'Oh, dear! Oh, dear! You're all bleeding, sir,' cried the landlady; 'she has nearly killed you.'
'Never mind me. But what are we to do? I think she has gone mad this time.'
'That's what I think,' said the landlady, trying to make herself heard above Kate's shrieks.
'Well, then, go and fetch a doctor, and let's hear what he has to say,' replied Dick, as he changed his grip on Kate's arm, for in a desperate struggle she had nearly succeeded in wrenching herself free. The landlady retreated precipitately towards the door.
'Well, will you go?'
'Yes, yes, I'll run at once.'
'You'd better,' yelled the mad woman after her. 'I'll give it to you! Let me go! Let me go, will you?'
But Dick never ceased his hold of her, and the blood, dripping upon her, trickled in large drops into her ears, and down into her neck and bosom.
'You're spitting on me, you beast! You filthy beast! I'll pay you out for this.' Then she perceived that it was blood; the intonation of her voice changed, and in terror she screamed, 'Murder! murder! He's murdering me! Is there no one here to save me?'
The minutes seemed like eternities. Dick felt himself growing faint, but should he lose his power over her before the doctor arrived, the consequences might be fatal to himself, so he struggled with her for very life.
At last the door was opened, and a man walked into the room, tripping in so doing over a piece of the broken mirror. It was the doctor, and accustomed as he was to betray surprise at nothing, he could not repress a look of horror on catching sight of the scene around him.
The apartment was almost dismantled; chairs lay backless about the floor amid china shepherdesses and toreadors; pictures were thrown over the sofa, and a huge pile of wax fruit—apples and purple grapes—was partially reflected in a large piece of mirror that had fallen across the hearthrug.
'Come, help me to hold her,' said Dick, raising his blood-stained face.
With a quick movement the doctor took possession of Kate's arms. 'Give me a sheet from the next room; I'll soon make her fast.'
The threat of being tied had its effect. Kate became quieter, and after some trouble they succeeded in carrying her into the next room and laying her on the bed. There she rolled convulsively, beating the pillows with her arms. The landlady stationed herself at the door to give notice of any further manifestation of fury, whilst Dick explained the circumstances of the case to the doctor.
After a short consultation, he agreed to sign an order declaring that in his opinion Mrs. Lennox was a dangerous lunatic.
'Will that be enough,' said Dick, 'to place her in an asylum?'
'No, you'll have to get the opinion of another doctor.'
The possibility of being able to rid himself of her was to him like the sudden dawning of a new life, and Dick rushed off, bleeding, haggard, wild-looking as he was, to seek for another doctor who would concur in the judgment of the first, asking himself if it were possible to see Kate in her present position, and say conscientiously that she was a person who could be safely trusted with her liberty? And to his great joy this view was taken by the second authority consulted, and having placed his wife under lock and key, Dick lay down to rest a happier man than he had been for many a day. The position in his mind was, of course, the means he should adopt to place her in the asylum. Force was not to be thought of; persuasion must be first tried. So far he was decided, but as to the arguments he should advance to induce her to give up her liberty he knew nothing, nor did he attempt to formulate any scheme, and when he entered the bedroom next morning he relied more on the hope of finding her repentant, and appealing to and working on her feelings of remorse than anything else. 'The whole thing,' as he put it, 'depended upon the humour he should find her in.'
And he found her with stains of blood still upon her face, amid the broken furniture, and she asked calmly but with intense emotion:
'Dick, did he say I was mad?'
'Well, dear, I don't know that he said you were mad except when you were the worse for drink, but he said—'
'That I might become mad,' she interposed, 'if I don't abstain from drink.Did he say that?'
'Well, it was something like that, Kate. You know I only just escaped with my life.'
'Only just escaped with your life, Dick! Oh, if I'd killed you, if I'd killed you! If I'd seen you lying dead at my feet!' and unable to think further she fell on her knees and reached out her arms to him. But he did not take her to his bosom, and she sobbed till, touched to the heart, he strove to console her with kind words, never forgetting, however, to introduce a hint that she was not responsible for her actions.
'Then I'm really downright mad?' said Kate, raising her tear-stained face from her arms. 'Did the doctor say so?'
This was by far too direct a question for Dick to answer; it were better to equivocate.
'Well, my dear—mad? He didn't say that you were always mad, but he said you were liable to fits, and that if you didn't take care those fits would grow upon you, and you would become—'
Then he hesitated as he always did before a direct statement.
'But what did he say I must do to get well?'
'He advised that you should go to a home where you would not be able to get hold of any liquor and would be looked after'
'You mean a madhouse. You wouldn't put me in a madhouse, Dick?'
'I wouldn't put you anywhere where you didn't like to go; but he said nothing about a madhouse.'
'What did he say, then?'
'He spoke merely of one of those houses which are under medical supervision, and where anyone can go and live for a time; a kind of hospital, you know.'
The argument was continued for an hour or more. Kate wept and protested against being locked up as a mad woman; while he, conscious of the strong hold he had over her, reminded her in a thousand ways of the danger she ran of awakening one morning to find herself a murderess. Yet it is difficult to persuade anyone voluntarily to enter a lunatic asylum, no matter how irrefutable the reasons advanced may be, and it was not until Dick on one side skilfully threatened her with separation, and tempted her on the other with the hope of being cured of her vice and living with him happily ever afterwards, that she consented to enter Dr. ——'s private asylum, Craven Street, Bloomsbury. But even then the battle was not won, for when he suggested going off there at once, he very nearly brought another fit of passion down on his head. It was only the extreme lassitude and debility produced from the excesses of last night that saved him.
'Oh, Dick, dear! if you only knew how I love you! I would give my last drop of blood to save you from harm.'
'I know you would, dear; it's the fault of that confounded drink,' he answered, his heart tense with the hope of being rid of her. Then the packing began. Kate sat disconsolate on the sofa, and watched Dick folding up her dresses and petticoats. It seemed to her that everything had ended, and wearily she collected the pearls which had been scattered in last night's skirmishing. Some had been trodden on, others were lost, and only about half the original number could be found, and shaken with nervousness and lassitude, Kate cried and wrung her hands. Dick sat next her, kind, huge, and indifferent, even as the world itself.
'But you'll come and see me? You promise me that you'll come—that you'll come very often.'
'Yes, dear, I'll come two or three times a week; but I hope that you'll be well soon—very soon.'
The hope Dick expressed that his wife would soon be well enough to return home was, of course, untrue, his hope being that she would never cross the doors of the house in Bloomsbury whither he was taking her. The empty bed awaiting him was so great a relief that he fell on his knees before it and prayed that the doctors might judge her to be insane, unsafe to be at large. To wake up in the morning alone in his bed, and to be free to go forth to his business without question seemed to him like Heaven. But the pleasures of Heaven last for eternity, and Dick's delight lasted but for two days. Two days after Kate had gone into the asylum a letter came from one of the doctors saying that Mrs. Lennox was not insane, and would have to be discharged.
Dick sank into a chair and lay there almost stunned, plunged in despair that was like a thick fog, and it did not lift until the door opened and Kate stood before him again.
He raised his head and looked at her stupidly, and interpreting his vacant face, she said:
'Dick, you're sorry to have me back again.'
'Sorry, Kate? Well, if things were different I shouldn't be sorry. But you see the blow you struck me with the poker very nearly did for me; I haven't been the same man since.'
'Well,' she said, 'I must go back to the asylum or the home, whatever you call it, and tell them that I am mad.'
'There's no use in doing that, Kate, they wouldn't believe you. Here is the letter I've just received; read it.'
'But, Dick, there must be some way out of this dreadful trouble, and yet there doesn't seem to be any. Try to think, dear, try to think. Can you think of anything, dear? I don't think I shall give way again. If I only had something to do; it's because I'm always alone; because I love you; because I'm jealous of that woman.'
'But, Kate, if I stop here with you all day we shall starve. I must go to business.'
'Ah, business! Business! If I could go to business too. The days when we used to rehearse went merrily enough.'
'You were the best Clairette I ever saw,' Dick answered; 'better than PaolaMariee, and I ought to know, for I rehearsed you both.'
'I shall never play Clairette again,' Kate said sadly. 'I've lost my figure and the part requires a waist.'
'You might get your waist again,' Dick said, and the words seemed to him extraordinarily silly, but he had to say something.
'If I could only get to work again,' she muttered to herself, and then turning to Dick—
'Dick, if I could get to work again; any part would do; it doesn't matter how small, just to give me something to think about, that's all, to keep my mind off it. If the baby had not died I should have had her to look after and that would have done just as well as a part. But I've disgraced you in company; I don't blame you, you couldn't have me in it, and I couldn't bring myself to sing in that opera.'
'Yes, you would only break out again, Kate. Those jealous fits are terrible. You think you could restrain yourself, but you couldn't; and all that would come of a row between you and Mrs. Forest would be that I should lose my job.'
'I know, Dick, I know,' Kate cried painfully, 'but I promise you that I never will again. You may go where you please and do what you please. I will never say a word to you again.'
'I'm sure you believe all that you say, Kate, but I cannot get you a job. I may hear of something. Meanwhile——'
'Meanwhile I shall have to stay here and alone and no way of escaping from the hours, those long dreary hours, no way but one. Dick, I'm sorry they did not keep me in the asylum, it would have been better for both of us if they had; and if I could go back there again, if you will take me back, I will try to deceive the doctors.'
'You mean, Kate, that you would play the mad woman? I doubt if any woman could do it sufficiently well to deceive the doctors. There was an Italian woman,' and they talked of the great Italian actress for some time and then Dick said: 'Well, Kate, I must be about my business. I'm sorry to leave you.'
'No, Dick, you're not.'
'I am, dear, in a way. But if I hear of anything——' and he left the house knowing that there was no further hope for himself. He was tied to her and might be killed by her in his sleep, but that would not matter. What did matter was the thought that was always at the back of his mind, that she was alone in that Islington lodging-house craving for drink, striving to resist it, falling back into drink and might be coming down raving to the theatre to insult him before the company. Insult him before the company! That had been done, she had done her worst, and he was indifferent whether she came again, only she must not meet Mrs. Forest. On the whole he felt that his sorrow was with Kate herself rather than himself or with Mrs. Forest. 'God only knows,' he said as he rushed down the stairs, 'what will become of her.'
Kate was asking herself the same question—what was to become of her? Would it be possible for her to find work to do that would keep her mind away from the drink? She seemed for the moment free from all craving, but she knew what the craving is, how overpowering in the throat it is, and how when one has got one mouthful one must go on and on, so intense is the delight of alcohol in the throat of the drunkard. But there was no craving upon her, and it might never come again. Every morning she awoke in great fear, but was glad to find that there was no craving in her throat, and when she went out she rejoiced that the public-houses offered no attraction to her. She became brave; and fear turned to contempt, and at the bottom of her heart she began to jeer at the demon which had conquered and brought her to ruin and which she had in turn conquered. But there was a last mockery she did not dare, for she knew that the demon was but biding his time. He seemed, however, to go on biding it, and Dick, finding Kate reasonable every evening, came home to dinner earlier so that the day should not appear to her intolerably long. But his business often detained him, and one night coming home late he noticed that she looked more sullen than usual, that her eyes drooped as if she had been drinking. A month of scenes of violence followed; 'not a single day as far as I can remember for a fortnight' he said one day on leaving the house and running to catch his bus to the Strand, 'have we had a quiet evening.' When he returned that night she ran at him with a knife, and he had only just time to ward off the blow. The house rang with shrieks and cries of all sorts, and the Lennoxes were driven from one lodging-house to another. Trousers, dresses, hats, boots and shoes, were all pawned. The comic and the pitiful are but two sides of the same thing, and it was at once comic and pitiful to see Dick, with one of the tails of his coat lost in the scrimmage, talking at one o'clock in the morning to a dispassionate policeman, while from the top windows the high treble voice of a woman disturbed the sullen tranquillity of the London night.
And yet Dick continued with her—continued to allow himself to be beaten, scratched, torn to pieces almost as he would be by a wild beast. Human nature can habituate itself even to pain, and it was so with him. He knew that his present life was as a Nessus shirt on his back, and yet he couldn't make up his mind to have done with it. In the first place, he pitied his wife; in the second, he did not know how to leave her; and it was not until after another row with Kate for having been down to the theatre that he summoned up courage to walk out of the house with a fixed determination never to return again. Kate was too tipsy at the time to pay much attention to the announcement he made to her as he left the room. Besides, 'Wolf!' had been cried so often that it had now lost its terror in her ears, and it was not until next day that she began to experience any very certain fear that Dick and she had at last parted for ever. But when, with a clammy, thirsty mouth, she sat rocking herself wearily, and the long idleness of the morning hours became haunted with irritating remembrances of her shameful conduct, of the cruel life she led the man she loved, the black gulf of eternal separation became, as it were, etched upon her mind; and she heard the cold depths reverberating with vain words and foolish prayers. Then her thin hands trembled on her black dress, and waves of shivering passed over her. She thought involuntarily that a little brandy might give her strength, and as soon hated herself for the thought. It was brandy that had brought her to this. She would never touch it again. But Dick had not left her for ever; he would come back to her; she could not live without him. It was terrible! She would go to him, and on her knees beg his pardon for all she had done. He would forgive her. He must forgive her. Such were the fugitive thoughts that flashed through Kate's mind as she hurried to and fro, seeking for her bonnet and shawl. She would go down to the theatre and find him; she would be sure to hear news of him there, she said, as she strove to brush away the mist that obscured her eyes. She could see nothing; things seemed to change their places, and so terrible were the palpitations of her heart that she was forced to cling to any piece of furniture within reach. But by walking very slowly she contrived to reach the stage-door of the Opéra Comique, feeling very weak and ill.
'Is Mr. Lennox in?' she asked, at the same time trying to look conciliatingly at the hard-faced hall-keeper.
'No, ma'am, he ain't,' was the reply.
'Who attended the rehearsal to-day, then?'
'There was no rehearsal to-day, ma'am—leastways Mr. Lennox dismissed the rehearsal at half-past twelve.'
'And why?'
'Ah! that I cannot tell you.'
'Could you tell me where Mr. Lennox would be likely to be found?'
'Indeed I couldn't, ma'am; I believe he's gone into the country.'
'Gone into the country!' echoed Kate.
'But may I ask, ma'am, if you be Mrs. Lennox? Because if you be, Mr. Lennox left a letter to be given to you in case you called.'
Her eyes brightened at the idea of a letter. To know the worst would be better than a horrible uncertainty, and she said eagerly:
'Yes, I'm Mrs. Lennox; give me the letter.'
The hall-keeper handed it to her, and she walked out of the narrow passage into the street, so as to be free from observation. With anxious fingers she tore open the envelope, and read,
'It must be now as clear to you as it is to me that it is quite impossible for us to go on living together. There is no use in our again discussing the whys and the wherefores; we had much better accept the facts of the case in silence, and mutually save each other the pain of trying to alter what cannot be altered.
'I have arranged to allow you two pounds a week. This sum will be paid to you every Saturday, by applying to Messrs. Jackson and Co., Solicitors, Arundel Street, Strand.
'Yours very affectionately,'RICHARD LENNOX.'
Kate mechanically repeated the last words as she walked gloomily through the glare of the day. 'Two pounds a week.' she said, and with nothing else; not a friend, and the thought passed through her mind that she could not have a friend, she had fallen too low, yet from no fault of her own nor Dick's, and it was that that frightened her. A terrible sense of loneliness, of desolation, was created in her heart. For her the world seemed to have ended, and she saw the streets and passers-by with the same vague, irresponsible gaze as a solitary figure would the universal ruin caused by an earthquake. She had no friends, no occupation, no interest of any kind in life; everything had slipped from her, and she shivered with a sense of nakedness, of moral destitution. Nothing was left to her, and yet she felt, she lived, she was conscious. Oh yes, horribly conscious. And that was the worst; and she asked herself why she could not pass out of sight, out of hearing and feeling of all the crying misery with which she was surrounded, and in a state of emotive somnambulism she walked through the crowds till she was startled from her dreams by hearing a voice calling after her, 'Kate! Kate!—Mrs. Lennox!'
It was Montgomery.
'I'm so glad to have met you—so glad, indeed, for we have not seen much of each other. I don't know how it was, but somehow it seemed to me that Dick did not want me to go and see you. I never could make out why, for he couldn't have been jealous of me,' he added a little bitterly. 'But perhaps you've not heard that it's all up as regards my piece at the Opéra Comique,' he continued, not noticing Kate's dejection in his excitement.
'No, I haven't heard,' she answered mechanically.
'It doesn't matter much, though, for I've just been down to the Gaiety, and pretty well settled that it's to be done in Manchester, at the Prince's; so you see I don't let the grass grow under my feet, for my row with Mrs. Forest only occurred this morning. But what's the matter, Kate? What has happened?'
'Oh, nothing, nothing. Tell me about Mrs. Forest first; I want to know.'
'Well, it's the funniest thing you ever heard in your life; but you won't tell Dick, because he forbade me ever to speak to you about Mrs. Forest—not that there is anything but business between them; that I swear to you. But do tell me, Kate, what is the matter? I never saw you look so sad in my life. Have you had any bad news?'
'No, no. Tell me about Mrs. Forest and your piece; I want to hear,' she exclaimed excitedly.
'Well, this is it,' said Montgomery, who saw in a glance that she was not to be contradicted, and that he had better get on with his story. 'In the first place, you know that the old creature has gone in for writing librettos herself, and has finished one about Buddhism, an absurdity; the opening chorus is fifty lines long, but she won't cut one; but I'll tell you about that after. I was to get one hundred for setting this blessed production to music, and it was to follow my own piece, which was in rehearsal. Well, like a great fool, I was explaining to Dubois the bosh I was writing by the yard for this infernal opera of hers. I couldn't help it; she wouldn't take advice on any point. She has written the song of the Sun-god in hexameters. I don't know what hexameters are, but I would as soon set Bradshaw—leaving St. Pancras nine twenty-five, arriving at—ha! ha! ha!—with a puff, puff accompaniment on the trombone.'
'Go on with the story,' cried Kate.
'Well, I was explaining all this,' said Montgomery, suddenly growing serious, 'when out she darted from behind the other wing—I never knew she was there. She called me a thief, and said she wouldn't have me another five minutes in her theatre. Monti, the Italian composer, was sent for. I was shoved out, bag and baggage, and there will be no more rehearsals till the new music is ready. That's all.'
'I'm very sorry for you—very sorry,' said Kate very quietly, and she raised her hand to brush away a tear.
'Oh, I don't care; I'd sooner have the piece done in Manchester. Of course it's a bore, losing a hundred pounds. But, oh, Kate! do tell me what's the matter; you know you can confide in me; you know I'm your friend.'
At these kind words the cold deadly grief that encircled Kate's heart like a band of steel melted, and she wept profusely. Montgomery drew her arm into his and pleaded and begged to be told the reason of these tears; but she could make no answer, and pressed Dick's letter into his hand with a passionate gesture. He read it at a glance, and then hesitated, unable to make up his mind as to what he should do. No words seemed to him adequate wherewith to console her, and she was sobbing so bitterly that it was beginning to attract attention in the streets. They walked on without speaking for a few yards, Kate leaning upon Montgomery, until a hackney coachman, guessing that something was wrong signed to them with his whip.
'Where are you living, dear?'
Kate told him with some difficulty, and having directed the driver, he lapsed again into considering what course he should adopt. To put off the journey was impossible; Dick had promised to meet him there. It was now three o'clock. He had therefore three hours to spend with Kate—with the woman whom he had loved steadfastly throughout a loveless life. He had no word of blame for Dick; he had heard stories that had made his blood run cold; and yet, knowing her faults as he did, he would have opened his arms had it been possible, and crying through the fervour of years of waiting, said to her, 'Yes, I will believe in you; believe in me and you shall be happy.' There had never been a secret between them; their souls had been for ever as if in communication; and the love, unacknowledged in words, had long been as sunlight and moonlight, lighting the spaces of their dream-life. To the woman it had been as a distant star whose pale light was a presage of quietude in hours of vexation; to the man it seemed as a far Elysium radiant with sweet longing, large hopes that waxed but never waned, and where the sweet breezes of eternal felicity blew in musical cadence.
And yet he was deceived in nothing. He knew now as he had known before, that although this dream might haunt him for ever, he should never hold it in his arms nor press it to his lips; and in the midst of this surging tide of misery there arose a desire that, glad in its own anguish, bade him increase the bitterness of these last hours by making a confession of his suffering; and, exulting savagely in the martyrdom he was preparing for himself, he said:
'You know, Kate—I know you must know—you must have guessed that I care for you. I may as well tell you the truth now—you are the only woman I ever loved.'
'Yes,' she said, 'I always thought you cared for me. You have been very kind—oh! very kind, and I often think of it. Ah! everybody has, all my life long, been very good to me; it is I alone who am to blame, who am in fault. I have, I know I have, been very wicked, and I don't know why. I did not mean it; I know I didn't, for I'm not at heart a wicked woman. I suppose things must have gone against me; that's about all.'
Montgomery pushed his glasses higher on his nose, and after a long silence he said:
'I've often thought that had you met me before you knew Dick, things might have been different. We should have got on better, although you might never have loved me so well.'
Kate raised her eyes, and she said:
'No one will ever know how I have loved, how I still love that man.Oftentimes I think that had I loved him less I should have been a betterwife. I think he loved me, but it was not the love I dreamed of. Like you,I was always sentimental, and Dick never cared for that sort of thing.'
'I think I should have understood you better,' said Montgomery; and the conversation came to a pause. A vision of the life of devotion spent at the feet of an ideal lover, that life of sacrifice and tenderness which had been her dream, and which she had so utterly failed to attain, again rose up to tantalize her like a glittering mirage: and she could not help wondering whether she would have realized this beautiful, this wonderful might-have-been if she had chosen this other man.
'But I suppose you'll make it up with Dick,' said Montgomery somewhat harshly.
Kate awoke from her reverie with a start, and answered sorrowfully that she did not know, that she was afraid Dick would never forgive her again.
'I don't remember if I told you that I'm going to see him in Manchester; he promised to go up there to make some arrangements about my piece.'
'No, you didn't tell me.'
'Well, I'll speak to him. I'll tell him I've seen you. I fancy I shall be able to make it all right,' he added, with a feeble smile.
'Oh! how good you are—how good you are,' cried Kate, clasping her hands. 'If he will only forgive me once again, I'll promise, I'll swear to him never to-to—'
Here Kate stopped abashed, and burying her face in her hands, she wept bitterly. The tenderness, the melancholy serenity of their interview, had somehow suddenly come to an end. Each was too much occupied with his or her thoughts to talk much, and the effort to find phrases grew more and more irritating. Both were very sad, and although they sighed when the clock struck the hour of farewell, they felt that to pass from one pain to another was in itself an assuagement. Kate accompanied Montgomery to the station. He seemed to her to be out of temper; she to him to be further away than ever. The explanation that had taken place between them had, if not broken, at least altered the old bonds of sympathy, without creating new ones; and they were discontented, even like children who remember for the first time that to-day is not yesterday.
They felt lonely watching the parallel lines of platforms; and when Montgomery waved his hand for the last time, and the train rolled into the luminous arch of sky that lay beyond the glass roofing, Kate turned away overpowered by grief and cruel recollections. When she got home, the solitude of her room became unbearable; she wanted someone to see, someone to console her. She had a few shillings in her pocket, but she remembered her resolutions and for some time resented the impervious clutch of the temptation. But the sorrow that hung about her, that penetrated like a corrosive acid into the very marrow of her bones, grew momentarily more burning, more unendurable. Twenty times she tried to wrench it out of her heart. The landlady brought her up some tea; she could not drink it; it tasted like soapsuds in her mouth. Then, knowing well what the results would be, she resolved to go out for a walk.
Next day she was ill, and to pull herself together it was necessary to have a drink. It would not do to look too great a sight in the Solicitor's office where Dick had told her in his letter to go to get her money. There she found not two, but five pounds awaiting her, and this enabled her to keep up a stage of semi intoxication until the end of the week.
She at last woke up speechless, suffering terrible palpitations of the heart, but she had strength enough to ring her bell, and when the landlady came to her she nearly lost her balance and fell to the ground, so strenuously did Kate lean and cling to her for support. After gasping painfully for some moments Kate muttered: 'I'm dying. These palpitations and the pain in my side.'
The landlady asked if she would like to see the doctor, and with difficulty obtained her consent that the doctor should be sent for.
'I'll send at once,' she said.
'No, not at once,' Kate cried. 'Pour me out a little brandy and water, andI'll see how I am in the course of the day.'
The woman did as was desired, and Kate told her that she felt better, and that if it wasn't for the pains in her side she'd be all right.
The landlady looked a little incredulous; but her lodger had only been with her a fortnight, and so carefully had the brandy been hidden, and the inebriety concealed, that although she had her doubts, she was not yet satisfied that Kate was an habitual drunkard. Certainly appearances were against Mrs. Lennox; but as regards the brandy-bottle, she had watched it very carefully, and was convinced that scarcely more than sixpennyworth of liquor went out of it daily. The good woman did not know how it was replenished from another bottle that came sometimes from under the mattress, sometimes out of the chimney. And the disappearance of the husband was satisfactorily accounted for by the announcement that he had gone to Manchester to produce a new piece. Besides, Mrs. Lennox was a very nice person; it was a pleasure to attend to her, and during the course of the afternoon Mrs. White called several times at the second floor to inquire after her lodger's health.
But there was no change for the better. Looking the picture of wretchedness, Kate lay back in her chair, declaring in low moans that she never felt so ill in her life—that the pain in her side was killing her. At first, Mrs. White seemed inclined to make light of all this complaining, but towards evening she began to grow alarmed, and urged that the doctor should be sent for.
'I assure you, ma'am,' she said, 'it's always better to see a doctor. The money is never thrown away; for even if there's nothing serious the matter, it eases one's mind to be told so.'
Kate was generally easy to persuade, but fearing that her secret drinking would be discovered, she declined for a long time to take medical advice. At last she was obliged to give way, and the die having been cast, she commenced to think how she might conceal part of the truth. Something of the coquetry of the actress returned to her, and, getting up from her chair, she went over to the glass to examine herself, and brushing back her hair, she said sorrowfully:
'I'm a complete wreck. I can't think what's the matter with me, and I've lost all my hair. You've no idea, Mrs. White, of the beautiful hair I used to have; it used to fall in armfuls over my shoulders; now, it's no more than a wisp.'
'I think you've a great deal yet,' replied Mrs. White, not wishing to discourage her.
'And how yellow I am too!'
To this Mrs. White mumbled something that was inaudible, and Kate thought suddenly of her rouge-pot and hare's-foot. Her 'make-up,' and all her little souvenirs of Dick, lay securely packed away in an old band-box.
'Mrs. White,' she said, 'might I ask you to get me a jug of hot water?'
When the woman left the room, everything was spread hurriedly over the toilet-table. To see her, one would have thought that the call-boy had knocked at the door for the second time. A thin coating of cold cream was passed over the face and neck; then the powder-puff changed what was yellow into white, and the hare's-foot gave a bloom to the cheeks. The pencil was not necessary, her eyebrows being by nature dark and well-defined. Then all disappeared again into the band-box, a drain was taken out of the bottle whilst she listened to steps on the stairs, and she had just time to get back to her chair when the doctor entered. She felt quite prepared to receive him. Mrs. White, who had come up at the same time, locked uneasily around; and, after hesitating about the confines of the room, she put the water-jug on the rosewood cabinet, and said:
'I think I'll leave you alone with the doctor, ma'am; if you want me you'll ring.'
Mr. Hooper was a short, stout man, with a large bald forehead, and long black hair; his small eyes were watchful as a ferret's, and his fat chubby hands were constantly laid on his knee-caps.
'I met Mrs. White's servant in the street,' he said, looking at Kate as if he were trying to read through the rouge on her face, 'so I came at once. Mrs. White, with whom I was speaking downstairs, tells me that you're suffering from a pain in your side.'
'Yes, doctor, on the right side; and I've not been feeling very well lately.'
'Is your appetite good? Will you let me feel your pulse?'
'No, I've scarcely any appetite at all—particularly in the morning. I can't touch anything for breakfast.'
'Don't you care to drink anything? Aren't you thirsty?'
Kate would have liked to have told a lie, but fearing that she might endanger her life by doing so, she answered:
'Oh yes! I'm constantly very thirsty.'
'Especially at night-time?'
It was irritating to have your life read thus; and Kate felt angry when she saw this dispassionate man watching the brandy-bottle, which she had forgotten to put away.
'Do you ever find it necessary to take any stimulant?'
Grasping at the word 'necessary,' she replied:
'Yes, doctor; my life isn't a very happy one, and I often feel so low, so depressed as it were, that if I didn't take a little something to keep me up I think I should do away with myself.'
'Your husband is an actor, I believe?'
'Yes; but he's at present up in Manchester, producing a new piece. I'm on the stage, too. I've been playing a round of leading parts in the provinces, but since I've been in London I've been out of an engagement.'
'I just asked you because I noticed you used a little powder, you know, on the face. Of course, I can't judge at present what your complexion is; but have you noticed any yellowness about the skin lately?'
The first instinct of a woman who drinks is to conceal her vice, and although she was talking to a doctor, Kate was again conscious of a feeling of resentment against the merciless eyes which saw through all the secrets of her life. But, cowed, as it were, by the certitude expressed by the doctor's looks and words, she strove to equivocate, and answered humbly that she noticed her skin was not looking as clear as it used to. Dr. Hooper then questioned her further. He asked if she suffered from a sense of uncomfortable tension, fullness, weight, especially after meals; if she felt any pain in her right shoulder? and she confessed that he was right in all his surmises.
'Do tell me, doctor, what is the matter with me. I assure you I'd really much sooner know the worst.'
But the doctor did not seem inclined to be communicative, and in reply to her question he merely mumbled something to the effect that the liver was out of order.
'I will send you over some medicine this evening,' he said, 'and if you don't feel better to-morrow send round for me, and don't attempt to get up. I think,' he added, as he took up his hat to go, 'I shall be able to put you all right. But you must follow my instructions; you mustn't frighten yourself, and take as little of that stimulant as possible.'
Kate answered that it was not her custom to take too much, and she tried to look surprised at the warning. She nevertheless derived a good deal of comfort from the doctor's visit, and during the course of the evening succeeded in persuading herself that her fears of the morning were ill-founded and, putting the medicine that was sent her away for the present, she helped herself from a bottle that was hidden in the upholstery. The fact of having a long letter to write to Dick explaining her conduct, made it quite necessary that she should take something to keep her up; and sitting in her lonely room, she drank on steadily until midnight, when she could only just drag her clothes from her back and throw herself stupidly into bed. There she passed a night full of livid-hued nightmares, from which she awoke shivering, and suffering from terrible palpitations of the heart. The silence of the house filled her with terrors, cold and obtuse as the dreams from which she awakened. Strength to scream for help she had none; and thinking she was going to die, she sought for relief and consolation in the bottle that lay hidden under the carpet. When the drink took effect upon her she broke out into a profuse perspiration, and she managed to get a little sleep; but when her breakfast was brought up about eleven o'clock in the morning, so ill did she seem that the servant, fearing she was going to drop down dead, begged to be allowed to fetch the doctor. But rejecting all offers of assistance, Kate lay moaning in an armchair, unable even to taste the cup of tea that the maid pressed upon her. She consented to take some of the medicines that were ordered her, but whatever good they might have produced was discounted by the constant nip-drinking she kept up during the afternoon. The next day she was very ill indeed, and Mrs. White, greatly alarmed, insisted on sending for Dr. Hooper.
He did not seem astonished at the change in his patient. Calmly and quietly he watched for some moments in silence.
The bed had curtains of a red and antiquated material, and these contrasted with the paleness of the sheets wherein Kate lay, tossing feverishly. Most of the 'make-up' had been rubbed away from her face; and through patches of red and white the yellow skin started like blisters. She was slightly delirious, and when the doctor took her hand to feel her pulse she gazed at him with her big staring eyes and spoke volubly and excitedly.
'Oh! I'm so glad you've come, for I wanted to speak to you about my husband. I think I told you that he'd gone to Manchester to produce a new piece. I don't know if I led you to suppose that he'd deserted me, but if I did I was wrong to do so, for he has done nothing of the kind. It's true that we aren't very happy together, but I dare say that is my fault. I never was, I know, as good a wife to him as I intended to be; but then, he made me jealous and sometimes I was mad. Yes, I think I must have been mad to have spoken to him in the way I did. Anyhow, it doesn't matter now, does it, doctor? But I don't know what I'm saying. Still, you won't mention that I've told you anything. It's as likely as not that he'll forgive me, just as he did before; and we may yet be as happy as we were at Blackpool. You won't tell him, will you, doctor?'
'No, no, I won't,' said Dr. Hooper, quietly and firmly. 'But you mustn't talk as much as you do; if you want to see your husband, you must get well first.'
'Oh yes! I must get well; but tell me, doctor, how long will that take?'
'Not very long, if you will keep quiet and do what I tell you. I want you to tell me how the pain in your side is?'
'Very bad; far worse than when I saw you last. I feel it now in my right shoulder as well.'
'But your side—is it sore when you touch it? Will you let me feel?'
Without waiting for a reply, he passed his hand under the sheet. 'Is it there that it pains you?'
'Yes, yes. Oh! You're hurting me.'
Then the doctor walked aside with the landlady, who had been watching the examination of the patient with anxious eyes. She said:
'Do you think it's anything very dangerous? Is it contagious? Had I better send her to the hospital?'
'No, I should scarcely think it worth while doing that; she will be well in a week, that is to say if she is properly looked after. She's suffering from acute congestion of the liver, brought on by—'
'By drink,' said Mrs. White. 'I suspected as much.'
'You've too much to do, Mrs. White, with all your children, to give up your time to nursing her; I shall send someone round as soon as possible, but, in the meantime, will you see that her diet is regulated to half a cup of beef-tea, every hour or so. If she complains of thirst, let her have some milk to drink, and you may mix a little brandy with it. To-night I shall send round a sleeping-draught.'
'You're sure, doctor, there is nothing catching, for you know that, with all my children in the house——'
'You need not be alarmed, Mrs. White.'
'But do you think, doctor, it will be an expensive illness? for I know very little about her circumstances.'
'I expect she'll be all right in a week or ten days, but what I fear for is her future. I've had a good deal of experience in such matters, and I've never known a case of a woman who cured herself of the vice of intemperance. A man sometimes, a woman never.'
The landlady sighed and referred to all she had gone through during poor Mr. White's lifetime; the doctor spoke confidingly of a lady who was at present under his charge; and, apparently overcome with pity for suffering humanity, they descended the staircase together. On the doorstep the conversation was continued.
'Very well, then, doctor, I will take your advice; but at the end of a week or so, when she is quite recovered, I shall tell her that I've let her rooms. For, as you say, a woman rarely cures herself, and before the children the example would be dreadful.'
'I expect to see her on her feet in about that time, then you can do as you please. I shall call tomorrow.'
Next day the professional nurse took her place by the bedside. The sinapism which the doctor ordered was applied to the hepatic region, and a small dose of calomel was administered.
Under this treatment she improved rapidly; but unfortunately, as her health returned her taste for drink increased in a like proportion. Indeed, it was almost impossible to keep her from it, and on one occasion she tried very cunningly to outwit the nurse, who had fallen asleep in her chair. Waiting patiently until the woman's snoring had become sufficiently regular to warrant the possibility of a successful attempt being made on the brandy-bottle, Kate slipped noiselessly out of bed. The unseen night-light cast a rosy glow over the convex side of the basin, without, however, disturbing the bare darkness of the wall, Kate knew that all the bottles stood in a line upon the chest of drawers, but it was difficult to distinguish one from the other, and the jingling she made as she fumbled amid them awoke the nurse, who divining at once what was happening, arose quickly from her chair and advancing rapidly towards her, said:
'No, ma'am, I really can't allow it; it's against the doctor's orders.'
'I'm not going to die of thirst to please any doctor. I was only going to take a little milk, I suppose there's no harm in that?'
'Not the least, ma'am, and if you'd called me you should have had it.'
It was owing to this fortuitous intervention that when Dr. Hooper called a couple of days after to see his patient he was able to certify to a remarkable change for the better in her. All the distressing symptoms had disappeared; the pain in her side had died away; the complexion was clearer. He therefore thought himself justified in ordering for her lunch a little fish and some weak brandy and water; and to Kate, who had not eaten any solid food for several days, this first meal took the importance of a very exceptional event. Sitting by her bedside Dr. Hooper spoke to her.
'Now, Mrs. Lennox,' he said, 'I want to give you a word of warning. I've seen you through what I must specify as a serious illness; dangerous I will not call it, although I might do so if I were to look into the future and anticipate the development the disease will most certainly take, unless, indeed, you will be guided by me, and make a vow against all intoxicating liquors.'
At this direct allusion to her vice Kate stopped eating, and putting down the fork looked at the doctor.
'Now, Mrs. Lennox, you mustn't be angry,' he continued in his kind way. 'I'm speaking to you in my capacity as a medical man, and I must warn you against the continuous nip-drinking which, of course, I can see you're in the habit of indulging in, and which was the cause of the illness from which you are recovering. I will not harrow your feelings by referring to all the cases that have come under my notice where shame, disgrace, ruin, and death were the result of that one melancholy failing—drink.'
'Oh, sir!' cried Kate, broken-hearted, 'if you only knew how unhappy I've been, how miserable I am, you would not speak to me so. I've my failing, it is true, but I'm driven to it. I love my husband better than anything in the world, and I see him mixed up always with a lot of girls at the theatre, and it sends me mad, and then I go to drink so as to forget.'
'We've all got our troubles; but it doesn't relieve us of the burden; it only makes us forget it for a short time, and then, when consciousness returns to us, we only remember it all the more bitterly. No, Mrs. Lennox, take my advice. In a few days, when you're well, go to your husband, demand his forgiveness, and resolve then never to touch spirits again.'
'It's very good of you to speak to me in this way,' said Kate, tearfully, 'and I will take your advice, The very first day that I am strong enough to walk down to the Strand I will go and see my husband, and if he will give me another trial, he will not, I swear to you, have cause to repent it. Oh!' she continued, 'you don't know how good he's been to me, how he has borne with me. If it hadn't been that he tried my temper by flirting with other women we might have been happy now.'
Then, as Kate proceeded to speak of her trials and temptations, she grew more and more excited and hysterical, until the doctor, fearing that she would bring on a relapse, was forced to plead an engagement and wish her good-bye.
As he left the room she cried after him, 'The first day I'm well enough to go out I'll go and see my husband.'
The next few days passed like dreams. Kate's soul, tense with the longing for reconciliation, floated at ease over the sordid miseries that lay within and without her, and enraptured with expectation, she lived in a beautiful paradise of hope.
So certain did she feel of being able to cross out the last few years of her life, that her mind was scarcely clouded by a doubt of the possibility of his declining to forgive her—that he might even refuse to see her. The old days seemed charming to her, and looking back, even she seemed to have been perfect then. There her life appeared to have begun. She never thought of Hanley now. Ralph and Mrs. Ede were like dim shadows that had no concern in her existence. The potteries and the hills were as the recollections of childhood, dim and unimportant. The footlights and the applause of audiences were also dying echoes in her ears. Her life for the moment was concentrated in a loving memory of a Lancashire seashore and a rose-coloured room, where she used to sit on the knees of the man she adored. The languors and the mental weakness of convalescence were conducive to this state of mental exaltation. She loved him better than anyone else could love him; she would never touch brandy again. He would take her back, and they would live as the lovers did in all the novels she had ever read. These illusions filled Kate's mind like a scarf of white mist hanging around the face of a radiant morning, and as she lay back amid the pillows, or sat dreaming by the fireside in the long evenings that were no longer lonely to her, she formed plans, and considered how she should plead to Dick in this much-desired interview. During this period dozens of letters were written and destroyed, and it was not until the time arrived for her to go to the theatre to see him that she could decide upon what she could write. Then hastily she scribbled a note, but her hand trembled so much that before she had said half what she intended the paper was covered with blotched and blurred lines.
'It won't do to let him think I'm drunk again,' she said to herself, as she threw aside what she had written and read over one of her previous efforts. It ran as follows:
'You will, I am sure, be sorry to hear that I have been very ill. I am now, however, much better; indeed, I may say quite recovered. During my illness I have been thinking over our quarrels, and I now see how badly, how wickedly, I have behaved to you on many occasions. I do not know, and I scarcely dared to hope, that you will ever forgive me, but I trust that you will not refuse to see me for a few minutes. I have not, I assure you, tasted spirits for some weeks, so you need not fear I will kick up a row. I will promise to be very quiet. I will not reproach you, nor get excited, nor raise my voice. I shall be very good, and will not detain you but for a very short time. You will not, you cannot, oh, my darling! deny me this one little request—to see you again, although only for a few minutes.
'Your affectionate wife,'KATE'
Compared with the fervid thoughts of her brain, these words appeared to her weak and poor, but feeling that for the moment, at least, she could not add to their intensity, she set out on her walk, hoping to find her husband at the theatre.
It was about eight o'clock in the evening. A light, grey fog hung over the background of the streets, and the line of the housetops was almost lost in the morose shadows that fell from a soot-coloured sky. Here and there a chimney-stack or the sharp spire of a church tore the muslin-like curtains of descending mist; and vague as the mist were her thoughts. The streets twisted, wriggling their luminous way through slime and gloom, whilst at every turning the broad, flaring windows of the public-houses marked the English highway. But Kate paid no attention to the red-lettered temptations. Docile and hopeful as a tired animal thinking of its stable, she walked through the dark crowd that pressed upon her, nor did she even notice when she was jostled, but went on, a heedless nondescript—a something in a black shawl and a quasi-respectable bonnet, a slippery stepping-stone between the low women who whispered and the workwoman who hurried home with the tin of evening beer in her hand. Like one held and guided by the power of a dream, she lost consciousness of all that was not of it. Thoughts of how Dick would receive her and forgive her were folded, entangled and broken within narrow limits of time; half an hour passed like a minute, and she found herself at the stage-door of the theatre. Drawing the letter from her pocket, she said to the hall-keeper:
'Will you kindly give Mr. Lennox this letter? Has he arrived yet?'
'Yes, but he's busy for the moment. But,' the man added, as he examined Kate's features narrowly, 'you'll excuse me, I made a mistake; Mr. Lennox isn't in the theatre.'
At that moment the swinging door was thrust open, and the call-boy screamed:
'Mr. Lennox says you're not to let Miss Thomas pass to-night, and if there are any letters for him I'm to take them in.'
'Here's one; will you give it to Mr. Lennox?' said Kate, eagerly thrusting forward her note. 'Say that I'm waiting for an answer.'
The stage-door keeper tried to interpose, but before he could explain himself the boy had rushed away.
'All letters should be given to me,' he growled as he turned away to argue with Miss Thomas, who had just arrived. In a few minutes the call-boy came back.
'Will you please step this way,' he said to Kate.
'No, you shan't,' cried the hall-keeper; 'if you try any nonsense with me I shall send round for a policeman.'
Kate started back frightened, thinking these words were addressed to her, but a glance showed her that she was mistaken.
'Oh! how dare you talk to me like that? You're an unsophisticated beast!' cried Miss Thomas.
'Pass under my arm, ma'am,' said the hall-keeper; 'I don't want this one to get through.' And amid a storm of violent words and the strains of distant music Kate went up a narrow staircase that creaked under the weight of a group of girls in strange dresses. When she got past them she saw Dick at the door of his room waiting for her. The table was covered with letters, the walls with bills announcing, 'a great success.'
He took her hand and placed her in a chair, and at first it seemed doubtful who would break an awkward and irritating silence. At last Dick said:
'I'm sorry to hear, Kate, that you've been ill; you're looking well now.'
'Yes, I'm better now,' she replied drearily; 'but perhaps if I'd died it would have been as well, for you can never love me again.'
'You know, my dear,' he said, equivocating, 'that we didn't get on well together.'
'Oh, Dick! I know it. You were very good to me, and I made your life wretched on account of my jealousy; but I couldn't help it, for I loved you better than a woman ever loved a man. I cannot tell you, I cannot find words to express how much I love you; you're everything to me. I lived for your love; I'm dying of it. Yes, Dick, I'm dying for love of you; I feel it here; it devours me like a fire, and what is so strange is, that nothing seems real to me except you. I never think of anything but of things that concern you. Anything that ever belonged to you I treasure up as a relic. You know the chaplet of pearls I used to wear when we playedThe Lovers Knot. Well, I have them still, although all else has gone from me. The string was broken once or twice, and some of the pearls were lost, but I threaded them again, and it still goes round my neck. I was looking at them the other day, and it made me very sad, for it made me think of the happy days—ah, the very happy days!—we have had together before I took to ——. But I won't speak of that. I've cured myself. Yes, I assure you, Dick, I've cured myself; and it is for that I've come to talk to you. Were I not sure that I would never touch brandy again I would not ask you to take me back, but I'd sooner die than do what I have done, for I know that I never will. Can you—will you—my own darling Dick, give me another trial?'
The victory hung in the balance, but at that moment a superb girl, in all the splendour of long green tights, and resplendent with breastplate and spear, flung open the door.
'Look here, Dick,' she began, but seeing Kate, she stopped short, and stammered out an apology.
'I shall be down on the stage in a minute, dear,' he said, rising from his chair. The door was shut, and they were again alone; but Kate felt that chance had gone against her. The interruption had, with a sudden shock, killed the emotions she had succeeded in awakening, and had supplied Dick with an answer that would lead him, by a way after his own heart, straight out of his difficulty.
'My dear,' he said, rising from his chair, 'I'm glad you've given up the—you know what—for, between you and me, that was the cause of all our trouble; but, candidly speaking, I don't think it would be advisable for us to live together, at least for the present, and I'll tell you why. I know that you love me very much, but, as you said yourself just now, it's your jealousy and the drink together that excites you, and leads up to those terrible rows. Now, the best plan would be for us to live apart, let us say for six months or so, until you've entirely got over your little weakness, you know; and then—why, then we'll be as happy as we used to be at Blackpool in the dear old times long ago.'
'Oh, Dick! don't say that I must wait six months; I might be dead before then. But you're not speaking the truth to me. You were just going to say that I might come back to you when the horrid girl came in. I know. Yes, I believe there's something between you.'
'Now, Kate, remember your promise not to kick up a row. I consented to see you because you said you wouldn't be violent. Here's your letter.'
'I'm not going to be violent, Dick; but six months seems such a long time.'
'It won't be as long passing as you think. And now I must run away; they're waiting for me on the stage. Have you seen the piece? Would you like to go in front?'
'No, not to-night, Dick; I feel too sad. But won't you kiss me before I go?'
Dick bent his face and kissed her; but there was a chill in the kiss that went to her heart, and she felt that his lips would never touch hers again. But she had no protest to make, and almost in silence she allowed herself to be shown out of the theatre. When she got into the mist she shivered a little, and drew her thin shawl tighter about her thin shoulders, and, with one of the choruses still ringing in her ears, she walked in the direction of the Strand. Somehow her sorrow did not seem too great for her to bear. The interview had passed neither as badly nor as well as had been expected, and thinking of the six months of probation that lay before her, but without being in the least able to realize their meaning, she walked dreaming through the sloppy, fog-smelling streets. The lamps were now but like furred patches of yellow laid on a dead grey background, and a mud-bespattered crowd rolled in and out of the darkness. The roofs overhead were engulfed in the soot-coloured sky that seemed to be descending on the heads of the passengers. Men passed carrying parcels; the white necktie of a theatre-goer was caught sight of. From Lambeth, from Islington, from Pimlico, from all the dark corners where it had been lurking in the daytime, prostitution at the fading of the light, had descended on the town—portly matrons, very respectable in brown silk dresses and veils, stood in the corners of alleys and dingy courts, scorned by the younger generation; young girls of fifteen and sixteen going by in couples with wisps of dyed hair hanging about their shoulders, advertisements of their age; the elder taking the responsibility of choosing; Germans in long ulsters trafficked in guttural intonations; policemen on their beats could have looked less concerned. The English hung round the public-houses, enviously watching the arched insteps of the Frenchwomen tripping by. Smiles there were plenty, but the fog was so thick that even the Parisians lost their native levity and wished themselves back in Paris.
At the crossing of Wellington Street she stumbled against a small man who leaned against a doorway coughing violently. They stared at each other in profound astonishment, and then Kate said in a pained and broken voice:
'Oh, Ralph! is it you?'
'Yes, indeed it is. But to think of meeting you here in London!'
They had, for the second, in a sort of way, forgotten that they had once been man and wife, and after a pause Kate said:
'But that's just what I was thinking. What are you doing in London?'
Ralph was about to answer when he was cut short by a fit of coughing. His head sank into his chest, and his little body was shaken until it seemed as if it were going to break to pieces like a bundle of sticks. Kate looked at him pityingly, and passing unconsciously over the dividing years just as she might have done when they kept shop together in Hanley, she said:
'Oh! you know you shouldn't stop out in such weather as this: you'll be breathless to-morrow.'
'Oh no, I shan't; I've got a new remedy. But I've lost my way; that's the reason why I'm so late.'
'Perhaps I can tell you. Where are you staying?'
'In an hotel in Bedford Street, near Covent Garden.'
'Well, then, this is your way; you've come too far.'
And passing again into the jostling crowd they walked on in silence side by side. A slanting cloud of fog had drifted from the river down into the street, creating a shivering and terrifying darkness. The cabs moved at walking pace, the huge omnibuses stopped belated, and their advertisements could not be read even when a block occurred close under a gas-lamp. The jewellers' windows emitted the most light; but even gold and silver wares seemed to have become tarnished in the sickening atmosphere. Then the smell from fishmongers' shops grew more sour as the assistant piled up the lobsters and flooded the marbles preparatory to closing; and, just within the circle of vision, inhaling the greasy fragrance of soup, a woman in a blue bonnet loitered near a grating.
'This is Bedford Street, I think,' said Kate, 'but it's so dark that it's impossible to see.'
'I suppose you know London well?' replied Ralph somewhat pointedly.
'Pretty well, I've been here now for some time.'
For the last three or four minutes not a word had been spoken. Kate was surprised that Ralph was not angry with her; she wanted to speak to him of old times, but it was hard to break the ice of intervening years. At last, as they stopped before the door of a small family hotel, he said:
'It's now something like four years since we parted, ain't it?'
The question startled her, and she answered nervously and hurriedly:
'I suppose it is, but I'd better wish you good-bye now—you're safe at home.'
'Oh no! come in; you look so very tired, a glass of wine will do you good.Besides, what harm? Wasn't I your husband once?'
'Oh, Ralph! how can you?'
'Why, there's no reason why I shouldn't hear how you've been getting on. We're just like strangers, so many things have occurred; I've married since—but perhaps you didn't hear of it?'
'Married! Who did you marry?'
'Well! I married your assistant, Hender.'
'What, Hender your wife?' said Kate, with an intonation of voice that was full of pain. A dagger thrust suddenly through her side as she went up the staircase could not have wounded her more cruelly than the news that the woman who had been her assistant now owned the house that once was hers. The story of the dog in the manger is as old as the world.
Through the windows of the little public sitting-room nothing was visible; everything was shrouded in the yellow curtain of fog. A commercial traveller had drawn off his boots, and was warming his slippered feet by the fire.
'Dreadful weather, sir,' said the man. 'I'm afraid it won't do your cough much good. Will you come near the fire?'
'Thank you,' said Ralph.
Kate mechanically drew forward a chair. It would be impossible for them to say a word, for the traveller was evidently inclined to be garrulous, and both wondered what they should do; but at that moment the chambermaid came to announce that the gentleman's room was ready. He took up his boots and retired, leaving the two, who had once been husband and wife, alone; and yet it seemed as difficult as ever to speak of what was uppermost in their minds. Kate helped Ralph off with his great-coat, and she noticed that he looked thinner and paler. The servant brought up two glasses of grog, and when Kate had taken off her bonnet, she said: 'Do you think I'm much altered?'
'Well, since you ask me, Kate, I must say I don't think you're looking very well. You're thinner than you used to be, and you've lost a good deal of your hair.'
'I've only just recovered from a bad illness,' she said, sighing, and as she raised the glass to her lips the gaslight defined the whole contour of her head. The thick hair that used to encircle her pale prominent temples like rich velvet, looked now like a black silk band frayed and whitened at the seam.
'But what have you been doing? Have things gone pretty well with you?' said Ralph, whose breath came from him in a thin but continuous whistle. 'What happened when I got my decree of divorce?'
'Nothing particular for a while, but afterwards we were married.'
'Oh!' said Ralph, 'so he married you, did he? Well, I shouldn't have expected it of him. So we're both married. Isn't it odd? And meeting, too, in this way.'
'Yes, many things have happened since then. I've been on the stage—travelling all over England.'
'What! you on the stage, Kate?' said Ralph, lifting his head from his hand. 'Oh lord! oh lord! how—Ha! ha! oh! but I mustn't la-ugh; I won't be able to breathe.'
Kate turned to him almost angrily, and the ghost of the prima donna awakening in her, she said:
'I don't see what there is to laugh at. I've played all the leading parts, and in all the principal towns in England—Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds. The Newcastle Chronicle said my Serpolette was the best they'd seen.'
Ralph looked bewildered, like a man blinded for a moment by a sudden flash of lightning. He could not at once realize that this woman, who had been his wife, who had washed and scrubbed in his little home in Hanley, was now one of those luminous women who, in clear skirts and pink stockings, wander singing beautiful songs, amid illimitable forests and unscalable mountains. For a moment he regretted he had married Miss Hender.
'But I don't think I shall ever act again.'