
+to whiten. The Major was over forty. He carried under his arm a
+brown-paper parcel (the Major was rarely seen without a brown-paper
+parcel), and in it were things he could not possibly do without--his
+diary and his letter-book. The brown-paper parcel contained likewise
+a number of other papers; it contained the Major's notes for a book he
+was writing on the principal county families in Buckinghamshire. The
+Major had been collecting information for this book for many years,
+and with it he hoped to make two or three hundred pounds--money which
+he stood sorely in need of--and to advance his position in the county,
+a position which, in his opinion, his father had done little to
+maintain, and which, to his very deep regret, his sisters were now
+doing their best to compromise. That very morning, while packing up
+his brown-paper parcel, some quarter of an hour ago, he had had a
+somewhat angry interview on this subject with his sisters. For he had
+thought it his duty to reprove them for keeping company with certain
+small London folk who had chosen to come to live in the neighbourhood.
+Ethel had said that they were not going to give up their friends
+because they were not good enough for him, and Maud had added
+significantly that they were quite sure that their friends were quite
+as good as the friend he was going to see in Branbury. The Major
+turned on his heel and left the house.
+
+As he walked towards Branbury he asked himself if it were possible
+that they knew anything about Charlotte Street; and as he approached
+the town he looked round nervously, fearing lest some friend might
+pop down upon him, and, after some hesitation, decided to take a long
+detour so as to avoid passing by the house of some people he knew. As
+he made his way through a bye-street his step quickened, and at the
+corner of Charlotte Street he looked round to make sure he was not
+followed. He then drew his keys from his pocket and let himself into a
+small, mean-looking house.
+
+Major Shepherd might have spared himself the trouble of these
+precautions; no one was minded to watch him, for everyone knew
+perfectly well who lived in 27, Charlotte Street. It was common talk
+that the tall, dark woman who lived in 27 was Mrs Charles Shepherd,
+and that the little girl who ran by Mrs Shepherd's side on the rare
+occasions when she was seen in the streets--for it was said that the
+Major did not wish her to walk much about the town, lest she should
+attract the attention of the curious, who might be tempted to make
+inquiries--was the Major's little daughter, and it had been noticed
+that this little girl went forth now and then, basket on her arm, to
+do the marketing. It was said that Mrs Shepherd had been a servant
+in some lodging-house where the Major had been staying; other
+scandal-mongers declared that they knew for certain that the Major had
+made his wife's acquaintance in the street. Rumour had never wandered
+far from the truth. The Major had met his wife one night as he was
+coming home from his club. They seemed to suit one another; he saw
+her frequently for several months, and then, fearing to lose her, in
+a sudden access of jealousy--he had some time before been bitterly
+jilted--he proposed to marry her. The arrival of his parents, who
+came up to town beseeching of him to do nothing rash, only served to
+intensify his determination, and, losing his temper utterly, he told
+his father and mother that he would never set his foot in Appleton
+Park in their lifetime if they ever again ventured to pry into his
+private affairs; and, refusing to give any information regarding his
+intentions, he asked them to leave his lodgings. What he did after
+they never knew; years went by, and they sighed and wondered, but the
+matter was never alluded to in Appleton Park.
+
+But the Major had only £400 a year, and though he lived at Appleton
+Park, never spending a penny more than was necessary, he could not
+allow her more than £3 a week. He had so many expenses: his club, his
+clothes, and all the incidental expenses he was put to in the grand
+houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd
+managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to
+call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work,
+she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest,
+she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and
+taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared
+her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers was a
+kind-hearted, simple nature, that misfortune had brought down in the
+world; but, as is not uncommon with persons of weak character, she
+possessed a clear, sensible mind which allowed her to see things
+in their true lights, and without difficulty she recognized the
+unalterable nature of her case. It mattered little whether the Major
+acknowledged her or not, his family would never have anything to do
+with her; the doors of Society were for ever closed against her. So
+within a year of her marriage with the Major she was convinced that
+her marriage had better be kept a secret; for, by helping to keep it
+a secret, she could make substantial amends to the man who had married
+her; by proclaiming it to the world, she would only alienate his
+affection. She understood this very well, and in all docility and
+obedience lent herself to the deception, accepting without complaint
+a mean and clandestine existence. But she would not allow her little
+girl to carry up a jug of hot water, and it was only rarely, when
+prostrate with pain, that she allowed Nellie to take the basket and
+run round to the butcher's and buy a bit of steak for their dinner.
+The heiress of Appleton Park must be brought up free from all
+degrading memory. But for herself she had no care. Appleton Park could
+never be anything to her, even if she outlived the old people, which
+was hardly probable. What would she, a poor invalid, do there? She did
+not wish to compromise her husband's future, and still less the future
+of her darling daughter. She could only hope that, when dead, her sins
+would be forgiven her; and that this release might not be long delayed
+she often prayed. The house was poor, and she was miserable, but any
+place was good enough to suffer in. So she said when she rose and
+dragged herself downstairs to do a little cooking; and the same
+thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour,
+furnished with what a few pounds could buy--a paraffin-lamp, a round
+table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which
+it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not
+a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours. From
+the barren little passage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and
+everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative. The Major had impressed
+his personality upon the house. Everything looked as if it had been
+scraped. There was a time when Mrs Shepherd noticed the barrenness of
+her life; but she had grown accustomed to it, and she waited for the
+Major in the terrible armchair, glad when she heard his step, almost
+happy when he sat by her and told her what was happening 'at home'.
+
+He took her hand and asked her how she was. 'You are looking very
+tired, Alice.'
+
+'Yes, I'm a little tired. I have been working all the morning. I made
+up my room, and then I went out to the butcher's and bought a piece of
+steak. I have made you such a nice pudding for your lunch; I hope you
+will like it.'
+
+'There's not much fear about my liking any beefsteak pudding you make,
+dear; I never knew anyone who could make one like you. But you should
+not tire yourself--and just as you are beginning to get better.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd smiled and pressed her husband's hand. The conversation
+fell. At the end of a long silence Mrs Shepherd said: 'What has
+happened to trouble you, dear? I know something has, I can see it by
+your face.'
+
+Then the Major told how unpleasantly his sisters had answered him when
+he had ventured to suggest that they saw far too much of their new
+neighbours, who were merely common sort of Londoners, and never would
+be received by the county. 'I'm sure that someone must have told them
+of my visits here; I'm sure they suspect something ... Girls are very
+sharp nowadays.'
+
+'I am sorry, but it is no fault of mine. I rarely leave the house, and
+I never walk in the principal streets if I can possibly help it.'
+
+'I know, dear, I know that no one can be more careful than you; but
+as people are beginning to smell a rat notwithstanding all our
+precautions, I suppose there's nothing for it but to go back to
+London.'
+
+'Oh, you don't think it will be necessary to go back to London, do
+you? The place suits the child so well, and it is so nice to see you
+almost every day; and it is such a comfort when you are not here to
+know you are only a few miles away; and from the top of the hill the
+trees of the park are visible, and whenever I feel well enough I walk
+there and think of the time our Nellie will be the mistress of all
+those broad acres.'
+
+'It is the fault of the busybodies,' he said; 'I cannot think what
+pleasure people find in meddling in other people's affairs. I never
+care what anyone else does. I have quite enough to do thinking of my
+own.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd did not answer. 'I see,' he said, 'you don't like moving,
+but if you remain here all the trouble we have taken not to get found
+out these last ten years will go for nothing. There will be more worry
+and vexations, and I really don't think I could bear much more; I
+believe I should go off my head.' The little man spoke in a calm, even
+voice, and stroked his silky moustache gravely.
+
+'Very well, then, my dear, I'll return to town as soon as you like--as
+soon as it is convenient. I daresay you are right.'
+
+'I'm sure I am. You have never found me giving you wrong advice yet,
+have you, dear?'
+
+Then they went down to the kitchen to eat the steak pudding; and when
+the Major had finished his second helping he lit his pipe, and the
+conversation turned on how they should get rid of their house, and
+how much the furniture would fetch. When he had decided to sell the
+furniture, and had fixed the day of their departure, Mrs Shepherd
+said--
+
+'There's one thing I have to ask you, dear, and I hope you won't
+refuse my request. I should like to see Appleton Park before I leave.
+I should like to go there with Nellie and see the house and the lands
+that will one day belong to her.'
+
+'I don't know how it is to be managed. If you were to meet my mother
+and sisters they would be sure to suspect something at once.'
+
+'No one will know who I am. I should like to walk about the grounds
+for half an hour with the child. If I don't see Appleton now I never
+shall see it.'
+
+The Major stroked his long, silky moustache with his short, crabbed
+little hand. He remembered that he had heard the carriage ordered for
+two o'clock--they were all going to a tennis-party some miles distant.
+Under the circumstances she might walk about the grounds without being
+noticed. He did not think any of the gardeners would question her,
+and, if they did, he could trust her to give an evasive answer. And
+then he would like her to see the place--just to know what she thought
+of it.
+
+'Won't you say yes?' she said at last, her voice breaking the silence
+sharply.
+
+'I was just thinking, dear: they have all gone to a tennis-party
+today. There'll be no one at home.'
+
+'Well! why not today?'
+
+'Well; I was thinking I've been lucky enough to get hold of some very
+interesting information about the Websters--about their ancestor Sir
+Thomas, who distinguished himself in the Peninsular--and I wanted to
+get it copied under the proper heading, but I daresay we can do that
+another day. The only thing is, how are you to get there? You are not
+equal to walking so far--'
+
+'I was thinking, dear, that I might take a fly. I know there is the
+expense, but ...'
+
+'Yes; five or six shillings, at least. And where will you leave
+the fly? At the lodge gate? The flyman would be sure to get into
+conversation with the lodge-keeper or his wife. He'd tell them where
+he came from, and--'
+
+'Supposing you were to get a two-wheeled trap and drive me yourself;
+that would be nicer still.'
+
+'I'm so unlucky; someone would be sure to see me.'
+
+The Major puffed at his pipe in silence. Then he said, 'If you were
+to put on a thick veil, and we were to get out of the town by this end
+and make our way through the lanes--it would be a long way round; but
+one hardly meets anyone that way, and the only danger would be going.
+We should return in the dusk. I don't care how late you make it; my
+people won't be home till nine or ten o'clock at night, perhaps later
+still. There will be dancing, and they are sure to stay late.'
+
+Finally the matter was decided, and about four o'clock the Major went
+to the livery stable to order the trap. Mrs Shepherd and Nellie joined
+him soon after. Turning from the pony, whose nose he was stroking, he
+said--
+
+'I hope you have brought a thick shawl; it will be cold coming back in
+the evening.'
+
+'Yes, dear, here it is, and another for Nellie. What do you think of
+this veil?'
+
+'It will do very well. I do hope these stablemen won't talk; let's
+go off at once.' The Major lifted in the child, tucked the rug about
+them, and cried to the stableman to let go. He drove very nervously,
+afraid at every moment lest the pony should bolt; and when the
+animal's extreme docility assured him there was no such danger, he
+looked round right and left, expecting at every moment some friend to
+pounce down upon him. But the ways were empty, the breeze that came
+across the fields was fresh and sweet, and they were all beginning to
+enjoy themselves, when he suddenly espied a carriage following in his
+wake. He whipped up the pony, and contrived to distance his imaginary
+pursuer; and having succeeded, he praised his own driving, and at the
+cross-roads he said: 'I dare not go any farther, but you can't miss
+the lodge gate in that clump of trees--the first white gate you come
+to. Don't ask any questions; it is ten to one you'll find the gate
+open; walk straight through, and don't forget to go through the
+beech-wood at the back of the house; the river runs right round the
+hill. I want to know what you think of the view. But pray don't ask to
+see the house; there's nothing to see; the housemaids would be sure
+to talk, and describe you to my sisters. So now goodbye; hope you'll
+enjoy yourself. I shall have just time to get to Hambrook and back; I
+want to see my solicitor. You'll have seen everything in a couple of
+hours, so in a couple of hours I shall be waiting for you here.'
+
+
+Part II
+
+
+It was as the Major said. The lodge-keepers asked no questions, and
+they passed up the drive, through the silence of an overgrowth of
+laurels and rhododendrons. Then the park opened before their
+eyes. Nellie rolled on the short, crisp, worn grass, or chased the
+dragonflies; the spreading trees enchanted her, and, looking at the
+house--a grey stone building with steps, pillars, and pilasters,
+hidden amid cedars and evergreen oaks--she said, 'I never saw anything
+so beautiful; is that where the Major goes when he leaves us? Look at
+the flowers, Mother, and the roses. May we not go in there--I don't
+mean into the house? I heard the Major ask you not to go in for fear
+we should meet the housemaids--but just past this railing, into
+the garden? Here is the gate.' The child stood with her hand on the
+wicket, waiting for reply: the mother stood as in a dream, looking
+at the house, thinking vaguely of the pictures, the corridors, and
+staircases, that lay behind the plate-glass windows.
+
+'Yes; go in, my child.'
+
+The gardens were in tumult of leaf and bloom, and the little girl ran
+hither and thither, gathering single flowers, and then everything
+that came under her hands, binding them together in bouquets--one
+for mother, one for the Major, and one for herself. Mrs Shepherd only
+smiled a little bitterly when Nellie came running to her with some new
+and more splendid rose. She did not attempt to reprove the child. Why
+should she? Everything here would one day be hers. Why then should
+the present be denied them? And so did her thoughts run as she walked
+across the sward following Nellie into the beech wood that clothed the
+steep hillside. The pathway led by the ruins of some Danish military
+earthworks, ancient hollows full of leaves and silence. Pigeons cooed
+in the vast green foliage, and from time to time there came up from
+the river the chiming sound of oars. Rustic seats were at pleasant
+intervals, and, feeling a little tired, Mrs Shepherd sat down. She
+could see the river's silver glinting through the branches, and,
+beyond the river, the low-lying river lands, dotted with cattle and
+horses grazing, dim already with blue evening vapours. In the warm
+solitude of the wood the irreparable misfortune of her own life
+pressed upon her: and in this hour of lassitude her loneliness seemed
+more than she could bear. The Major was good and kind, but he knew
+nothing of the weight of the burden he had laid upon her, and that
+none should know was in this moment a greater weight than the burden
+itself. Nellie was exploring the ancient hollows where Danes and
+Saxons had once fought, and had ceased to call forth her discoveries
+when Mrs Shepherd's bitter meditation was broken by the sudden sound
+of a footstep.
+
+The intruder was a young lady. She was dressed in white, her pale gold
+hair was in itself an aristocracy, and her narrow slippered feet were
+dainty to look upon. 'Don't let me disturb you,' she said. 'This is my
+favourite seat; but I pray you not to move, there is plenty of room.'
+So amiable was she in voice and manner that Mrs Shepherd could not
+but remain, although she had already recognized the girl as one of
+the Major's sisters. Fearing to betray herself, greatly nervous, Mrs
+Shepherd answered briefly Miss Shepherd's allusions to the beauty of
+the view. At the end of a long silence Miss Shepherd said--
+
+'I think you know my brother, Major Shepherd.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd hesitated, and then she said: 'No. I have never heard the
+name.'
+
+'Are you sure? Of course, I may be mistaken; but--'
+
+Ethel made pause, and looked Mrs Shepherd straight in the face.
+Smiling sadly, Mrs Shepherd said--
+
+'Likenesses are so deceptive.'
+
+'Perhaps, but my memory is pretty good for faces.... It was two or
+three months ago, we were going up to London, and I saw my brother get
+into the train with a lady who looked like you. She really was very
+like you.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd smiled and shook her head.
+
+'I do not know the lady my brother was with, but I've often thought I
+should like to meet her.'
+
+'Perhaps your brother will introduce you.'
+
+'No, I don't think he will. She has come to live at Branbury, and now
+people talk more then ever. They say that he is secretly married.'
+
+'And you believe it?'
+
+'I don't see why it shouldn't be true. My brother is a good fellow in
+many ways, but, like all other men, he is selfish. He is just the man
+who would keep his wife hidden away in a lonely little lodging rather
+than admit that he had made a _mésalliance_. What I don't understand
+is why she consents to be kept out of the way. Just fancy giving up
+this beautiful place, these woods and fields, these gardens, that
+house for, for--'
+
+'I suppose this woman gives up these things because she loves your
+brother. Do you not understand self-sacrifice?'
+
+'Oh yes, if I loved a man.... But I think a woman is silly to allow a
+man to cheat and fool her to the top of his bent.'
+
+'What does it matter if she is happy?'
+
+Ethel tossed her head. Then at the end of a long silence she said:
+'Would you care to see the house?'
+
+'No, thank you, Miss; I must be getting on. Goodbye.'
+
+'You cannot get back that way, you must return through the
+pleasure-grounds. I'll walk with you. A headache kept me at home this
+afternoon. The others have gone to a tennis-party.... It is a pity I
+was mistaken. I should like to meet the person my brother goes every
+day to Branbury to see. I should like to talk with her. My brother
+has, I'm afraid, persuaded her that we would not receive her. But this
+is not true; we should only be too glad to receive her. I have heard
+Father and Mother say so--not to Charles, they dare not speak to him
+on the subject, but they have to me.'
+
+'Your brother must have some good reason for keeping his marriage
+secret. This woman may have a past.'
+
+'Yes, they say that--but I should not care if I liked her, if I knew
+her to be a good woman now.'
+
+To better keep the Major's secret, Mrs Shepherd had given up all
+friends, all acquaintance. She had not known a woman-friend for years,
+and the affinities of sex drew her to accept the sympathy with which
+she was tempted. The reaction of ten years of self-denial surged up
+within her, and she felt that she must speak, that her secret was
+being dragged from her. Ethel's eyes were fixed upon her--in another
+moment she would have spoken, but at that moment Nellie appeared
+climbing up the steep bank. 'Is that your little girl? Oh, what a
+pretty child!' Then raising her eyes from the child and looking the
+mother straight in the face, Ethel said--
+
+'She is like, she is strangely like, Charles.'
+
+Tears glistened in Mrs Shepherd's eyes, and then, no longer doubting
+that Mrs Shepherd would break down and in a flow of tears tell the
+whole story of her life, Ethel allowed a note of triumph to creep
+into her voice, and before she could stop herself she said, 'And that
+little girl is the heiress of Appleton Park.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd's face changed expression.
+
+'You are mistaken, Miss Shepherd,' she said; 'but if I ever meet your
+brother I will tell him that you think my little girl like him.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd pursued her way slowly across the park, her long weary
+figure showing upon the sunset, her black dress trailing on the crisp
+grass. Often she was obliged to pause; the emotion and exercise of the
+day had brought back pain, and her whole body thrilled with it.
+Since the birth of her child she had lived in pain. But as she leaned
+against the white gate, and looked back on the beautiful park never
+to be seen by her again, knowledge of her sacrifice quickened within
+her--the house and the park, and the manner and speech of the young
+girl, combined to help her to a full appreciation of all she had
+surrendered. She regretted nothing. However mean and obscure her life
+had been, it had contained at least one noble moment. Nellie pursued
+the dragonflies; Mrs Shepherd followed slowly, feeling like a victor
+in a great battle. She had not broken her trust; she had kept her
+promise intact; she would return to London tomorrow or next day, or at
+the end of the week, whenever the Major wished.
+
+He was waiting for them at the corner of the lane, and Nellie was
+already telling him all she thought of the house, the woods, the
+flowers, and the lady who had sat down by Mother on the bench above
+the river. The Major looked at his wife in doubt and fear; her smile,
+however, reassured him. Soon after, Nellie fell asleep, and while
+she dreamed of butterflies and flowers Mrs Shepherd told him what had
+passed between her and his sister in the beechwood above the river.
+
+'You see, what I told you was right. Your appearance has been
+described to them; they suspect something, and will never cease
+worrying until they have found out everything. I'm not a bit
+surprised. Ethel always was the more cunning and the more spiteful of
+the two.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd did not tell him how nearly she had been betrayed into
+confession. She felt that he would not understand her explanation of
+the mood in which his sister had caught her. Men understand women so
+little. To tell him would be merely to destroy his confidence in her.
+As they drove through the twilight, with Nellie fast asleep between,
+he spoke of her departure, which he had arranged for the end of the
+week, and then, putting his arm round her waist, he said: 'You have
+always been a good little woman to me.'
+
+
+
+
+_Walter Besant_
+
+THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED
+
+(_In Deacon's Orders and Other Stories_, New York: Harper and Bros.,
+1895)
+
+
+Act I
+
+
+'You dear old boy,' said the girl, 'I am sure I wish it could be, with
+all my heart, if I have any heart.'
+
+'I don't believe you have,' replied the boy gloomily.
+
+'Well, but, Reg, consider; you've got no money.'
+
+'I've got five thousand pounds. If a man can't make his way upon that
+he must be a poor stick.'
+
+'You would go abroad with it and dig, and take your wife with you--to
+wash and cook.'
+
+'We would do something with the money here. You should stay in London,
+Rosie.'
+
+'Yes. In a suburban villa, at Shepherd's Bush, perhaps. No, Reg, when
+I marry, if ever I do--I am in no hurry--I will step out of this room
+into one exactly like it.' The room was a splendid drawing-room in
+Palace Gardens, splendidly furnished. 'I shall have my footmen and my
+carriage, and I shall--'
+
+'Rosie, give me the right to earn all these things for you!' the young
+man cried impetuously.
+
+'You can only earn them for me by the time you have one foot in the
+grave. Hadn't I better in the meantime marry some old gentleman with
+his one foot in the grave, so as to be ready for you against the time
+you come home? In two or three years the other foot, I dare say, would
+slide into the grave as well.'
+
+'You laugh at my trouble. You feel nothing.'
+
+'If the pater would part, but he won't; he says he wants all his money
+for himself, and that I've got to marry well. Besides, Reg'--here her
+face clouded and she lowered her voice--'there are times when he looks
+anxious. We didn't always live in Palace Gardens. Suppose we should
+lose it all as quickly as we got it. Oh!' she shivered and trembled.
+'No, I will never, never marry a poor man. Get rich, my dear boy,
+and you may aspire even to the valuable possession of this heartless
+hand.'
+
+She held it out. He took it, pressed it, stooped and kissed her. Then
+he dropped her hand and walked quickly out of the room.
+
+'Poor Reggie!' she murmured. 'I wish--I wish--but what is the use of
+wishing?'
+
+
+Act II
+
+
+Two men--one young, the other about fifty--sat in the veranda of a
+small bungalow. It was after breakfast. They lay back in long bamboo
+chairs, each with a cigar. It looked as if they were resting. In
+reality they were talking business, and that very seriously.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said the elder man, with something of an American
+accent, 'I have somehow taken a fancy to this place. The situation is
+healthy.'
+
+'Well, I don't know; I've had more than one touch of fever here.'
+
+'The climate is lovely--'
+
+'Except in the rains.'
+
+'The soil is fertile--'
+
+'I've dropped five thousand in it, and they haven't come up again
+yet.'
+
+'They will. I have been round the estate, and I see money in it. Well,
+sir, here's my offer: five thousand down, hard cash, as soon as the
+papers are signed.'
+
+Reginald sat up. He was on the point of accepting the proposal, when
+a pony rode up to the house, and the rider, a native groom, jumped off
+and gave him a note. He opened it and read. It was from his nearest
+neighbour, two or three miles away:
+
+    Don't sell that man your estate. Gold has been found. The
+    whole country is full of gold. Hold on. He's an assayer. If
+    he offers to buy, be quite sure that he has found gold on your
+    land.
+
+    F.G.
+
+He put the note into his pocket, gave a verbal message to the boy,
+and turned to his guest, without betraying the least astonisment or
+emotion.
+
+'I beg your pardon. The note was from Bellamy, my next neighbour.
+Well? You were saying--'
+
+'Only that I have taken a fancy--perhaps a foolish fancy--to this
+place of yours, and I'll give you, if you like, all that you have
+spent upon it.'
+
+'Well,' he replied reflectively, but with a little twinkle in his eye,
+'that seems handsome. But the place isn't really worth the half that
+I spent upon it. Anybody would tell you that. Come, let us be honest,
+whatever we are. I'll tell you a better way. We will put the matter
+into the hands of Bellamy. He knows what a coffee plantation is worth.
+He shall name a price, and if we can agree upon that, we will make a
+deal of it.'
+
+The other man changed colour. He wanted to settle the thing at once
+as between gentlemen. What need of third parties? But Reginald stood
+firm, and he presently rode away, quite sure that in a day or two this
+planter, too, would have heard the news.
+
+A month later, the young coffee-planter stood on the deck of a steamer
+homeward bound. In his pocket-book was a plan of his auriferous
+estate; in a bag hanging round his neck was a small collection of
+yellow nuggets; in his boxes was a chosen assortment of quartz.
+
+
+Act III
+
+
+'Well, sir,' said the financier, 'you've brought this thing to me.
+You want my advice. Well, my advice is, don't fool away the only good
+thing that will ever happen to you. Luck such as this doesn't come
+more than once in a lifetime.'
+
+'I have been offered ten thousand pounds for my estate.'
+
+'Oh! Have you! Ten thousand? That was very liberal--very liberal
+indeed. Ten thousand for a gold reef!'
+
+'But I thought as an old friend of my father you would, perhaps--'
+
+'Young man, don't fool it away. He's waiting for you, I suppose, round
+the corner, with a bottle of fizz, ready to close.'
+
+'He is.'
+
+'Well, go and drink his champagne. Always get whatever you can. And
+then tell him that you'll see him--'
+
+'I certainly will, sir, if you advise it. And then?'
+
+'And then--leave it to me. And, young man, I think I heard, a year or
+two ago, something about you and my girl Rosie.'
+
+'There was something, sir. Not enough to trouble you about it.'
+
+'She told me. Rosie tells me all her love affairs.'
+
+'Is she--is she unmarried?'
+
+'Oh, yes! and for the moment I believe she is free. She has had one
+or two engagements, but, somehow, they have come to nothing. There
+was the French count, but that was knocked on the head very early in
+consequence of things discovered. And there was the Boom in Guano, but
+he fortunately smashed, much to Rosie's joy, because she never liked
+him. The last was Lord Evergreen. He was a nice old chap when you
+could understand what he said, and Rosie would have liked the title
+very much, though his grandchildren opposed the thing. Well, sir, I
+suppose you couldn't understand the trouble we took to keep that old
+man alive for his own wedding. Science did all it could, but 'twas
+of no use--' The financier sighed. 'The ways of Providence are
+inscrutable. He died, sir, the day before.'
+
+'That was very sad.'
+
+'A dashing of the cup from the lip, sir. My daughter would have been a
+countess. Well, young gentleman, about this estate of yours. I think
+I see a way--I think, I am not yet sure--that I do see a way. Go now.
+See this liberal gentleman, and drink his champagne. And come here
+in a week. Then, if I still see my way, you shall understand what it
+means to hold the position in the City which is mine.'
+
+'And--and--may I call upon Rosie!'
+
+'Not till this day week--not till I have made my way plain.'
+
+
+Act IV
+
+
+'And so it means this. Oh, Rosie, you look lovelier than ever, and I'm
+as happy as a king. It means this. Your father is the greatest genius
+in the world. He buys my property for sixty thousand pounds--sixty
+thousand. That's over two thousand a year for me, and he makes a
+company out of it with a hundred and fifty thousand capital. He says
+that, taking ten thousand out of it for expenses, there will be
+a profit of eighty thousand. And all that he gives to you--eighty
+thousand, that's three thousand a year for you; and sixty thousand,
+that's two more, my dearest Rosie. You remember what you said, that
+when you married you should step out of one room like this into
+another just as good?'
+
+'Oh, Reggie,' she sank upon his bosom--'you know I never could love
+anybody but you. It's true I was engaged to old Lord Evergreen, but
+that was only because he had one foot--you know--and when the other
+foot went in too, just a day too soon, I actually laughed. So the
+pater is going to make a company of it, is he? Well, I hope he won't
+put any of his own money into it, I'm sure, because of late all the
+companies have turned out so badly.'
+
+'But, my child, the place is full of gold.'
+
+'Then why did he turn it into a company, my dear boy? And why didn't
+he make you stick to it? But you know nothing of the City. Now, let us
+sit down and talk about what we shall do--don't, you ridiculous boy!'
+
+
+Act V
+
+
+Another house just like the first. The bride stepped out of one palace
+into another. With their five or six thousand a year, the young couple
+could just manage to make both ends meet. The husband was devoted;
+the wife had everything that she could wish. Who could be happier than
+this pair in a nest so luxurious, their life so padded, their days so
+full of sunshine?
+
+It was a year after marriage. The wife, contrary to her usual
+custom, was the first at breakfast. A few letters were waiting for
+her--chiefly invitations. She opened and read them. Among them lay one
+addressed to her husband. Not looking at the address, she opened and
+read that as well:
+
+    Dear Reginald:
+
+    I venture to address you as an old friend of your own and
+    school-fellow of your mother's. I am a widow with four
+    children. My husband was the vicar of your old parish--you
+    remember him and me. I was left with a little income of about
+    two hundred a year. Twelve months ago I was persuaded in order
+    to double my income--a thing which seemed certain from the
+    prospectus--to invest everything in a new and rich gold
+    mine. Everything. And the mine has never paid anything. The
+    company--it is called the Solid Gold Reef Company, is in
+    liquidation because, though there is really the gold there, it
+    costs too much to get it. I have no relatives anywhere to help
+    me. Unless I can get assistance my children and I must go at
+    once--tomorrow--into the workhouse. Yes, we are paupers. I
+    am ruined by the cruel lies of that prospectus, and the
+    wickedness which deluded me, and I know not how many others,
+    out of my money. I have been foolish, and am punished; but
+    those people, who will punish them? Help me, if you can, my
+    dear Reginald. Oh! for _GOD'S_ sake, help my children and me.
+    Help your mother's friend, your own old friend.
+
+'This,' said Rosie meditatively, 'is exactly the kind of thing to make
+Reggie uncomfortable. Why, it might make him unhappy all day. Better
+burn it.' She dropped the letter into the fire. 'He's an impulsive,
+emotional nature, and he doesn't understand the City. If people are so
+foolish--What a lot of fibs the poor old pater does tell, to be sure!
+He's a regular novelist--Oh! here you are, you lazy boy!'
+
+'Kiss me, Rosie.' He looked as handsome as Apollo, and as cheerful.
+'I wish all the world were as happy as you and me. Heigho! some poor
+devils, I'm afraid--'
+
+'Tea or coffee, Reg?'
+
+
+
+
+_Henry James_
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+(_The Soft Side_, London: Methuen and Co., 1900)
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter
+Brench that his main success in life would have consisted in his never
+having committed himself about the work, as it was called, of his
+friend Morgan Mallow. This was a subject on which it was, to the
+best of his belief, impossible with veracity to quote him, and it was
+nowhere on record that he had, in the connexion, on any occasion and
+in any embarrassment, either lied or spoken the truth. Such a triumph
+had its honour even for a man of other triumphs--a man who had reached
+fifty, who had escaped marriage, who had lived within his means, who
+had been in love with Mrs Mallow for years without breathing it, and
+who, last but not least, had judged himself once for all. He had so
+judged himself in fact that he felt an extreme and general humility
+to be his proper portion; yet there was nothing that made him think
+so well of his parts as the course he had steered so often through the
+shallows just mentioned. It became thus a real wonder that the friends
+in whom he had most confidence were just those with whom he had
+most reserves. He couldn't tell Mrs Mallow--or at least he supposed,
+excellent man, he couldn't--that she was the one beautiful reason he
+had never married; any more than he could tell her husband that the
+sight of the multiplied marbles in that gentleman's studio was an
+affliction of which even time had never blunted the edge. His victory,
+however, as I have intimated, in regard to these productions, was not
+simply in his not having let it out that he deplored them; it was,
+remarkably, in his not having kept it in by anything else.
+
+The whole situation, among these good people, was verily a marvel, and
+there was probably not such another for a long way from the spot that
+engages us--the point at which the soft declivity of Hampstead began
+at that time to confess in broken accents to Saint John's Wood.
+He despised Mallow's statues and adored Mallow's wife, and yet was
+distinctly fond of Mallow, to whom, in turn, he was equally dear. Mrs
+Mallow rejoiced in the statues--though she preferred, when pressed,
+the busts; and if she was visibly attached to Peter Brench it was
+because of his affection for Morgan. Each loved the other moreover for
+the love borne in each case to Lancelot, whom the Mallows respectively
+cherished as their only child and whom the friend of their fireside
+identified as the third--but decidedly the handsomest--of his godsons.
+Already in the old years it had come to that--that no one, for such
+a relation, could possibly have occurred to any of them, even to the
+baby itself, but Peter. There was luckily a certain independence, of
+the pecuniary sort, all round: the Master could never otherwise have
+spent his solemn _Wanderjahre_ in Florence and Rome, and continued
+by the Thames as well as by the Arno and the Tiber to add unpurchased
+group to group and model, for what was too apt to prove in the
+event mere love, fancy-heads of celebrities either too busy or too
+buried--too much of the age or too little of it--to sit. Neither could
+Peter, lounging in almost daily, have found time to keep the whole
+complicated tradition so alive by his presence. He was massive but
+mild, the depositary of these mysteries--large and loose and ruddy and
+curly, with deep tones, deep eyes, deep pockets, to say nothing of
+the habit of long pipes, soft hats and brownish greyish weather-faded
+clothes, apparently always the same.
+
+He had 'written', it was known, but had never spoken, never spoken
+in particular of that; and he had the air (since, as was believed,
+he continued to write) of keeping it up in order to have something
+more--as if he hadn't at the worst enough--to be silent about.
+Whatever his air, at any rate, Peter's occasional unmentioned prose
+and verse were quite truly the result of an impulse to maintain
+the purity of his taste by establishing still more firmly the right
+relation of fame to feebleness. The little green door of his domain
+was in a garden-wall on which the discoloured stucco made patches,
+and in the small detached villa behind it everything was old, the
+furniture, the servants, the books, the prints, the immemorial habits
+and the new improvements. The Mallows, at Carrara Lodge, were within
+ten minutes, and the studio there was on their little land, to which
+they had added, in their happy faith, for building it. This was the
+good fortune, if it was not the ill, of her having brought him in
+marriage a portion that put them in a manner at their ease and enabled
+them thus, on their side, to keep it up. And they did keep it up--they
+always had--the infatuated sculptor and his wife, for whom nature
+had refined on the impossible by relieving them of the sense of the
+difficult. Morgan had at all events everything of the sculptor but
+the spirit of Phidias--the brown velvet, the becoming _beretto_, the
+'plastic' presence, the fine fingers, the beautiful accent in Italian
+and the old Italian factotum. He seemed to make up for everything when
+he addressed Egidio with the 'tu' and waved him to turn one of the
+rotary pedestals of which the place was full. They were tremendous
+Italians at Carrara Lodge, and the secret of the part played by this
+fact in Peter's life was in a large degree that it gave him, sturdy
+Briton as he was, just the amount of 'going abroad' he could bear. The
+Mallows were all his Italy, but it was in a measure for Italy he liked
+them. His one worry was that Lance--to which they had shortened his
+godson--was, in spite of a public school, perhaps a shade too Italian.
+Morgan meanwhile looked like somebody's flattering idea of somebody's
+own person as expressed in the great room provided at the Uffizi
+Museum for the general illustration of that idea by eminent hands. The
+Master's sole regret that he hadn't been born rather to the brush than
+to the chisel sprang from his wish that he might have contributed to
+that collection.
+
+It appeared with time at any rate to be to the brush that Lance had
+been born; for Mrs Mallow, one day when the boy was turning twenty,
+broke it to their friend, who shared, to the last delicate morsel,
+their problems and pains, that it seemed as if nothing would really do
+but that he should embrace the career. It had been impossible longer
+to remain blind to the fact that he was gaining no glory at Cambridge,
+where Brench's own college had for a year tempered its tone to him as
+for Brench's own sake. Therefore why renew the vain form of preparing
+him for the impossible? The impossible--it had become clear--was that
+he should be anything but an artist.
+
+'Oh dear, dear!' said poor Peter.
+
+'Don't you believe in it?' asked Mrs Mallow, who still, at more than
+forty, had her violet velvet eyes, her creamy satin skin and her
+silken chestnut hair.
+
+'Believe in what?'
+
+'Why in Lance's passion.'
+
+'I don't know what you mean by "believing in it". I've never been
+unaware, certainly, of his disposition, from his earliest time, to
+daub and draw; but I confess I've hoped it would burn out.'
+
+'But why should it,' she sweetly smiled, 'with his wonderful heredity?
+Passion is passion--though of course indeed _you_, dear Peter, know
+nothing of that. Has the Master's ever burned out?'
+
+Peter looked off a little and, in his familiar formless way, kept up
+for a moment, a sound between a smothered whistle and a subdued hum.
+'Do you think he's going to be another Master?'
+
+She seemed scarce prepared to go that length, yet she had on the whole
+a marvellous trust. 'I know what you mean by that. Will it be a career
+to incur the jealousies and provoke the machinations that have been
+at times almost too much for his father? Well--say it may be, since
+nothing but clap-trap, in these dreadful days, _can_, it would seem,
+make its way, and since, with the curse of refinement and distinction,
+one may easily find one's self begging one's bread. Put it at the
+worst--say he _has_ the misfortune to wing his flight further than the
+vulgar taste of his stupid countrymen can follow. Think, all the same,
+of the happiness--the same the Master has had. He'll _know_.'
+
+Peter looked rueful. 'Ah but _what_ will he know?'
+
+'Quiet joy!' cried Mrs Mallow, quite impatient and turning away.
+
+
+II
+
+
+He had of course before long to meet the boy himself on it and to hear
+that practically everything was settled. Lance was not to go up again,
+but to go instead to Paris where, since the die was cast, he would
+find the best advantages. Peter had always felt he must be taken as
+he was, but had never perhaps found him so much of that pattern as on
+this occasion. 'You chuck Cambridge then altogether? Doesn't that seem
+rather a pity?'
+
+Lance would have been like his father, to his friend's sense, had he
+had less humour, and like his mother had he had more beauty. Yet it
+was a good middle way for Peter that, in the modern manner, he was,
+to the eye, rather the young stock-broker than the young artist. The
+youth reasoned that it was a question of time--there was such a mill
+to go through, such an awful lot to learn. He had talked with fellows
+and had judged. 'One has got, today,' he said, 'don't you see? to
+know.'
+
+His interlocutor, at this, gave a groan. 'Oh hang it, _don't_ know!'
+
+Lance wondered. '"Don't"? Then what's the use--?'
+
+'The use of what?'
+
+'Why of anything. Don't you think I've talent?'
+
+Peter smoked away for a little in silence; then went on: 'It isn't
+knowledge, it's ignorance that--as we've been beautifully told--is
+bliss.'
+
+'Don't you think I've talent?' Lance repeated.
+
+Peter, with his trick of queer kind demonstrations, passed his arm
+round his godson and held him a moment. 'How do I know?'
+
+'Oh,' said the boy, 'if it's your own ignorance you're defending--!'
+
+Again, for a pause, on the sofa, his godfather smoked. 'It isn't. I've
+the misfortune to be omniscient.'
+
+'Oh well,' Lance laughed again, 'if you know _too_ much--!'
+
+'That's what I do, and it's why I'm so wretched.'
+
+Lance's gaiety grew. 'Wretched? Come, I say!'
+
+'But I forgot,' his companion went on--'you're not to know about that.
+It would indeed for you too make the too much. Only I'll tell you what
+I'll do.' And Peter got up from the sofa. 'If you'll go up again I'll
+pay your way at Cambridge.'
+
+Lance stared, a little rueful in spite of being still more amused. 'Oh
+Peter! You disapprove so of Paris?'
+
+'Well, I'm afraid of it.'
+
+'Ah I see!'
+
+'No, you don't see--yet. But you will--that is you would. And you
+mustn't.'
+
+The young man thought more gravely. 'But one's innocence, already--!'
+
+'Is considerably damaged? Ah that won't matter,' Peter
+persisted--'we'll patch it up here.'
+
+'Here? Then you want me to stay at home?'
+
+Peter almost confessed to it. 'Well, we're so right--we four
+together--just as we are. We're so safe. Come, don't spoil it.'
+
+The boy, who had turned to gravity, turned from this, on the real
+pressure of his friend's tone, to consternation. 'Then what's a fellow
+to be?'
+
+'My particular care. Come, old man'--and Peter now fairly
+pleaded--'_I'll_ look out for you.'
+
+Lance, who had remained on the sofa with his legs out and his hands in
+his pockets, watched him with eyes that showed suspicion. Then he got
+up. 'You think there's something the matter with me--that I can't make
+a success.'
+
+'Well, what do you call a success?'
+
+Lance thought again. 'Why the best sort, I suppose, is to please one's
+self. Isn't that the sort that, in spite of cabals and things, is--in
+his own peculiar line--the Master's?'
+
+There were so much too many things in this question to be answered
+at once that they practically checked the discussion, which became
+particularly difficult in the light of such renewed proof that, though
+the young man's innocence might, in the course of his studies, as
+he contended, somewhat have shrunken, the finer essence of it still
+remained. That was indeed exactly what Peter had assumed and what
+above all he desired; yet perversely enough it gave him a chill. The
+boy believed in the cabals and things, believed in the peculiar line,
+believed, to be brief, in the Master. What happened a month or two
+later wasn't that he went up again at the expense of his godfather,
+but that a fortnight after he had got settled in Paris this personage
+sent him fifty pounds.
+
+He had meanwhile at home, this personage, made up his mind to the
+worst; and what that might be had never yet grown quite so vivid to
+him as when, on his presenting himself one Sunday night, as he never
+failed to do, for supper, the mistress of Carrara Lodge met him
+with an appeal as to--of all things in the world--the wealth of the
+Canadians. She was earnest, she was even excited. 'Are many of them
+_really_ rich?'
+
+He had to confess he knew nothing about them, but he often thought
+afterwards of that evening. The room in which they sat was adorned
+with sundry specimens of the Master's genius, which had the merit of
+being, as Mrs Mallow herself frequently suggested, of an unusually
+convenient size. They were indeed of dimensions not customary in the
+products of the chisel, and they had the singularity that, if the
+objects and features intended to be small looked too large, the
+objects and features intended to be large looked too small. The
+Master's idea, either in respect to this matter or to any other, had
+in almost any case, even after years, remained undiscoverable to
+Peter Brench. The creations that so failed to reveal it stood about on
+pedestals and brackets, on tables and shelves, a little staring white
+population, heroic, idyllic, allegoric, mythic, symbolic, in which
+'scale' had so strayed and lost itself that the public square and the
+chimney-piece seemed to have changed places, the monumental being all
+diminutive and the diminutive all monumental; branches at any rate,
+markedly, of a family in which stature was rather oddly irrespective
+of function, age and sex. They formed, like the Mallows themselves,
+poor Brench's own family--having at least to such a degree the note of
+familiarity. The occasion was one of those he had long ago learnt to
+know and to name--short flickers of the faint flame, soft gusts of a
+kinder air. Twice a year regularly the Master believed in his fortune,
+in addition to believing all the year round in his genius. This time
+it was to be made by a bereaved couple from Toronto, who had given him
+the handsomest order for a tomb to three lost children, each of
+whom they desired to see, in the composition, emblematically and
+characteristically represented.
+
+Such was naturally the moral of Mrs Mallow's question: if their wealth
+was to be assumed, it was clear, from the nature of their admiration,
+as well as from mysterious hints thrown out (they were a little
+odd!) as to other possibilities of the same mortuary sort, what their
+further patronage might be; and not less evident that should the
+Master become at all known in those climes nothing would be more
+inevitable than a run of Canadian custom. Peter had been present
+before at runs of custom, colonial and domestic--present at each of
+those of which the aggregation had left so few gaps in the marble
+company round him; but it was his habit never at these junctures to
+prick the bubble in advance. The fond illusion, while it lasted, eased
+the wound of elections never won, the long ache of medals and diplomas
+carried off, on every chance, by everyone but the Master; it moreover
+lighted the lamp that would glimmer through the next eclipse. They
+lived, however, after all--as it was always beautiful to see--at a
+height scarce susceptible of ups and downs. They strained a point at
+times charmingly, strained it to admit that the public was here and
+there not too bad to buy; but they would have been nowhere without
+their attitude that the Master was always too good to sell. They were
+at all events deliciously formed, Peter often said to himself, for
+their fate; the Master had a vanity, his wife had a loyalty, of which
+success, depriving these things of innocence, would have diminished
+the merit and the grace. Anyone could be charming under a charm,
+and as he looked about him at a world of prosperity more void of
+proportion even than the Master's museum he wondered if he knew
+another pair that so completely escaped vulgarity.
+
+'What a pity Lance isn't with us to rejoice!' Mrs Mallow on this
+occasion sighed at supper.
+
+'We'll drink to the health of the absent,' her husband replied,
+filling his friend's glass and his own and giving a drop to their
+companion; 'but we must hope he's preparing himself for a happiness
+much less like this of ours this evening--excusable as I grant it to
+be!--than like the comfort we have always (whatever has happened or
+has not happened) been able to trust ourselves to enjoy. The comfort,'
+the Master explained, leaning back in the pleasant lamplight and
+firelight, holding up his glass and looking round at his marble
+family, quartered more or less, a monstrous brood, in every room--'the
+comfort of art in itself!'
+
+Peter looked a little shyly at his wine. 'Well--I don't care what you
+may call it when a fellow doesn't--but Lance must learn to _sell_, you
+know. I drink to his acquisition of the secret of a base popularity!'
+
+'Oh yes, _he_ must sell,' the boy's mother, who was still more,
+however, this seemed to give out, the Master's wife, rather artlessly
+allowed.
+
+'Ah,' the sculptor after a moment confidently pronounced, 'Lance
+_will_. Don't be afraid. He'll have learnt.'
+
+'Which is exactly what Peter,' Mrs Mallow gaily returned--'why in the
+world were you so perverse, Peter?--wouldn't, when he told him, hear
+of.'
+
+Peter, when this lady looked at him with accusatory affection--a grace
+on her part not infrequent--could never find a word; but the Master,
+who was always all amenity and tact, helped him out now as he had
+often helped him before. 'That's his old idea, you know--on which
+we've so often differed: his theory that the artist should be all
+impulse and instinct. _I_ go in of course for a certain amount of
+school. Not too much--but a due proportion. There's where his protest
+came in,' he continued to explain to his wife, 'as against what
+_might_, don't you see? be in question for Lance.'
+
+'Ah well'--and Mrs Mallow turned the violet eyes across the table
+at the subject of this discourse--'he's sure to have meant of course
+nothing but good. Only that wouldn't have prevented him, if Lance
+_had_ taken his advice, from being in effect horribly cruel.'
+
+They had a sociable way of talking of him to his face as if he had
+been in the clay or--at most--in the plaster, and the Master was
+unfailingly generous. He might have been waving Egidio to make him
+revolve. 'Ah but poor Peter wasn't so wrong as to what it may after
+all come to that he _will_ learn.'
+
+'Oh but nothing artistically bad,' she urged--still, for poor Peter,
+arch and dewy.
+
+'Why just the little French tricks,' said the Master: on which their
+friend had to pretend to admit, when pressed by Mrs Mallow, that these
+æsthetic vices had been the objects of his dread.
+
+
+III
+
+
+'I know now,' Lance said to him the next year, 'why you were so much
+against it.' He had come back supposedly for a mere interval and was
+looking about him at Carrara Lodge, where indeed he had already on two
+or three occasions since his expatriation briefly reappeared. This had
+the air of a longer holiday. 'Something rather awful has happened to
+me. It _isn't_ so very good to know.'
+
+'I'm bound to say high spirits don't show in your face,' Peter was
+rather ruefully forced to confess. 'Still, are you very sure you do
+know?'
+
+'Well, I at least know about as much as I can bear.' These remarks
+were exchanged in Peter's den, and the young man, smoking cigarettes,
+stood before the fire with his back against the mantel. Something of
+his bloom seemed really to have left him.
+
+Poor Peter wondered. 'You're clear then as to what in particular I
+wanted you not to go for?'
+
+'In particular?' Lance thought. 'It seems to me that in particular
+there can have been only one thing.'
+
+They stood for a little sounding each other. 'Are you quite sure?'
+
+'Quite sure I'm a beastly duffer? Quite--by this time.'
+
+'Oh!'--and Peter turned away as if almost with relief.
+
+'It's _that_ that isn't pleasant to find out.'
+
+'Oh I don't care for "that",' said Peter, presently coming round
+again. 'I mean I personally don't.'
+
+'Yet I hope you can understand a little that I myself should!'
+
+'Well, what do you mean by it?' Peter sceptically asked.
+
+And on this Lance had to explain--how the upshot of his studies in
+Paris had inexorably proved a mere deep doubt of his means. These
+studies had so waked him up that a new light was in his eyes; but what
+the new light did was really to show him too much. 'Do you know what's
+the matter with me? I'm too horribly intelligent. Paris was really the
+last place for me. I've learnt what I can't do.'
+
+Poor Peter stared--it was a staggerer; but even after they had had, on
+the subject, a longish talk in which the boy brought out to the full
+the hard truth of his lesson, his friend betrayed less pleasure than
+usually breaks into a face to the happy tune of 'I told you so!' Poor
+Peter himself made now indeed so little a point of having told him so
+that Lance broke ground in a different place a day or two after. 'What
+was it then that--before I went--you were afraid I should find out?'
+This, however, Peter refused to tell him--on the ground that if
+he hadn't yet guessed perhaps he never would, and that in any case
+nothing at all for either of them was to be gained by giving the thing
+a name. Lance eyed him on this an instant with the bold curiosity of
+youth--with the air indeed of having in his mind two or three names,
+of which one or other would be right. Peter nevertheless, turning his
+back again, offered no encouragement, and when they parted afresh it
+was with some show of impatience on the side of the boy. Accordingly
+on their next encounter Peter saw at a glance that he had now, in the
+interval, divined and that, to sound his note, he was only waiting
+till they should find themselves alone. This he had soon arranged
+and he then broke straight out. 'Do you know your conundrum has been
+keeping me awake? But in the watches of the night the answer came
+over me--so that, upon my honour, I quite laughed out. Had you been
+supposing I had to go to Paris to learn _that_? Even now, to see him
+still so sublimely on his guard, Peter's young friend had to laugh
+afresh. 'You won't give a sign till you're sure? Beautiful old Peter!'
+But Lance at last produced it. 'Why, hang it, the truth about the
+Master.'
+
+It made between them for some minutes a lively passage, full of
+wonder for each at the wonder of the other. 'Then how long have you
+understood--'
+
+'The true value of his work? I understood it,' Lance recalled, 'as
+soon as I began to understand anything. But I didn't begin fully to do
+that, I admit, till I got _là-bas_.'
+
+'Dear, dear!'--Peter gasped with retrospective dread.
+
+'But for what have you taken me? I'm a hopeless muff--that I _had_
+to have rubbed in. But I'm not such a muff as the Master!' Lance
+declared.
+
+'Then why did you never tell me--?'
+
+'That I hadn't, after all'--the boy took him up--'remained such an
+idiot? Just because I never dreamed _you_ knew. But I beg your pardon.
+I only wanted to spare you. And what I don't now understand is how the
+deuce then for so long you've managed to keep bottled.'
+
+Peter produced his explanation, but only after some delay and with a
+gravity not void of embarrassment. 'It was for your mother.'
+
+'Oh!' said Lance.
+
+'And that's the great thing now--since the murder _is_ out. I want
+a promise from you. I mean'--and Peter almost feverishly followed it
+up--'a vow from you, solemn and such as you owe me here on the spot,
+that you'll sacrifice anything rather than let her ever guess--'
+
+'That _I've_ guessed?'--Lance took it in. 'I see.' He evidently after
+a moment had taken in much. 'But what is it you've in mind that I may
+have a chance to sacrifice?'
+
+'Oh one has always something.'
+
+Lance looked at him hard. 'Do you mean that _you've_ had--?' The look
+he received back, however, so put the question by that he found soon
+enough another. 'Are you really sure my mother doesn't know?'
+
+Peter, after renewed reflexion, was really sure. 'If she does she's
+too wonderful.'
+
+'But aren't we all too wonderful?'
+
+'Yes,' Peter granted--'but in different ways. The thing's so
+desperately important because your father's little public consists
+only, as you know then,' Peter developed--'well, of how many?'
+
+'First of all,' the Master's son risked, 'of himself. And last of all
+too. I don't quite see of whom else.'
+
+Peter had an approach to impatience. 'Of your mother, I
+say--_always_.'
+
+Lance cast it all up. 'You absolutely feel that?'
+
+'Absolutely.'
+
+'Well then with yourself that makes three.'
+
+'Oh _me_!'--and Peter, with a wag of his kind old head, modestly
+excused himself. The number's at any rate small enough for any
+individual dropping out to be too dreadfully missed. Therefore, to put
+it in a nutshell, take care, my boy--that's all--that _you're_ not!'
+
+'_I've_ got to keep on humbugging?' Lance wailed.
+
+'It's just to warn you of the danger of your failing of that that I've
+seized this opportunity.'
+
+'And what do you regard in particular,' the young man asked, 'as the
+danger?'
+
+'Why this certainty: that the moment your mother, who feels so
+strongly, should suspect your secret--well,' said Peter desperately,
+'the fat would be on the fire.'
+
+Lance for a moment seemed to stare at the blaze. 'She'd throw me
+over?'
+
+'She'd throw _him_ over.'
+
+'And come round to us?'
+
+Peter, before he answered, turned away. 'Come round to _you_.' But
+he had said enough to indicate--and, as he evidently trusted, to
+avert--the horrid contingency.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Within six months again, none the less, his fear was on more occasions
+than one all before him. Lance had returned to Paris for another
+trial; then had reappeared at home and had had, with his father, for
+the first time in his life, one of the scenes that strike sparks. He
+described it with much expression to Peter, touching whom (since they
+had never done so before) it was the sign of a new reserve on the part
+of the pair at Carrara Lodge that they at present failed, on a matter
+of intimate interest, to open themselves--if not in joy then in
+sorrow--to their good friend. This produced perhaps practically
+between the parties a shade of alienation and a slight intermission
+of commerce--marked mainly indeed by the fact that to talk at his ease
+with his old playmate Lance had in general to come to see him. The
+closest if not quite the gayest relation they had yet known together
+was thus ushered in. The difficulty for poor Lance was a tension at
+home--begotten by the fact that his father wished him to be at
+least the sort of success he himself had been. He hadn't 'chucked'
+Paris--though nothing appeared more vivid to him than that Paris had
+chucked him: he would go back again because of the fascination in
+trying, in seeing, in sounding the depths--in learning one's lesson,
+briefly, even if the lesson were simply that of one's impotence in the
+presence of one's larger vision. But what did the Master, all aloft
+in his senseless fluency, know of impotence, and what vision--to be
+called such--had he in all his blind life ever had? Lance, heated and
+indignant, frankly appealed to his godparent on this score.
+
+His father, it appeared, had come down on him for having, after
+so long, nothing to show, and hoped that on his next return this
+deficiency would be repaired. _The_ thing, the Master complacently set
+forth was--for any artist, however inferior to himself--at least
+to 'do' something. 'What can you do? That's all I ask!' _He_ had
+certainly done enough, and there was no mistake about what he had to
+show. Lance had tears in his eyes when it came thus to letting his old
+friend know how great the strain might be on the 'sacrifice' asked
+of him. It wasn't so easy to continue humbugging--as from son to
+parent--after feeling one's self despised for not grovelling in
+mediocrity. Yet a noble duplicity was what, as they intimately faced
+the situation, Peter went on requiring; and it was still for a time
+what his young friend, bitter and sore, managed loyally to comfort him
+with. Fifty pounds more than once again, it was true, rewarded both
+in London and in Paris the young friend's loyalty; none the less
+sensibly, doubtless, at the moment, that the money was a direct
+advance on a decent sum for which Peter had long since privately
+prearranged an ultimate function. Whether by these arts or others, at
+all events, Lance's just resentment was kept for a season--but only
+for a season--at bay. The day arrived when he warned his companion
+that he could hold out--or hold in--no longer. Carrara Lodge had
+had to listen to another lecture delivered from a great height--an
+infliction really heavier at last than, without striking back or in
+some way letting the Master have the truth, flesh and blood could
+bear.
+
+'And what I don't see is,' Lance observed with a certain irritated
+eye for what was after all, if it came to that, owing to himself too;
+'what I don't see is, upon my honour, how _you_, as things are going,
+can keep the game up.'
+
+'Oh the game for me is only to hold my tongue,' said placid Peter.
+'And I have my reason.'
+
+'Still my mother?'
+
+Peter showed a queer face as he had often shown it before--that is
+by turning it straight away. 'What will you have? I haven't ceased to
+like her.'
+
+'She's beautiful--she's a dear of course,' Lance allowed; 'but what
+is she to you, after all, and what is it to you that, as to anything
+whatever, she should or she shouldn't?'
+
+Peter, who had turned red, hung fire a little. 'Well--it's all simply
+what I make of it.'
+
+There was now, however, in his young friend a strange, an adopted
+insistence. 'What are you after all to _her_?'
+
+'Oh nothing. But that's another matter.'
+
+'She cares only for my father,' said Lance the Parisian.
+
+'Naturally--and that's just why.'
+
+'Why you've wished to spare her?'
+
+'Because she cares so tremendously much.'
+
+Lance took a turn about the room, but with his eyes still on his host.
+'How awfully--always--you must have liked her!'
+
+'Awfully. Always,' said Peter Brench.
+
+The young man continued for a moment to muse--then stopped again in
+front of him. 'Do you know how much she cares?' Their eyes met on it,
+but Peter, as if his own found something new in Lance's, appeared to
+hesitate, for the first time in an age, to say he did know. '_I've_
+only just found out,' said Lance. 'She came to my room last night,
+after being present, in silence and only with her eyes on me, at
+what I had had to take from him: she came--and she was with me an
+extraordinary hour.'
+
+He had paused again and they had again for a while sounded each other.
+Then something--and it made him suddenly turn pale--came to Peter.
+'She _does_ know?'
+
+'She does know. She let it all out to me--so as to demand of me no
+more than "that", as she said, of which she herself had been capable.
+She has always, always known,' said Lance without pity.
+
+Peter was silent a long time; during which his companion might have
+heard him gently breathe, and on touching him might have felt within
+him the vibration of a long low sound suppressed. By the time he spoke
+at last he had taken everything in. 'Then I do see how tremendously
+much.'
+
+'Isn't it wonderful?' Lance asked.
+
+'Wonderful,' Peter mused.
+
+'So that if your original effort to keep me from Paris was to keep me
+from knowledge--!' Lance exclaimed as if with a sufficient indication
+of this futility.
+
+It might have been at the futility Peter appeared for a little to
+gaze. 'I think it must have been--without my quite at the time knowing
+it--to keep _me_!' he replied at last as he turned away.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victorian Short Stories
+by Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Victorian Short Stories,
+by Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Victorian Short Stories,
+       Stories Of Successful Marriages
+
+Author: Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
+
+Release Date: March 4, 2005 [EBook #15252]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIAN SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, S.R.Ellison and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
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+
+STORIES OF SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES
+
+
+THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE Elizabeth Gaskell
+
+A MERE INTERLUDE Thomas Hardy
+
+A FAITHFUL HEART George Moore
+
+THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED Walter Besant
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE Henry James
+
+
+
+
+_Elizabeth Gaskell_
+
+THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE
+
+(_Household Words_, Christmas 1858)
+
+
+Mr and Mrs Openshaw came from Manchester to settle in London. He
+had been, what is called in Lancashire, a salesman for a large
+manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and opening a
+warehouse in the city; where Mr Openshaw was now to superintend their
+affairs. He rather enjoyed the change; having a kind of curiosity
+about London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in his brief
+visits to the metropolis. At the same time, he had an odd, shrewd
+contempt for the inhabitants, whom he always pictured to himself as
+fine, lazy people, caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy, and
+lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such places; ruining good
+English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The
+hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalized him too,
+accustomed as he was to the early dinners of Manchester folk and
+the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he was pleased to go to
+London, though he would not for the world have confessed it, even to
+himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded
+of him by the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him by a
+considerable increase of salary. This, indeed, was so liberal that he
+might have been justified in taking a much larger house than the
+one he did, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to
+Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show.
+Inside, however, he furnished it with an unusual degree of comfort,
+and, in the winter-time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires as
+the grates would allow, in every room where the temperature was in
+the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such
+that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave
+the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in
+the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated; for their
+master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to comfort;
+while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed habits and
+individual ways, in defiance of what any of his new neighbours might
+think.
+
+His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He
+was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she soft and
+yielding. They had two children; or rather, I should say, she had two;
+for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs Openshaw's child by Frank
+Wilson, her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who
+could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the
+broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep
+up what he called the true Saxon accent.
+
+Mrs Openshaw's Christian name was Alice, and her first husband had
+been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain
+in Liverpool; a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal
+attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and
+a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to
+be very stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt,
+her own uncle's second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came
+home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to
+her; secondly, attentive; and thirdly, desperately in love with her,
+she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true, she
+would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of
+behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle
+neither helped nor hindered the love affair, though it was going on
+under his own eyes. Frank's stepmother had such a variable temper,
+that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would
+like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of
+crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush
+blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by
+a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in the
+world, except her uncle (who was at this time at sea), she went off
+one morning and was married to him, her only bridesmaid being the
+housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was that Frank and his wife
+went into lodgings, and Mrs Wilson refused to see them, and turned
+away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid, whom they accordingly took
+into their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage he
+was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at
+their lodgings, smoking his pipe and sipping his grog; but he told
+them, for quietness' sake, he could not ask them to his own house; for
+his wife was bitter against them. They were not, however, very unhappy
+about this.
+
+The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank's vehement,
+passionate disposition, which led him to resent his wife's shyness and
+want of demonstrativeness as failures in conjugal duty. He was already
+tormenting himself, and her too in a slighter degree, by apprehensions
+and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching
+absence at sea. At last, he went to his father and urged him to
+insist upon Alice's being once more received under his roof; the more
+especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her
+husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself
+expressed it, 'breaking up', and unwilling to undergo the excitement
+of a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to
+his wife. And before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of seeing his
+wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house. To have
+placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs Wilson's
+powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however,
+was that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as
+housemaid had been filled up; and, even if it had not, she had
+forfeited Mrs Wilson's good opinion for ever. She comforted her young
+master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would
+have a household of their own; of which, whatever service she might
+be in meanwhile, she should be sure to form a part. Almost the last
+action Frank did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see
+Norah once more at her mother's house; and then he went away.
+
+Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced.
+She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him;
+and although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was,
+perhaps, more of peace than there had been for years, for Mrs Wilson
+had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death
+to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the
+young creature expecting her first confinement in her husband's
+absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come
+and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain and attend on
+Captain Wilson.
+
+Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for
+the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always glad to
+remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed
+it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into
+the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less
+property than people had been led by his style of living to expect;
+and what money there was, was settled all upon his wife, and at her
+disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank
+was now first mate of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, would
+be captain. Meanwhile he had left her rather more than two hundred
+pounds (all his savings) in the bank.
+
+It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the
+Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in
+India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship
+having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain's
+wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her
+fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to
+her inquiry at the shipping office, they told her that the owners had
+given up hope of ever hearing more of the _Betsy-Jane_ and had sent in
+their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone for ever,
+she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the
+dear friend, the sympathizing protector, whom she should never see
+again;--first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom
+she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself--her own sole
+possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet--rather to the
+scandal of Mrs Wilson who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had
+always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought
+it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she
+saw; dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state, and the
+helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction as if she liked
+the excitement of the sorrowful story.
+
+So passed away the first days of Alice's widowhood. By and by things
+subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as if the young
+creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to
+be ailing, pining, and sickly. The child's mysterious illness turned
+out to be some affection of the spine, likely to affect health but not
+to shorten life--at least, so the doctors said. But the long, dreary
+suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child,
+is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suffered; no
+one but God knew.
+
+And so it fell out, that when Mrs Wilson, the elder, came to her one
+day, in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution in
+the value of the property that her husband had left her--a diminution
+which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less
+Alice--the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not
+touch health or life could cause such grief; and she received the
+intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the
+little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother--who, after all,
+loved it well--began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious
+ears--saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and
+to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now
+all chance of this had passed away--Alice's heart was touched, and she
+drew near to Mrs Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not
+unlike to that of Ruth, entreated that, come what would, they might
+remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was
+arranged that Mrs Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing
+it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with
+Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs Wilson was herself a
+Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town;
+some connexions of her own, too, at that time required lodgings, for
+which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook
+the active superintendence and superior work of the household;
+Norah--willing, faithful Norah--offered to cook, scour, do anything in
+short, so that she might but remain with them.
+
+The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with
+them, and all went smoothly--with that one sad exception of the little
+girl's increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, it is
+not for words to tell!
+
+Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one
+succeeded to them. After some months, it became necessary to remove
+to a smaller house; and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea
+that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out
+and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came
+like the sweeping boom of a funeral-bell over her heart.
+
+By and by, Mr Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life
+as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up
+through all the grades of employment in it, fighting his way through
+the hard, striving Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of
+character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to
+self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German
+scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman--understanding markets and the
+bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade; and yet, with such
+vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a
+group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colour
+would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring
+muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself
+with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must
+be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and
+overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language
+than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee
+in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee
+motto--'England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs England.' Such
+a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or
+any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their
+courting and matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and
+was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was
+in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as
+encumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little
+to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct,
+and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. 'A pretty,
+yea-nay kind of woman', would have been his description of her, if he
+had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning,
+that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of
+character, which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active,
+energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality with which
+his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called
+in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water
+scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar
+fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his theory about
+everything based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly
+original)--then he began to think: not that Alice had any particular
+merit, but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings; his
+restlessness wore away, and he began to consider himself as almost
+settled for life in them.
+
+Mr Openshaw had been too busy, all his days, to be introspective. He
+did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and if he had
+become conscious of its abstract existence he would have considered it
+as a manifestation of disease in some part of him. But he was decoyed
+into pity unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. That little
+helpless child--always carried about by one of the three busy women
+of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair
+from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move--the great
+grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving
+to the small delicate face a look beyond its years--the soft plaintive
+voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a
+child--caught Mr Openshaw's attention in spite of himself. One day--he
+half scorned himself for doing so--he cut short his dinner-hour to go
+in search of some toy, which should take the place of those eternal
+beads. I forget what he bought; but, when he gave the present (which
+he took care to do in a short abrupt manner, and when no one was by
+to see him), he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that
+came over that child's face, and he could not help, all through that
+afternoon, going over and over again the picture left on his memory,
+by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl's face. When
+he returned home, he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room
+fire; and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was
+habitual in those model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his
+tea-things away--she had been silent as usual till then--she stood for
+an instant with the door in her hand. Mr Openshaw looked as if he
+were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but
+was heartily wishing the woman would go, and not make any palaver of
+gratitude. But she only said:
+
+'I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much,' and was
+gone, even before he could send her away with a 'There, my good woman,
+that's enough!'
+
+For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child. He even
+hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flush of colour and
+little timid smile of recognition, when he saw her by chance. But,
+after all, this could not last for ever; and, having a second time
+given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy
+having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to the
+child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the
+mother. He was aware of this change of feeling--despised himself for
+it--struggled with it; nay, internally yielded to it and cherished
+it, long before he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word,
+action, or look to escape him. He watched Alice's docile, obedient
+ways to her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough
+Norah (roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but, above
+all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her
+and her child. They spoke little to anyone else, or when anyone else
+was by; but, when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and
+cooed, and chattered so continually, that Mr Openshaw first wondered
+what they could find to say to each other, and next became irritated
+because they were always so grave and silent with him. All this time
+he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child. His
+thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before
+her; and often he came back from his day's work loaded with the very
+thing Alice had been longing for, but had not been able to procure.
+One time, it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along
+the streets; and, many an evening that following summer, Mr
+Openshaw drew her along himself, regardless of the remarks of his
+acquaintances. One day in autumn, he put down his newspaper, as Alice
+came in with the breakfast, and said, in as indifferent a voice as he
+could assume:
+
+'Mrs Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our
+horses together?'
+
+Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he mean? He had
+resumed the reading of his newspaper, as if he did not expect any
+answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly
+arranging his breakfast, without another word passing between them.
+Just as he was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual,
+he turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen,
+where all the women breakfasted in the morning:
+
+'You'll think of what I said, Mrs Frank' (this was her name with the
+lodgers), 'and let me have your opinion upon it tonight.'
+
+Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking
+together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think
+about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not to
+think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his
+tea. But Mr Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was going out
+at the door, by pushing past her and calling out, 'Mrs Frank!' in an
+impatient voice, at the top of the stairs.
+
+Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to
+his words.
+
+'Well, Mrs Frank,' he said, 'what answer? Don't make it too long; for
+I have lots of office work to get through tonight.'
+
+'I hardly know what you meant, sir,' said truthful Alice.
+
+'Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. You're not new
+at this sort of work, and I am. However, I'll make it plain this time.
+Will you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me,
+and honour me, and all that sort of thing? Because, if you will, I
+will do as much by you, and be a father to your child--and that's more
+than is put in the prayer-book. Now, I'm a man of my word; and what I
+say, I feel; and what I promise, I'll do. Now, for your answer!'
+
+Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her reply was a
+matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was done,
+he became impatient.
+
+'Well?' said he.
+
+'How long, sir, may I have to think over it?'
+
+'Three minutes!' (looking at his watch). 'You've had two already--that
+makes five. Be a sensible woman, say Yes, and sit down to tea with me,
+and we'll talk it over together; for, after tea, I shall be busy;
+say No' (he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same
+tone), 'and I shan't say another word about it, but pay up a year's
+rent for my rooms tomorrow, and be off. Time's up! Yes or no?'
+
+'If you please, sir--you have been so good to little Ailsie--'
+
+'There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let's have our tea
+together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took you
+for.'
+
+And this was Alice Wilson's second wooing.
+
+Mr Openshaw's will was too strong, and his circumstances too good,
+for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs Wilson in a
+comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of
+lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans was in
+Norah's behalf.
+
+'No,' said Mr Openshaw. 'Norah shall take care of the old lady as long
+as she lives; and, after that, she shall either come and live with us,
+or, if she likes it better, she shall have a provision for life--for
+your sake, missus. No one who has been good to you or the child shall
+go unrewarded. But even the little one will be better for some fresh
+stuff about her. Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse; one who
+won't go rubbing her with calf's-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting
+good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors'
+directions; which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah
+won't; because they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I'm not
+above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow,
+and never change colour; but, set me in the operating room in the
+infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would
+hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it
+were to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks
+for the time when it comes--I don't say it ever will. But this I know,
+Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor, if she can. Now, I
+say, give the bairn a year or two's chance, and then, when the pack of
+doctors have done their best--and, maybe, the old lady has gone--we'll
+have Norah back or do better for her.'
+
+The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. She was beyond
+their power. But her father (for so he insisted on being called, and
+also on Alice's no longer retaining the appellation of Mamma, but
+becoming henceforward Mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner,
+his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of humour,
+added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, infused
+a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, though
+her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, and
+Alice--never going beyond a smile herself--had the pleasure of seeing
+her child taught to laugh.
+
+As for Alice's own life, it was happier than it had ever been before.
+Mr Openshaw required no demonstration, no expressions of affection
+from her. Indeed, these would rather have disgusted him. Alice could
+love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement
+of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence
+into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former married
+life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her
+husband's strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year
+their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came
+back to them as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post
+she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of
+the proud and happy father, who declared that if he found out that
+Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him
+nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day. Norah and
+Mr Openshaw were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms; neither of
+them fully recognizing or appreciating the other's best qualities.
+
+This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now
+removed to London.
+
+They had been there about a year, when Mr Openshaw suddenly informed
+his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had
+asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and
+see London. Mrs Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her
+husband's. Years before she had married him, there had been a quarrel.
+All she knew was, that Mr Chadwick was a small manufacturer in a
+country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased that the
+breach was to be healed, and began making preparations to render their
+visit pleasant.
+
+They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event to them,
+that Mrs Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion--from
+night-caps downwards; and as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she
+might have been going into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is,
+so large was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure
+for London, she had formally called to take leave of all her
+acquaintance; saying she should need every bit of the intermediate
+time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination;
+and, to complete the resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made
+between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester,
+on the last market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and
+amethyst brooch, saying, 'Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew
+a handsome thing when they saw it.'
+
+For some time after Mr and Mrs Chadwick arrived at the Openshaws'
+there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they
+obtained an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty
+demanded that Mrs Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting
+the abode of her sovereign. On her return she hastily changed her
+dress; for Mr Openshaw had planned that they should go to Richmond,
+drink tea, and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o'clock,
+Mr and Mrs Openshaw and Mr and Mrs Chadwick set off.
+
+The housemaid and cook sat below, Norah hardly knew where. She was
+always engrossed in the nursery in tending her two children, and in
+sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. By and
+by the housemaid Bessy tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her,
+and they spoke in whispers.
+
+'Nurse! there's someone downstairs wants you.'
+
+'Wants me! who is it?'
+
+'A gentleman--'
+
+'A gentleman? Nonsense!'
+
+'Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rang at the front-door
+bell, and has walked into the dining-room.'
+
+'You should never have let him,' exclaimed Norah. 'Master and missus
+out--'
+
+'I did not want him to come in; but, when he heard you lived here, he
+walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, "Tell her
+to come and speak to me." There is no gas lighted in the room, and
+supper is all set out.'
+
+'He'll be off with the spoons!' exclaimed Norah, putting the
+housemaid's fear into words, and preparing to leave the room; first,
+however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly and calmly.
+
+Downstairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before she
+entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, with
+it in her hand, she went in, looking around her in the darkness for
+her visitor.
+
+He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked at each
+other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes.
+
+'Norah?' at length he asked.
+
+'Who are you?' asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm and
+incredulity. 'I don't know you'; trying, by futile words of disbelief,
+to do away with the terrible fact before her.
+
+'Am I so changed?' he said pathetically. 'I dare say I am. But, Norah,
+tell me!' he breathed hard, 'where is my wife? Is she--is she alive?'
+
+He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand; but she backed
+away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if
+he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed,
+good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a
+foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those
+eager, beautiful eyes--the very same that Norah had watched not half
+an hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them.
+
+'Tell me, Norah--I can bear it--I have feared it so often. Is she
+dead?' Norah still kept silence. 'She is dead!' He hung on Norah's
+words and looks, as if for confirmation or contradiction.
+
+'What shall I do?' groaned Norah. 'Oh, sir! why did you come? how
+did you find me out? where have you been? We thought you dead, we did
+indeed!' She poured out words and questions to gain time, as if time
+would help her.
+
+'Norah! answer me this question straight, by yes or no--Is my wife
+dead?'
+
+'No, she is not,' said Norah, slowly and heavily.
+
+'Oh, what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But perhaps you don't
+know. Why did you leave her? Where is she? Oh, Norah, tell me all
+quickly!'
+
+'Mr Frank!' said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her
+terror lest her mistress should return at any moment and find him
+there--unable to consider what was best to be done or said--rushing
+at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state:
+'Mr Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said
+you had gone down, you and everyone else. We thought you were dead, if
+ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child!
+Oh, sir, you must guess it,' cried the poor creature at last, bursting
+out into a passionate fit of crying, 'for indeed I cannot tell it. But
+it was no one's fault. God help us all this night!'
+
+Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands
+in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, by physical pressure, the truth
+could be wrung out.
+
+'Norah.' This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. 'She has
+married again!'
+
+Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had
+fainted.
+
+There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr Frank's
+mouth, chafed his hands, and--when mere animal life returned, before
+the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts--she lifted him
+up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs
+of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy, into his
+mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
+
+'Where is she? Tell me this instant.' He looked so wild, so mad, so
+desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her
+time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth,
+and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the
+sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity
+him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he
+must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity
+stood clear before her.
+
+'She is not here: that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say
+exactly where she is' (which was true to the letter if not to the
+spirit). 'Go away, and tell me where to find you tomorrow, and I will
+tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and
+then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?'
+
+Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.
+
+'I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man,
+he must feel for me--poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years
+a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife
+and my home--dreaming of her by night, talking to her though she
+could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put
+together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who
+salved over her wickedness to her, as you do to me!'
+
+The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.
+
+'If you will leave the house now, I will come to you tomorrow and tell
+you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping
+upstairs. Oh, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet--a
+little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We
+have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought
+for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard
+thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her.
+And now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush
+it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father--Mr
+Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do
+anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats;
+and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is
+happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing
+stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother
+languishes. If she dies--well, I don't know; it is not everyone can
+lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, Mr Frank, and see
+your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away,
+in God's name, just this one night; tomorrow, if need be, you can do
+anything--kill us all if you will, or show yourself a great, grand
+man, whom God will bless for ever and ever. Come, Mr Frank, the look
+of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.'
+
+She led him upstairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they
+came near the nursery door. She had wellnigh forgotten the existence
+of little Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light
+fell over the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of the
+room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie.
+The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she
+lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight
+nightgown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked
+wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she
+slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes,
+into which the big tears came swelling up slowly and dropped heavily
+down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry
+with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long
+lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half an
+hour before Frank stirred. And then--instead of going away--he sank
+down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes.
+Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She
+could afford no more time, even for prayer, in her extremity of fear;
+for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She took
+him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the
+other bed; he stopped. Intelligence came back into his face. His hands
+clenched.
+
+'His child?' he asked.
+
+'Her child,' replied Norah. 'God watches over him,' she said
+instinctively; for Frank's looks excited her fears, and she needed to
+remind herself of the Protector of the helpless.
+
+'God has not watched over me,' he said, in despair; his thoughts
+apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. But Norah
+had no time for pity. Tomorrow she would be as compassionate as her
+heart prompted. At length she guided him downstairs, and shut the
+outer door, and bolted it--as if by bolts to keep out facts.
+
+Then she went back into the dining-room, and effaced all traces of his
+presence, as far as she could. She went upstairs to the nursery and
+sat there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all
+this misery. It seemed to her very long before her master and mistress
+returned; yet it was hardly eleven o'clock. She heard the loud,
+hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs; and, for the first time, she
+understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so
+lately gone forth in lonely despair.
+
+It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs Openshaw come in,
+calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her
+children.
+
+'Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?' she whispered to Norah.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes
+of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! Then she
+went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance,
+but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper.
+Norah saw her no more that night.
+
+Beside having a door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened
+out of Mr and Mrs Openshaw's room, in order that they might have
+the children more immediately under their own eyes. Early the next
+summer's morning, Mrs Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie's startled call
+of 'Mother! mother!' She sprang up, put on her dressing-gown, and went
+to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, and in a not unusual state
+of terror.
+
+'Who was he, mother? Tell me!'
+
+'Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming, love. Waken
+up quite. See, it is broad daylight.'
+
+'Yes,' said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to her mother,
+'but a man was here in the night, mother.'
+
+'Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!'
+
+'Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. A man with hair and a
+beard. And he knelt down and said his prayers. Norah knows he was
+here, mother' (half angrily, as Mrs Openshaw shook her head in smiling
+incredulity).
+
+'Well! we will ask Norah when she comes,' said Mrs Openshaw,
+soothingly. 'But we won't talk any more about him now. It is not five
+o'clock; it is too early for you to get up. Shall I fetch you a book
+and read to you?'
+
+'Don't leave me, mother,' said the child, clinging to her. So Mrs
+Openshaw sat on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and telling her of what
+they had done at Richmond the evening before, until the little girl's
+eyes slowly closed and she once more fell asleep.
+
+'What was the matter?' asked Mr Openshaw, as his wife returned to bed.
+
+'Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man having been
+in the room to say his prayers--a dream, I suppose.' And no more was
+said at the time.
+
+Mrs Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got up
+about seven o'clock. But, by and by, she heard a sharp altercation
+going on in the nursery--Norah speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most
+unusual thing. Both Mr and Mrs Openshaw listened in astonishment.
+
+'Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; never let
+me hear you tell that story again!'
+
+Ailsie began to cry.
+
+Mr Openshaw opened the door of communication, before his wife could
+say a word.
+
+'Norah, come here!'
+
+The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had been
+heard, but she was desperate.
+
+'Don't let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again,' he said
+sternly, and shut the door.
+
+Norah was infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning;
+and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if
+cross-examination was let alone.
+
+Downstairs they went, Mr Openshaw carrying Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin
+coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother's
+hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast-table, and
+then Mr and Mrs Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting their
+visitors' appearance and making plans for the day. There was a pause.
+Suddenly Mr Openshaw turned to Ailsie, and said:
+
+'What a little goosy somebody is with her dreams, wakening up poor,
+tired mother in the middle of the night, with a story of a man being
+in the room.'
+
+'Father! I'm sure I saw him,' said Ailsie, half-crying. 'I don't want
+to make Norah angry; but I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I
+had been asleep--and I wakened up quite wide awake, though I was so
+frightened. I kept my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain.
+A great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then looked
+at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after
+they had whispered a bit together.'
+
+'Now, my little woman must be reasonable,' said Mr Openshaw, who was
+always patient with Ailsie. 'There was no man in the house last night
+at all. No man comes into the house, as you know, if you think; much
+less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has
+happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first
+person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really
+happened.'
+
+'But, indeed, it was not a dream!' said Ailsie, beginning to cry.
+
+Just then Mr and Mrs Chadwick came down, looking grave and
+discomposed. All during breakfast-time they were silent and
+uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and
+the children had been carried upstairs, Mr Chadwick began, in an
+evidently preconcerted manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain
+that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs Chadwick had that
+morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the
+day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from
+Buckingham Palace. Mr Openshaw's face contracted into hard lines; grew
+like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang
+the bell, even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by
+the housemaid.
+
+'Mary, was anyone here last night, while we were away?'
+
+'A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.'
+
+'To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay?'
+
+'I'm sure I can't tell, sir. He came--perhaps about nine. I went up to
+tell Norah in the nursery, and she came down to speak to him. She let
+him out, sir. She will know who he was, and how long he stayed.'
+
+She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not,
+so she went away.
+
+A minute afterwards Mr Openshaw made as though he were going out of
+the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm.
+
+'Do not speak to her before the children,' she said, in her low, quiet
+voice. 'I will go up and question her.'
+
+'No! I must speak to her. You must know,' said he, turning to his
+uncle and aunt, 'my missus has an old servant, as faithful as ever
+woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes,--but at the same time,
+who does not speak truth, as even the missus must allow. Now,
+my notion is, that this Norah of ours has been come over by some
+good-for-nothing chap (for she's at the time o' life when they say
+women pray for husbands--"any, good Lord, any") and has let him into
+our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m'appen
+many another thing beside. It's only saying that Norah is soft-hearted
+and doesn't stick at a white lie--that's all, missus.'
+
+It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face was
+changed, as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through
+all. She knew better than to oppose him; so she went upstairs, and
+told Norah that her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would
+take care of the children in the meanwhile.
+
+Norah rose to go, without a word. Her thoughts were these:
+
+'If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through me. He may
+come--and then, just Lord have mercy upon us all! for some of us are
+dead folk to a certainty. But _he_ shall do it; not me.'
+
+You may fancy, now, her look of determination, as she faced her master
+alone in the dining-room; Mr and Mrs Chadwick having left the
+affair in their nephew's hands, seeing that he took it up with such
+vehemence.
+
+'Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?'
+
+'Man, sir!' As if infinitely surprised; but it was only to gain time.
+
+'Yes; the man that Mary let in; that she went upstairs to the nursery
+to tell you about; that you came down to speak to; the same chap, I
+make no doubt, that you took into the nursery to have your talk out
+with; the one Ailsie saw, and afterwards dreamed about; thinking, poor
+wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I'll be bound, was
+further from his thoughts; the one that took Mrs Chadwick's brooch,
+value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don't go off. I'm as sure as my name's
+Thomas Openshaw that you knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think
+you've been imposed on, and that's the truth. Some good-for-nothing
+chap has been making up to you, and you've been just like all other
+women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came
+last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made
+use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way
+down! Come, now, Norah; it's no blame to you, only you must not be
+such a fool again! Tell us,' he continued, 'what name he gave you,
+Norah. I'll be bound, it was not the right one; but it will be a clue
+for the police.'
+
+Norah drew herself up. 'You may ask that question, and taunt me with
+my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw.
+You'll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of
+theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy
+you to prove, and deny), he'd be just as much above doing such a thing
+as you yourself, Mr Openshaw--and more so, too; for I'm not at all
+sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours
+long, if every man had his own.' She meant, of course, his wife; but
+he understood her to refer to his property in goods and chattels.
+
+'Now, my good woman,' said he, 'I'll just tell you truly, I never
+trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, and I thought you had
+many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I'll have
+the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if
+you'll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now, the best thing
+you can do is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man
+comes to my house; asks for you; you take him upstairs; a valuable
+brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are
+honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed, you've told
+me one lie already about him, saying no one was here last night. Now,
+I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this,
+or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my
+good woman.'
+
+'There's never the creature born that should get it out of me,' said
+Norah. 'Not unless I choose to tell.'
+
+'I've a great mind to see,' said Mr Openshaw, growing angry at the
+defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again:
+
+'Norah, for your missus' sake I don't want to go to extremities. Be a
+sensible woman, if you can. It's no great disgrace, after all, to have
+been taken in. I ask you once more--as a friend--who was this man that
+you let into my house last night?'
+
+No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no
+answer. Norah's lips were set in determination not to speak.
+
+'Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a
+policeman.'
+
+'You will not,' said Norah, starting forward. 'You shall not, sir!
+No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know
+this: ever since I was four-and-twenty, I have thought more of your
+wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl, put
+upon in her uncle's house, I have thought more of serving her than
+of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody
+ever cared for me. I don't cast blame on you, sir, but I say it's ill
+giving up one's life to anyone; for, at the end, they will turn round
+upon you, and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to
+suspect me? Maybe, she is gone for the police? But I don't stay here,
+either for police, or magistrate, or master. You're an unlucky lot.
+I believe there's a curse on you. I'll leave you this very day. Yes!
+I'll leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good ever will come to
+you!'
+
+Mr Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was
+completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he
+could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left
+the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for
+the police to this old servant of his wife's; for he had never for a
+moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel
+her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was,
+consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a
+state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get
+nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the
+night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment
+his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to
+Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and
+left the house.
+
+'This looks suspicious,' said Mr Chadwick. 'It is not the way in which
+an honest person would have acted.'
+
+Mr Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs Openshaw
+turned round on Mr Chadwick, with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw
+in her before.
+
+'You don't know Norah, uncle! She is gone because she is deeply hurt
+at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had seen her--that I had spoken to
+her myself. She would have told me anything.' Alice wrung her hands.
+
+'I must confess,' continued Mr Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower
+voice, 'I can't make you out. You used to be a word and a blow,
+and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for
+suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus is a very good woman,
+I grant; but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I
+suppose. If you don't send for the police, I shall.'
+
+'Very well,' replied Mr Openshaw, surlily. 'I can't clear Norah. She
+won't clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash
+my hands of it; for I am sure the woman herself is honest, and she's
+lived a long time with my wife, and I don't like her to come to
+shame.'
+
+'But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will
+be a good thing.'
+
+'Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come,
+Alice, come up to the babies; they'll be in a sore way. I tell you,
+uncle,' he said, turning round once more to Mr Chadwick, suddenly and
+sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice's wan, tearful, anxious
+face, 'I'll have no sending for the police, after all. I'll buy my
+aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day; but I'll not have Norah
+suspected, and my missus plagued. There's for you!'
+
+He and his wife left the room. Mr Chadwick quietly waited till he was
+out of hearing, and then said to his wife, 'For all Tom's heroics, I'm
+just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need'st know nought
+about it.'
+
+He went to the police-station and made a statement of the case. He was
+gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed
+to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be
+immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they
+suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance,
+was her lover. When Mr Chadwick asked how they would find her out,
+they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible
+ways and means. He returned to his nephew's house with a very
+comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a
+penitent face.
+
+'Oh, master, I've found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in
+the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in
+a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in
+the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the
+brooch! I am very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost!'
+
+Her husband, muttering something very like 'Confound thee and thy
+brooch too! I wish I'd never given it thee,' snatched up his hat, and
+rushed back to the station, hoping to be in time to stop the police
+from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the
+errand.
+
+Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she
+had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done.
+Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie's questions, showing
+that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her father.
+Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than
+crazy as she ran upstairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl; leaving
+all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not
+stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see
+the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She dreaded above
+everything Mr Frank's return to claim his wife. She could not tell
+what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to
+witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger
+motive for her departure, than her soreness about the suspicions
+directed against her; although this last had been the final goad
+to the course she took. She walked a way almost at headlong speed;
+sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night
+for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she
+stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London
+altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She
+felt in her pocket for her purse as she drew near the Euston Square
+station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head
+aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, and
+think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps.
+Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find
+out poor Mr Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before,
+though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his
+telling her, when she inquired for his address, almost as she had
+pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant
+from Euston Square. Thither she went: with what intention she scarcely
+knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she
+pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel,
+or restrain, or assist, or do aught else but sympathize and weep. The
+people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only
+the day before; had gone out soon after arrival, leaving his luggage
+in their care; but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit
+down, and await the gentleman's return. The landlady--pretty secure in
+the deposit of luggage against any probable injury--showed her into
+a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly
+worn out, and fell asleep--a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber,
+which lasted for hours.
+
+The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she
+entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to
+detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing
+his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for
+having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report
+his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object was,
+if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed
+the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and
+consequently did not care to return.
+
+Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in, Then
+started up. Someone was at the door. It would be Mr Frank; and she
+dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair which had fallen over her
+eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came in Mr Openshaw
+and a policeman.
+
+'This is Norah Kennedy,' said Mr Openshaw.
+
+'Oh, sir,' said Norah, 'I did not touch the brooch; indeed I did not.
+Oh, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of'; and very sick
+and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr
+Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay
+her on the sofa; and, at Mr Openshaw's desire, he went for some wine
+and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead
+with weariness and exhaustion.
+
+'Norah,' said Mr Openshaw, in his kindest voice, 'the brooch is found.
+It was hanging to Mrs Chadwick's gown. I beg your pardon. Most truly
+I beg your pardon, for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost
+broken-hearted. Eat, Norah--or, stay, first drink this glass of wine,'
+said he, lifting her head, and pouring a little down her throat.
+
+As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting
+for. She suddenly pushed Mr Openshaw away, saying, 'Oh, sir, you must
+go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back, he will kill you.'
+
+'Alas, Norah! I do not know who "he" is. But someone is gone away who
+will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you
+cared for.'
+
+'I don't understand you, sir,' said Norah, her master's kind and
+sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The
+policeman had left the room at Mr Openshaw's desire, and they two were
+alone.
+
+'You know what I mean, when I say someone is gone who will never come
+back. I mean that he is dead!'
+
+'Who?' said Norah, trembling all over.
+
+'A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning--drowned.'
+
+'Did he drown himself?' asked Norah, solemnly.
+
+'God only knows,' replied Mr Openshaw, in the same tone. 'Your name
+and address at our house were found in his pocket; that, and his
+purse, were the only things that were found upon him. I am sorry to
+say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and identify him.'
+
+'To what?' asked Norah.
+
+'To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be
+discovered for the suicide--if suicide it was. I make no doubt, he was
+the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I
+know.' He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and
+bring back her senses, which he feared were wandering--so wild and sad
+was her look.
+
+'Master Openshaw,' said she, at last, 'I've a dreadful secret to tell
+you--only you must never breathe it to anyone, and you and I must hide
+it away for ever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see
+I cannot. Yon poor man--yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr
+Frank, my mistress's first husband!'
+
+Mr Openshaw sat down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a
+while, he signed to Norah to go on.
+
+'He came to me the other night, when--God be thanked!--you were all
+away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was
+a brute, and thought more of your all coming home than of his sore
+trial; I spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very
+content and happy. I all but turned him away: and now he lies dead and
+cold.'
+
+'God forgive me!' said Mr Openshaw.
+
+'God forgive us all!' said Norah. 'Yon poor man needs forgiveness,
+perhaps, less than any one among us. He had been among the
+savages--shipwrecked--I know not what--and he had written letters
+which had never reached my poor missus.'
+
+'He saw his child!'
+
+'He saw her--yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start;
+for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here,
+as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he never
+came in. Oh, sir, it must be him!'
+
+Mr Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder
+at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and
+then said to Norah:
+
+'I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent for a
+few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your
+love, and will come home tomorrow. You must go with me to the police
+court; you must identify the body; I will pay high to keep names and
+details out of the papers.'
+
+'But where are you going, sir?'
+
+He did not answer her directly. Then he said:
+
+'Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I
+have so injured--unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I
+had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave as if he were my only
+brother: and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife
+till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful
+secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days
+are over. I know you will not, either.' He shook hands with her; and
+they never named the subject again, the one to the other.
+
+Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the
+cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been
+charged by her husband, in his letter, not to allude to the supposed
+theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she
+loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject,
+only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for
+unjust suspicion.
+
+Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr Openshaw had been absent
+during his uncle and aunt's visit, after he had once said that it was
+unavoidable. He came back grave and quiet; and from that time forth
+was curiously changed. More thoughtful, and perhaps less active;
+quite as decided in conduct, but with new and different rules for the
+guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice he could hardly be more kind
+than he had always been; but he now seemed to look upon her as someone
+sacred, and to be treated with reverence, as well as tenderness. He
+throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was
+settled upon her.
+
+Long years after these events--a few months after her mother
+died--Ailsie and her 'father' (as she always called Mr Openshaw)
+drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was carried to
+a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage.
+There was a headstone, with F.W. and a date upon it. That was all.
+Sitting by the grave, Mr Openshaw told her the story; and for the sad
+fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, he shed the only
+tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+_Thomas Hardy_
+
+A MERE INTERLUDE
+
+(_The Bolton Weekly Journal_, 17 and 24 October 1885)
+
+
+I
+
+
+The traveller in school-books, who vouched in dryest tones for the
+fidelity to fact of the following narrative, used to add a ring of
+truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's
+personality. People were wrong, he declared, when they surmised
+that Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions or
+character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hate--so
+ran the general opinion. That she showed few positive qualities was
+true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces
+of active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still
+waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early
+maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a
+mine.
+
+She was the daughter of a small farmer in St Maria's, one of the Isles
+of Lyonesse beyond Off-Wessex, who had spent a large sum, as there
+understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland for
+two years. At nineteen she was entered at the Training College for
+Teachers, and at twenty-one nominated to a school in the country, near
+Tor-upon-Sea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas examination
+and holidays.
+
+The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista
+applied herself to her new duties as best she could, till an
+uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her
+bearing as she walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the
+traits of a person who had something on her mind. A widow, by name
+Mrs Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a
+sitting-room and bedroom till the schoolhouse should be built, noticed
+this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last ventured to
+press her with a few questions.
+
+'It has nothing to do with the place, nor with you,' said Miss
+Trewthen.
+
+'Then it is the salary?'
+
+'No, nor the salary.'
+
+'Then it is something you have heard from home, my dear.'
+
+Baptista was silent for a few moments. 'It is Mr Heddegan,' she
+murmured. 'Him they used to call David Heddegan before he got his
+money.'
+
+'And who is the Mr Heddegan they used to call David?'
+
+'An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St Maria's, with no relations
+whatever, who lives about a stone's throw from father's. When I was a
+child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some day.
+Now I am a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious to do
+it. And father and mother say I can't do better than have him.'
+
+'He's well off?'
+
+'Yes--he's the richest man we know--as a friend and neighbour.'
+
+'How much older did you say he was than yourself?'
+
+'I didn't say. Twenty years at least.'
+
+'And an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps?'
+
+'No--he's not unpleasant.'
+
+'Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement
+if it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable here, in my little
+house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so
+cheerful, since my poor husband left me to wear his wings, as I've
+been with 'ee as my lodger.'
+
+The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the
+sentiment. 'But here comes my perplexity,' she said. 'I don't like
+keeping school. Ah, you are surprised--you didn't suspect it. That's
+because I've concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate school. I don't
+care for children--they are unpleasant, troublesome little things,
+whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen
+down dead. Yet I would even put up with them if it was not for the
+inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly.
+And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you
+don't know what to teach, and what to leave untaught. I think father
+and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress
+if I dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by
+marrying Mr Heddegan. Between us two, I like him better than school;
+but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to marry him.'
+
+These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till
+at length the young girl's elderly friend and landlady threw in her
+opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things considered,
+she declared, the uncertainty of the school, the labour, Baptista's
+natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take what fate
+offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her father's old
+neighbour and prosperous friend.
+
+The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as
+usual in her native isle, going by train into Off-Wessex and crossing
+by packet from Pen-zephyr. When she returned in the middle of April
+her face wore a more settled aspect.
+
+'Well?' said the expectant Mrs Wace.
+
+'I have agreed to have him as my husband,' said Baptista, in an
+off-hand way. 'Heaven knows if it will be for the best or not. But I
+have agreed to do it, and so the matter is settled.'
+
+Mrs Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the
+subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them.
+Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time
+to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending;
+that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had given notice of
+leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on she announced more
+specifically that her marriage was to take place immediately after her
+return home at the beginning of the month aforesaid.
+
+She now corresponded regularly with Mr Heddegan. Her letters from him
+were seen, at least on the outside, and in part within, by Mrs Wace.
+Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional sentences
+shown her by Baptista she would have perceived that the scratchy,
+rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed conveyed little more
+matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his preparations
+for the same, with innumerable 'my dears' sprinkled in disconnectedly,
+to show the depth of his affection without the inconveniences of
+syntax.
+
+
+II
+
+
+It was the end of July--dry, too dry, even for the season, the
+delicate green herbs and vegetables that grew in this favoured end of
+the kingdom tasting rather of the watering-pot than of the pure
+fresh moisture from the skies. Baptista's boxes were packed, and one
+Saturday morning she departed by a waggonette to the station, and
+thence by train to Pen-zephyr, from which port she was, as usual, to
+cross the water immediately to her home, and become Mr Heddegan's wife
+on the Wednesday of the week following.
+
+She might have returned a week sooner. But though the wedding day had
+loomed so near, and the banns were out, she delayed her departure till
+this last moment, saying it was not necessary for her to be at home
+long beforehand. As Mr Heddegan was older than herself, she said, she
+was to be married in her ordinary summer bonnet and grey silk frock,
+and there were no preparations to make that had not been amply made by
+her parents and intended husband.
+
+In due time, after a hot and tedious journey, she reached Pen-zephyr.
+She here obtained some refreshment, and then went towards the pier,
+where she learnt to her surprise that the little steamboat plying
+between the town and the islands had left at eleven o'clock; the
+usual hour of departure in the afternoon having been forestalled in
+consequence of the fogs which had for a few days prevailed towards
+evening, making twilight navigation dangerous.
+
+This being Saturday, there was now no other boat till Tuesday, and it
+became obvious that here she would have to remain for the three days,
+unless her friends should think fit to rig out one of the island
+sailing-boats and come to fetch her--a not very likely contingency,
+the sea distance being nearly forty miles.
+
+Baptista, however, had been detained in Pen-zephyr on more than one
+occasion before, either on account of bad weather or some such reason
+as the present, and she was therefore not in any personal alarm. But,
+as she was to be married on the following Wednesday, the delay was
+certainly inconvenient to a more than ordinary degree, since it would
+leave less than a day's interval between her arrival and the wedding
+ceremony.
+
+Apart from this awkwardness she did not much mind the accident. It was
+indeed curious to see how little she minded. Perhaps it would not be
+too much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed
+of her life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at
+the postponement of her meeting with Heddegan. But her manner after
+making discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, even to
+passivity itself; as was instanced by her having, at the moment of
+receiving information that the steamer had sailed, replied 'Oh', so
+coolly to the porter with her luggage, that he was almost disappointed
+at her lack of disappointment.
+
+The question now was, should she return again to Mrs Wace, in the
+village of Lower Wessex, or wait in the town at which she had arrived.
+She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great;
+moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically,
+to become a bride, a return, even for so short a space, would have
+been a trifle humiliating.
+
+Leaving, then, her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to
+secure a respectable, or rather genteel, lodging in the popular
+seaside resort confronting her. To this end she looked about the town,
+in which, though she had passed through it half-a-dozen times, she was
+practically a stranger.
+
+Baptista found a room to suit her over a fruiterer's shop; where she
+made herself at home, and set herself in order after her journey.
+An early cup of tea having revived her spirits she walked out to
+reconnoitre.
+
+Being a schoolmistress she avoided looking at the schools, and having
+a sort of trade connection with books, she avoided looking at the
+booksellers; but wearying of the other shops she inspected
+the churches; not that for her own part she cared much about
+ecclesiastical edifices; but tourists looked at them, and so would
+she--a proceeding for which no one would have credited her with any
+great originality, such, for instance, as that she subsequently showed
+herself to possess. The churches soon oppressed her. She tried the
+Museum, but came out because it seemed lonely and tedious.
+
+Yet the town and the walks in this land of strawberries, these
+headquarters of early English flowers and fruit, were then, as always,
+attractive. From the more picturesque streets she went to the town
+gardens, and the Pier, and the Harbour, and looked at the men at work
+there, loading and unloading as in the time of the Phoenicians.
+
+'Not Baptista? Yes, Baptista it is!'
+
+The words were uttered behind her. Turning round she gave a start,
+and became confused, even agitated, for a moment. Then she said in her
+usual undemonstrative manner, 'O--is it really you, Charles?'
+
+Without speaking again at once, and with a half-smile, the newcomer
+glanced her over. There was much criticism, and some resentment--even
+temper--in his eye.
+
+'I am going home,' continued she. 'But I have missed the boat.'
+
+He scarcely seemed to take in the meaning of this explanation, in
+the intensity of his critical survey. 'Teaching still? What a fine
+schoolmistress you make, Baptista, I warrant!' he said with a slight
+flavour of sarcasm, which was not lost upon her.
+
+'I know I am nothing to brag of,' she replied. 'That's why I have
+given up.'
+
+'O--given up? You astonish me.'
+
+'I hate the profession.'
+
+'Perhaps that's because I am in it.'
+
+'O no, it isn't. But I am going to enter on another life altogether. I
+am going to be married next week to Mr David Heddegan.'
+
+The young man--fortified as he was by a natural cynical pride and
+passionateness--winced at this unexpected reply, notwithstanding.
+
+'Who is Mr David Heddegan?' he asked, as indifferently as lay in his
+power.
+
+She informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of
+Giant's Town, St Maria's Island--her father's nearest neighbour and
+oldest friend.
+
+'Then we shan't see anything more of you on the mainland?' inquired
+the schoolmaster.
+
+'O, I don't know about that,' said Miss Trewthen.
+
+'Here endeth the career of the belle of the boarding-school your
+father was foolish enough to send you to. A "general merchant's" wife
+in the Lyonesse Isles. Will you sell pounds of soap and pennyworths
+of tin tacks, or whole bars of saponaceous matter, and great tenpenny
+nails?'
+
+'He's not in such a small way as that!' she almost pleaded. 'He owns
+ships, though they are rather little ones!'
+
+'O, well, it is much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious
+to stand still. I thought you would be a failure in education,' he
+continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. 'You never showed
+power that way. You remind me much of some of those women who think
+they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the stage, because
+they have a pretty face, and forget that what we require is acting.
+But you found your mistake, didn't you?'
+
+'Don't taunt me, Charles.' It was noticeable that the young
+schoolmaster's tone caused her no anger or retaliatory passion;
+far otherwise: there was a tear in her eye. 'How is it you are at
+Pen-zephyr?' she inquired.
+
+'I don't taunt you. I speak the truth, purely in a friendly way, as
+I should to anyone I wished well. Though for that matter I might have
+some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you've
+been in. I hate a woman who is in such a hurry.'
+
+'How do you mean that?'
+
+'Why--to be somebody's wife or other--anything's wife rather than
+nobody's. You couldn't wait for me, O, no. Well, thank God, I'm cured
+of all that!'
+
+'How merciless you are!' she said bitterly. 'Wait for you? What does
+that mean, Charley? You never showed--anything to wait for--anything
+special towards me.'
+
+'O come, Baptista dear; come!'
+
+'What I mean is, nothing definite,' she expostulated. 'I suppose you
+liked me a little; but it seemed to me to be only a pastime on your
+part, and that you never meant to make an honourable engagement of
+it.'
+
+'There, that's just it! You girls expect a man to mean business at the
+first look. No man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any
+definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is
+meaning a vulgar mercenary marriage. However, I did at last mean an
+honourable engagement, as you call it, come to that.'
+
+'But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a
+woman's position and credit, sooner than you think.'
+
+'Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked
+you to marry me.'
+
+She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very
+uncomfortable. Presently he said, 'Would you have waited for me if you
+had known?' To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, 'Yes!'
+
+They went still farther in silence--passing along one of the beautiful
+walks on the outskirts of the town, yet not observant of scene or
+situation. Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped
+his fingers round the small of her arm--quite lightly, and without any
+attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, 'Now I hold you, and my
+will must be yours.'
+
+Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, 'I have merely run
+down here for a day or two from school near Trufal, before going off
+to the north for the rest of my holiday. I have seen my relations at
+Redrutin quite lately, so I am not going there this time. How little
+I thought of meeting you! How very different the circumstances would
+have been if, instead of parting again as we must in half-an-hour or
+so, possibly for ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my
+wife, on our honeymoon trip. Ha--ha--well--so humorous is life!'
+
+She stopped suddenly. 'I must go back now--this is altogether too
+painful, Charley! It is not at all a kind mood you are in today.'
+
+'I don't want to pain you--you know I do not,' he said more gently.
+'Only it just exasperates me--this you are going to do. I wish you
+would not.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Marry him. There, now I have showed you my true sentiments.'
+
+'I must do it now,' said she.
+
+'Why?' he asked, dropping the off-hand masterful tone he had hitherto
+spoken in, and becoming earnest; still holding her arm, however, as if
+she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will. 'It is never
+too late to break off a marriage that's distasteful to you. Now I'll
+say one thing; and it is truth: I wish you would marry me instead
+of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me so
+badly.'
+
+'O, it is not possible to think of that!' she answered hastily,
+shaking her head. 'When I get home all will be prepared--it is ready
+even now--the things for the party, the furniture, Mr. Heddegan's new
+suit, and everything. I should require the courage of a tropical lion
+to go home there and say I wouldn't carry out my promise!'
+
+'Then go, in Heaven's name! But there would be no necessity for you to
+go home and face them in that way. If we were to marry, it would have
+to be at once, instantly; or not at all. I should think your affection
+not worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to Trufal
+this evening, where we could be married by licence on Monday morning.
+And then no Mr. David Heddegan or anybody else could get you away from
+me.'
+
+'I must go home by the Tuesday boat,' she faltered. 'What would they
+think if I did not come?'
+
+'You could go home by that boat just the same. All the difference
+would be that I should go with you. You could leave me on the quay,
+where I'd have a smoke, while you went and saw your father and mother
+privately; you could then tell them what you had done, and that I
+was waiting not far off; that I was a schoolmaster in a fairly good
+position, and a young man you had known when you were at the Training
+College. Then I would come boldly forward; and they would see that it
+could not be altered, and so you wouldn't suffer a lifelong misery by
+being the wife of a wretched old gaffer you don't like at all. Now,
+honestly; you do like me best, don't you, Baptista?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Then we will do as I say.'
+
+She did not pronounce a clear affirmative. But that she consented
+to the novel proposition at some moment or other of that walk was
+apparent by what occurred a little later.
+
+
+III
+
+
+An enterprise of such pith required, indeed, less talking than
+consideration. The first thing they did in carrying it out was to
+return to the railway station, where Baptista took from her luggage a
+small trunk of immediate necessaries which she would in any case have
+required after missing the boat. That same afternoon they travelled up
+the line to Trufal.
+
+Charles Stow (as his name was), despite his disdainful indifference
+to things, was very careful of appearances, and made the journey
+independently of her though in the same train. He told her where she
+could get board and lodgings in the city; and with merely a distant
+nod to her of a provisional kind, went off to his own quarters, and to
+see about the licence.
+
+On Sunday she saw him in the morning across the nave of the
+pro-cathedral. In the afternoon they walked together in the fields,
+where he told her that the licence would be ready next day, and would
+be available the day after, when the ceremony could be performed as
+early after eight o'clock as they should choose.
+
+His courtship, thus renewed after an interval of two years, was
+as impetuous, violent even, as it was short. The next day came and
+passed, and the final arrangements were made. Their agreement was to
+get the ceremony over as soon as they possibly could the next morning,
+so as to go on to Pen-zephyr at once, and reach that place in time for
+the boat's departure the same day. It was in obedience to Baptista's
+earnest request that Stow consented thus to make the whole journey
+to Lyonesse by land and water at one heat, and not break it at
+Pen-zephyr; she seemed to be oppressed with a dread of lingering
+anywhere, this great first act of disobedience to her parents once
+accomplished, with the weight on her mind that her home had to be
+convulsed by the disclosure of it. To face her difficulties over the
+water immediately she had created them was, however, a course more
+desired by Baptista than by her lover; though for once he gave way.
+
+The next morning was bright and warm as those which had preceded it.
+By six o'clock it seemed nearly noon, as is often the case in that
+part of England in the summer season. By nine they were husband and
+wife. They packed up and departed by the earliest train after the
+service; and on the way discussed at length what she should say on
+meeting her parents, Charley dictating the turn of each phrase. In her
+anxiety they had travelled so early that when they reached Pen-zephyr
+they found there were nearly two hours on their hands before the
+steamer's time of sailing.
+
+Baptista was extremely reluctant to be seen promenading the streets
+of the watering-place with her husband till, as above stated, the
+household at Giant's Town should know the unexpected course of events
+from her own lips; and it was just possible, if not likely, that some
+Lyonessian might be prowling about there, or even have come across the
+sea to look for her. To meet anyone to whom she was known, and to have
+to reply to awkward questions about the strange young man at her side
+before her well-framed announcement had been delivered at proper time
+and place, was a thing she could not contemplate with equanimity. So,
+instead of looking at the shops and harbour, they went along the coast
+a little way.
+
+The heat of the morning was by this time intense. They clambered up on
+some cliffs, and while sitting there, looking around at St Michael's
+Mount and other objects, Charles said to her that he thought he would
+run down to the beach at their feet, and take just one plunge into the
+sea.
+
+Baptista did not much like the idea of being left alone; it was
+gloomy, she said. But he assured her he would not be gone more than a
+quarter of an hour at the outside, and she passively assented.
+
+Down he went, disappeared, appeared again, and looked back. Then he
+again proceeded, and vanished, till, as a small waxen object, she saw
+him emerge from the nook that had screened him, cross the white fringe
+of foam, and walk into the undulating mass of blue. Once in the water
+he seemed less inclined to hurry than before; he remained a long time;
+and, unable either to appreciate his skill or criticize his want of
+it at that distance, she withdrew her eyes from the spot, and gazed at
+the still outline of St Michael's--now beautifully toned in grey.
+
+Her anxiety for the hour of departure, and to cope at once with the
+approaching incidents that she would have to manipulate as best she
+could, sent her into a reverie. It was now Tuesday; she would reach
+home in the evening--a very late time they would say; but, as the
+delay was a pure accident, they would deem her marriage to Mr Heddegan
+tomorrow still practicable. Then Charles would have to be produced
+from the background. It was a terrible undertaking to think of, and
+she almost regretted her temerity in wedding so hastily that morning.
+The rage of her father would be so crushing; the reproaches of her
+mother so bitter; and perhaps Charles would answer hotly, and perhaps
+cause estrangement till death. There had obviously been no alarm about
+her at St Maria's, or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for
+her. She had, in a letter written at the beginning of the week, spoken
+of the hour at which she intended to leave her country schoolhouse;
+and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such timing
+she would run a risk of losing the Saturday boat. She had missed it,
+and as a consequence sat here on the shore as Mrs Charles Stow.
+
+This brought her to the present, and she turned from the outline of St
+Michael's Mount to look about for her husband's form. He was, as far
+as she could discover, no longer in the sea. Then he was dressing. By
+moving a few steps she could see where his clothes lay. But Charles
+was not beside them.
+
+Baptista looked back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her
+senses were the victim of some sleight of hand. Not a speck or spot
+resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was
+alarmed, and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond
+the scene of her husband's bathing a small area of water, the quality
+of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the
+coarse vegetation of some foul patch in a mead differs from the fine
+green of the remainder. Elsewhere it looked flexuous, here it looked
+vermiculated and lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to her in
+a moment that two currents met and caused a turmoil at this place.
+
+She descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow. The way
+down was terribly long, and before reaching the heap of clothes it
+occurred to her that, after all, it would be best to run first for
+help. Hastening along in a lateral direction she proceeded inland till
+she met a man, and soon afterwards two others. To them she exclaimed,
+'I think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger. I cannot see
+him as I could. Will you please run and help him, at once, if you will
+be so kind?'
+
+She did not think of turning to show them the exact spot, indicating
+it vaguely by the direction of her hand, and still going on her way
+with the idea of gaining more assistance. When she deemed, in her
+faintness, that she had carried the alarm far enough, she faced about
+and dragged herself back again. Before reaching the now dreaded spot
+she met one of the men.
+
+'We can see nothing at all, Miss,' he declared.
+
+Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of
+Charley's clothes. The other men whom she had besought to come had
+disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had
+not met them going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought
+her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the quest.
+
+Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand. Where Charley had
+undressed was now sea. There could not be the least doubt that he was
+drowned, and his body sucked under by the current; while his clothes,
+lying within high-water mark, had probably been carried away by the
+rising tide.
+
+She remained in a stupor for some minutes, till a strange sensation
+succeeded the aforesaid perceptions, mystifying her intelligence, and
+leaving her physically almost inert. With his personal disappearance,
+the last three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up,
+also his image, in her mind's eye, waned curiously, receded far away,
+grew stranger and stranger, less and less real. Their meeting and
+marriage had been so sudden, unpremeditated, adventurous, that she
+could hardly believe that she had played her part in such a reckless
+drama. Of all the few hours of her life with Charles, the portion that
+most insisted in coming back to memory was their fortuitous encounter
+on the previous Saturday, and those bitter reprimands with which he
+had begun the attack, as it might be called, which had piqued her to
+an unexpected consummation.
+
+A sort of cruelty, an imperiousness, even in his warmth, had
+characterized Charles Stow. As a lover he had ever been a bit of a
+tyrant; and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung
+her into marriage with him at last. Still more alien from her life did
+these reflections operate to make him; and then they would be chased
+away by an interval of passionate weeping and mad regret. Finally,
+there returned upon the confused mind of the young wife the
+recollection that she was on her way homeward, and that the packet
+would sail in three-quarters of an hour.
+
+Except the parasol in her hand, all she possessed was at the station
+awaiting her onward journey.
+
+She looked in that direction; and, entering one of those
+undemonstrative phases so common with her, walked quietly on.
+
+At first she made straight for the railway; but suddenly turning she
+went to a shop and wrote an anonymous line announcing his death by
+drowning to the only person she had ever heard Charles mention as a
+relative. Posting this stealthily, and with a fearful look around her,
+she seemed to acquire a terror of the late events, pursuing her way to
+the station as if followed by a spectre.
+
+When she got to the office she asked for the luggage that she had left
+there on the Saturday as well as the trunk left on the morning just
+lapsed. All were put in the boat, and she herself followed. Quickly
+as these things had been done, the whole proceeding, nevertheless,
+had been almost automatic on Baptista's part, ere she had come to any
+definite conclusion on her course.
+
+Just before the bell rang she heard a conversation on the pier, which
+removed the last shade of doubt from her mind, if any had existed,
+that she was Charles Stow's widow. The sentences were but fragmentary,
+but she could easily piece them out.
+
+'A man drowned--swam out too far--was a stranger to the place--people
+in boat--saw him go down--couldn't get there in time.'
+
+The news was little more definite than this as yet; though it may as
+well be stated once for all that the statement was true. Charley, with
+the over-confidence of his nature, had ventured out too far for his
+strength, and succumbed in the absence of assistance, his lifeless
+body being at the moment suspended in the transparent mid-depths of
+the bay. His clothes, however, had merely been gently lifted by the
+rising tide, and floated into a nook hard by, where they lay out of
+sight of the passers-by till a day or two after.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+In ten minutes they were steaming out of the harbour for their voyage
+of four or five hours, at whose ending she would have to tell her
+strange story.
+
+As Pen-zephyr and all its environing scenes disappeared behind
+Mousehole and St Clement's Isle, Baptista's ephemeral, meteor-like
+husband impressed her yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a
+trance-like state that she had been an hour on the little packet-boat
+before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr Heddegan was
+on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped from her left hand the
+symbol of her wifehood.
+
+'Hee-hee! Well, the truth is, I wouldn't interrupt 'ee. "I reckon she
+don't see me, or won't see me," I said, "and what's the hurry? She'll
+see enough o' me soon!" I hope ye be well, mee deer?'
+
+He was a hale, well-conditioned man of about five and fifty, of the
+complexion common to those whose lives are passed on the bluffs and
+beaches of an ocean isle. He extended the four quarters of his face
+in a genial smile, and his hand for a grasp of the same magnitude. She
+gave her own in surprised docility, and he continued:
+
+'I couldn't help coming across to meet 'ee. What an unfortunate thing
+you missing the boat and not coming Saturday! They meant to have
+warned 'ee that the time was changed, but forgot it at the last
+moment. The truth is that I should have informed 'ee myself, but I was
+that busy finishing up a job last week, so as to have this week free,
+that I trusted to your father for attending to these little things.
+However, so plain and quiet as it is all to be, it really do not
+matter so much as it might otherwise have done, and I hope ye haven't
+been greatly put out. Now, if you'd sooner that I should not be seen
+talking to 'ee--if 'ee feel shy at all before strangers--just say.
+I'll leave 'ee to yourself till we get home.'
+
+'Thank you much. I am indeed a little tired, Mr Heddegan.'
+
+He nodded urbane acquiescence, strolled away immediately, and minutely
+inspected the surface of the funnel, till some female passengers of
+Giant's Town tittered at what they must have thought a rebuff--for the
+approaching wedding was known to many on St Maria's Island, though to
+nobody elsewhere. Baptista coloured at their satire, and called
+him back, and forced herself to commune with him in at least a
+mechanically friendly manner.
+
+The opening event had been thus different from her expectation,
+and she had adumbrated no act to meet it. Taken aback she passively
+allowed circumstances to pilot her along; and so the voyage was made.
+
+It was near dusk when they touched the pier of Giant's Town, where
+several friends and neighbours stood awaiting them. Her father had a
+lantern in his hand. Her mother, too, was there, reproachfully glad
+that the delay had at last ended so simply. Mrs Trewthen and her
+daughter went together along the Giant's Walk, or promenade, to the
+house, rather in advance of her husband and Mr Heddegan, who talked in
+loud tones which reached the women over their shoulders.
+
+Some would have called Mrs Trewthen a good mother; but though well
+meaning she was maladroit, and her intentions missed their mark. This
+might have been partly attributable to the slight deafness from which
+she suffered. Now, as usual, the chief utterances came from her lips.
+
+'Ah, yes, I'm so glad, my child, that you've got over safe. It is all
+ready, and everything so well arranged, that nothing but misfortune
+could hinder you settling as, with God's grace, becomes 'ee. Close to
+your mother's door a'most, 'twill be a great blessing, I'm sure; and
+I was very glad to find from your letters that you'd held your word
+sacred. That's right--make your word your bond always. Mrs Wace seems
+to be a sensible woman. I hope the Lord will do for her as he's doing
+for you no long time hence. And how did 'ee get over the terrible
+journey from Tor-upon-Sea to Pen-zephyr? Once you'd done with the
+railway, of course, you seemed quite at home. Well, Baptista, conduct
+yourself seemly, and all will be well.'
+
+Thus admonished, Baptista entered the house, her father and Mr
+Heddegan immediately at her back. Her mother had been so didactic that
+she had felt herself absolutely unable to broach the subjects in the
+centre of her mind.
+
+The familiar room, with the dark ceiling, the well-spread table, the
+old chairs, had never before spoken so eloquently of the times ere she
+knew or had heard of Charley Stow. She went upstairs to take off her
+things, her mother remaining below to complete the disposition of the
+supper, and attend to the preparation of tomorrow's meal, altogether
+composing such an array of pies, from pies of fish to pies of turnips,
+as was never heard of outside the Western Duchy. Baptista, once alone,
+sat down and did nothing; and was called before she had taken off her
+bonnet.
+
+'I'm coming,' she cried, jumping up, and speedily disapparelling
+herself, brushed her hair with a few touches and went down.
+
+Two or three of Mr Heddegan's and her father's friends had dropped in,
+and expressed their sympathy for the delay she had been subjected
+to. The meal was a most merry one except to Baptista. She had desired
+privacy, and there was none; and to break the news was already a
+greater difficulty than it had been at first. Everything around her,
+animate and inanimate, great and small, insisted that she had come
+home to be married; and she could not get a chance to say nay.
+
+One or two people sang songs, as overtures to the melody of the
+morrow, till at length bedtime came, and they all withdrew, her mother
+having retired a little earlier. When Baptista found herself again
+alone in her bedroom the case stood as before: she had come home with
+much to say, and she had said nothing.
+
+It was now growing clear even to herself that Charles being dead, she
+had not determination sufficient within her to break tidings which,
+had he been alive, would have imperatively announced themselves. And
+thus with the stroke of midnight came the turning of the scale; her
+story should remain untold. It was not that upon the whole she thought
+it best not to attempt to tell it; but that she could not undertake so
+explosive a matter. To stop the wedding now would cause a convulsion
+in Giant's Town little short of volcanic. Weakened, tired, and
+terrified as she had been by the day's adventures, she could not make
+herself the author of such a catastrophe. But how refuse Heddegan
+without telling? It really seemed to her as if her marriage with Mr
+Heddegan were about to take place as if nothing had intervened.
+
+Morning came. The events of the previous days were cut off from her
+present existence by scene and sentiment more completely than ever.
+Charles Stow had grown to be a special being of whom, owing to his
+character, she entertained rather fearful than loving memory. Baptista
+could hear when she awoke that her parents were already moving about
+downstairs. But she did not rise till her mother's rather rough voice
+resounded up the staircase as it had done on the preceding evening.
+
+'Baptista! Come, time to be stirring! The man will be here, by
+Heaven's blessing, in three-quarters of an hour. He has looked in
+already for a minute or two--and says he's going to the church to see
+if things be well forward.'
+
+Baptista arose, looked out of the window, and took the easy course.
+When she emerged from the regions above she was arrayed in her new
+silk frock and best stockings, wearing a linen jacket over the former
+for breakfasting, and her common slippers over the latter, not to
+spoil the new ones on the rough precincts of the dwelling.
+
+It is unnecessary to dwell at any great length on this part of the
+morning's proceedings. She revealed nothing; and married Heddegan, as
+she had given her word to do, on that appointed August day.
+
+
+V
+
+
+Mr Heddegan forgave the coldness of his bride's manner during and
+after the wedding ceremony, full well aware that there had been
+considerable reluctance on her part to acquiesce in this neighbourly
+arrangement, and, as a philosopher of long standing, holding that
+whatever Baptista's attitude now, the conditions would probably
+be much the same six months hence as those which ruled among other
+married couples.
+
+An absolutely unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind
+about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the
+midday dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of
+starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up
+inside Pen-zephyr new pier about six at least.'
+
+'What--are we going to Pen-zephyr?' said Baptista. 'I don't know
+anything of it.'
+
+'Didn't you tell her?' asked her father of Heddegan.
+
+It transpired that, owing to the delay in her arrival, this proposal
+too, among other things, had in the hurry not been mentioned to
+her, except some time ago as a general suggestion that they would go
+somewhere. Heddegan had imagined that any trip would be pleasant, and
+one to the mainland the pleasantest of all.
+
+She looked so distressed at the announcement that her husband
+willingly offered to give it up, though he had not had a holiday off
+the island for a whole year. Then she pondered on the inconvenience of
+staying at Giant's Town, where all the inhabitants were bonded, by the
+circumstances of their situation, into a sort of family party, which
+permitted and encouraged on such occasions as these oral criticism
+that was apt to disturb the equanimity of newly married girls, and
+would especially worry Baptista in her strange situation. Hence,
+unexpectedly, she agreed not to disorganize her husband's plans for
+the wedding jaunt, and it was settled that, as originally intended,
+they should proceed in a neighbour's sailing boat to the metropolis of
+the district.
+
+In this way they arrived at Pen-zephyr without difficulty or mishap.
+Bidding adieu to Jenkin and his man, who had sailed them over, they
+strolled arm in arm off the pier, Baptista silent, cold, and obedient.
+Heddegan had arranged to take her as far as Plymouth before their
+return, but to go no further than where they had landed that day.
+Their first business was to find an inn; and in this they had
+unexpected difficulty, since for some reason or other--possibly the
+fine weather--many of the nearest at hand were full of tourists and
+commercial travellers. He led her on till he reached a tavern which,
+though comparatively unpretending, stood in as attractive a spot as
+any in the town; and this, somewhat to their surprise after their
+previous experience, they found apparently empty. The considerate old
+man, thinking that Baptista was educated to artistic notions, though
+he himself was deficient in them, had decided that it was most
+desirable to have, on such an occasion as the present, an apartment
+with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often heard in use
+among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room on
+the first floor, from which a bow-window protruded, for the express
+purpose of affording such an outlook.
+
+The landlady, after some hesitation, said she was sorry that
+particular apartment was engaged; the next one, however, or any other
+in the house, was unoccupied.
+
+'The gentleman who has the best one will give it up tomorrow, and then
+you can change into it,' she added, as Mr Heddegan hesitated about
+taking the adjoining and less commanding one.
+
+'We shall be gone tomorrow, and shan't want it,' he said.
+
+Wishing not to lose customers, the landlady earnestly continued that
+since he was bent on having the best room, perhaps the other gentleman
+would not object to move at once into the one they despised, since,
+though nothing could be seen from the window, the room was equally
+large.
+
+'Well, if he doesn't care for a view,' said Mr Heddegan, with the air
+of a highly artistic man who did.
+
+'O no--I am sure he doesn't,' she said. 'I can promise that you shall
+have the room you want. If you would not object to go for a walk for
+half an hour, I could have it ready, and your things in it, and a nice
+tea laid in the bow-window by the time you come back?'
+
+This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman,
+and they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite
+direction to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on
+her wan face, had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret
+her sacrificial step for mending matters that morning.
+
+She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to
+inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman
+who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.
+
+The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just
+handed Baptista a newspaper on which she discerned the heading, 'A
+Schoolmaster drowned while bathing', when her husband turned to join
+her. She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion;
+but it was more than flesh and blood could do, and completing a small
+purchase almost ran out of the shop.
+
+'What is your terrible hurry, mee deer?' said Heddegan, hastening
+after.
+
+'I don't know--I don't want to stay in shops,' she gasped.
+
+'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go
+back and have some tay!'
+
+They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a
+sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily
+spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the
+midst, and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the
+meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view
+had been engaged, regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's
+pleasure, she did not direct any keen attention out of the window. Her
+gaze as often fell on the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere,
+and on the table as much as on either, beholding nothing at all.
+
+But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which
+her eyes presently became riveted like those of a little bird upon a
+snake. For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such
+a hat--surely, from its peculiar make, the actual hat--that had been
+worn by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when she saw a
+railway ticket sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket
+there--she had noticed the act.
+
+Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her
+husband jumped up and said, 'You are not well! What is it? What shall
+I get 'ee?'
+
+'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at the chemist's
+shop you were in just now.'
+
+He jumped up like the anxious old man that he was, caught up his own
+hat from a back table, and without observing the other hastened out
+and downstairs.
+
+Left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door, then
+spasmodically rang the bell. An honest-looking country maid-servant
+appeared in response.
+
+'A hat!' murmured Baptista, pointing with her finger. 'It does not
+belong to us.'
+
+'O yes, I'll take it away,' said the young woman with some hurry 'It
+belongs to the other gentleman.'
+
+She spoke with a certain awkwardness, and took the hat out of the
+room. Baptista had recovered her outward composure. 'The other
+gentleman?' she said. 'Where is the other gentleman?'
+
+'He's in the next room, ma'am. He removed out of this to oblige 'ee.'
+
+'How can you say so? I should hear him if he were there,' said
+Baptista, sufficiently recovered to argue down an apparent untruth.
+
+'He's there,' said the girl, hardily.
+
+'Then it is strange that he makes no noise,' said Mrs Heddegan,
+convicting the girl of falsity by a look.
+
+'He makes no noise; but it is not strange,' said the servant.
+
+All at once a dread took possession of the bride's heart, like a
+cold hand laid thereon; for it flashed upon her that there was a
+possibility of reconciling the girl's statement with her own knowledge
+of facts.
+
+'Why does he make no noise?' she weakly said.
+
+The waiting-maid was silent, and looked at her questioner. 'If I tell
+you, ma'am, you won't tell missis?' she whispered.
+
+Baptista promised.
+
+'Because he's a-lying dead!' said the girl. 'He's the schoolmaster
+that was drowned yesterday.'
+
+'O!' said the bride, covering her eyes. 'Then he was in this room till
+just now?'
+
+'Yes,' said the maid, thinking the young lady's agitation natural
+enough. 'And I told missis that I thought she oughtn't to have done
+it, because I don't hold it right to keep visitors so much in the
+dark where death's concerned; but she said the gentleman didn't die
+of anything infectious; she was a poor, honest, innkeeper's wife, she
+says, who had to get her living by making hay while the sun sheened.
+And owing to the drowned gentleman being brought here, she said, it
+kept so many people away that we were empty, though all the other
+houses were full. So when your good man set his mind upon the room,
+and she would have lost good paying folk if he'd not had it, it wasn't
+to be supposed, she said, that she'd let anything stand in the way.
+Ye won't say that I've told ye, please, m'm? All the linen has been
+changed, and as the inquest won't be till tomorrow, after you are
+gone, she thought you wouldn't know a word of it, being strangers
+here.'
+
+The returning footsteps of her husband broke off further narration.
+Baptista waved her hand, for she could not speak. The waiting-maid
+quickly withdrew, and Mr Heddegan entered with the smelling salts and
+other nostrums.
+
+'Any better?' he questioned.
+
+'I don't like the hotel,' she exclaimed, almost simultaneously. 'I
+can't bear it--it doesn't suit me!'
+
+'Is that all that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the
+first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such
+trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about
+from here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like
+the place that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od
+dang it all, 'tis enough to--But I won't say any more at present, mee
+deer, though it is just too much to expect to turn out of the
+house now. We shan't get another quiet place at this time of the
+evening--every other inn in the town is bustling with rackety folk
+of one sort and t'other, while here 'tis as quiet as the grave--the
+country, I would say. So bide still, d'ye hear, and tomorrow we shall
+be out of the town altogether--as early as you like.'
+
+The obstinacy of age had, in short, overmastered its complaisance, and
+the young woman said no more. The simple course of telling him that
+in the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their
+own might, it would have seemed, have been an effectual one without
+further disclosure, but to allude to that subject, however it was
+disguised, was more than Heddegan's young wife had strength for.
+Horror broke her down. In the contingency one thing only presented
+itself to her paralysed regard--that here she was doomed to abide,
+in a hideous contiguity to the dead husband and the living, and her
+conjecture did, in fact, bear itself out. That night she lay between
+the two men she had married--Heddegan on the one hand, and on the
+other through the partition against which the bed stood, Charles Stow.
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the
+present of Baptista Heddegan. It was ten o'clock in the morning; she
+had been ill, not in an ordinary or definite sense, but in a state of
+cold stupefaction, from which it was difficult to arouse her so much
+as to say a few sentences. When questioned she had replied that she
+was pretty well.
+
+Their trip, as such, had been something of a failure. They had gone
+on as far as Falmouth, but here he had given way to her entreaties
+to return home. This they could not very well do without repassing
+through Pen-zephyr, at which place they had now again arrived.
+
+In the train she had seen a weekly local paper, and read there a
+paragraph detailing the inquest on Charles. It was added that the
+funeral was to take place at his native town of Redrutin on Friday.
+
+After reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal
+neighbourhood of the tragedy, only stipulating that they should
+take their rest at a different lodging from the first; and now
+comparatively braced up and calm--indeed a cooler creature altogether
+than when last in the town, she said to David that she wanted to walk
+out for a while, as they had plenty of time on their hands.
+
+'To a shop as usual, I suppose, mee deer?'
+
+'Partly for shopping,' she said. 'And it will be best for you, dear,
+to stay in after trotting about so much, and have a good rest while I
+am gone.'
+
+He assented; and Baptista sallied forth. As she had stated, her first
+visit was made to a shop, a draper's. Without the exercise of much
+choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil, also a black stuff gown;
+a black mantle she already wore. These articles were made up into a
+parcel which, in spite of the saleswoman's offers, her customer said
+she would take with her. Bearing it on her arm she turned to the
+railway, and at the station got a ticket for Redrutin.
+
+Thus it appeared that, on her recovery from the paralysed mood of the
+former day, while she had resolved not to blast utterly the happiness
+of her present husband by revealing the history of the departed
+one, she had also determined to indulge a certain odd, inconsequent,
+feminine sentiment of decency, to the small extent to which it could
+do no harm to any person. At Redrutin she emerged from the railway
+carnage in the black attire purchased at the shop, having during the
+transit made the change in the empty compartment she had chosen. The
+other clothes were now in the bandbox and parcel. Leaving these at the
+cloak-room she proceeded onward, and after a wary survey reached the
+side of a hill whence a view of the burial ground could be obtained.
+
+It was now a little before two o'clock. While Baptista waited a
+funeral procession ascended the road. Baptista hastened across, and
+by the time the procession entered the cemetery gates she had
+unobtrusively joined it.
+
+In addition to the schoolmaster's own relatives (not a few), the
+paragraph in the newspapers of his death by drowning had drawn
+together many neighbours, acquaintances, and onlookers.
+
+Among them she passed unnoticed, and with a quiet step pursued the
+winding path to the chapel, and afterwards thence to the grave. When
+all was over, and the relatives and idlers had withdrawn, she stepped
+to the edge of the chasm. From beneath her mantle she drew a little
+bunch of forget-me-nots, and dropped them in upon the coffin. In a
+few minutes she also turned and went away from the cemetery. By five
+o'clock she was again in Pen-zephyr.
+
+'You have been a mortal long time!' said her husband, crossly. 'I
+allowed you an hour at most, mee deer.'
+
+'It occupied me longer,' said she.
+
+'Well--I reckon it is wasting words to complain. Hang it, ye look so
+tired and wisht that I can't find heart to say what I would!'
+
+'I am--weary and wisht, David; I am. We can get home tomorrow for
+certain, I hope?'
+
+'We can. And please God we will!' said Mr Heddegan heartily, as if he
+too were weary of his brief honeymoon. 'I must be into business again
+on Monday morning at latest.'
+
+They left by the next morning steamer, and in the afternoon took up
+their residence in their own house at Giant's Town.
+
+The hour that she reached the island it was as if a material weight
+had been removed from Baptista's shoulders. Her husband attributed
+the change to the influence of the local breezes after the hot-house
+atmosphere of the mainland. However that might be, settled here, a few
+doors from her mother's dwelling, she recovered in no very long time
+much of her customary bearing, which was never very demonstrative. She
+accepted her position calmly, and faintly smiled when her neighbours
+learned to call her Mrs Heddegan, and said she seemed likely to become
+the leader of fashion in Giant's Town.
+
+Her husband was a man who had made considerably more money by trade
+than her father had done: and perhaps the greater profusion of
+surroundings at her command than she had heretofore been mistress of,
+was not without an effect upon her. One week, two weeks, three weeks
+passed; and, being pre-eminently a young woman who allowed things to
+drift, she did nothing whatever either to disclose or conceal
+traces of her first marriage; or to learn if there existed
+possibilities--which there undoubtedly did--by which that hasty
+contract might become revealed to those about her at any unexpected
+moment.
+
+While yet within the first month of her marriage, and on an evening
+just before sunset, Baptista was standing within her garden adjoining
+the house, when she saw passing along the road a personage clad in a
+greasy black coat and battered tall hat, which, common enough in the
+slums of a city, had an odd appearance in St Maria's. The tramp, as he
+seemed to be, marked her at once--bonnetless and unwrapped as she was
+her features were plainly recognizable--and with an air of friendly
+surprise came and leant over the wall.
+
+'What! don't you know me?' said he.
+
+She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not
+acquainted with him.
+
+'Why, your witness to be sure, ma'am. Don't you mind the man that was
+mending the church-window when you and your intended husband walked
+up to be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and I
+came and did my part by writing my name and occupation?'
+
+Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That
+would have been of less importance but for the fact that the wedding
+witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr.
+Heddegan, but the one on the day previous.
+
+'I've had a misfortune since then, that's pulled me under,' continued
+her friend. 'But don't let me damp yer wedded joy by naming the
+particulars. Yes, I've seen changes since; though 'tis but a short
+time ago--let me see, only a month next week, I think; for 'twere the
+first or second day in August.'
+
+'Yes--that's when it was,' said another man, a sailor, who had come up
+with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it necessary to join in (Baptista
+having receded to escape further speech). 'For that was the first time
+I set foot in Giant's Town; and her husband took her to him the same
+day.'
+
+A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which
+Baptista could not help hearing.
+
+'Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,' repeated the decayed
+glazier. 'Where's her good-man?'
+
+'About the premises somewhere; but you don't see'em together much,'
+replied the sailor in an undertone. 'You see, he's older than she.'
+
+'Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,' said
+the glazier. 'He was a remarkably handsome man.'
+
+'Handsome? Well, there he is--we can see for ourselves.'
+
+David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the
+garden; and the glazier, looking in bewilderment from the husband to
+the wife, saw the latter turn pale.
+
+Now that decayed glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man--too
+far-seeing and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and
+straightforward means--and he held his peace, till he could read
+more plainly the meaning of this riddle, merely added carelessly,
+'Well--marriage do alter a man, 'tis true. I should never ha' knowed
+him!'
+
+He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to
+where he could again address her, asked her to do him a good turn,
+since he once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant
+money, she handed him some, at which he thanked her, and instantly
+went away.
+
+
+VII
+
+
+She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been
+an awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or
+later the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any
+rate she had not heard the last of the glazier.
+
+In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the
+other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and
+the worthy witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second
+time.
+
+'It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery--hours!' he said
+with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply.
+'But thanks to a good intellect I've done it. Now, ma'am, I'm not a
+man to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I'm
+going back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as
+rain on thirsty ground.'
+
+'I helped you two days ago,' began Baptista.
+
+'Yes--but what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage
+to Pen-zephyr. I came over on your account, for I thought there was a
+mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this--'twould
+be very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He's a queer
+temper, though he may be fond.'
+
+She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the
+hush-money she paid was heavy that day. She had, however, the
+satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him
+diminish out of sight. But Baptista perceived that the system into
+which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her
+peace of mind, particularly if it had to be continued.
+
+Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past.
+But another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant's
+Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in
+the company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.
+
+'This is the lady, my dear,' he said to his companion. 'This, ma'am,
+is my wife. We've come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we
+can find room.'
+
+'That you won't do,' said she. 'Nobody can live here who is not
+privileged.'
+
+'I am privileged,' said the glazier, 'by my trade.'
+
+Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the
+man's wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours,
+the necessity for keeping up the concealment.
+
+'I will intercede with my husband, ma'am,' she said. 'He's a true man
+if rightly managed; and I'll beg him to consider your position. 'Tis a
+very nice house you've got here,' she added, glancing round, 'and well
+worth a little sacrifice to keep it.'
+
+The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as
+she had done on the previous two. But she formed a resolve that,
+if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a
+revelation--worse though that must now be than before she had
+attempted to purchase silence by bribes. Her tormentors, never
+believing her capable of acting upon such an intention, came again;
+but she shut the door in their faces. They retreated, muttering
+something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan
+was.
+
+She looked at him, unconscious of all. The case was serious; she knew
+that well; and all the more serious in that she liked him better now
+than she had done at first. Yet, as she herself began to see,
+the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself. Her name and
+Charles's stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a month
+only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union
+with her had not already been discovered by his friends. Thus spurring
+herself to the inevitable, she spoke to Heddegan.
+
+'David, come indoors. I have something to tell you.'
+
+He hardly regarded her at first. She had discerned that during
+the last week or two he had seemed preoccupied, as if some private
+business harassed him. She repeated her request. He replied with a
+sigh, 'Yes, certainly, mee deer.'
+
+When they had reached the sitting-room and shut the door she repeated,
+faintly, 'David, I have something to tell you--a sort of tragedy I
+have concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but
+perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better
+of me than you would do otherwise.'
+
+'Tragedy?' he said, awakening to interest. 'Much you can know about
+tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!'
+
+She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder.
+But on she went steadily. 'It is about something that happened before
+we were married,' she said.
+
+'Indeed!'
+
+'Not a very long time before--a short time. And it is about a lover,'
+she faltered.
+
+'I don't much mind that,' he said mildly. 'In truth, I was in hopes
+'twas more.'
+
+'In hopes!'
+
+'Well, yes.'
+
+This screwed her up to the necessary effort. 'I met my old sweetheart.
+He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were
+coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was
+drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married
+you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I've tried to keep it
+from you, but have found I cannot. There--that's the substance of it,
+and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!'
+
+She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or
+blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and
+began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.
+
+'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his
+fingers over his head. 'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my
+trouble--ha-ha!'
+
+She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still
+continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'O--what do you mean? Is it done
+to torment me?'
+
+'No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching
+quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--_I've_
+got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never
+have seen my way to tell mine!'
+
+'What is yours--what is it?' she asked, with altogether a new view of
+things.
+
+'Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the
+ground and wiping his eyes.
+
+'Not worse than mine?'
+
+'Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the
+past alone; and I don't mind it. You see, we've been married a month,
+and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day
+or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--'
+
+'Past, present, and future!' she murmured. 'It never occurred to me
+that you had a tragedy too.'
+
+'But I have!' he said, shaking his head. 'In fact, four.'
+
+'Then tell 'em!' cried the young woman.
+
+'I will--I will. But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. Well--I
+wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any more than you were a
+spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.'
+
+'Ah!' said she, with some surprise. 'But is that all?--then we are
+nicely balanced,' she added, relieved.
+
+'No--it is not all. There's the point. I am not only a widower.'
+
+'O, David!'
+
+'I am a widower with four tragedies--that is to say, four
+strapping girls--the eldest taller than you. Don't 'ee look so
+struck--dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman,
+their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and--to cut a long story
+short--I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept
+the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by
+degrees. I've long felt for the children--that it is my duty to have
+them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break
+it to 'ee, but I've seen lately that it would soon come to your ears,
+and that hev worried me.'
+
+'Are they educated?' said the ex-schoolmistress.
+
+'No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth,
+they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young
+schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach 'em,
+and bring 'em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they
+are growed up too tall to be sent to school.'
+
+'O, mercy!' she almost moaned. 'Four great girls to teach the
+rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their
+books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished--I am,
+I am!'
+
+'You'll get used to 'em, mee deer, and the balance of secrets--mine
+against yours--will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I
+could send for 'em this week very well--and I will! In faith, I
+could send this very day. Baptista, you have relieved me of all my
+difficulty!'
+
+Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned.
+Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to
+her room she wept from very mortification at Mr Heddegan's duplicity.
+Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a
+young wife so!
+
+The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer
+her eyes to turn towards him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her
+reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled
+with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. 'How very well matched we
+be!' he said, comfortably.
+
+Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush
+down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall,
+hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the
+eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them
+standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the grey fringe of his
+whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, 'Now come forrard,
+and shake hands properly with your stepmother.'
+
+Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them
+together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only
+plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such
+a lamentably meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly
+inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could
+only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress
+was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years
+she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without
+prospect of reward.
+
+She went about quite despairing during the next few days--an
+unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married
+six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been
+amongst the few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his
+secret, and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready-made
+household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support
+them in their remonstrances.
+
+'No, you don't yet know all,' she said.
+
+Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of
+this issue. For some time, whenever conversation arose between her and
+Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, 'I am miserable, and
+you know it. Yet I don't wish things to be otherwise.'
+
+But one day when he asked, 'How do you like 'em now?' her answer was
+unexpected. 'Much better than I did,' she said, quietly. 'I may like
+them very much some day.'
+
+This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of
+Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the
+crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their
+Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that
+were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to
+their young lives before their mother's wrong had been righted, had
+operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal
+ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely
+objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of
+certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather
+than suffered.
+
+This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of
+Baptista's nature, that her attention, from being first arrested
+by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart
+expanded in sympathy with theirs. The sentences of her tragi-comedy,
+her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in humanity,
+as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but
+infinitely much to pity, she learnt with the lapse of each week in
+their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and
+from liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point
+of junction between her own and her husband's interests, generating a
+sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there
+had threatened to be neither friendship nor love.
+
+
+
+
+_George Moore_
+
+A FAITHFUL HEART
+
+(_The Speaker_, 16 April 1892)
+
+
+Part I
+
+
+It was a lovely morning, and Major Shepherd walked rapidly, his toes
+turned well out, his shoulders set well back. Behind him floated the
+summer foliage of Appleton Park--the family seat of the Shepherds--and
+at the end of the smooth, white road lay the Major's destination--the
+small town of Branbury.
+
+The Major was the medium height; his features were regular and cleanly
+cut. He would have been a handsome man if his eyes had not been
+two dark mud-coloured dots, set close together, wholly lacking in
+expression. A long brown moustache swept picturesquely over bright,
+smoothly shaven cheeks, and the ends of this ornament were beginning
+to whiten. The Major was over forty. He carried under his arm a
+brown-paper parcel (the Major was rarely seen without a brown-paper
+parcel), and in it were things he could not possibly do without--his
+diary and his letter-book. The brown-paper parcel contained likewise
+a number of other papers; it contained the Major's notes for a book he
+was writing on the principal county families in Buckinghamshire. The
+Major had been collecting information for this book for many years,
+and with it he hoped to make two or three hundred pounds--money which
+he stood sorely in need of--and to advance his position in the county,
+a position which, in his opinion, his father had done little to
+maintain, and which, to his very deep regret, his sisters were now
+doing their best to compromise. That very morning, while packing up
+his brown-paper parcel, some quarter of an hour ago, he had had a
+somewhat angry interview on this subject with his sisters. For he had
+thought it his duty to reprove them for keeping company with certain
+small London folk who had chosen to come to live in the neighbourhood.
+Ethel had said that they were not going to give up their friends
+because they were not good enough for him, and Maud had added
+significantly that they were quite sure that their friends were quite
+as good as the friend he was going to see in Branbury. The Major
+turned on his heel and left the house.
+
+As he walked towards Branbury he asked himself if it were possible
+that they knew anything about Charlotte Street; and as he approached
+the town he looked round nervously, fearing lest some friend might
+pop down upon him, and, after some hesitation, decided to take a long
+detour so as to avoid passing by the house of some people he knew. As
+he made his way through a bye-street his step quickened, and at the
+corner of Charlotte Street he looked round to make sure he was not
+followed. He then drew his keys from his pocket and let himself into a
+small, mean-looking house.
+
+Major Shepherd might have spared himself the trouble of these
+precautions; no one was minded to watch him, for everyone knew
+perfectly well who lived in 27, Charlotte Street. It was common talk
+that the tall, dark woman who lived in 27 was Mrs Charles Shepherd,
+and that the little girl who ran by Mrs Shepherd's side on the rare
+occasions when she was seen in the streets--for it was said that the
+Major did not wish her to walk much about the town, lest she should
+attract the attention of the curious, who might be tempted to make
+inquiries--was the Major's little daughter, and it had been noticed
+that this little girl went forth now and then, basket on her arm, to
+do the marketing. It was said that Mrs Shepherd had been a servant
+in some lodging-house where the Major had been staying; other
+scandal-mongers declared that they knew for certain that the Major had
+made his wife's acquaintance in the street. Rumour had never wandered
+far from the truth. The Major had met his wife one night as he was
+coming home from his club. They seemed to suit one another; he saw
+her frequently for several months, and then, fearing to lose her, in
+a sudden access of jealousy--he had some time before been bitterly
+jilted--he proposed to marry her. The arrival of his parents, who
+came up to town beseeching of him to do nothing rash, only served to
+intensify his determination, and, losing his temper utterly, he told
+his father and mother that he would never set his foot in Appleton
+Park in their lifetime if they ever again ventured to pry into his
+private affairs; and, refusing to give any information regarding his
+intentions, he asked them to leave his lodgings. What he did after
+they never knew; years went by, and they sighed and wondered, but the
+matter was never alluded to in Appleton Park.
+
+But the Major had only L400 a year, and though he lived at Appleton
+Park, never spending a penny more than was necessary, he could not
+allow her more than L3 a week. He had so many expenses: his club, his
+clothes, and all the incidental expenses he was put to in the grand
+houses where he went to stay. By strict economy, however, Mrs Shepherd
+managed to make two ends meet. Except when she was too ill and had to
+call in a charwoman to help her with the heaviest part of the work,
+she undertook the entire housework herself: when times were hardest,
+she had even taken in a lodger, not thinking herself above cooking and
+taking up his dinner. She had noticed that her economies endeared
+her to the Major, and it was pleasant to please him. Hers was a
+kind-hearted, simple nature, that misfortune had brought down in the
+world; but, as is not uncommon with persons of weak character, she
+possessed a clear, sensible mind which allowed her to see things
+in their true lights, and without difficulty she recognized the
+unalterable nature of her case. It mattered little whether the Major
+acknowledged her or not, his family would never have anything to do
+with her; the doors of Society were for ever closed against her. So
+within a year of her marriage with the Major she was convinced that
+her marriage had better be kept a secret; for, by helping to keep it
+a secret, she could make substantial amends to the man who had married
+her; by proclaiming it to the world, she would only alienate his
+affection. She understood this very well, and in all docility and
+obedience lent herself to the deception, accepting without complaint
+a mean and clandestine existence. But she would not allow her little
+girl to carry up a jug of hot water, and it was only rarely, when
+prostrate with pain, that she allowed Nellie to take the basket and
+run round to the butcher's and buy a bit of steak for their dinner.
+The heiress of Appleton Park must be brought up free from all
+degrading memory. But for herself she had no care. Appleton Park could
+never be anything to her, even if she outlived the old people, which
+was hardly probable. What would she, a poor invalid, do there? She did
+not wish to compromise her husband's future, and still less the future
+of her darling daughter. She could only hope that, when dead, her sins
+would be forgiven her; and that this release might not be long delayed
+she often prayed. The house was poor, and she was miserable, but any
+place was good enough to suffer in. So she said when she rose and
+dragged herself downstairs to do a little cooking; and the same
+thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour,
+furnished with what a few pounds could buy--a paraffin-lamp, a round
+table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which
+it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not
+a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours. From
+the barren little passage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and
+everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative. The Major had impressed
+his personality upon the house. Everything looked as if it had been
+scraped. There was a time when Mrs Shepherd noticed the barrenness of
+her life; but she had grown accustomed to it, and she waited for the
+Major in the terrible armchair, glad when she heard his step, almost
+happy when he sat by her and told her what was happening 'at home'.
+
+He took her hand and asked her how she was. 'You are looking very
+tired, Alice.'
+
+'Yes, I'm a little tired. I have been working all the morning. I made
+up my room, and then I went out to the butcher's and bought a piece of
+steak. I have made you such a nice pudding for your lunch; I hope you
+will like it.'
+
+'There's not much fear about my liking any beefsteak pudding you make,
+dear; I never knew anyone who could make one like you. But you should
+not tire yourself--and just as you are beginning to get better.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd smiled and pressed her husband's hand. The conversation
+fell. At the end of a long silence Mrs Shepherd said: 'What has
+happened to trouble you, dear? I know something has, I can see it by
+your face.'
+
+Then the Major told how unpleasantly his sisters had answered him when
+he had ventured to suggest that they saw far too much of their new
+neighbours, who were merely common sort of Londoners, and never would
+be received by the county. 'I'm sure that someone must have told them
+of my visits here; I'm sure they suspect something ... Girls are very
+sharp nowadays.'
+
+'I am sorry, but it is no fault of mine. I rarely leave the house, and
+I never walk in the principal streets if I can possibly help it.'
+
+'I know, dear, I know that no one can be more careful than you; but
+as people are beginning to smell a rat notwithstanding all our
+precautions, I suppose there's nothing for it but to go back to
+London.'
+
+'Oh, you don't think it will be necessary to go back to London, do
+you? The place suits the child so well, and it is so nice to see you
+almost every day; and it is such a comfort when you are not here to
+know you are only a few miles away; and from the top of the hill the
+trees of the park are visible, and whenever I feel well enough I walk
+there and think of the time our Nellie will be the mistress of all
+those broad acres.'
+
+'It is the fault of the busybodies,' he said; 'I cannot think what
+pleasure people find in meddling in other people's affairs. I never
+care what anyone else does. I have quite enough to do thinking of my
+own.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd did not answer. 'I see,' he said, 'you don't like moving,
+but if you remain here all the trouble we have taken not to get found
+out these last ten years will go for nothing. There will be more worry
+and vexations, and I really don't think I could bear much more; I
+believe I should go off my head.' The little man spoke in a calm, even
+voice, and stroked his silky moustache gravely.
+
+'Very well, then, my dear, I'll return to town as soon as you like--as
+soon as it is convenient. I daresay you are right.'
+
+'I'm sure I am. You have never found me giving you wrong advice yet,
+have you, dear?'
+
+Then they went down to the kitchen to eat the steak pudding; and when
+the Major had finished his second helping he lit his pipe, and the
+conversation turned on how they should get rid of their house, and
+how much the furniture would fetch. When he had decided to sell the
+furniture, and had fixed the day of their departure, Mrs Shepherd
+said--
+
+'There's one thing I have to ask you, dear, and I hope you won't
+refuse my request. I should like to see Appleton Park before I leave.
+I should like to go there with Nellie and see the house and the lands
+that will one day belong to her.'
+
+'I don't know how it is to be managed. If you were to meet my mother
+and sisters they would be sure to suspect something at once.'
+
+'No one will know who I am. I should like to walk about the grounds
+for half an hour with the child. If I don't see Appleton now I never
+shall see it.'
+
+The Major stroked his long, silky moustache with his short, crabbed
+little hand. He remembered that he had heard the carriage ordered for
+two o'clock--they were all going to a tennis-party some miles distant.
+Under the circumstances she might walk about the grounds without being
+noticed. He did not think any of the gardeners would question her,
+and, if they did, he could trust her to give an evasive answer. And
+then he would like her to see the place--just to know what she thought
+of it.
+
+'Won't you say yes?' she said at last, her voice breaking the silence
+sharply.
+
+'I was just thinking, dear: they have all gone to a tennis-party
+today. There'll be no one at home.'
+
+'Well! why not today?'
+
+'Well; I was thinking I've been lucky enough to get hold of some very
+interesting information about the Websters--about their ancestor Sir
+Thomas, who distinguished himself in the Peninsular--and I wanted to
+get it copied under the proper heading, but I daresay we can do that
+another day. The only thing is, how are you to get there? You are not
+equal to walking so far--'
+
+'I was thinking, dear, that I might take a fly. I know there is the
+expense, but ...'
+
+'Yes; five or six shillings, at least. And where will you leave
+the fly? At the lodge gate? The flyman would be sure to get into
+conversation with the lodge-keeper or his wife. He'd tell them where
+he came from, and--'
+
+'Supposing you were to get a two-wheeled trap and drive me yourself;
+that would be nicer still.'
+
+'I'm so unlucky; someone would be sure to see me.'
+
+The Major puffed at his pipe in silence. Then he said, 'If you were
+to put on a thick veil, and we were to get out of the town by this end
+and make our way through the lanes--it would be a long way round; but
+one hardly meets anyone that way, and the only danger would be going.
+We should return in the dusk. I don't care how late you make it; my
+people won't be home till nine or ten o'clock at night, perhaps later
+still. There will be dancing, and they are sure to stay late.'
+
+Finally the matter was decided, and about four o'clock the Major went
+to the livery stable to order the trap. Mrs Shepherd and Nellie joined
+him soon after. Turning from the pony, whose nose he was stroking, he
+said--
+
+'I hope you have brought a thick shawl; it will be cold coming back in
+the evening.'
+
+'Yes, dear, here it is, and another for Nellie. What do you think of
+this veil?'
+
+'It will do very well. I do hope these stablemen won't talk; let's
+go off at once.' The Major lifted in the child, tucked the rug about
+them, and cried to the stableman to let go. He drove very nervously,
+afraid at every moment lest the pony should bolt; and when the
+animal's extreme docility assured him there was no such danger, he
+looked round right and left, expecting at every moment some friend to
+pounce down upon him. But the ways were empty, the breeze that came
+across the fields was fresh and sweet, and they were all beginning to
+enjoy themselves, when he suddenly espied a carriage following in his
+wake. He whipped up the pony, and contrived to distance his imaginary
+pursuer; and having succeeded, he praised his own driving, and at the
+cross-roads he said: 'I dare not go any farther, but you can't miss
+the lodge gate in that clump of trees--the first white gate you come
+to. Don't ask any questions; it is ten to one you'll find the gate
+open; walk straight through, and don't forget to go through the
+beech-wood at the back of the house; the river runs right round the
+hill. I want to know what you think of the view. But pray don't ask to
+see the house; there's nothing to see; the housemaids would be sure
+to talk, and describe you to my sisters. So now goodbye; hope you'll
+enjoy yourself. I shall have just time to get to Hambrook and back; I
+want to see my solicitor. You'll have seen everything in a couple of
+hours, so in a couple of hours I shall be waiting for you here.'
+
+
+Part II
+
+
+It was as the Major said. The lodge-keepers asked no questions, and
+they passed up the drive, through the silence of an overgrowth of
+laurels and rhododendrons. Then the park opened before their
+eyes. Nellie rolled on the short, crisp, worn grass, or chased the
+dragonflies; the spreading trees enchanted her, and, looking at the
+house--a grey stone building with steps, pillars, and pilasters,
+hidden amid cedars and evergreen oaks--she said, 'I never saw anything
+so beautiful; is that where the Major goes when he leaves us? Look at
+the flowers, Mother, and the roses. May we not go in there--I don't
+mean into the house? I heard the Major ask you not to go in for fear
+we should meet the housemaids--but just past this railing, into
+the garden? Here is the gate.' The child stood with her hand on the
+wicket, waiting for reply: the mother stood as in a dream, looking
+at the house, thinking vaguely of the pictures, the corridors, and
+staircases, that lay behind the plate-glass windows.
+
+'Yes; go in, my child.'
+
+The gardens were in tumult of leaf and bloom, and the little girl ran
+hither and thither, gathering single flowers, and then everything
+that came under her hands, binding them together in bouquets--one
+for mother, one for the Major, and one for herself. Mrs Shepherd only
+smiled a little bitterly when Nellie came running to her with some new
+and more splendid rose. She did not attempt to reprove the child. Why
+should she? Everything here would one day be hers. Why then should
+the present be denied them? And so did her thoughts run as she walked
+across the sward following Nellie into the beech wood that clothed the
+steep hillside. The pathway led by the ruins of some Danish military
+earthworks, ancient hollows full of leaves and silence. Pigeons cooed
+in the vast green foliage, and from time to time there came up from
+the river the chiming sound of oars. Rustic seats were at pleasant
+intervals, and, feeling a little tired, Mrs Shepherd sat down. She
+could see the river's silver glinting through the branches, and,
+beyond the river, the low-lying river lands, dotted with cattle and
+horses grazing, dim already with blue evening vapours. In the warm
+solitude of the wood the irreparable misfortune of her own life
+pressed upon her: and in this hour of lassitude her loneliness seemed
+more than she could bear. The Major was good and kind, but he knew
+nothing of the weight of the burden he had laid upon her, and that
+none should know was in this moment a greater weight than the burden
+itself. Nellie was exploring the ancient hollows where Danes and
+Saxons had once fought, and had ceased to call forth her discoveries
+when Mrs Shepherd's bitter meditation was broken by the sudden sound
+of a footstep.
+
+The intruder was a young lady. She was dressed in white, her pale gold
+hair was in itself an aristocracy, and her narrow slippered feet were
+dainty to look upon. 'Don't let me disturb you,' she said. 'This is my
+favourite seat; but I pray you not to move, there is plenty of room.'
+So amiable was she in voice and manner that Mrs Shepherd could not
+but remain, although she had already recognized the girl as one of
+the Major's sisters. Fearing to betray herself, greatly nervous, Mrs
+Shepherd answered briefly Miss Shepherd's allusions to the beauty of
+the view. At the end of a long silence Miss Shepherd said--
+
+'I think you know my brother, Major Shepherd.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd hesitated, and then she said: 'No. I have never heard the
+name.'
+
+'Are you sure? Of course, I may be mistaken; but--'
+
+Ethel made pause, and looked Mrs Shepherd straight in the face.
+Smiling sadly, Mrs Shepherd said--
+
+'Likenesses are so deceptive.'
+
+'Perhaps, but my memory is pretty good for faces.... It was two or
+three months ago, we were going up to London, and I saw my brother get
+into the train with a lady who looked like you. She really was very
+like you.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd smiled and shook her head.
+
+'I do not know the lady my brother was with, but I've often thought I
+should like to meet her.'
+
+'Perhaps your brother will introduce you.'
+
+'No, I don't think he will. She has come to live at Branbury, and now
+people talk more then ever. They say that he is secretly married.'
+
+'And you believe it?'
+
+'I don't see why it shouldn't be true. My brother is a good fellow in
+many ways, but, like all other men, he is selfish. He is just the man
+who would keep his wife hidden away in a lonely little lodging rather
+than admit that he had made a _mesalliance_. What I don't understand
+is why she consents to be kept out of the way. Just fancy giving up
+this beautiful place, these woods and fields, these gardens, that
+house for, for--'
+
+'I suppose this woman gives up these things because she loves your
+brother. Do you not understand self-sacrifice?'
+
+'Oh yes, if I loved a man.... But I think a woman is silly to allow a
+man to cheat and fool her to the top of his bent.'
+
+'What does it matter if she is happy?'
+
+Ethel tossed her head. Then at the end of a long silence she said:
+'Would you care to see the house?'
+
+'No, thank you, Miss; I must be getting on. Goodbye.'
+
+'You cannot get back that way, you must return through the
+pleasure-grounds. I'll walk with you. A headache kept me at home this
+afternoon. The others have gone to a tennis-party.... It is a pity I
+was mistaken. I should like to meet the person my brother goes every
+day to Branbury to see. I should like to talk with her. My brother
+has, I'm afraid, persuaded her that we would not receive her. But this
+is not true; we should only be too glad to receive her. I have heard
+Father and Mother say so--not to Charles, they dare not speak to him
+on the subject, but they have to me.'
+
+'Your brother must have some good reason for keeping his marriage
+secret. This woman may have a past.'
+
+'Yes, they say that--but I should not care if I liked her, if I knew
+her to be a good woman now.'
+
+To better keep the Major's secret, Mrs Shepherd had given up all
+friends, all acquaintance. She had not known a woman-friend for years,
+and the affinities of sex drew her to accept the sympathy with which
+she was tempted. The reaction of ten years of self-denial surged up
+within her, and she felt that she must speak, that her secret was
+being dragged from her. Ethel's eyes were fixed upon her--in another
+moment she would have spoken, but at that moment Nellie appeared
+climbing up the steep bank. 'Is that your little girl? Oh, what a
+pretty child!' Then raising her eyes from the child and looking the
+mother straight in the face, Ethel said--
+
+'She is like, she is strangely like, Charles.'
+
+Tears glistened in Mrs Shepherd's eyes, and then, no longer doubting
+that Mrs Shepherd would break down and in a flow of tears tell the
+whole story of her life, Ethel allowed a note of triumph to creep
+into her voice, and before she could stop herself she said, 'And that
+little girl is the heiress of Appleton Park.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd's face changed expression.
+
+'You are mistaken, Miss Shepherd,' she said; 'but if I ever meet your
+brother I will tell him that you think my little girl like him.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd pursued her way slowly across the park, her long weary
+figure showing upon the sunset, her black dress trailing on the crisp
+grass. Often she was obliged to pause; the emotion and exercise of the
+day had brought back pain, and her whole body thrilled with it.
+Since the birth of her child she had lived in pain. But as she leaned
+against the white gate, and looked back on the beautiful park never
+to be seen by her again, knowledge of her sacrifice quickened within
+her--the house and the park, and the manner and speech of the young
+girl, combined to help her to a full appreciation of all she had
+surrendered. She regretted nothing. However mean and obscure her life
+had been, it had contained at least one noble moment. Nellie pursued
+the dragonflies; Mrs Shepherd followed slowly, feeling like a victor
+in a great battle. She had not broken her trust; she had kept her
+promise intact; she would return to London tomorrow or next day, or at
+the end of the week, whenever the Major wished.
+
+He was waiting for them at the corner of the lane, and Nellie was
+already telling him all she thought of the house, the woods, the
+flowers, and the lady who had sat down by Mother on the bench above
+the river. The Major looked at his wife in doubt and fear; her smile,
+however, reassured him. Soon after, Nellie fell asleep, and while
+she dreamed of butterflies and flowers Mrs Shepherd told him what had
+passed between her and his sister in the beechwood above the river.
+
+'You see, what I told you was right. Your appearance has been
+described to them; they suspect something, and will never cease
+worrying until they have found out everything. I'm not a bit
+surprised. Ethel always was the more cunning and the more spiteful of
+the two.'
+
+Mrs Shepherd did not tell him how nearly she had been betrayed into
+confession. She felt that he would not understand her explanation of
+the mood in which his sister had caught her. Men understand women so
+little. To tell him would be merely to destroy his confidence in her.
+As they drove through the twilight, with Nellie fast asleep between,
+he spoke of her departure, which he had arranged for the end of the
+week, and then, putting his arm round her waist, he said: 'You have
+always been a good little woman to me.'
+
+
+
+
+_Walter Besant_
+
+THE SOLID GOLD REEF COMPANY, LIMITED
+
+(_In Deacon's Orders and Other Stories_, New York: Harper and Bros.,
+1895)
+
+
+Act I
+
+
+'You dear old boy,' said the girl, 'I am sure I wish it could be, with
+all my heart, if I have any heart.'
+
+'I don't believe you have,' replied the boy gloomily.
+
+'Well, but, Reg, consider; you've got no money.'
+
+'I've got five thousand pounds. If a man can't make his way upon that
+he must be a poor stick.'
+
+'You would go abroad with it and dig, and take your wife with you--to
+wash and cook.'
+
+'We would do something with the money here. You should stay in London,
+Rosie.'
+
+'Yes. In a suburban villa, at Shepherd's Bush, perhaps. No, Reg, when
+I marry, if ever I do--I am in no hurry--I will step out of this room
+into one exactly like it.' The room was a splendid drawing-room in
+Palace Gardens, splendidly furnished. 'I shall have my footmen and my
+carriage, and I shall--'
+
+'Rosie, give me the right to earn all these things for you!' the young
+man cried impetuously.
+
+'You can only earn them for me by the time you have one foot in the
+grave. Hadn't I better in the meantime marry some old gentleman with
+his one foot in the grave, so as to be ready for you against the time
+you come home? In two or three years the other foot, I dare say, would
+slide into the grave as well.'
+
+'You laugh at my trouble. You feel nothing.'
+
+'If the pater would part, but he won't; he says he wants all his money
+for himself, and that I've got to marry well. Besides, Reg'--here her
+face clouded and she lowered her voice--'there are times when he looks
+anxious. We didn't always live in Palace Gardens. Suppose we should
+lose it all as quickly as we got it. Oh!' she shivered and trembled.
+'No, I will never, never marry a poor man. Get rich, my dear boy,
+and you may aspire even to the valuable possession of this heartless
+hand.'
+
+She held it out. He took it, pressed it, stooped and kissed her. Then
+he dropped her hand and walked quickly out of the room.
+
+'Poor Reggie!' she murmured. 'I wish--I wish--but what is the use of
+wishing?'
+
+
+Act II
+
+
+Two men--one young, the other about fifty--sat in the veranda of a
+small bungalow. It was after breakfast. They lay back in long bamboo
+chairs, each with a cigar. It looked as if they were resting. In
+reality they were talking business, and that very seriously.
+
+'Yes, sir,' said the elder man, with something of an American
+accent, 'I have somehow taken a fancy to this place. The situation is
+healthy.'
+
+'Well, I don't know; I've had more than one touch of fever here.'
+
+'The climate is lovely--'
+
+'Except in the rains.'
+
+'The soil is fertile--'
+
+'I've dropped five thousand in it, and they haven't come up again
+yet.'
+
+'They will. I have been round the estate, and I see money in it. Well,
+sir, here's my offer: five thousand down, hard cash, as soon as the
+papers are signed.'
+
+Reginald sat up. He was on the point of accepting the proposal, when
+a pony rode up to the house, and the rider, a native groom, jumped off
+and gave him a note. He opened it and read. It was from his nearest
+neighbour, two or three miles away:
+
+    Don't sell that man your estate. Gold has been found. The
+    whole country is full of gold. Hold on. He's an assayer. If
+    he offers to buy, be quite sure that he has found gold on your
+    land.
+
+    F.G.
+
+He put the note into his pocket, gave a verbal message to the boy,
+and turned to his guest, without betraying the least astonisment or
+emotion.
+
+'I beg your pardon. The note was from Bellamy, my next neighbour.
+Well? You were saying--'
+
+'Only that I have taken a fancy--perhaps a foolish fancy--to this
+place of yours, and I'll give you, if you like, all that you have
+spent upon it.'
+
+'Well,' he replied reflectively, but with a little twinkle in his eye,
+'that seems handsome. But the place isn't really worth the half that
+I spent upon it. Anybody would tell you that. Come, let us be honest,
+whatever we are. I'll tell you a better way. We will put the matter
+into the hands of Bellamy. He knows what a coffee plantation is worth.
+He shall name a price, and if we can agree upon that, we will make a
+deal of it.'
+
+The other man changed colour. He wanted to settle the thing at once
+as between gentlemen. What need of third parties? But Reginald stood
+firm, and he presently rode away, quite sure that in a day or two this
+planter, too, would have heard the news.
+
+A month later, the young coffee-planter stood on the deck of a steamer
+homeward bound. In his pocket-book was a plan of his auriferous
+estate; in a bag hanging round his neck was a small collection of
+yellow nuggets; in his boxes was a chosen assortment of quartz.
+
+
+Act III
+
+
+'Well, sir,' said the financier, 'you've brought this thing to me.
+You want my advice. Well, my advice is, don't fool away the only good
+thing that will ever happen to you. Luck such as this doesn't come
+more than once in a lifetime.'
+
+'I have been offered ten thousand pounds for my estate.'
+
+'Oh! Have you! Ten thousand? That was very liberal--very liberal
+indeed. Ten thousand for a gold reef!'
+
+'But I thought as an old friend of my father you would, perhaps--'
+
+'Young man, don't fool it away. He's waiting for you, I suppose, round
+the corner, with a bottle of fizz, ready to close.'
+
+'He is.'
+
+'Well, go and drink his champagne. Always get whatever you can. And
+then tell him that you'll see him--'
+
+'I certainly will, sir, if you advise it. And then?'
+
+'And then--leave it to me. And, young man, I think I heard, a year or
+two ago, something about you and my girl Rosie.'
+
+'There was something, sir. Not enough to trouble you about it.'
+
+'She told me. Rosie tells me all her love affairs.'
+
+'Is she--is she unmarried?'
+
+'Oh, yes! and for the moment I believe she is free. She has had one
+or two engagements, but, somehow, they have come to nothing. There
+was the French count, but that was knocked on the head very early in
+consequence of things discovered. And there was the Boom in Guano, but
+he fortunately smashed, much to Rosie's joy, because she never liked
+him. The last was Lord Evergreen. He was a nice old chap when you
+could understand what he said, and Rosie would have liked the title
+very much, though his grandchildren opposed the thing. Well, sir, I
+suppose you couldn't understand the trouble we took to keep that old
+man alive for his own wedding. Science did all it could, but 'twas
+of no use--' The financier sighed. 'The ways of Providence are
+inscrutable. He died, sir, the day before.'
+
+'That was very sad.'
+
+'A dashing of the cup from the lip, sir. My daughter would have been a
+countess. Well, young gentleman, about this estate of yours. I think
+I see a way--I think, I am not yet sure--that I do see a way. Go now.
+See this liberal gentleman, and drink his champagne. And come here
+in a week. Then, if I still see my way, you shall understand what it
+means to hold the position in the City which is mine.'
+
+'And--and--may I call upon Rosie!'
+
+'Not till this day week--not till I have made my way plain.'
+
+
+Act IV
+
+
+'And so it means this. Oh, Rosie, you look lovelier than ever, and I'm
+as happy as a king. It means this. Your father is the greatest genius
+in the world. He buys my property for sixty thousand pounds--sixty
+thousand. That's over two thousand a year for me, and he makes a
+company out of it with a hundred and fifty thousand capital. He says
+that, taking ten thousand out of it for expenses, there will be
+a profit of eighty thousand. And all that he gives to you--eighty
+thousand, that's three thousand a year for you; and sixty thousand,
+that's two more, my dearest Rosie. You remember what you said, that
+when you married you should step out of one room like this into
+another just as good?'
+
+'Oh, Reggie,' she sank upon his bosom--'you know I never could love
+anybody but you. It's true I was engaged to old Lord Evergreen, but
+that was only because he had one foot--you know--and when the other
+foot went in too, just a day too soon, I actually laughed. So the
+pater is going to make a company of it, is he? Well, I hope he won't
+put any of his own money into it, I'm sure, because of late all the
+companies have turned out so badly.'
+
+'But, my child, the place is full of gold.'
+
+'Then why did he turn it into a company, my dear boy? And why didn't
+he make you stick to it? But you know nothing of the City. Now, let us
+sit down and talk about what we shall do--don't, you ridiculous boy!'
+
+
+Act V
+
+
+Another house just like the first. The bride stepped out of one palace
+into another. With their five or six thousand a year, the young couple
+could just manage to make both ends meet. The husband was devoted;
+the wife had everything that she could wish. Who could be happier than
+this pair in a nest so luxurious, their life so padded, their days so
+full of sunshine?
+
+It was a year after marriage. The wife, contrary to her usual
+custom, was the first at breakfast. A few letters were waiting for
+her--chiefly invitations. She opened and read them. Among them lay one
+addressed to her husband. Not looking at the address, she opened and
+read that as well:
+
+    Dear Reginald:
+
+    I venture to address you as an old friend of your own and
+    school-fellow of your mother's. I am a widow with four
+    children. My husband was the vicar of your old parish--you
+    remember him and me. I was left with a little income of about
+    two hundred a year. Twelve months ago I was persuaded in order
+    to double my income--a thing which seemed certain from the
+    prospectus--to invest everything in a new and rich gold
+    mine. Everything. And the mine has never paid anything. The
+    company--it is called the Solid Gold Reef Company, is in
+    liquidation because, though there is really the gold there, it
+    costs too much to get it. I have no relatives anywhere to help
+    me. Unless I can get assistance my children and I must go at
+    once--tomorrow--into the workhouse. Yes, we are paupers. I
+    am ruined by the cruel lies of that prospectus, and the
+    wickedness which deluded me, and I know not how many others,
+    out of my money. I have been foolish, and am punished; but
+    those people, who will punish them? Help me, if you can, my
+    dear Reginald. Oh! for _GOD'S_ sake, help my children and me.
+    Help your mother's friend, your own old friend.
+
+'This,' said Rosie meditatively, 'is exactly the kind of thing to make
+Reggie uncomfortable. Why, it might make him unhappy all day. Better
+burn it.' She dropped the letter into the fire. 'He's an impulsive,
+emotional nature, and he doesn't understand the City. If people are so
+foolish--What a lot of fibs the poor old pater does tell, to be sure!
+He's a regular novelist--Oh! here you are, you lazy boy!'
+
+'Kiss me, Rosie.' He looked as handsome as Apollo, and as cheerful.
+'I wish all the world were as happy as you and me. Heigho! some poor
+devils, I'm afraid--'
+
+'Tea or coffee, Reg?'
+
+
+
+
+_Henry James_
+
+THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+(_The Soft Side_, London: Methuen and Co., 1900)
+
+
+I
+
+
+It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter
+Brench that his main success in life would have consisted in his never
+having committed himself about the work, as it was called, of his
+friend Morgan Mallow. This was a subject on which it was, to the
+best of his belief, impossible with veracity to quote him, and it was
+nowhere on record that he had, in the connexion, on any occasion and
+in any embarrassment, either lied or spoken the truth. Such a triumph
+had its honour even for a man of other triumphs--a man who had reached
+fifty, who had escaped marriage, who had lived within his means, who
+had been in love with Mrs Mallow for years without breathing it, and
+who, last but not least, had judged himself once for all. He had so
+judged himself in fact that he felt an extreme and general humility
+to be his proper portion; yet there was nothing that made him think
+so well of his parts as the course he had steered so often through the
+shallows just mentioned. It became thus a real wonder that the friends
+in whom he had most confidence were just those with whom he had
+most reserves. He couldn't tell Mrs Mallow--or at least he supposed,
+excellent man, he couldn't--that she was the one beautiful reason he
+had never married; any more than he could tell her husband that the
+sight of the multiplied marbles in that gentleman's studio was an
+affliction of which even time had never blunted the edge. His victory,
+however, as I have intimated, in regard to these productions, was not
+simply in his not having let it out that he deplored them; it was,
+remarkably, in his not having kept it in by anything else.
+
+The whole situation, among these good people, was verily a marvel, and
+there was probably not such another for a long way from the spot that
+engages us--the point at which the soft declivity of Hampstead began
+at that time to confess in broken accents to Saint John's Wood.
+He despised Mallow's statues and adored Mallow's wife, and yet was
+distinctly fond of Mallow, to whom, in turn, he was equally dear. Mrs
+Mallow rejoiced in the statues--though she preferred, when pressed,
+the busts; and if she was visibly attached to Peter Brench it was
+because of his affection for Morgan. Each loved the other moreover for
+the love borne in each case to Lancelot, whom the Mallows respectively
+cherished as their only child and whom the friend of their fireside
+identified as the third--but decidedly the handsomest--of his godsons.
+Already in the old years it had come to that--that no one, for such
+a relation, could possibly have occurred to any of them, even to the
+baby itself, but Peter. There was luckily a certain independence, of
+the pecuniary sort, all round: the Master could never otherwise have
+spent his solemn _Wanderjahre_ in Florence and Rome, and continued
+by the Thames as well as by the Arno and the Tiber to add unpurchased
+group to group and model, for what was too apt to prove in the
+event mere love, fancy-heads of celebrities either too busy or too
+buried--too much of the age or too little of it--to sit. Neither could
+Peter, lounging in almost daily, have found time to keep the whole
+complicated tradition so alive by his presence. He was massive but
+mild, the depositary of these mysteries--large and loose and ruddy and
+curly, with deep tones, deep eyes, deep pockets, to say nothing of
+the habit of long pipes, soft hats and brownish greyish weather-faded
+clothes, apparently always the same.
+
+He had 'written', it was known, but had never spoken, never spoken
+in particular of that; and he had the air (since, as was believed,
+he continued to write) of keeping it up in order to have something
+more--as if he hadn't at the worst enough--to be silent about.
+Whatever his air, at any rate, Peter's occasional unmentioned prose
+and verse were quite truly the result of an impulse to maintain
+the purity of his taste by establishing still more firmly the right
+relation of fame to feebleness. The little green door of his domain
+was in a garden-wall on which the discoloured stucco made patches,
+and in the small detached villa behind it everything was old, the
+furniture, the servants, the books, the prints, the immemorial habits
+and the new improvements. The Mallows, at Carrara Lodge, were within
+ten minutes, and the studio there was on their little land, to which
+they had added, in their happy faith, for building it. This was the
+good fortune, if it was not the ill, of her having brought him in
+marriage a portion that put them in a manner at their ease and enabled
+them thus, on their side, to keep it up. And they did keep it up--they
+always had--the infatuated sculptor and his wife, for whom nature
+had refined on the impossible by relieving them of the sense of the
+difficult. Morgan had at all events everything of the sculptor but
+the spirit of Phidias--the brown velvet, the becoming _beretto_, the
+'plastic' presence, the fine fingers, the beautiful accent in Italian
+and the old Italian factotum. He seemed to make up for everything when
+he addressed Egidio with the 'tu' and waved him to turn one of the
+rotary pedestals of which the place was full. They were tremendous
+Italians at Carrara Lodge, and the secret of the part played by this
+fact in Peter's life was in a large degree that it gave him, sturdy
+Briton as he was, just the amount of 'going abroad' he could bear. The
+Mallows were all his Italy, but it was in a measure for Italy he liked
+them. His one worry was that Lance--to which they had shortened his
+godson--was, in spite of a public school, perhaps a shade too Italian.
+Morgan meanwhile looked like somebody's flattering idea of somebody's
+own person as expressed in the great room provided at the Uffizi
+Museum for the general illustration of that idea by eminent hands. The
+Master's sole regret that he hadn't been born rather to the brush than
+to the chisel sprang from his wish that he might have contributed to
+that collection.
+
+It appeared with time at any rate to be to the brush that Lance had
+been born; for Mrs Mallow, one day when the boy was turning twenty,
+broke it to their friend, who shared, to the last delicate morsel,
+their problems and pains, that it seemed as if nothing would really do
+but that he should embrace the career. It had been impossible longer
+to remain blind to the fact that he was gaining no glory at Cambridge,
+where Brench's own college had for a year tempered its tone to him as
+for Brench's own sake. Therefore why renew the vain form of preparing
+him for the impossible? The impossible--it had become clear--was that
+he should be anything but an artist.
+
+'Oh dear, dear!' said poor Peter.
+
+'Don't you believe in it?' asked Mrs Mallow, who still, at more than
+forty, had her violet velvet eyes, her creamy satin skin and her
+silken chestnut hair.
+
+'Believe in what?'
+
+'Why in Lance's passion.'
+
+'I don't know what you mean by "believing in it". I've never been
+unaware, certainly, of his disposition, from his earliest time, to
+daub and draw; but I confess I've hoped it would burn out.'
+
+'But why should it,' she sweetly smiled, 'with his wonderful heredity?
+Passion is passion--though of course indeed _you_, dear Peter, know
+nothing of that. Has the Master's ever burned out?'
+
+Peter looked off a little and, in his familiar formless way, kept up
+for a moment, a sound between a smothered whistle and a subdued hum.
+'Do you think he's going to be another Master?'
+
+She seemed scarce prepared to go that length, yet she had on the whole
+a marvellous trust. 'I know what you mean by that. Will it be a career
+to incur the jealousies and provoke the machinations that have been
+at times almost too much for his father? Well--say it may be, since
+nothing but clap-trap, in these dreadful days, _can_, it would seem,
+make its way, and since, with the curse of refinement and distinction,
+one may easily find one's self begging one's bread. Put it at the
+worst--say he _has_ the misfortune to wing his flight further than the
+vulgar taste of his stupid countrymen can follow. Think, all the same,
+of the happiness--the same the Master has had. He'll _know_.'
+
+Peter looked rueful. 'Ah but _what_ will he know?'
+
+'Quiet joy!' cried Mrs Mallow, quite impatient and turning away.
+
+
+II
+
+
+He had of course before long to meet the boy himself on it and to hear
+that practically everything was settled. Lance was not to go up again,
+but to go instead to Paris where, since the die was cast, he would
+find the best advantages. Peter had always felt he must be taken as
+he was, but had never perhaps found him so much of that pattern as on
+this occasion. 'You chuck Cambridge then altogether? Doesn't that seem
+rather a pity?'
+
+Lance would have been like his father, to his friend's sense, had he
+had less humour, and like his mother had he had more beauty. Yet it
+was a good middle way for Peter that, in the modern manner, he was,
+to the eye, rather the young stock-broker than the young artist. The
+youth reasoned that it was a question of time--there was such a mill
+to go through, such an awful lot to learn. He had talked with fellows
+and had judged. 'One has got, today,' he said, 'don't you see? to
+know.'
+
+His interlocutor, at this, gave a groan. 'Oh hang it, _don't_ know!'
+
+Lance wondered. '"Don't"? Then what's the use--?'
+
+'The use of what?'
+
+'Why of anything. Don't you think I've talent?'
+
+Peter smoked away for a little in silence; then went on: 'It isn't
+knowledge, it's ignorance that--as we've been beautifully told--is
+bliss.'
+
+'Don't you think I've talent?' Lance repeated.
+
+Peter, with his trick of queer kind demonstrations, passed his arm
+round his godson and held him a moment. 'How do I know?'
+
+'Oh,' said the boy, 'if it's your own ignorance you're defending--!'
+
+Again, for a pause, on the sofa, his godfather smoked. 'It isn't. I've
+the misfortune to be omniscient.'
+
+'Oh well,' Lance laughed again, 'if you know _too_ much--!'
+
+'That's what I do, and it's why I'm so wretched.'
+
+Lance's gaiety grew. 'Wretched? Come, I say!'
+
+'But I forgot,' his companion went on--'you're not to know about that.
+It would indeed for you too make the too much. Only I'll tell you what
+I'll do.' And Peter got up from the sofa. 'If you'll go up again I'll
+pay your way at Cambridge.'
+
+Lance stared, a little rueful in spite of being still more amused. 'Oh
+Peter! You disapprove so of Paris?'
+
+'Well, I'm afraid of it.'
+
+'Ah I see!'
+
+'No, you don't see--yet. But you will--that is you would. And you
+mustn't.'
+
+The young man thought more gravely. 'But one's innocence, already--!'
+
+'Is considerably damaged? Ah that won't matter,' Peter
+persisted--'we'll patch it up here.'
+
+'Here? Then you want me to stay at home?'
+
+Peter almost confessed to it. 'Well, we're so right--we four
+together--just as we are. We're so safe. Come, don't spoil it.'
+
+The boy, who had turned to gravity, turned from this, on the real
+pressure of his friend's tone, to consternation. 'Then what's a fellow
+to be?'
+
+'My particular care. Come, old man'--and Peter now fairly
+pleaded--'_I'll_ look out for you.'
+
+Lance, who had remained on the sofa with his legs out and his hands in
+his pockets, watched him with eyes that showed suspicion. Then he got
+up. 'You think there's something the matter with me--that I can't make
+a success.'
+
+'Well, what do you call a success?'
+
+Lance thought again. 'Why the best sort, I suppose, is to please one's
+self. Isn't that the sort that, in spite of cabals and things, is--in
+his own peculiar line--the Master's?'
+
+There were so much too many things in this question to be answered
+at once that they practically checked the discussion, which became
+particularly difficult in the light of such renewed proof that, though
+the young man's innocence might, in the course of his studies, as
+he contended, somewhat have shrunken, the finer essence of it still
+remained. That was indeed exactly what Peter had assumed and what
+above all he desired; yet perversely enough it gave him a chill. The
+boy believed in the cabals and things, believed in the peculiar line,
+believed, to be brief, in the Master. What happened a month or two
+later wasn't that he went up again at the expense of his godfather,
+but that a fortnight after he had got settled in Paris this personage
+sent him fifty pounds.
+
+He had meanwhile at home, this personage, made up his mind to the
+worst; and what that might be had never yet grown quite so vivid to
+him as when, on his presenting himself one Sunday night, as he never
+failed to do, for supper, the mistress of Carrara Lodge met him
+with an appeal as to--of all things in the world--the wealth of the
+Canadians. She was earnest, she was even excited. 'Are many of them
+_really_ rich?'
+
+He had to confess he knew nothing about them, but he often thought
+afterwards of that evening. The room in which they sat was adorned
+with sundry specimens of the Master's genius, which had the merit of
+being, as Mrs Mallow herself frequently suggested, of an unusually
+convenient size. They were indeed of dimensions not customary in the
+products of the chisel, and they had the singularity that, if the
+objects and features intended to be small looked too large, the
+objects and features intended to be large looked too small. The
+Master's idea, either in respect to this matter or to any other, had
+in almost any case, even after years, remained undiscoverable to
+Peter Brench. The creations that so failed to reveal it stood about on
+pedestals and brackets, on tables and shelves, a little staring white
+population, heroic, idyllic, allegoric, mythic, symbolic, in which
+'scale' had so strayed and lost itself that the public square and the
+chimney-piece seemed to have changed places, the monumental being all
+diminutive and the diminutive all monumental; branches at any rate,
+markedly, of a family in which stature was rather oddly irrespective
+of function, age and sex. They formed, like the Mallows themselves,
+poor Brench's own family--having at least to such a degree the note of
+familiarity. The occasion was one of those he had long ago learnt to
+know and to name--short flickers of the faint flame, soft gusts of a
+kinder air. Twice a year regularly the Master believed in his fortune,
+in addition to believing all the year round in his genius. This time
+it was to be made by a bereaved couple from Toronto, who had given him
+the handsomest order for a tomb to three lost children, each of
+whom they desired to see, in the composition, emblematically and
+characteristically represented.
+
+Such was naturally the moral of Mrs Mallow's question: if their wealth
+was to be assumed, it was clear, from the nature of their admiration,
+as well as from mysterious hints thrown out (they were a little
+odd!) as to other possibilities of the same mortuary sort, what their
+further patronage might be; and not less evident that should the
+Master become at all known in those climes nothing would be more
+inevitable than a run of Canadian custom. Peter had been present
+before at runs of custom, colonial and domestic--present at each of
+those of which the aggregation had left so few gaps in the marble
+company round him; but it was his habit never at these junctures to
+prick the bubble in advance. The fond illusion, while it lasted, eased
+the wound of elections never won, the long ache of medals and diplomas
+carried off, on every chance, by everyone but the Master; it moreover
+lighted the lamp that would glimmer through the next eclipse. They
+lived, however, after all--as it was always beautiful to see--at a
+height scarce susceptible of ups and downs. They strained a point at
+times charmingly, strained it to admit that the public was here and
+there not too bad to buy; but they would have been nowhere without
+their attitude that the Master was always too good to sell. They were
+at all events deliciously formed, Peter often said to himself, for
+their fate; the Master had a vanity, his wife had a loyalty, of which
+success, depriving these things of innocence, would have diminished
+the merit and the grace. Anyone could be charming under a charm,
+and as he looked about him at a world of prosperity more void of
+proportion even than the Master's museum he wondered if he knew
+another pair that so completely escaped vulgarity.
+
+'What a pity Lance isn't with us to rejoice!' Mrs Mallow on this
+occasion sighed at supper.
+
+'We'll drink to the health of the absent,' her husband replied,
+filling his friend's glass and his own and giving a drop to their
+companion; 'but we must hope he's preparing himself for a happiness
+much less like this of ours this evening--excusable as I grant it to
+be!--than like the comfort we have always (whatever has happened or
+has not happened) been able to trust ourselves to enjoy. The comfort,'
+the Master explained, leaning back in the pleasant lamplight and
+firelight, holding up his glass and looking round at his marble
+family, quartered more or less, a monstrous brood, in every room--'the
+comfort of art in itself!'
+
+Peter looked a little shyly at his wine. 'Well--I don't care what you
+may call it when a fellow doesn't--but Lance must learn to _sell_, you
+know. I drink to his acquisition of the secret of a base popularity!'
+
+'Oh yes, _he_ must sell,' the boy's mother, who was still more,
+however, this seemed to give out, the Master's wife, rather artlessly
+allowed.
+
+'Ah,' the sculptor after a moment confidently pronounced, 'Lance
+_will_. Don't be afraid. He'll have learnt.'
+
+'Which is exactly what Peter,' Mrs Mallow gaily returned--'why in the
+world were you so perverse, Peter?--wouldn't, when he told him, hear
+of.'
+
+Peter, when this lady looked at him with accusatory affection--a grace
+on her part not infrequent--could never find a word; but the Master,
+who was always all amenity and tact, helped him out now as he had
+often helped him before. 'That's his old idea, you know--on which
+we've so often differed: his theory that the artist should be all
+impulse and instinct. _I_ go in of course for a certain amount of
+school. Not too much--but a due proportion. There's where his protest
+came in,' he continued to explain to his wife, 'as against what
+_might_, don't you see? be in question for Lance.'
+
+'Ah well'--and Mrs Mallow turned the violet eyes across the table
+at the subject of this discourse--'he's sure to have meant of course
+nothing but good. Only that wouldn't have prevented him, if Lance
+_had_ taken his advice, from being in effect horribly cruel.'
+
+They had a sociable way of talking of him to his face as if he had
+been in the clay or--at most--in the plaster, and the Master was
+unfailingly generous. He might have been waving Egidio to make him
+revolve. 'Ah but poor Peter wasn't so wrong as to what it may after
+all come to that he _will_ learn.'
+
+'Oh but nothing artistically bad,' she urged--still, for poor Peter,
+arch and dewy.
+
+'Why just the little French tricks,' said the Master: on which their
+friend had to pretend to admit, when pressed by Mrs Mallow, that these
+aesthetic vices had been the objects of his dread.
+
+
+III
+
+
+'I know now,' Lance said to him the next year, 'why you were so much
+against it.' He had come back supposedly for a mere interval and was
+looking about him at Carrara Lodge, where indeed he had already on two
+or three occasions since his expatriation briefly reappeared. This had
+the air of a longer holiday. 'Something rather awful has happened to
+me. It _isn't_ so very good to know.'
+
+'I'm bound to say high spirits don't show in your face,' Peter was
+rather ruefully forced to confess. 'Still, are you very sure you do
+know?'
+
+'Well, I at least know about as much as I can bear.' These remarks
+were exchanged in Peter's den, and the young man, smoking cigarettes,
+stood before the fire with his back against the mantel. Something of
+his bloom seemed really to have left him.
+
+Poor Peter wondered. 'You're clear then as to what in particular I
+wanted you not to go for?'
+
+'In particular?' Lance thought. 'It seems to me that in particular
+there can have been only one thing.'
+
+They stood for a little sounding each other. 'Are you quite sure?'
+
+'Quite sure I'm a beastly duffer? Quite--by this time.'
+
+'Oh!'--and Peter turned away as if almost with relief.
+
+'It's _that_ that isn't pleasant to find out.'
+
+'Oh I don't care for "that",' said Peter, presently coming round
+again. 'I mean I personally don't.'
+
+'Yet I hope you can understand a little that I myself should!'
+
+'Well, what do you mean by it?' Peter sceptically asked.
+
+And on this Lance had to explain--how the upshot of his studies in
+Paris had inexorably proved a mere deep doubt of his means. These
+studies had so waked him up that a new light was in his eyes; but what
+the new light did was really to show him too much. 'Do you know what's
+the matter with me? I'm too horribly intelligent. Paris was really the
+last place for me. I've learnt what I can't do.'
+
+Poor Peter stared--it was a staggerer; but even after they had had, on
+the subject, a longish talk in which the boy brought out to the full
+the hard truth of his lesson, his friend betrayed less pleasure than
+usually breaks into a face to the happy tune of 'I told you so!' Poor
+Peter himself made now indeed so little a point of having told him so
+that Lance broke ground in a different place a day or two after. 'What
+was it then that--before I went--you were afraid I should find out?'
+This, however, Peter refused to tell him--on the ground that if
+he hadn't yet guessed perhaps he never would, and that in any case
+nothing at all for either of them was to be gained by giving the thing
+a name. Lance eyed him on this an instant with the bold curiosity of
+youth--with the air indeed of having in his mind two or three names,
+of which one or other would be right. Peter nevertheless, turning his
+back again, offered no encouragement, and when they parted afresh it
+was with some show of impatience on the side of the boy. Accordingly
+on their next encounter Peter saw at a glance that he had now, in the
+interval, divined and that, to sound his note, he was only waiting
+till they should find themselves alone. This he had soon arranged
+and he then broke straight out. 'Do you know your conundrum has been
+keeping me awake? But in the watches of the night the answer came
+over me--so that, upon my honour, I quite laughed out. Had you been
+supposing I had to go to Paris to learn _that_? Even now, to see him
+still so sublimely on his guard, Peter's young friend had to laugh
+afresh. 'You won't give a sign till you're sure? Beautiful old Peter!'
+But Lance at last produced it. 'Why, hang it, the truth about the
+Master.'
+
+It made between them for some minutes a lively passage, full of
+wonder for each at the wonder of the other. 'Then how long have you
+understood--'
+
+'The true value of his work? I understood it,' Lance recalled, 'as
+soon as I began to understand anything. But I didn't begin fully to do
+that, I admit, till I got _la-bas_.'
+
+'Dear, dear!'--Peter gasped with retrospective dread.
+
+'But for what have you taken me? I'm a hopeless muff--that I _had_
+to have rubbed in. But I'm not such a muff as the Master!' Lance
+declared.
+
+'Then why did you never tell me--?'
+
+'That I hadn't, after all'--the boy took him up--'remained such an
+idiot? Just because I never dreamed _you_ knew. But I beg your pardon.
+I only wanted to spare you. And what I don't now understand is how the
+deuce then for so long you've managed to keep bottled.'
+
+Peter produced his explanation, but only after some delay and with a
+gravity not void of embarrassment. 'It was for your mother.'
+
+'Oh!' said Lance.
+
+'And that's the great thing now--since the murder _is_ out. I want
+a promise from you. I mean'--and Peter almost feverishly followed it
+up--'a vow from you, solemn and such as you owe me here on the spot,
+that you'll sacrifice anything rather than let her ever guess--'
+
+'That _I've_ guessed?'--Lance took it in. 'I see.' He evidently after
+a moment had taken in much. 'But what is it you've in mind that I may
+have a chance to sacrifice?'
+
+'Oh one has always something.'
+
+Lance looked at him hard. 'Do you mean that _you've_ had--?' The look
+he received back, however, so put the question by that he found soon
+enough another. 'Are you really sure my mother doesn't know?'
+
+Peter, after renewed reflexion, was really sure. 'If she does she's
+too wonderful.'
+
+'But aren't we all too wonderful?'
+
+'Yes,' Peter granted--'but in different ways. The thing's so
+desperately important because your father's little public consists
+only, as you know then,' Peter developed--'well, of how many?'
+
+'First of all,' the Master's son risked, 'of himself. And last of all
+too. I don't quite see of whom else.'
+
+Peter had an approach to impatience. 'Of your mother, I
+say--_always_.'
+
+Lance cast it all up. 'You absolutely feel that?'
+
+'Absolutely.'
+
+'Well then with yourself that makes three.'
+
+'Oh _me_!'--and Peter, with a wag of his kind old head, modestly
+excused himself. The number's at any rate small enough for any
+individual dropping out to be too dreadfully missed. Therefore, to put
+it in a nutshell, take care, my boy--that's all--that _you're_ not!'
+
+'_I've_ got to keep on humbugging?' Lance wailed.
+
+'It's just to warn you of the danger of your failing of that that I've
+seized this opportunity.'
+
+'And what do you regard in particular,' the young man asked, 'as the
+danger?'
+
+'Why this certainty: that the moment your mother, who feels so
+strongly, should suspect your secret--well,' said Peter desperately,
+'the fat would be on the fire.'
+
+Lance for a moment seemed to stare at the blaze. 'She'd throw me
+over?'
+
+'She'd throw _him_ over.'
+
+'And come round to us?'
+
+Peter, before he answered, turned away. 'Come round to _you_.' But
+he had said enough to indicate--and, as he evidently trusted, to
+avert--the horrid contingency.
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Within six months again, none the less, his fear was on more occasions
+than one all before him. Lance had returned to Paris for another
+trial; then had reappeared at home and had had, with his father, for
+the first time in his life, one of the scenes that strike sparks. He
+described it with much expression to Peter, touching whom (since they
+had never done so before) it was the sign of a new reserve on the part
+of the pair at Carrara Lodge that they at present failed, on a matter
+of intimate interest, to open themselves--if not in joy then in
+sorrow--to their good friend. This produced perhaps practically
+between the parties a shade of alienation and a slight intermission
+of commerce--marked mainly indeed by the fact that to talk at his ease
+with his old playmate Lance had in general to come to see him. The
+closest if not quite the gayest relation they had yet known together
+was thus ushered in. The difficulty for poor Lance was a tension at
+home--begotten by the fact that his father wished him to be at
+least the sort of success he himself had been. He hadn't 'chucked'
+Paris--though nothing appeared more vivid to him than that Paris had
+chucked him: he would go back again because of the fascination in
+trying, in seeing, in sounding the depths--in learning one's lesson,
+briefly, even if the lesson were simply that of one's impotence in the
+presence of one's larger vision. But what did the Master, all aloft
+in his senseless fluency, know of impotence, and what vision--to be
+called such--had he in all his blind life ever had? Lance, heated and
+indignant, frankly appealed to his godparent on this score.
+
+His father, it appeared, had come down on him for having, after
+so long, nothing to show, and hoped that on his next return this
+deficiency would be repaired. _The_ thing, the Master complacently set
+forth was--for any artist, however inferior to himself--at least
+to 'do' something. 'What can you do? That's all I ask!' _He_ had
+certainly done enough, and there was no mistake about what he had to
+show. Lance had tears in his eyes when it came thus to letting his old
+friend know how great the strain might be on the 'sacrifice' asked
+of him. It wasn't so easy to continue humbugging--as from son to
+parent--after feeling one's self despised for not grovelling in
+mediocrity. Yet a noble duplicity was what, as they intimately faced
+the situation, Peter went on requiring; and it was still for a time
+what his young friend, bitter and sore, managed loyally to comfort him
+with. Fifty pounds more than once again, it was true, rewarded both
+in London and in Paris the young friend's loyalty; none the less
+sensibly, doubtless, at the moment, that the money was a direct
+advance on a decent sum for which Peter had long since privately
+prearranged an ultimate function. Whether by these arts or others, at
+all events, Lance's just resentment was kept for a season--but only
+for a season--at bay. The day arrived when he warned his companion
+that he could hold out--or hold in--no longer. Carrara Lodge had
+had to listen to another lecture delivered from a great height--an
+infliction really heavier at last than, without striking back or in
+some way letting the Master have the truth, flesh and blood could
+bear.
+
+'And what I don't see is,' Lance observed with a certain irritated
+eye for what was after all, if it came to that, owing to himself too;
+'what I don't see is, upon my honour, how _you_, as things are going,
+can keep the game up.'
+
+'Oh the game for me is only to hold my tongue,' said placid Peter.
+'And I have my reason.'
+
+'Still my mother?'
+
+Peter showed a queer face as he had often shown it before--that is
+by turning it straight away. 'What will you have? I haven't ceased to
+like her.'
+
+'She's beautiful--she's a dear of course,' Lance allowed; 'but what
+is she to you, after all, and what is it to you that, as to anything
+whatever, she should or she shouldn't?'
+
+Peter, who had turned red, hung fire a little. 'Well--it's all simply
+what I make of it.'
+
+There was now, however, in his young friend a strange, an adopted
+insistence. 'What are you after all to _her_?'
+
+'Oh nothing. But that's another matter.'
+
+'She cares only for my father,' said Lance the Parisian.
+
+'Naturally--and that's just why.'
+
+'Why you've wished to spare her?'
+
+'Because she cares so tremendously much.'
+
+Lance took a turn about the room, but with his eyes still on his host.
+'How awfully--always--you must have liked her!'
+
+'Awfully. Always,' said Peter Brench.
+
+The young man continued for a moment to muse--then stopped again in
+front of him. 'Do you know how much she cares?' Their eyes met on it,
+but Peter, as if his own found something new in Lance's, appeared to
+hesitate, for the first time in an age, to say he did know. '_I've_
+only just found out,' said Lance. 'She came to my room last night,
+after being present, in silence and only with her eyes on me, at
+what I had had to take from him: she came--and she was with me an
+extraordinary hour.'
+
+He had paused again and they had again for a while sounded each other.
+Then something--and it made him suddenly turn pale--came to Peter.
+'She _does_ know?'
+
+'She does know. She let it all out to me--so as to demand of me no
+more than "that", as she said, of which she herself had been capable.
+She has always, always known,' said Lance without pity.
+
+Peter was silent a long time; during which his companion might have
+heard him gently breathe, and on touching him might have felt within
+him the vibration of a long low sound suppressed. By the time he spoke
+at last he had taken everything in. 'Then I do see how tremendously
+much.'
+
+'Isn't it wonderful?' Lance asked.
+
+'Wonderful,' Peter mused.
+
+'So that if your original effort to keep me from Paris was to keep me
+from knowledge--!' Lance exclaimed as if with a sufficient indication
+of this futility.
+
+It might have been at the futility Peter appeared for a little to
+gaze. 'I think it must have been--without my quite at the time knowing
+it--to keep _me_!' he replied at last as he turned away.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victorian Short Stories
+by Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
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