owl
CHAPTER III.
“ICANunderstand what you felt,” Walter said, when he heard of Florence’s interview with Mrs. North; “still, I wish we could do something for her.”
“It has made me miserable; but I don’t quite see what we can do. We can’t invite her here—who would come to meet her? As for my going to see her again, I would go willingly if I thought I should do her any good; but I don’t think she would care about seeing me. She imagines I am good and disagreeable.”
“Poor Floggie! Perhaps you might write her a little letter, and then let it drop.”
“I’ll wait till I hear some news about Aunt Anne; then I will write, and try to make my letter rather nice.”
This excuse was soon given her.
Mrs. Burnett, Mr. Fisher’s Whitley friend, called to see Florence one afternoon.
“I thought perhaps you would come for a drive with me,” she said; “it is lovely in the Park to-day—such beautiful sunshine.”
“It would be delightful,” Florence answered, for she always liked Mrs. Burnett; “but I am afraid I must go to tea with a cousin in Kensington Gore. I promised to meet Walter there, and go for a walk afterwards.”
“Let me drive you there, at any rate.”
“That would be very kind,” Florence said, and in five minutes they were on their way.
“Have you seen Mr. Fisher lately?” Mrs. Burnett asked, as they went across the Park.
“I saw him two or three weeks ago.”
“He has grown very grave and silent. I have an idea that he fell in love with a rather handsome girl who used to come and see his mother. I think she was a friend of yours, Mrs. Hibbert.”
“He doesn’t look like a man to fall in love,” Florence said, trying not to betray Mr. Fisher’s confidence.
“Oh, but you never know what is going on inside people—their feelings are so often at variance with their appearance. My husband said once that he sometimes thought people drew lots for their souls, because they are so seldom matched with their bodies.”
“Perhaps they do, and for their hearts as well. It would account for the strange capacity some people have for loving, though you have only to look at them to see it is hopeless that they should be loved back again.”
“I know, and it is terrible that love should so often depend, as it does, on the chance arrangement of a little flesh and blood—for that is what beauty amounts to.”
“Oh, but we don’t always love beauty.”
“No, not always,” Mrs. Burnett answered; “but the shape of a face, for instance, will sometimes prevent our love going to a very beautiful soul.”
“And a few years and wrinkles will make love ridiculous or impossible,” Florence said, thinking of Aunt Anne. Oddly enough, Mrs. Burnett evidently thought of her too, for she asked—
“Has your aunt been at the cottage at Witley lately?”
“No,” answered Florence; but she did not want to discuss Aunt Anne. “My children so often remember the donkey-cart,” she said; “it was a great joy to them.”
“Oh, I’m very glad. When you go to Witley again, I hope you will use the pony.”
“What has become of the donkey?”
“We were obliged to sell it. It would not go at all at last. We are not going to Witley ourselves till July; so, meanwhile, I hope you will use the pony. Only, dear Mrs. Hibbert, you won’t let him go too fast uphill, for it spoils his breath; and we never let him gallop downhill, for fear of his precious knees.”
“I will be very careful,” Florence said, rather amused.
“I’m afraid we don’t let him go too fast, even on level ground,” Mrs. Burnett added; “for he’s a dear little pony, and we should be so grieved if he came to any harm.”
“Perhaps he would be safer always standing still,” Florence suggested.
“Oh, but he might catch cold then; but do remember, dear Mrs. Hibbert, when you are going to Witley, that you have only to send a card the night before to the gardener, and he will meet you at the station.”
“Thank you, only I should be rather afraid to use him for fear of accidents.”
“Oh, but you needn’t be; and we are so glad to have him exercised. Perhaps Mrs. Baines would like to drive him? Why, we are at Kensington Gore already. It has been delightful to have you for this little drive. Good-by, dear Mrs. Hibbert.”
Walter was waiting for Florence at her cousin’s. He gave her a sign not to stay too long.
“We so seldom get a walk together,” he said, when they were outside, “that it seemed a pity to waste our time under a roof. Let us get into the Park;” and they crossed over.
“How lovely it is,” Florence said, “with the tender green coming out on the trees. The brown boughs look as if they were sprinkled with it. And what a number of people are out. The Park is beginning to have quite a season-like look.”
“Do you remember how Aunt Anne used to come here and contemplate the Albert Memorial?” Walter asked. “By the way, Fisher was talking of Wimple to-day; he is very sore about him.”
“It was very vexing; I wish we had never seen him, don’t you?”
“What, Wimple? I should think so. I asked Fisher if he knew the fellow’s address; he says the last time he heard of him he was somewhere near Gray’s Inn Road. I wonder if she was with him?”
“Walter!” exclaimed Florence, and she almost clutched his arm, “I believe she is over there. Perhaps that is why she has been running in our thoughts all day.”
A little distance off, on a bench under a tree, sat a spare black figure, with what looked like a cashmere shawl pulled round the slight shoulders. Limp and sad the figure looked: there was an expression of loneliness in every line of it.
“It is very like her,” Walter said. They went a little nearer; they were almost beside her; but they could not see her face, which was turned away from them.
“Oh, it must be she,” Florence said, in a whisper. Perhaps she heard their footsteps, for the black bonnet turned slowly round, and, sure enough, there was the face of Aunt Anne. It looked thin and woebegone.
“Aunt Anne! Dear Aunt Anne! Why have you left us all this time without a sign?” and Florence put her arms round the slender shoulders.
“Aunt Anne! Why, this is real good luck!” Walter exclaimed.
“My dear Florence, my dear Walter,” the old lady said, looking at them with a half-dazed manner; “bless you, dear children; it does me good to see you.”
“You don’t deserve it, you know,” he said tenderly, “for cutting us.”
“It wasn’t my fault, dear Walter,” she answered; “you and Florence and the dear children have been constantly in my thoughts; but we have had many unavoidable anxieties since our marriage; besides, I was not sure that you desired to see me again.”
“Why, of course we did. But you don’t deserve to see us again after leaving us alone all this long time. Where is Wimple?”
“He is at Liphook,” she answered. “He is not strong, and finds the air beneficial to him.”
“It was always beneficial to him,” Walter said dryly, as he sat down beside her.
“He ought not to leave you alone, dear Aunt Anne; you don’t look well,” Florence said.
“I am very frail, my love, but that is all. London air is never detrimental to me, as it is to Alfred. He finds that Liphook invigorates him, and he frequently goes there for two or three days; but, as our means are not adequate to defray the expenses of much travelling, I remain in town. Walter,” she asked, looking up with a touch of her old manner, “did you enjoy your visit to India? I hope you have most pleasant recollections of your journey.”
“I’ll tell you what, Floggie dear,” Walter said, not answering Aunt Anne’s question, “we’ll take her back with us at once.”
“Oh no, my love,” the old lady began; “it is impossible——”
“How can it be impossible?” Florence said gaily; “you are evidently all alone in London; so we’ll run away with you. The children are longing to see you, and I want to show you all the things Walter brought from India. There is a little ivory elephant for you.”
“It was just like him to think of me,” the old lady said, with a flicker of her former brightness; but in a moment her sadness returned, and Walter noticed that there was almost a cowed expression on her face. It went to his heart, and gave him a mighty longing to thrash Wimple.
“You must come at once,” he said, putting on an authoritative manner; “then you can tell us all your news, and we will tell you all ours. There, put your arm in mine, and Florence shall go the other side to see you don’t escape.”
“He is just the same. He makes me think of his dear father,” she said, as she walked between them; “and of that happy day at Brighton, years and years ago now, when I met you both on the pier. Do you remember, my dear ones?”
“Of course we do!” said Walter; “and how victoriously you carried us off then, just as we are carrying you off now.”
“Oh, he’s just the same,” the old lady repeated.
“Here’s a four-wheeler,” he said, when they reached the Bayswater Road. “This is quite an adventure; only,” he added gently, “you don’t look up to much.”
“I shall be better soon,” she said, and dropped into silence again. She looked, almost vacantly, out of the cab window as they went along, and they were afraid to ask her questions, for, instinctively, they felt that things had not gone well with her. Presently she turned to Florence. “Did you say the children were at home, my love?”
“Yes, dear.” The old lady looked out again at the green trees in the Park, and almost furtively at the shops in Oxford Street. Then she turned to Florence.
“My love,” she said, “I must take those dear children a little present. Would you permit the cabman to stop at a sweetmeat-shop? We shall reach one in a moment.”
“Oh, please don’t trouble about them, dear Aunt Anne.”
“I shouldn’t like them to think I had forgotten them, my love,” she pleaded.
“No, and they shan’t think it,” Walter said, patting her hand. “Hi! stop, cabby. Stay in the cab; I’ll go and get something for them.” In a few minutes he reappeared with two boxes of chocolates. “I think that’s the sort of thing,” he said. She looked at them carefully, opened them, and examined the name of the maker.
“You have selected them most judiciously, dear Walter,” she answered.
“That’s all right. Now we’ll go on.” She looked at the boxes once more, and put them down, satisfied.
“It was just like you, to save me the fatigue of getting out of the cab,” she said to her nephew. “I hope the children will like them; they were always most partial to chocolates. You must remind me to reimburse you for them presently, my dear.” And once more she turned to the window.
“Aunt Anne, are you looking for any one?” Walter asked presently.
“No, my love, but I thought the cabman was going through Portman Square, and that he would pass Sir William Rammage’s house.”
“That worthy was at Cannes the other day, I saw.”
“He stays there till next month,” she explained, and then they were all silent until they reached the end of their journey. It was impossible to talk much to Aunt Anne; it seemed to interrupt her thoughts. Silence seemed to have become a habit to her, just as it had to Alfred Wimple. She was a little excited when they stopped at the house, and lingered before the entrance for a moment. Almost sadly she looked up at the balcony on which she had sat with Alfred Wimple, and slowly her left eye winked, as if many things had happened since that happy night of which only she had a knowledge.
They sat her down in an easy-chair, and gave her tea, and made much of her, and asked no questions—only showed their delight at having her with them again. Gradually the tender old face looked happier, the sad lines about the mouth softened, and once there was quite a merry note in her voice, as she laughed and said, “You dear children, you are just the same.” Then Catty and Monty were brought in, and she kissed them, and patronized them, and gave them their chocolates, and duly sent them away again, just as she always used to do.
“I began to work a little hood for Catty,” she said, “but I never finished it; it was not that I was dilatory, but that my eyes are not as good as they were.” She said the last words sadly, and Florence, looking up quickly, wondered if they were dimmed from weeping.
“Poor Aunt Anne,” she said soothingly; “but you are not as lonely as formerly?”
“No, my love, only Alfred has a great deal of work to do. It keeps him constantly at his chambers; and his health not being good, he is obliged to go out of town very often, so that, unwillingly”—and she winked sadly—“he is much away from me.”
“What work is he doing?” Walter asked.
“My dear,” she said, with gentle dignity, “you must forgive me for not answering that question, but I feel that he would not approve of my discussing his private affairs.”
“Have you comfortable rooms in town?” Florence asked, in order to change the subject.
“No, my love, they are not very comfortable, but we are not in a pecuniary position to pay a large rent.” She paused for a moment, and her face became grave and set. Florence, watching her, fancied that there was a little quiver to the upper lip.
“Aunt Anne, dear Aunt Anne, I am certain you are not very happy—tell us what it is. We love you. Do tell us—is anything the matter? Is Mr. Wimple kind to you? Are you poor?”
“Yes, do tell us!” Walter said, and put his arm round her shoulder, and gave it a little affectionate caress.
She hesitated for a moment. “My dears,” she said gratefully, but a little distantly, “Alfred is very kind to me, but he is very much tried by our circumstances. He is not strong, and he is obliged to be separated from me very often. It causes him much regret, although he is too unselfish to show it.”
“But you ought not to be very poor, if Wimple has lots of work,” Walter said.
“I fear it is not very profitable work, dear Walter, and though I have an allowance from Sir William Rammage, it does not defray all our expenses”—and she was silent. Walter and Florence were silent too. They could not help it, for Aunt Anne had grown so grave, and she seemed to lose herself in her thoughts. Only once did she refer to the past.
“Walter, dear,” she asked, “did you find my little gifts useful when you were away?” Aunt Anne always used to inquire after the wear and tear of her presents.
“Indeed I did,” he answered heartily. “I was speaking of them only to-day—wasn’t I, Floggie?” But he concealed the fact that all the scissors were lost, lest she should want to give him some more.
“Aunt Anne,” Florence asked, “isn’t there anything we could do for you? You don’t look very well.”
“The spring is so trying, my love,” the old lady said gently.
“I expect you want a change quite as much as Mr. Wimple.”
“Oh no, my love. I have been a little annoyed by my landlady, who was impertinent to me this morning. It depresses me to have a liberty taken with me.” Perhaps the rent was not paid, Florence thought, but she did not dare to ask. Aunt Anne shivered and pulled her shawl round her again, and explained that she had not put on her warm cloak, as it was so sunny and bright, and the people in the Park might have observed that it was shabby; and while she was talking a really brilliant idea came to Walter.
“Aunt Anne,” he exclaimed, “why should not you and Wimple go to our cottage at Witley for a bit? Oh! but I forgot—he stays with friends at Liphook, doesn’t he?”
“No, my love, he lodges with an old retainer.”
“Oh,” said Walter, shortly, remembering a different account that Wimple had given him the year before, on the memorable morning when they met in the Strand. “Well, I think it would be an excellent thing if you and he went to our cottage. It is standing empty; we don’t want it just yet, and there you could be together.” Aunt Anne looked up with keen interest.
“Yes, why not?” exclaimed Florence. “I wish you would. You would be quite happy there.”
“My love,” said the old lady, eagerly, “it would be delightful. But I’m afraid there are reasons that render it impossible for me to accept your kindness.”
“What reasons?—do speak out,” they said entreatingly, “because, perhaps, we can smooth them away.”
“My dears,” said the old lady, “I must be frank with you. I am indebted to some of the tradespeople there, and I am not in a position to pay their bills.”
“They are all paid,” Walter said joyfully, “so don’t trouble about them; and, moreover, we told them that they were never to give us any credit, so I am afraid they won’t give you any next time, any more than they will us, but you won’t mind that.”
“And then, my love,” the old lady went on, to Florence, “I have no servants.”
“I can arrange that,” said Florence. “I can telegraph to Jane Mitchell, the postman’s sister, who always comes in and does for us when we go alone, from Saturday to Monday, and take no servant. Do go, Aunt Anne; it will do you a world of good. I shall take you back to your lodgings, and get you ready, and send you off to-morrow morning.”
Aunt Anne stood up excitedly. “My dears,” she said, “I will bless you for sending me. I can’t bear this separation. I want to be with him, and he wants me—I know he does; it makes him cross and irritable to be away from me.” There was almost a wild look in her eyes. They were astonished at her vehemence. But suddenly she seemed to remember something, and all her excitement subsided. “I cannot go until Sir William Rammage returns to town, or his solicitor does. My quarter’s allowance is not due for some weeks, and unfortunately——”
“We’ll make that all right, Aunt Anne; leave it to us,” said Walter. “Florence will come round in the morning and carry you off, and Wimple will be quite astonished when you send for him.”
Aunt Anne looked up almost gaily. “Yes, my love, he will be quite astonished. You have made me happy,” she added, with something like a sob; “bless you for all your goodness. Now, my dear ones, you must permit me to depart; I shall have so many arrangements to make this evening. Bless you for all your kindness.”
“I am going to take you back in a hansom,” said Walter. And in a few minutes they were driving to the address she had given, a florist’s shop in a street off the Edgware Road.
“I think her rooms were on the top floor,” he told Florence, when he returned, “for she looked up at the windows with a mournful air when we arrived. The house seemed neglected, and the shop had a dead-and-gone air; nothing in it but some decayed plants and a few stray slugs. It is my opinion that she is left in a garret all by herself, poor dear; and that Wimple takes himself off to his chambers, or to his Liphook friends, and has a better time.”
“He’s a horrid thing!”
“Floggie, do you know that he is our uncle Alfred?” her husband asked wickedly. She looked at him for a moment in bewilderment, then she understood.
“Walter,” she said, “if you ever say that again I will run away from you. I shall go and write a line to Mrs. Burnett’s gardener,” she added, “and tell him to meet us with the pony to-morrow; she said I was to use it, and I think it would be good for Aunt Anne not to be excited by the sight of Steggall’s waggonette. I am certain she is very unhappy.”
“I don’t know how she could expect to be anything else,” he answered. “Poor thing, what the deuce did he marry her for? There is some mystery at the bottom of it.”
Walter had divined rightly. Aunt Anne’s lodging was at the top of the house. When he left her she went slowly up the dark staircase that led to it. On the landing outside her door were her two canvas-covered boxes, one on top of the other. She looked at them for a moment, half hesitatingly, as if she were thinking of the journey they would take to-morrow, and of the things she must not forget to put into them. She turned the handle of the front-room door and walked in. Alfred Wimple was sitting by a cinder fire, over which he was trying to make some water boil. He looked up as she entered, but did not rise from the broken cane-bottomed chair.
“Why did you go out, Anne?” he asked severely, without giving her any sort of greeting.
“My dear one,” she said excitedly, going forward, “I did not dream of your being here; it is, indeed, a joyful surprise.” She put her hands on his shoulder and leaned down. He turned his head away with a quick movement, and her kiss brushed his cheek near the ear; but she pretended not to see it. “When did you come, my darling?”
“Two hours ago,” he said solemnly; “and I wanted some tea.”
“I am so sorry, but I did not dream of your coming. Are you better, my dear one?” She tried to pull the fire together with the little poker.
“I am a little better,” he answered. “You will never make the water boil over that fire.”
“Yes, I will”—and she looked into the coal-scuttle. “Have you come up to town for good, dear Alfred?” The scuttle was empty, but she found some little bits of wood and tried to make a blaze.
“I don’t know; I am going back to my chambers presently to do a night’s work.”
“And to-morrow?” she asked anxiously.
“Perhaps you will see me to-morrow,” he answered. “Can you give me something to eat? I wish you would make a decent fire.”
“I will, my dear one. If you will rest here patiently for a few minutes, I will go downstairs and ask the landlady to let me have some coals.”
“I have no money,” he said sullenly; “understand that.”
“But I have, my darling,” she answered joyfully; “and I am quite sure you require nourishment. Will you let me go out and buy you a chop?”
“Give me some tea. I can get dinner on my way back.”
“Won’t you stay with me this evening, Alfred? I have some news for you, and I have been so lonely.” She looked round the shabby room, as if to prove to him how impossible it was to find comfort in it.
“No, I can’t stay,” he answered shortly. “How much money have you got?”
“I have a sovereign. Walter slipped it into my glove just now. I have been to see them both, Alfred.”
“What did they say about me?”
“They spoke of you most kindly, my darling,” she answered, and winked very timidly.
“Why couldn’t he give you more? A sovereign isn’t much,” Wimple said discontentedly. “I see Rammage is not coming back from Cannes just yet,” he added.
“My dear,” she said gravely, “you are fatigued with your journey, and hungry, and I know you are anxious. If you will excuse me a moment, I will make some little preparations for your comfort.” And, with the dignity that always sat so quaintly upon her, she rose from the rug and left the room. She returned in a few minutes, followed by the landlady with a scuttleful of coals. Then she made some tea, and cut some bread and butter, and set it before Alfred Wimple, all the time putting off, nervously, the telling of her great bit of news. She looked at him while he ate and drank, and her face showed that she was not looking at the actual man before her, but at some one she had endowed with a dozen beauties of heart and soul: she wished he could realize that he possessed them; they might have given him patience and made him happier.
“Did you enjoy the country?” she asked gently.
“Yes”—he coughed uneasily—“but I was not well. I shall go there again soon.”
“What do you do all day?” she asked. “Have you any society?”
He was silent for a moment, as if struggling with the destitution of speech that always beset him. “I can’t give you an account of all my days, Anne,” he said, and turned to the fire.
“I did not ask it, Alfred; you know that I never intrude upon your privacy. I had some news,” she went on, with a pathetic note in her voice, “and hoped it would be pleasing to you.”
“What is it?” The expression of his face had not changed for a moment from the one of sulky displeasure it had worn when she entered, and her manner betrayed a certain nervousness, as if she felt that he was with her against his will, and only by gentle propitiation could she keep him at all.
“Walter and Florence have offered to lend us their cottage at Witley. We can go to it to-morrow—if it is convenient to you, dear Alfred,” she added meekly.
“I shall not go there,” he said sullenly; and for a moment he looked her full in the face with his dull eyes.
“I thought the air of that locality was always beneficial to you,” she said, in the same tone in which she had last spoken.
“Thank you, I don’t wish to go to that ‘locality,’ and be laughed at.” He half mocked her as he spoke.
“Why should you be laughed at?” she asked, with almost a cry of pain in her voice, for she knew what the answer would be, beforehand; but the words were forced from her, she could not help them. He coughed and looked at her again.
“People generally laugh at a young man who marries an old woman, Anne.” She got up and went to the end of the room, and came back again, and put her hand upon his shoulder.
“No one is there to laugh,” she said. “There is no one there to know. We need not keep any society.” She did not see the absurdity of the last remark, and made it quite gravely. “There are only a few people in the neighbourhood at all, and those of an inferior class. It does not matter what they think.”
“It matters to me what every one thinks.”
“We cannot remain here much longer,” she went on. “The landlady was most impertinent to-day. I think Florence and Walter would help to pay her if we went to the cottage to-morrow. They said they would arrange everything.”
“It is a long way from Liphook,” he said, almost to himself; “if any one saw us, they wouldn’t suspect that we were married. They would think you were my aunt, perhaps.”
“They may think what they please, Alfred,” she answered, “if you are only with me.” Then her voice changed. “My dear one, I cannot bear life unless you are gentle to me,” she pleaded; “and I cannot bear it here alone any longer, always away from you, day after day. I am your wife, Alfred, and, if I am an old woman, I love you with all the years I remember, and all the love that has been stored up in me since my youth. I want to be near you, to take care of you, to see that you have comforts. You can say that I am your aunt, if it pleases you. I never feel that I am your wife, only that it is my great privilege to be near you and to serve you.” She stopped, as if unable to go on, and he was silent a moment or two before he answered.
“It might be a good idea; as you say, there is no one about there to know.”
“Are you ashamed of me?”
“I don’t want to look ridiculous.” Then a flash came into her eyes, and the old spirit asserted itself.
“Alfred,” she said, “if you do not love me, I think at least you should learn to treat me with respect. If I am so distasteful to you we had better separate. I cannot go on bearing all that I have borne patiently for months. Let me go to Florence and Walter; they will be kind to me, and I will never be a burden upon you. The allowance that Sir William Rammage gives me would keep me in comfort alone, and it struck me the other day that, when he dies, perhaps he will leave me something.”
He looked at her with sudden alarm. The cowed look seemed to have gone from her face to his, and as she saw it she gathered strength, and went on, “I cannot be insulted, Alfred; I cannot and will not.”
“Don’t be foolish, Anne; I am irritable sometimes, and I am not strong——”
“That is why I have borne so much from you.”
“I will go to Witley with you,” he said, ignoring her remark altogether; “that is, if you like, and can raise the money to go. I have none.”
flowers in a triangle
rabbits on a path along a fence
CHAPTER IV.
“Fisherwas quite pleased when I asked him if we could get off to Monte Carlo at Whitsuntide for a fortnight,” Walter told Florence a few weeks later.
“Wasn’t he shocked at your gambling propensities?”
“Not a bit. He looked as if he would like to go too; said, in rather a pompous manner”—and Walter imitated his editor exactly—“ ‘Certainly, certainly; I think, Hibbert, your wife deserves a little treat of some sort after your long absence in the winter, and I am very glad if it is in my power to help you to give it to her.’ He looked like the King of the Cannibal Islands making an Act of Parliament all by himself.”
“You are a ridiculous dear.”
“Thank you, Floggie. Fisher’s a nice old chap, and I am very fond of him.”
“Do you know,” she said, in rather a shocked tone, “Ethel Dunlop said one day that she believed he looked upon himself as a sort of minor providence?”
“Well, he does go about minor-providencing a good deal—which reminds me that he said he was coming, in a day or two, to ask you to take him out to buy a wedding-present for Ethel.”
“He’ll buy her a Crown Derby tea-set, or a sugar-basin with a very large pair of tongs, see if he doesn’t. Ethel said he ought to have married Aunt Anne.”
“He would have been a thousand times better than Wimple. I wonder how those gay young people are getting on at Witley, and whether they want anything more before we start.”
“I think they must be all right at present,” Florence said. “We sent them a good big box of stores when they went to the cottage; and I know you gave her a little money, dear Walter, and we paid up her debts, so that she cannot be worried. Then, of course, she has her hundred a year from Sir William to fall back upon, and Mr. Wimple probably has something.”
“Oh yes, I suppose they are all right; besides, I don’t feel too generous towards that beggar Wimple.”
“I should think not,” Florence said virtuously. “Do you know, Walter, once or twice it has struck me that perhaps he won’t live; he doesn’t look strong, and he is always complaining. Aunt Anne said that he wanted constant change of air.”
“Oh yes, I remember she said Liphook was ‘beneficial’ to him.”
“If he died she would have her allowance, and be free.”
“No such luck,” said Walter. “Besides, if he died, there would be nowhere for him to go to—he’d have to come back again. Heaven wouldn’t have him, and, after all, he isn’t quite bad enough for the devil to use his coals upon.”
“Walter, you mustn’t talk in that way—you mustn’t, indeed;” and she put her hand over his mouth.
“All right,” he said, struggling to get free; “I won’t do it again.”
Mr. Fisher duly arrived the next afternoon. He was a little breathless, though he carefully tried to conceal it, and wore the air of deference, but decision, which he always thought the right one to assume to women. With much gravity he and Florence set out to buy the wedding-present. It resolved itself into a silver butter-dish with a silver cow on the lid, though Florence tried hard to make him choose a set of apostle spoons.
“A butter-dish will be much more useful, my dear lady.”
“It will be very useful,” Florence echoed, though she feared that Ethel would be a little disappointed when she saw the cow.
“And now,” said Mr. Fisher, in a benevolent voice, as they left the silversmith’s in Bond Street, “we are close to Gunters—if you would do me the honour to eat an ice?”
“I will do you the honour with great pleasure.” And she thought to herself, “His manner really is like Aunt Anne’s this afternoon. If she had only married him instead of that horrid Mr. Wimple, we would have called him uncle with pleasure.”
She sat eating her very large strawberry ice, while he tasted his at intervals, as if he were rather afraid of it. “Did the white cockatoo die?” she asked.
He almost started, he was so surprised at the question. “The white cockatoo?”
“You spoke of it last year—that night when Mrs. Baines dined with us.”
“I remember now,” he said solemnly. “Yes; it died, Mrs. Hibbert. For five years it was perhaps my most intimate friend, and the companion of my solitude.”
“Why did it die?”
“It pulled a door-mat to pieces, and we fear it swallowed some of the fibre. My housekeeper, who is a severe woman, beat it with her gloves, and it did not recover.” He spoke as if he were recounting a tragedy, and became so silent that Florence felt she had ventured on an unlucky topic. But it was always rather difficult to make conversation with Mr. Fisher when she was alone with him; there were so few things he cared to discuss with a woman. Politics he considered beyond her, on literary matters he thought she could form no opinion, and society was a frivolity, it was as well not to encourage her to consider too much. Suddenly a happy thought struck her.
“I am so happy about our holiday,” she said; “it is a long time since Walter and I had a real one together.”
“I am delighted that it has been arranged. I feel sure that Walter will enjoy it with so charming a companion,” he answered, with an effort at gallantry that touched her.
“Are you going away this Whitsuntide?” she asked.
“No. I seldom go away from London, or my work.”
“I wish you were going to have a holiday, with some one you liked,” she said.
“My dear lady,” and he gave a little sigh as he spoke, “I fear the only society I am fitted for is my own.”
“Oh no, you are much too modest”—and she tried to laugh. “Some day I hope to buy you a butter-dish. I shall like going to get it so much, dear Mr. Fisher.”
“I think not,” he answered almost sadly.
“Ethel says you have been very kind to her about George,” Florence said in a low voice, for she was almost afraid to refer to it; “but you are kind to everybody.”
Mr. Fisher turned and looked at her with a grateful expression in his clear blue eyes; but she knew that he did not want to make any other answer. Gradually he put on his editorial manner, as if to ward off more intimate conversation, and when he left her at the door of her house, for he refused to come in, she felt, while she looked after him, as if she had been present at the ending of the last little bit of romance in his life.
The Hibberts were in high spirits when they started for their holiday.
“Two days in Paris,” he said, as they drove to the hotel; “and then we’ll crawl down France towards the south, and I will introduce you to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a pity we can only eat one dinner a night, considering the number of good ones there are to be had here. To be sure, if we manage carefully, we can do a little supper on the Boulevard afterwards; still, that hardly counts. But I don’t think we can stay any longer, dear Floggie, even to turn you into a Parisian.”
Forty-eight hours later saw them in the express for Marseille, where they stayed a night, in order to get the coast scenery by daylight, as they went on to Monte Carlo.
“It’s a wonderful city,” Walter said, with a sigh, as they strolled under the trees on the Prado. “The Jew, and the Turk, and the Infidel, and every other manner of man, has passed through it in his turn. Doesn’t it suggest all sorts of pictures to you, darling?”
“Yes,” she answered, a little absently; “only I was thinking of Monty and Catty.”
“We ought to wait a day, and go to see Monte Christo’s prison.”
“Yes”—but she was not very eager. Her thoughts were with her children. Walter was able to enjoy things, and to garnish them with the right memories. “I wonder if we shall find letters from home when we get to Monte Carlo?” she said.
“I hope so,” he answered gently, but he said no more about the associations of Marseille.
As they were leaving the big hotel on the Cannebière, the next morning, a lady entered it. She had evidently just arrived—her luggage was being carried in.
“I shall be here three nights,” they heard her say to the manageress. “I leave for England on Thursday morning.”
At the sound of her voice Florence turned round, but she had gone towards the staircase. The Hibberts had to catch their train, and could not wait.
“It was Mrs. North, Walter,” Florence said, as they drove to the station; “I wish I could have spoken to her. She looked so lonely entering that big hotel.”
“But there was no time,” he answered; “if we lost our train we should virtually lose a day.”
“I wonder why she has come here?”
“The ways of women are inscrutable.”
“I meant to have written and told her about Aunt Anne, but I had so much to do before we left London that I really forgot it.”
“You might send her a line from Monte Carlo; you heard her say that she was to be at Marseille three days: and then, perhaps, it would be better to leave her alone.”
“I should like to write to her just once, for I am afraid I was not very kind that day; but she took me by surprise.”
“Very well, then; write to her from Monte Carlo. It will give her an idea that we are not such terrible patterns of virtue ourselves, and perhaps she’ll find that a consolation; but I don’t see what more we can do for her. It is very difficult to help a woman in her position. She has put out to sea in an open boat, and, even if she doesn’t get wrecked, every craft she runs against is sure to hurt her.”
The letter was duly written and sent to the hotel at Marseille. It found Mrs. North sitting alone, in her big room on the first floor. She was beside the open window, watching the great lightedcafésand the happy people gathered in little groups round the tables on the pavement.
“Oh, what a pity it is,” she said to herself, “that we cannot remember. I always feel as if we had lived since the beginning and shall go on till the end—if end there is; but if one only had a memory to match, how wonderful it would be. If I could but see this place just once as it was hundreds of years ago, with the Greek people walking about and the city rising up about them. Now it looks so thoroughly awake, with its great new buildings and horrible improvements; but if it ever sleeps, how wonderful its dreams must be. If one could get inside them and see it all as it once was.” . . . She turned her face longingly towards the port, at the far end of the Cannebière. “I am so hungry to see everything, and to know everything,” she said to herself—“so hungry for all the things I have never had.—I wonder if I shall die soon—I can’t go on living like this, longing and waiting and hoping and grasping nothing.—I wish I could see the water. If I had courage I would drive down and look at it—or walk past those people sitting out on the pavement, and go down to the sea. There might be a ship sailing by towards England, and I should know how his ship will look if it, too, ever sails by. Or a ship going on towards India, and I could look after it, knowing that every moment it was getting nearer and nearer to him. To-morrow I will find out precisely where the P. & O.’s sail from for Bombay; then I shall be able to guess what it all looked like when he set his foot on board, a year ago. Oh, thank God, I may think of him a little—that I am free—that it is not wickedness to think of him—or to love him,” she added, with almost a sob.
She got up and looked round the room. It was nearly dark. She could see the outline of the furniture and of her own figure dimly reflected in the long glass of the wardrobe.
“The place is so full of shadows they frighten me; but I am frightened at everything.” She flung herself down again on the couch at the foot of the bed. “I wonder if the people who have always done right ever for a moment imagine that the people who have done wrong can suffer as much—oh, a thousand times more than themselves. They seem to imagine that sin is a sort of armour against suffering, and it does not matter how many blows are administered to those who have gone off the beaten track.” She pillowed her head on her arms and watched the moving reflection of the light from the street. In imagination she stared through it at the long years before her, wondering, almost in terror, how they would be filled. “I am so young, and I may live so long.” There was a knock at her bedroom door.
“Come in,” she cried, thankful for any interruption.
“A letter for Madame.”
“For me!” She seized it with feverish haste and looked at the direction by the window while the candles were being lighted. “I declare,” she said, when the door was closed behind thegarçon, “it is from the immaculate Mrs. Hibbert. May the saints have guarded her from contamination while she wrote it to me.” Her happy spirits flashed back, and the weary woman of five minutes ago was almost a light-hearted girl again.
“It is rather a nice letter,” she said, and propped up the wicks of the flickering candles with the corner of the envelope. “I believe she wrote merely out of kindness; it proves that there is some generosity in even the most virtuous heart. I’ll write to Mrs. Wimple——” She stopped and reflected for a minute or two. “Poor old lady, she was very good to me; she was like a mother—no woman has called me ‘my love’ since she went away.” She walked up and down the room for a moment, and looked out again at the wide street and the flashing lights. Suddenly she turned, seized her blotting-book, and knelt down by the table in the impulsive manner that characterized her. “I’ll write at once,” she said. “Of course it will shock her sweet old nerves; but I know she’ll be glad to hear from me, though she won’t own it even to herself.”