The meeting between Philip Ray and his sister was full of pain and shame to him and the acutest agony to her. Few words were spoken. Bramwell was not in the room. He tarried behind on the pretence of mooring the stage, so that the two might not be restrained or embarrassed by any consideration of him. But the presence of the husband seemed to haunt the place, and was felt by both as a restraining influence.
"If he can forgive her and take her back, what have I to say in the affair?" asked Philip of himself.
"No matter how much he may reproach me, I will not answer," thought the unhappy woman. "Anything Philip could say to me would not hurt me now."
So beyond a few formal words no speech was exchanged between the two, and shortly after Bramwell came back Philip went away.
"May I stay in this room? This is your room, I know," said Kate meekly, when they were alone. "I do not wish to intrude. I know you have writing to do, and that I may be in the way."
There was no tone of bitterness or complaint in her voice. She simply wanted to know what his wishes were.
"While you were out," he said, "I arranged the room I had intended to be a play-room for the boy as my own. Yours will be the one you used last night, and this will be common to all of us. I shall shift my books into my own room and write there."
"And the boy?" said she, with a tremble in her hoarse, dull voice. "Which room will be the boy's?"
"Yours, of course."
She moved towards him as if to catch his hand in gratitude. He stood still, and made no responsive sign.
"When I came here two years ago," he said quietly, "I changed my name from Mellor to Bramwell. I shall retain the name of Bramwell, and you will take it."
He did not request her to do it or command her to do it. He told her she would do it.
"As no doubt you are aware, I am very badly off now compared with the time--compared with some years ago." He was going to say "compared with the time I married you," but he forebore out of mercy. "I have little more than a hundred a year and this place rent-free; it is my own, but I cannot let it. I hope soon to be able to add to my income. If my anticipations are realised I may double my income; but at present I am very poor."
"And I am bankrupt," said she with passionate self-reproach, "in fortune, in appearance, and in reputation."
He held up his hand in deprecation of her vehemence.
"Understand me clearly. Mrs. Bramwell may not have any money, and may not be as remarkable for beauty as some other women. But recollect, she has no reputation, good or bad. She did not exist until this present interview began. The past can be of no use to us. I shall never refer to it again; you will never refer to it again. There may have been things in the life of Kate and Frank Mellor which each of them contemplates with pain. No pain has come into the life of Francis Bramwell during the two years of his existence. No pain can have come into the life of Kate Bramwell during the few minutes she has existed. It will be wisest if we do not trouble ourselves with the miseries of the Mellors. Do you understand?" he asked in his deep, full, organ-toned voice.
"I think I do," she answered. "You mean that we are to forget the past."
"Wholly, and without exception."
"And you will forget that you ever cared for me?"
"Entirely."
His voice was full and firm, but when he had spoken the word his lip trembled and his eyelids drooped.
He was walking softly up and down the room. She was sitting by the table in the same place as she had sat last night. Her arms hung down by her side, her head was bowed on her chest, her air one of infinite, incommunicable misery.
"And you will never say a kind word to me again?" she said, her voice choked and broken.
"I hope I shall never say any word to you that is unkind."
"That is not what I mean. You will never change towards me from what you are now this minute? You will never say a loving word to me as you used--long ago?"
She raised her face and looked beseechingly at him as he passed her chair.
"I shall, I hope, be always as kind-minded to you as I am now."
"And never any more?"
"I cannot be any more."
"Is there--is there no hope?" She clasped her hands and looked up at him in wild appeal.
He shook his head. "I loved you once, but I cannot love you again."
"You say you forgive me. If you forgive me, why cannot you love me? for I love you now as I never loved any one before."
"Too late! Too late!"
"Is it because my good looks are gone? Why, O, why cannot you love me again, unless it is because my good looks are gone?"
"No; your good looks have no weight in the matter. I could not forgive you if I loved you in the old way."
"Then," she cried, rising and stretching forth her arms wildly towards him, "do not forgive me; revile me, abuse me, yes, beat me, but tell me you love me as you did long ago; for I love you now above anything and all things on earth. Yes, ten thousand times better than I love my child! I never knew you until now. I was too giddy and vain and shallow to understand you. I have behaved to you worse than a murderess. But, Frank, I would die for you now!" She flung herself on her knees on the floor, and raised her clasped hands above her streaming face to him. "On my knees I ask you in the name of merciful Heaven to give me back your love, as I had it once! Give it to me for a little while, and then I shall be content to die. You are noble enough to forgive me and to take me back into your house. Take me back into your heart too. Raise me up and take me in your arms once, and then I will kill myself, if you wish it; I shall then die content. Refill my empty veins with words of love and I will trouble you no more. I have been walking blindfold in the desert all my life, and now that the bandages are taken off my eyes and I can see the promised land, am I to find I can never enter it? I am only a weak, wicked woman. You have extended to me forgiveness that makes you a god. Have for me, a weak woman, the pity of a god."
"I am no longer a man," he said, leaning against the wall. "I am smoke, an abstraction, a thing, an idea, a code. You are my wife and I will not cast a stone at you. You are my wife, and you are entitled to the shelter of my roof and the protection of my name. I make you free of both. But when you ask for love such as once was yours, I fail to catch the meaning of your words. You are speaking a language the import of which is lost to me. It is not that I will not, but that I cannot, give you what you ask. There would have been no meaning in the love I offered you years ago if I could offer you love now. Get up. It was with a view to avoiding a scene I spoke."
"I will not get up until you tell me there is hope--that some day you may relent."
"There is no question of relenting. When you left me you destroyed in me the faculty of loving you. Now get up. We have had enough of this. We must have no more. I have been betrayed into saying things I determined not even to refer to. Get up, and, mind, no more of this." With strong, firm arms he raised her from her knees.
She stood for a moment, leaning one hand on the table to steady herself. Then in a low quavering whisper, she said, "Is there any, any hope?"
"There is none."
She raised herself, and moved with uncertain feet to the door. "It would have been better I went to the river last night."
When Philip Ray left Boland's Ait he crossed over to the tow-path, and not to Crawford's Quay. It was still too early to call at Layard's. There was nothing else for it but to kill time walking about. Under ordinary circumstances when greatly excited he went for a very long walk. If nothing else but the startling and confounding affairs at Boland's Ait had to be considered, he would have dashed off at the top of his speed and kept on straight until he had calmed himself or worn himself out. But there was Crawford's House to be thought of. That must not be left far behind. Even now when he intended circling it he could not bear to think he was turning his face away from it, although he knew it was necessary to make a radius before he could begin his circle.
His mind was in a whirl, and he could see nothing clearly. The astounding return of his sister from the grave, and the still more astounding pardon extended to her by her husband, threw all his ideas into phantasmagoric confusion. Images leaped and bounded through his brain, and would not wait to be examined. Of only one thing was he certain: that Frank was the noblest man he had ever met. Although he repeated over and over to himself Bramwell's words about Kate, although over and over again he called up the vision of Kate in that room on the islet, he could not convince his reason that forgiveness had been extended to her. In his memory he saw the figures and heard the voices, and understood the words spoken, but a dozen times he asked himself, could it be true? or had his imagination played him false?
The affairs at the Ait dwarfed his own concerns, and made them seem tame and commonplace. That a young man should fall desperately in love with a beautiful girl like Hetty was the most natural thing in the world; but that a hermit, a young man of scrupulous honour like Frank, should take back an errant wife, whose former beauty had now turned almost to repulsiveness, transcended belief. It was true, but it was incredible.
As time went on, and the walking allayed the tumult in his mind, his thoughts came to his own position in the circumstances. He had not told Layard or Hetty any of Frank's history beyond the fact that it was a painful one, and a subject to be avoided. He had not told them that he was Bramwell's brother-in-law. He had never said a word about Bramwell's wife.
Now all would have to be explained. Of course, he had intended telling when he spoke to Layard about Hetty; things had changed beyond anticipation, beyond belief, since last night. Had he known what was going to happen on the Ait last night, what had absolutely happened when Hetty and he landed there, he would not have said a word of love to the girl. He would have told her the facts about Kate before asking Hetty to marry Kate's brother, before asking Hetty to become the sister of this miserable woman.
He knew he was in no way responsible for his sister's sins, but some people considered a whole family tainted by such an act in one of its members. Some people believed conduct of this kind was a matter of heredity, and ran in the blood. Some people would ask, If the sister did this, what could you expect from the brother?
Would the painful tale he had to tell Layard influence Hetty's brother against his suit? There were thousands of people who would consider that he himself was smirched by his sister's fault. Was Layard one of these?
The best thing for him to do was to relate the story at once; the most honourable and straightforward way for him to proceed would be to speak to Layard before he again saw Hetty. If Layard raised an objection, and that objection was insuperable, the most honourable course for him to pursue would be to give up all pretensions to Hetty.
Yes, but could he? And would he be justified in renouncing her now that he knew she loved him? It would be all very well if he had not made love to her and gone so far as to ask her to marry him. If only his happiness were concerned the path of duty would be plain enough. But Hetty and he were now partners in love, and had he the power or the right to dissolve the partnership without consulting her? Clearly not. However he looked at the situation doubts and difficulties arose before his mind. There was only one matter clear--he ought to speak to Layard at once.
It was now half-past seven. Layard left the gasworks at eight. Why should he not intercept him on his way home and put him in possession of all the facts? Upon what Layard said, the course to be adopted could be based.
He got to the gas-house, and was walking up and down impatiently when Alfred Layard came out of the gateway and saw him.
"Anything the matter?" asked Layard apprehensively when Ray came up to him.
"At your place? O, no! I wanted a few minutes' talk with you, so I came to meet you."
"All right," said Layard, with a smile. He thought he could guess what the talk would prove to be about. He was the incarnation of unselfishness, and it never occurred to him for a moment to consider how awkward it would be for him if Hetty married and left him.
"I want first of all to tell you a very painful piece of family history," said Ray, anxious to get the worst over as soon as possible.
"But why should you, Ray? I am the least curious man alive."
"You will know why I wish to tell you before I have finished."
Then, without further preface, he narrated the history of Kate, her marriage, her flight, her supposed death, her appearance last night at the Ait, and her husband's forgiveness.
Layard was greatly interested and excited by the story. When it was finished, he said:
"There is enough Christianity in that man Bramwell to make a bishop."
"To make the whole bench of bishops," cried Ray enthusiastically. "I always knew he was a hero, but I was not prepared to find the spirit of a martyr as well. And yet I ought to have been prepared for anything noble and disinterested in him. He does what he believes to be right without any view to reward here or hereafter. He has had his wild days when he plunged, under his great trouble, into the excitement of gambling, but even in that he was unselfish; he injured no one but himself. Once he pulled up, he stopped for good and all. And now I come to the reason for taking you into confidence and telling you what you need never have known only for something which concerns myself more deeply than all else which has happened to me in my life."
Then in a few words he explained his position, his feelings towards Hetty, and his belief that his feelings were reciprocated.
"You have three matters to weigh," he said, in conclusion; "first, the family history I have told you; then my financial position, taking into account the chance of my getting the tuitions; and, last, whether you would object to me personally. In the short time I have known you, I have taken to you more than to any other man I ever met except Frank. I am speaking to you as much as a friend as Hetty's brother. If I did not look on you as a friend, I should not care greatly to take you into my confidence and defer to you. But the notion of doing anything underhand or behind your back would seem to me intolerable treason."
"I'll be as straightforward with you as you have been with me. I have liked you from the first moment of our short acquaintance. The way in which you have spoken to me this evening strengthens ten thousand times my good opinion of you. The miserable family history you have told me has no bearing whatever on you, and I see nothing to stop you but the getting of those tuitions. Why, I married on little more than your salary; and during my short married life I never for one moment repented, nor did my poor girl. Contented and willing hearts are the riches of marriage, not money."
Ray was too much moved to say more than "Thank you, Layard;" but he stopped in his walk, and, with tears in his eyes, wrung the hands of the other man.
"And now," said Layard, as they resumed their way, "let us get home to tea."
That was his way of telling Ray that there was no need of further words either in explanation or of thanks.
"I thought we were going to have a thunderstorm last night, and to-night it looks like it too. I always feel a coming storm in the muscles of my arms, and they are tingling this evening."
Layard opened the door with his latch-key. The two men went into the front room, and in a few minutes Hetty appeared with the tea-pot. She coloured deeply on seeing Ray with her brother. She had not heard the footfalls of two people, and was not prepared to find him there. He had never before come in with Alfred, and a suspicion of what had occurred flashed through her mind.
She did not speak to Ray. She felt confused, and half-pretended, even to herself, that she did not know he was present. Her brother went to her and put his arm round her waist and kissed her cheek, and then drew her over to the chimney-piece, where Ray stood, feeling somewhat like a thief.
"You forgot to say good-evening to Ray," said the brother.
"Good-evening," said she, in a low voice, holding out her hand.
Ray took the long slender hand, feeling still more dishonest and shamefaced and miserable.
When the fingers of the lovers touched, Layard caught the joined hands in both his, and pressed them softly and silently together; then, turning away, he stepped quickly to the window, and stood a long time looking at the dead wall opposite through misty eyes.
"I don't think we shall have that storm," said Ray at length.
Layard turned round. Hetty was pouring out the tea, and Ray was standing with his back to the chimney-piece.
"No," said Layard, "I fancy it is passing away. My arms feel easier."
Hetty was smiling, but looking pale.
"Do you take sugar and milk, Mr. Ray?" said she.
"Dear me, Hetty," said her brother, "what a lot you have to learn yet!"
She coloured violently, and shook her head at him.
"I wish you would sit down, Alfred. You are keeping all the light out of the room; I can't see what I'm doing."
"No," said he, looking meaningly from her to Ray; "but, bad as the light is, I can see what you have done."
At this Hetty and Ray laughed a suppressed laugh, and looked at one another with joyous glances.
The morning after Mrs. Crawford's relapse and Crawford's visit to town about the three thousand pounds, the husband was sitting by his wife's bedside. He was in a particularly cheerful and hopeful humour, and insisted that she had already begun to mend, and would in a week be better than she had been for months.
She shook her head with a sad smile, but said nothing. She did not wish to sadden the being she loved above all other living creatures by the thought of a final separation between them, a separation which she felt was inevitable, and to which she could not reconcile her mind. When alone she would cry out in despair to her gentle heart, "To be so loved, and to be so loving, and to be separated so soon!"
He went on affecting undiminished confidence in her recovery. "I tell you, I am certain you must, you will, get well, and that much sooner than even the doctor thinks." (The doctor had told him again that day there was little hope of her rallying.) "What good would my luck be if you were not by my side to share it? My Nelly comforted and sustained me in my days of doubt and difficulty. Do you mean that she is not to share my triumph? I will take very good care she shall. And now I want to tell you what I insist upon doing. I will take no denial, for I look on it as essential to your recovery."
"I will do anything you tell me," she said with meek devotion. "I will do all I can to get well. For, William, I am the happiest and most blessed woman in England, and I do not want to leave you, dear."
"That's my own brave wife," said he, winking his eyes quickly and patting her arm. "I don't think you will raise much, if any, objection to what I am about to do. I am going to write to Mrs. Farraday to come back and stay with you. She promised she would come if you needed her, and she will be a great source of comfort and confidence to you."
"But her brother?"
"Oh, her brother can do without her for awhile. You will be all right again in less than no time, and then, if she wishes, she can go back to her brother. And now I am off to write to Rochester for her by this very post, for a good thing cannot be done too soon, and I am sure this is a good thing for you."
He left her, went to his own room, wrote the letter, and posted it immediately himself. Then he came back to the house, and having entered the dining-room on the ground-floor, began walking up and down with brows lowered in deep meditation.
"I had better get it over me before Mrs. Farraday comes," he thought as the result of his cogitations. "I can't stay here any longer. I am not a sick-nurse to philander after an ailing woman, and dally in an invalid's room. She was a fool to marry me. Did she think for a moment I fell a victim to her ancient charms? If she did she ought to be in a lunatic asylum. Of course I told her I wanted to marry her for love, but is there in the history of the whole human race a single case of a man saying to a woman, 'I want to marry you for your money'? Not one.
"I can't stand this house any longer; it suffocates me. The doctor says there is no hope. Why should I wait to see the end? The approach of death and the presence of death are abhorrent to all healthy people. I can do no good by staying, and I have to think of myself. There are very few men living who would have been as good to her as I have been. She cannot expect me to do more, and," with one of his short laughs and a quick winking of his eyes, "my affairs in South America urgently demand my presence. I'll get the business over me at once. Brereton told me I could have the money early this afternoon."
Here his mind became so intensely occupied that his legs ceased to move, and he stood in the middle of the room lost in thought. He was contemplating scenes in his imagination: not proceeding by words. Presently words began to flow through his brain again, and he resumed his pacing up and down.
"If there should be any hitch about that money I should be in a nice mess." He shook his head gravely and repeated this contingency to himself two or three times. "That would never do. It would look weak and foolish. When I act I must act with firmness and decision. No, I had better make sure of the cash first."
He put all the money he had in his pocket, left the house, and took the first train to town. At Waterloo he jumped into a hansom and drove straight to the office of Mrs. Crawford's solicitor. He found Mr. Brereton in, and everything ready. The solicitor handed him an open cheque for £3,270, saying gravely as he did so:
"And you are fully resolved to put this money in that South American speculation?"
"My dear sir, there's a vast fortune in that fibre of mine; and now that the machinery has been perfected, it is only stretching out one's hands to gather in hundreds of thousands of pounds."
Brereton shook his head.
"The best place in which to put money is English Consols."
"What, less than three per cent.! For you can't buy even at par now. Why, my dear sir, it's letting money rust."
"It's keeping money safe."
Crawford shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace of dissatisfaction.
"Over-prudence, my dear Mr. Brereton. Who never ventured never got."
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; and of all the uncertain things I know of there is only one worse than putting money in South American speculations, and that is putting it in Central American ones."
"Ah, but you have never been in South America!" said he triumphantly, and his eyes winked quickly, and he laughed a short unpleasant laugh, and thought to himself, "Nor have I either." Then he continued aloud, "I am aware that it is most unwise of any one who does not know the ground to dabble in South American speculations, but, you see, I am well acquainted with the place, and know the ropes."
"The last client I had who touched anything in South America blew his brains out. But, of course, it is no affair of mine. I have only to do what I am asked by Mrs. Crawford in her letter to me. The cheque is an open one, as you requested. They will pay you across the counter. I hope you will not think of keeping such a sum as that in your house?"
"O, dear, no! I am going to remit it at once to my agent. When you see me next, Mr. Brereton," laughing and winking his eyes, "you will congratulate me upon my spirit and success."
"I hope so," said the lawyer drily, and in a tone and manner which plainly said he believed nothing of the kind would occur.
Crawford said good-bye and went straight to the bank, where he got thirty-two one-hundred pound notes and seventy in fives.
He had never had so much money in his possession before. He had never had any sum approaching it. Once or twice after a good racing week in the old times he had been master of five or six hundred, but three thousand two hundred pounds! It was almost incredible! And it was all in cash! It did not lie in the cold obstruction of any bank. It was not represented by doubtful I.O.U.'s. It was not represented by shadowy entries in a betting-book. It was not invested in any shaky securities. It was not manifested by abstract entries in a ledger. The money was concrete and tangible, and lying safely in his breast-pocket under the stout cloth of his coat. He could take it out and count it now if he liked. That minute he could start for Monte Carlo or St. Petersburg, Australia or Norway.
As he walked along the streets he held his head high. He felt independent of all men, independent of fortune, of Fate. He had married for money, he had realised the prize, and it was now safe in his pocket. These notes were as much legally his own as his hands or his teeth. No one could take them from him except by force, and he took pride in thinking that few men who passed him in the street would be able to cope with him single-handed. He had as much thought of risking his money in anything so far off and tame as South American speculations as he had of buying a box of matches and burning it note by note.
Of course, Brereton had been right in saying it would be a dangerous thing to keep such a tempting sum in an ordinary house. There might even be danger in walking about the streets with it in his pocket. Some dishonest person might have seen him draw it out of the bank and might be following him. He might be a match for more than an average man, but he would be no match for two or three. Garrotting had gone out of use, but it might be revived even in midday in London by men who knew the prize he carried, and were bold and prompt. If in a quiet street he were seized from behind and throttled so that he could not cry out, and if a man in front cut the pocket out of his coat, the thieves might be off before passers-by knew what was going on or suspected anything being wrong. He had a horror of revolvers, but plainly he ought to be armed. He did not yet know where he should keep his hoard, but in any case it would be well to possess the means of defending it.
Crawford had by this time got out of the City and was strolling through Regent Street. He turned into a gunsmith's shop and bought a short large-bore revolver and some cartridges. The man showed him how to load the weapon. Crawford explained that he was about to leave the country for Algiers, and wished to have all the chambers charged, as he was going in a vessel with a crew of many nationalities, and was taking out a lot of valuable jewellery.
Lying was a positive pleasure to him, even when it was not necessary. "It keeps a man's hand in," he explained the habit to himself.
It was now about two o'clock, and he began to feel the want of luncheon. There was no place where better food could be got or where the charges were more moderate than at the Counter Club. He was only a short distance from it. What could be more reasonable than that he should go and lunch there? Nothing. So he turned into an off street on the left, and in a few minutes was seated in a luxurious armchair in the dining-room, waiting for the meal he had ordered of the obsequious waiter.
He was somewhat tired by his walk, and found rest in the well-cushioned chair grateful and soothing.
Could anything be more comfortable and cheering than to sit at ease in this well-appointed club, with a small fortune in notes under one's coat? Here was no suggestion of illness or approaching death. All the men present were in excellent health and spirits. They were talking of cheerful subjects--horses, theatres, cards, the gossip and scandal of the town. They spoke of nothing that was not a source of enjoyment; and though all they said ran on assumption that they did not contemplate the idea of any man denying himself pleasure or being unable to obtain pleasure owing to the want of money, they were not all rich men, but all spoke as if they were. It was so much pleasanter to sit here, listening to this talk and taking part in it, than to wander about that cold-mannered house in Singleton Terrace at Richmond, or to sit by the sick-bed of a wife ten years older than himself and whine out loving phrases and indulge in distasteful private theatricals.
Then the obsequious and silent-footed waiter brought in his cutlets, and whispered that his luncheon was ready. Everything was very nice at Singleton Terrace, but somehow cutlets there and here were two widely different matters. It was no doubt easy to explain the reason of the difference. In one place the cook got twenty, in the other a hundred, pounds a year. But though that explained the difference, it made the cutlets at Singleton Terrace no better.
He had had enough of Richmond. Why should he go back there? As he had always held, there was no advantage in being brutal, and he would not undeceive his elderly wife. He would not tell her in plain words that he had never cared in the least for her, that he had married her merely for her money, and now that she was dying and her income would, for him, die with her, and that he had got all the money she had, that his whole mind was occupied with the image of a beautiful young girl whom he was about to make love to and ask to fly with him on her (his wife's) money. No. It would be uselessly unkind to tell that middle-aged silly invalid any of these things. But why should he go back to Richmond?
If he went back to say good-bye he would have to play a long scene in private theatricals to which no salary was now attached, since he had all the savings in his pocket. Besides, he would find it hard, credulous as his elderly wife was, to make her believe there could be any urgent necessity for his immediate departure to South America. There would be a scene and tears--and he hated scenes and tears--and then if the surprise or shock made her worse, who could tell the consequences, the unpleasant consequences, which might arise?
In the next room were pen, ink, and paper. Why should he not write instead of going back? That was it! He'd write explaining, play at the club to-night, and go on to Welford in the morning. That was a better programme than crawling back to that silly old invalid and acting sorrow at parting when his heart was overrunning with joy.
He went into the next room and wrote his first letter to his wife. He used a sheet of unheaded paper, and did not date or domicile it.
My dearest Nellie,--Upon coming to town I found waiting for me a telegram from Rio Janeiro to the effect that if I did not reach that city at the very earliest moment possible--in fact, by a steamer sailing from London to-day--my title to the estate on which the fibre grows would lapse. Nothing but my personal presence could save it. So, much against my will, I was obliged to drive in hot haste to the boat without the satisfaction of bidding you good-bye. Indeed, I have barely time to write this scrawl, and shall have to intrust it to a waterman for post. Be quite sure all will go well with me, and that I shall telegraph you the moment I land. I am so glad I wrote for Mrs. Farraday before leaving home this morning. I know she will take every care of my Nellie while I am away, and I am sure my Nellie will take every care of herself, and be quite well long before the return of her loving husband,
William Crawford.
"Thank heaven that's the end of this ridiculous connection!" he said to himself as he dropped the letter into a pillar-box in front of the club. "My mind is now easy, and I can enjoy myself. I can play to-night as though I were still a bachelor with no thought of the morrow. Ah, but I have thought of the morrow! What delightful thought, too! delightful Hetty."
It was late in the evening when this letter was delivered at Singleton Terrace. Nothing else came by that post. Although Mrs. Crawford had often seen her husband's writing, this was the first letter she had got from him, and she had never before seen her name and the address of that house in his writing. She did not recognise the hand, and thinking the letter must be connected with routine business about the Welford property, she put it on the table by her bedside unopened. He attended to all such matters.
When the maid brought in her supper she took up the letter again and turned it over idly in her hands. All at once it struck her that the writing was familiar, but whose it was she could not guess.
With a smile at her own curiosity, she broke the cover and drew out the sheet of paper.
She looked at the signature languidly until she read it. Then hastily, tremulously she scanned the first few lines. When she gathered their import she uttered a low wailing sob and fell back insensible on the pillow.
When William Crawford had posted his letter to his wife he felt ten years younger than an hour before. He enjoyed an extraordinary accession of spirits. The day had grown heavy and cloudy, but to him it was brighter than the flawless blue of Mediterranean summer. Richmond and Singleton Terrace were done with for good and all. There were to be no more private theatricals played for board and lodgings. Instead of simulating love for an elderly woman, he was at liberty to make real love to the most charming young girl he had ever met. His notions of right and wrong were clear and simple: what he liked was right, what he did not like was wrong. Since he had come to man's estate he had acted upon the code, and it never once occurred to him to question it. He did not object to other men being pious or just or modest; he did not object to their even preaching a little to him about the merit of these or any other virtues. All he asked was to be let go his own gait unmolested.
He was now at liberty to take what path he chose and adopt what sport pleased his humour. He had played for a small fortune and won. He felt proud of his success, and sorry that the nature of it forbade him glorying in it. He was aware that the most disreputable and unprincipled blackleg in the Counter Club would scorn to get money as he had acquired his. But this did not matter to him. He was not going to tell any one at the club how he came by the money; that was an irksome self-restraint imposed upon himself out of deference to ridiculous conventional ideas. But he had the money in his pocket--that was the great thing.
As he intended playing all through the night, if the game were kept up, it was too early to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon. He should be fagged out before morning if he sat down now. He was neither so young nor so impetuous that he could not discipline desire to delay.
All at once he remembered that in abandoning Singleton Terrace so suddenly he had lost his kit. The value of his baggage was not very great, and with the sum now in his possession he would not for three times its value go back to Richmond for it. He had now no personal belongings but the clothes he stood in and a portmanteau at Welford. He would go to a tailor and an outfitter and order what he wanted. That would amuse him and help to kill time. He should get back to the club about seven, and devote the rest of the evening and all the night to cards.
He did not go to the tailor with whom he had dealt since he came to live at Richmond. He wanted to cut himself off from that place as completely as possible.
At the tailor's he ordered three suits of clothes to be ready in three days and forwarded to Crawford's House, Crawford Street, Welford. What he bought at the outfitter's were to be sent to the tailor's and to accompany the parcel of the latter. He paid in advance for all. Then he went to another shop, purchased a portmanteau, and directed it to be delivered at the tailor's, and sent a note with it, asking him to put the outfitter's parcel and the clothes into it and send it to the address already given.
Then he bethought him of a dressing-bag, and he bought a handsome one with silver-mounted bottle and ivory-backed brushes. The bag, being of leather, reminded him that he had no boots but those on his feet. So he purchased a couple of pairs and a pair of slippers, and the slippers put him in mind of a dressing-gown.
He directed all these things to be sent to the tailor's, and wrote to the tailor to let them all be forwarded at the one time--that is, when the clothes were finished, in three days.
He enjoyed this shopping greatly. He had never before spent so much money on himself in one day. It was so pleasant to buy these articles without worrying about the price, to be in doubt as to whether he should have a dressing-bag at thirty or thirty-five pounds, and to decide in favour of the thirty-five-pound one merely because it had prettier bottles and a greater number of pockets.
When he could think of nothing else which he wanted, he said to himself, "And now what shall I take Hetty? I must get the very handsomest present I can light upon."
This set him off calling Hetty up to mind. He looked into the windows of a dozen jewellers' and shops where fancy articles were sold. He failed to find an article to his liking. He could not realise Hetty accepting any of the costly gifts presented to his view. At length with a sudden start he cried out to himself, "What an idiot I have been! Of course, she would not accept any of these things from me now. A few simple flowers from Covent Garden to-morrow morning on my way to Welford will be the very thing."
It never once occurred to him during the day that the money he was spending belonged to his wife, and was being laid out in a way and under conditions not contemplated by her in giving it to him. When he decided on taking flowers to Hetty, it never once occurred to him that this would be spending his wife's money to conciliate a rival of hers, and that twenty-four hours ago he would have bought these same flowers for his deserted wife.
"Hetty," he said, formulating his theory, "is to be won through her imagination, not by pelf."
When he got back to the club he reckoned up what he had spent. It was an agreeable surprise to find that although he had treated himself with great liberality, all his purchases did not absorb the hundred-pound note he had changed at the tailor's. He had got a moderate outfit and a very handsome dressing-case, with cut-glass bottles silver-mounted, and ivory-backed brushes, for less than one thirty-second part of the money received from Mr. Brereton that afternoon. He sat down to an excellent dinner with the conviction that he had done a fair day's work, and that he was entitled to enjoy himself for the remainder of the evening, and as far into the morning as he chose.
The dinner was excellent; his shopping had given him zest for it, and when he stood up from the table he felt in the most excellent humour with himself and all the world.
He looked at his watch.
"She has my letter by this time," he said to himself, thinking of his wife. "If she is not a greater fool than I take her for, she will know from it that she has seen the last of me."
When he wrote the letter he had no intention of conveying any such idea to her, but his shopping and thoughts of Hetty had hardened his heart since then towards his unhappy wife, and now he wanted to believe that his letter would leave her no loophole of hope.
"Dr. Loftus said any shock might bring on the end. Perhaps my letter----" He paused and did not finish the sentence, but began another: "When a case is hopeless the greatest mercy which can be shown to the sufferer is, of course, to put an end to the struggle. She could not have fancied for a moment that I was going to spend all my life in the sick-room of a woman almost old enough to be my mother. Anyway, I need not bother my head any more about the matter. She cannot say that while our married life lasted I was not a kind and considerate husband. Turn about is fair play, and I am going to be a little kind and considerate to myself now. I'll put the past away from my mind. 'Gather we rosebuds while we may' is my version. Now to lose for the last time."
At the Counter Club there were men every night who did not mind how far into the morning they sat so long as they were winning. From the moment Crawford touched the cards until he rose at half-past six he had lost steadily. Though he had played for higher stakes than usual, he had been as careful of his game as if he had no more than a few hundred pounds with him. He had not been reckless. He had not plunged. Luck had simply been dead against him, and when, while eating his early breakfast, he counted up the cost, he found he was close on three hundred pounds the worse for his night's experience.
Mentally he cursed his bad luck.
"But I deserve no better," he thought. "I told myself that I should have good luck only when I had come from Welford. The luck I played with last night was my wife's or my own, and both have been invariably bad. I shall go to Welford to-day, and play to-night with Hetty's luck, and win back all I have lost and more besides. And now to get a bouquet for Hetty--for the loveliest girl in the whole of England. But the bouquet must not be too splendid. It must be simple and cheap, or it might do more harm than good."
At Covent Garden he bought some simple blossoms, and had them tied carelessly together.
"She will not value them for what they cost, but for my remembering her."
He was full of confidence in his power to fascinate and win. It never for a moment occurred to him that Hetty might not care for him or his memory of her. The notion of a rival had never entered his head, and if any one had suggested such a thing he would have laughed the consideration of it to scorn. He admired Hetty intensely, and he meant to succeed, and succeed he would.
He lounged about Covent Garden for a good while, for he did not want to reach Welford until Layard had gone to the gasworks. Of course he should say his visit to Crawford's House was made with the purpose of seeing what progress had been made with the gates for the flooded ice-house.
It was about eleven o'clock when he got to Welford Bridge.
"The coast will be quite clear till one or two o'clock," he thought, with a sense of satisfaction. "Layard has gone to the works and Philip Ray is in his office, curse him!"
When Hetty heard the latch in the door that day she came to no hasty conclusion that it was her brother come back for something he had forgotten. She was in the kitchen with Mrs. Grainger at the moment, and guessed immediately it was Crawford, although the week was not yet up. If Philip Ray had not spoken out to her, that sound at the door and the likelihood of the visitor being the landlord of the house would have thrown her into unpleasant excitement bordering on panic; but now she felt as calm and as much at ease as though certain it was Alfred himself.
"I shall say nothing of what that dreadful man said about his falling into the river," she resolved hastily. "If he chooses to speak of it, well and good; if he does not, well and good also. We are to leave this house as soon as Alfred can make arrangements for doing so. The quieter and the smoother everything goes in the meantime the better."
Crawford paused in the hall. Mrs. Grainger appeared "Is Mr. Layard in?" he asked, well-knowing he was not.
"No, sir, he's gone to the works."
"Then will you tell Miss Layard I should be glad to see her for a few minutes?" he said, taking off his hat and putting it on the table.
Hetty came at once, and held out her hand with a smile.
"She looks lovelier than ever," he thought, as he took the long slender hand and retained it. "I know I have come before my time, but I have been bothered again in my sleep about that ice-house and you. I will stay a day or so in order to see the gates put up--that is, of course, if you do not object?"
"Object!" she said, withdrawing her hand. "Why on earth should we object?"
"Well, I don't know," said he. "It may seem to you that I am unduly anxious about the matter. But upon my word, my anxiety about you has deprived me of all peace since I saw you last, and that scoundrel to whom I gave the order for the gates has not begun them yet. I assure you I had to exercise all my self-restraint to keep my hands off the fellow when I forced the truth from him. Will you accept a few simple flowers as a peace-offering and in lieu of the gates?"
"O, thank you," she said. "They are beautiful! But you give yourself a great deal of unnecessary anxiety and trouble about that ice-house. We never allow little Freddie on the Quay by himself, and of course there is no danger for a grown-up person, because no grown-up person ever goes near it. How on earth," she asked, with a laugh, "do you fancy a grown-up person could fall into such a place?" She wondered was he going up to his own room, or did he intend to remain standing there all day?
"I daresay I should not mind it if my dream happened to be about any one else. But the mere hint that any danger could threaten you is enough to drive me distracted. It is indeed," he said, looking at her intently, and with a pained expression on his usually passive face. "I assure you I did not sleep a wink last night; I could not, and I feel quite worn out and ill this morning. I have been wandering about, trying to kill time until I thought it was not too early to call here. I am hardly able to stand with anxiety, want of sleep, and fatigue."
"Would you not like to go to your own room and rest awhile? I will send Mrs. Grainger up with something nice for you."
"Mrs. Grainger could bring up nothing that I'd care for, and I hate the notion of going to that lonely room. I am quite nervous and unstrung." He sighed faintly and leaned against the wall for support.
"Well," she said, "will you come into our room and rest there?" Plainly, after his reference to the loneliness of his own place and the declaration of his exhausted condition, there was nothing but to offer him their front-room.
"Thank you," he said, "I shall very gladly accept your offer. I am thoroughly ashamed of seeming so weak and unmanned, but indeed I have had an awful time of it."
He sank on a chair as though completely exhausted. She stood by the door and said, "Cannot I send you something, Mr. Crawford?"
"If you would be so good as to get me a glass of water and then not leave me for a little while I should feel very grateful to you."
She hastened away and returned in a few seconds with the water.
"Miss Layard, I cannot tell you how ill I felt as I came along here. I really thought I should not have had courage to open the front door. I was full of the direst imaginings. I fancied that no sooner should I raise the latch than some awful form of bad news about you would strike me dumb with horror, paralyse me with despair." He took out his handkerchief and rubbed his forehead, which, however, was perfectly free from moisture.
"I am very sorry to be the cause of so much trouble to you, Mr. Crawford," said Hetty with some concern, though she had a vague kind of feeling that there was something wrong with the man--that he was either acting or of weak intellect. It never once occurred to her that he was thinking of making love to her. How could it? Was not he a married man? And did he not know that they were aware the owner of the Welford and Leeham property was his wife? She thought he had been a good deal too impulsive and a little impertinent on the former occasion when he told her of his dream, but now she was almost convinced that his violence of language on the former occasion and his physical collapse now were the result of a weak mind under strong excitement.
For a while after drinking the water he sat still and did not speak. Apparently he was gradually recovering, for he sighed once or twice, and once or twice straightened himself and sat upright on his chair. "I shall be all right in a few minutes. The sight of you is doing me good."
"Well, of course you know now nothing dreadful has happened?"
"To you--yes; I know that, thank Heaven! but to me, yes."
"Something dreadful has happened to you?" cried Hetty. "I am sorry to hear you say so. Nothing, I hope, that can't be mended?"
"Well, I do not know about that. If my condition were very desperate, Miss Layard, and it was in your power to mend it, and I asked you to help me, would you do so?"
"Certainly, Mr. Crawford, if I possibly could." He rose and went to her where she sat by the table, and bent over her, and said in a low, tremulous, tender voice, "Thank you--thank you a thousand times, my dear Miss Layard, my dear Hetty--may I call you Hetty?"
She coloured and looked uncomfortable, and this made her shine in his eyes with ineffable beauty. "It is not usual," she said at last.
"No, it is not usual, but I would deem it a great privilege. I of course would not call you by your dear Christian name when any one was by, but when you and I were having a little chat by ourselves I might, might I?"
Her colour and her confusion increased. "It is not usual," she repeated. "There is no reason why you should call me one thing now and another thing at another time." She raised her eyes, drew away a little from him, and pointing to the chair, said with steady emphasis which surprised herself, and showed him he must go no further--now, anyway: "I am afraid you are not yet rested enough to stand so long. Will you not sit down again?"
"You are right," he said with a deep sigh. "You are quite right. I am completely worn out, and my head is confused."
"There is no couch in your own room--perhaps you would like to rest on the one here? You will not be disturbed for some hours yet. My brother does not come in till three."
"Thank you very much, Miss Layard," he said, without any emphasis on her name. "But I think I'll go to my own room and lie down now. If I could get an hour's sleep I should be all right."
When he stood alone in his own room he said to himself, "I have not made much progress with her yet. I durst not go any further to-day than I went. Next time I ask her I'd bet a thousand pounds to a penny she'll give me leave to call her Hetty when we're alone. Once let her give me leave to call her Hetty when we are alone while I am to call her Miss Layard when any one else is present, and the rest is simple. My dreams"--he uttered his short sharp laugh and winked his eyes rapidly--"my dreams and my enormous solicitude for her welfaremusttell in the end."
He went to the open window and looked out at the canal and the Ait and the tow-path. Then he turned his eyes downward.
With a cry of terror he sprang back, as though a deadly weapon or venomous snake in act to strike were a hand's breadth from his breast.