The dulness of the autumnal season causing a heavy depression every where, by no means relaxed its maleficent influence in room No. 120 of the Tin-Tax Office. The gentlemen therein located had each, as has every man in the world, his own private griefs, anxieties, and worries; and these never blossomed into such full vigour as in the autumn. In the first place, there was no more leave of absence to look forward to, which was, in itself, a dreadful thing; and then there was looming in the future the approach of Christmas, a dread season which each of the different denizens of No. 120, for different reasons, regarded with dismay. To kind genial Mr. Kinchenton the coming Christmas was specially fearful; for after a long struggle between inclination and duty, a struggle resulting in the victory of the latter, he had decided upon sending his boy Percy, the apple of his eye, to school after the Christmas holidays; and in the shadow of that coming event he was sitting moping and melancholy. Mr. Dibb was always bad in the autumn; his liver, always rebellious, was thoroughly intractable at that season known as the "fall of the leaf," and remained perfectly quiet, declining to perform any one of the functions intrusted to it, and calmly spurning any attempt to call it into action. So Mr. Dibb's complexion grew more and more like that of the cover of a well-worn school-copy of Ainsworth's Dictionary; and Mr. Dibb's temper became so cranky, that Mr. Crump, the extra-clerk, lived in a perfect cyclone of torn-up letters and accounts to "do over again;" so that said Crump bemoaned his hard fate, and expressed himself as perfectly certain that he should have an earlier attack of chilblains than usual that year. Mr. Boppy too had his private grief, in the shape of a visitor at his establishment, Mrs. Boppy's mamma, a lady of vast size from the manufacturing districts, who had arrived on a month's visit, had monopolised the best portion of Mr. Boppy's house, and who demanded to have life shown to her. So Mrs. Boppy had instructed Mr. Boppy to convey her and her mamma to the Thames Tunnel, the top of the Monument, the Crypt of St. Paul's, to the Tower, to Madame Tussaud's wax-work, and other exhibitions much sought after by country people, but seldom visited by Londoners; and had moreover stimulated her husband to ask for various half-holidays, which Mr. Kinchenton would readily have granted, but which were never obtained without a hand-to-hand combat with Mr. Dibb. "Very well, Mr. Kinchenton," he would say, "Mr. Boppy must go, sir, if you say so, of course. You're the head of this room, I believe; though how the work's to be got through with Mr. Prescott absent on leave, Mr. Crump next to useless, and Mr. Pringle, who always takes three-quarters of an hour to his lunch--"
"What's that you're saying about me, Mr. Dibb?" Mr. Pringle would ask from over the top of his desk.
"Says you take three-quarters of an hour for your lunch," would repeat the revengeful Boppy.
"All right! better do that than make yourself a wretched hypochondriac, like some people. Let digestion wait on appetite, and health on both, Boppy! Mr. Dibb's got none of the three; doesn't know what any of them mean; so we must excuse him." And then Mr. Boppy would get his leave, and go away and do dismal duty with his relatives.
Nor was Mr. Pringle in any thing like his usual flow of spirits. He was very mercurial, tremendously affected by the weather; and black skies, cold winds, and empty streets sent him down to zero. Moreover his other-half, his chum, his bosom-friend, Mr. Prescott, was away on leave, paying his long-promised visit to old Mr. Murray of Brooklands; and so Mr. Pringle was left to himself, and sat in his chambers smoking solitary pipes, and learning whole pages of the Comic Song-Book, and perpetually falling asleep over the first page of the volume of Boswell'sLife of Johnson. For Mr. Kinchenton, who took great interest in honest George, had told him that no man was worth any thing unless he read something besides trashy novels and Little Warblers; and Mr. Pringle, determining to "go-in for something heavy," had selected the life of Dr. Johnson, whoseRasselashe had read as a child, remembering it as "the adventures of a young cove and an old cove, with a doosid good bit about a bridge, or something, in it." Moreover George Pringle was by no means comfortable as to the state of his friend's money-matters. He had himself "ignored," as he phrased it, all his own transactions with Scadgers; but he was in with Prescott on one bill, and he knew that his friend had involved himself with several other pieces of stamped paper in the hands of the same worthy. And George had a strange notion that some of these were overdue; and knowing that the Long Vacation was rapidly drawing to a close, and that Term-time was coming on, he feared that the mighty engines of the law might be set to work, and come a general smash. He had written to Prescott about it; but had only received a couple of lines in reply, to say that he was very jolly, and that the things would be all right; so that all he could do was patiently to await his friend's return to town.
That happened one night, when Pringle and Boswell had had a severe disagreement, and Pringle had let Boswell drop into the fender, and had gone to sleep with his pipe in the corner of his mouth. There came a heavy bang at the oak, and Pringle, starting up and opening it, found himself face to face with James Prescott,--rosy, stout, jolly, and beaming, with a big portmanteau in his hand.
"Hallo! old man!"
"Hallo! old man! been asleep, eh? lazy old beggar! wanted me to rouse you up! give us a hand to the portmanteau, George, and help him in! that's it! Well," taking off his coat and making a dive at his friend, and catching him by the shoulders, and peering inquiringly into his face, "and how goes it? what's the news? how are all the buffers at the shop? any body dead? any body got the sack? no promotion? always our luck!"
"Things are much the same, I think; no news any where; they'll be glad to see you back, for they've been grumbling about the work--not that you'll be much help at that, though. And what have you been doing? had a good time?"
"Good time? stunning!" and Mr. Prescott kissed his fingers and waved them in the air. "Never put in such a time in my life. Old boy was splendaceous, did every mortal thing one wanted,--good nag to ride, good shooting, capital cellar, let you smoke where you like--no end! My old governor was there too, as happy as a bird!"
"And the young lady--Miss Murray?"
"Oh, Emily! oh, I can't tell you how good that has turned out! She's out and away nicer than any thing that ever was; no nonsense about her; quiet, ladylike, sweet, affectionate little thing! You know, George, there are some women--"
"Yes," interrupted Mr. Pringle--"I know there are! and there are some men who want a glass of grog--and I'm one; and there are others who are mad spoony--and you're another! I'll mix for you, and we'll light our pipes, and then I shall be in a better frame of mind to listen to jour dilation on Miss Murray's excellences."
Mr. Prescott, so soon as their glasses were before them, their pipes in their mouths, and they were established one on either side of the fireplace, lost no time in availing himself of his friend's permission, and plunged into those amatory raptures which we have all of us suffered under at our friends' hands. The singular difference of the young lady to, and her superiority over, every one else, the mixture of sense and sensibility which she displayed, the clever things she said and did, her delicacy, firmness, bashfulness, presence of mind,--all these were dilated on at full length by one gentleman, and listened to with becoming patience by the other. At last, when his friend fairly stopped for want of breath, Mr. Pringle asked,
"And have you put it all right, Jim? of course you're not carrying on this kind of thing without meaning it; have you squared it with them all?"
"Well, Emily and I understand each other thoroughly; and it's all arranged between us, I think. I mean that I haven't said anything, you know; but people don't say any thing now in such cases. There's a kind of a--a--"
"Yes," interrupted Pringle--"yes; I suppose there is. But what about her father?"
"I haven't spoken to the old boy yet. Not that I think he'd make much objection, turn rusty, or any thing of that sort, for he's tremendously kind and jolly; but I don't like to talk to him while I've got these infernal debts hanging over me. I don't think it's fair; and yet--Have you heard any thing from old Scadgers, George?"
"No, I haven't heard any thing; but--Never mind, we'll talk about him to-morrow, when you've had a rest, and we're both clearer and cooler than we are now. Now turn in and get a sleep, old man; good-night!"
The next morning, however, when Mr. Pringle introduced the subject of Mr. Scadgers and the acceptances which he held, Mr. Prescott showed a remarkable alacrity in changing the conversation, an alacrity which he exhibited on two or three subsequent occasions. He was in the habit, Pringle observed, of receiving every morning with the greatest regularity a pink-coloured note with a country postmark, and after reading its contents he became very much absorbed, slightly ethereal, and generally indisposed to converse on mundane matters. But honest George Pringle, who had no such pleasant distractions, knew perfectly well that time was running on, and that some positive step must be taken; so on the fourth morning after his friend's return he tackled him resolutely.
"I say, Jim, about those bills? No good fencing about the business any longer; wemustgo into it, or we shall come to grief. I've a notion that some of them are overdue already, and I wonder Scadgers hasn't been here pressing for either a settlement or a renewal."
"To tell you the truth, George, I'm in a funk about them myself. I saw a very suspicious-looking Jew outside the office as I came in this morning,--a fellow in rusty black, with a blazing nose; and when he came towards me my heart jumped into my mouth. However, he only asked me which was Mr. Beresford's office--"
"Mr. Beresford's?"
"Yes, our swell Commissioner, you know; so I got off easy."
"What's the entire figure that you're liable for--including mine, and all the rest of them, I mean?"
"The entire figure? well, it can't be far off a couple of hundred. I had to spend such a lot when Emily was in town; pit-stalls whenever she went to the Opera, to be near her, and hire of horses, and my share of two or three Greenwich dinners, and all that, walked into no end of tin. I don't know where the deuce I'm to get it, and that's the fact."
"Do you owe any thing else? tailors or boot-makers, or any fellows of that sort?"
"Not a sixpence! I cleared what little bills I had of that kind with part of old Scadgers' money. And since I got that rise here last month, I could go on as straight as possible on what I get. But it's the infernal millstone of a back debt round my neck. I don't know what to do! I can't go and ask the dear old governor to advance; he's got quite enough to do with his income, and he'd be awfully knocked over to hear I was in for such a lot."
"Of course you can't. Now, look here; I'll tell you what you must do. You must first pledge your word to me and to yourself--not that any thing can be raised upon it, but it's the right thing to do--that you won't borrow another sixpence. And then you must go to old Scadgers and tell him that you're in a fix; that you can't pay him in a lump: but that you'll let him have so much every quarter of the principal, and pay decent interest until it's cleared off. You must draw-in your horns a little, and live quietly on the remainder. I'll go security for you to old Scadgers."
"You're a trump, George; but do you think he'll do it?"
"Do it? he must. He makes far too good an income out of the fellows in this place and other government-offices to have any public row made about him and his goings-on. If it got blown, they'd have a leader on him in theScourgethat would take the skin off his old back, and, worse than that, stop his business entirely. No, no; he'll do it fast enough. But we must go to him in a regular business manner. Now what are the dates and amounts of these different things?"
"I've got a memorandum of them in my desk, that I made at the time. I'll get it out. Hallo!" said Prescott, opening his desk, and taking therefrom a sealed letter; "what's this?" holding it up.
"Oh, by Jove, I forgot to tell you! that came while you were away, and I put it in your desk, thinking to name it to you directly you returned. Nothing particular, I hope?"
"I don't know; it's very thick, and I don't know the hand. It cannot be a writ, eh?" and Prescott turned very pale.
"Writ, nonsense! they don't send writs by post. Don't you know the handwriting? it's not round enough for a lawyer's. Open it, man; open it at once!"
And so, wanting to know the contents of the letter, they actually thought of opening it.
As Prescott opened the envelope he drew from it a thick roll of papers, and unfolding them, looked at them with wonder. Pringle, looking over his shoulder, started; and, taking them from his friend's hand, exclaimed,
"Bills, by Jove! cancelled bills look here, the signature torn off and hanging. The very bills you gave to Scadgers; mine, Compter's, your IOU, and the lot! You've been chaffing me, Jim--getting a rise out of me all this time, eh?"
"What do you mean by getting a rise? I'm as innocent in this matter as yourself."
"But do you mean to say that you didn't pay them?"
"I mean to say that I've never paid Scadgers one individual sixpence!"
"Then I mean to say that you're a devilish lucky fellow; for somebody else has."
"Are these bills paid, then?"
"Oh, don't be so preposterously green, Jim. Are the bills paid? Of course they are! paid and returned to you to put in the fire, or do what you like with; you can never be called on for another penny. Well, you're a lucky fellow. No one ever paid any thing for me. Who the deuce can have done this for you?"
"I haven't the remotest idea. It couldn't be Scadgers himself?"
"N--no!" said Mr. Pringle, grinning from ear to ear. "No, I don't think it was Scadgers; he's not entirely in that line. Who is there that knew you were in a fix?"
"No one, not a soul but yourself, and--"
"No, old fellow; I've not paid them, I'll take my oath. Should have been delighted to help you, but hadn't the wherewith."
"Then I'm done. I haven't a notion who can have helped me."
"Well, it doesn't matter, so long as it's done. You're in luck's way, my boy. All this horrible excitement and doubt brought to an end, and you free as air. I say, how about the keeping quiet and not launching into any extra expense, now? Will you hold to it?"
"I'll swear I will. And, what's more, now I am free, I'll strike while the iron's hot. To-day's Friday; to-morrow a half-holiday. I'll go down to Brooklands by the 2.40 train."
"I think you're right, Jim," said Pringle, quietly. "You've had your fling, and you seem to have a chance of settling well in life just now. Tell the old father all about yourself--your income and your chances, I mean,--and don't give him the opportunity of flinging any thing in your teeth hereafter. Well, whoever paid that amount of stuff for you did you a good turn, and no mistake. I wonder who it could be. No use asking Scadgers, he'd be as close as death about it; indeed, if there were any hanky-panky, any mystery, I mean, he'd always swear he was out whenever one called, for fear it should be bullied out of him."
Indeed, Mr. Pringle, not being of a very impulsive temperament, and not having very much to think about, bestowed far more wonderment on the question as to who could have been Mr. Prescott's anonymous benefactor than did Mr. Prescott himself. That gentleman, in love over head and ears, simply thought of the transaction as a means to an end; in any other position he would have bestowed upon it a certain amount of astonishment, but now all he cared for was to avail himself of the chance it had opened up to him. He had determined that, so soon as he found himself unfettered by debt, he would inform Mr. Murray of his attachment to his daughter, and ask the old gentleman's consent to their getting married. He knew well enough that his own official salary was by no means sufficient to maintain a wife--notably a wife, the daughter of a rich country squire--in the manner to which she had been accustom; but he knew equally well that the rich country squire would, in all probability, make a handsome settlement on his daughter; and to this he thoroughly looked forward. Not that there should be urged against him the least suspicion of anarrière pensée; he loved the girl with all his heart and soul and strength; but as in these days he would never have thought of riding forth into Fleet Street and proclaiming her beauty and virtue, and challenging all who might feel inclined to gainsay them to single combat,--in like manner, in these days would he never have thought of marrying a woman without money. And this was the youth who would have taken Kate Mellon in her unrecognised position, and, so far as he knew, penniless! Yes, but Kate Mellon was his first love; those were his earliest salad days; he has had much experience of the world since then, and is not honester or fresher from the contest.
There was, however, no doubt about his love for Miss Murray and his desire to see her, so he started off by the first train after business-hours on the next day, and was whirled off to Havering Station. One may suppose that he had found time to communicate the fact of his intended arrival; for he had scarcely proceeded a few paces up the steep hill which leads from the railway to the village before he saw coming spinning towards him a low basket-chaise drawn by a pair of roan galloways in plain black harness. And seated in the basket, driving the roans, was a young lady in the prettiest little round hat, and with the nicest short sealskin jacket and the daintiest dogskin driving-gauntlets, who gave the knowingest salute with her whip when she saw Prescott, while the groom behind her jumped down and relieved the young gentleman of his portmanteau.
"Punctual, sir, I think!" was the young lady's salutation after she had rescued the right-hand dogskin gauntlet from a prolonged pressure--"punctual, I think! I say, James, what on earth has brought you down again so quickly? You didn't give a hint in your note."
"You, of course," said Mr. Prescott, looking at her with the greatest delight.
"No, but really! Papa, when he read your note, said he was delighted to have you again, and that he supposed you must have obtained some farther leave of absence. But I knew that was not likely, and I felt certain you were coming on some special business. Oh, James, there's no bad news, is there?"
"No, my darling pet, no bad news,--good, splendid, excellent news! I'd tell you what it is now, but I can't, because it's news that's impossible to be told except with action; and if I were to take action, I should astonish the worthy person who is sitting behind us, and who is taking such care of my portmanteau."
"Oh, James, how can you! You'll drive, of course. I can't fancy any thing more horrible than seeing a gentleman driven by a lady. Now, Bagshaw, all right. And so you won't tell me, James?"
"Not yet, Emily, not yet; and yet I don't see why on earth I shouldn't. Bagshaw seems to be paying the greatest attention to the landscape, and, moreover, has established a wall of portmanteau between us and him of the most satisfactory. So I don't mind telling you, that I have come down to propose for you to your father, and to ask his consent to our marriage."
"Oh, James, I never did! And ask papa's consent, indeed! Do you know that you've never asked mine, sir?"
"Haven't I? Well, then, darling, I'll ask it now. No, no what nonsense! Bagshaw can't see under the rug, and I can hold the ponies perfectly with one hand: give it me! So; and now about papa; what do you think? what do you advise?"
"I--I think he won't make any fuss, James; he's always fall of your praises, and he's not like those horrid fathers in books, who never will let their daughters marry the people they love--I didn't mean to say that--I meant the people who love them! But I think I'd speak to him after dinner."
"After dinner?"
"Yes, you know, when you're left alone together. He's pleasanter then, I think. And then you can come to me in the drawing-room and tell me all about it."
Mr. Murray received James Prescott with the greatest cordiality; and when dinner was over, and the cloth was removed, the old gentleman instructed Banks the butler to bring up a bottle of the '20 and some devilled biscuits. Banks, an old and faithful retainer, muttered something in his master's ear as to what Dr. Harwood had said; on which his master told him to go to the devil, and mind his own business. So the '20 was brought; and Miss Murray had half a glass, and then retired to the drawing-room; and Mr. Murray bade his guest pull his chair round to the fire and prepare for serious drinking.
Then James Prescott knew that the crisis of his fate was approaching, so he filled a bumper of port, drank half of it, looked the old gentleman steadily in the face, and said, "I wanted to speak to you, sir."
"All right!" said the old gentleman, helping himself; "speak on."
"About your daughter, Miss Murray, sir," said Prescott, beginning to feel himself all aglow,--"about Miss Murray, sir."
"All right!" said the old gentleman, with perfect calmness--"what about her?"
"Well, sir--I--the truth is--that I--I've formed an attachment to her, sir--she's--she's a most delightful girl, sir," said Prescott, falling into hopeless bathos at once.
"She is, James," said the old gentleman,--like the sphynx, 'staring straight on with calm eternal eyes,'--"she is."
"She is, indeed, sir. I believe I may say that Miss Murray is aware of my entertaining this notion, sir--and that--that she's not displeased at it."
"Of course not, of course not, James; what girl would be displeased at the notion that a young fellow found her delightful?"
"Confound it! he won't give me a leg up, any how," said poor Prescott to himself. Then aloud, "If I could gain Emily's--Miss Murray's consent, sir, would you have any objection to me for her husband?"
"Ah, ha! ah, ha! James," laughed the old gentleman in great delight--"got it out at last, eh, my boy?--been beating about the bush this ten minutes. I saw you, I knew what was coming, but I wouldn't help you. You're not so good at this kind of business as your father would have been. The vicar would have had it all out in a minute; and if the girl's father had said no, he'd have run away with her that night. Desperate fellow Alan is--was, I mean; we're all stupid enough now! And so you want to marry Emily? and you say, if she consents, will I? If she consents?--nonsense, James Prescott! do you think I've forgotten that alphabet? or that it has changed during the last forty years? It's just the same as it was, sir, and I recollect every letter of it. You and Emily have understood each other this long time. No, I've no objection to make. I'd sooner your father's son would marry my daughter than any duke in the land. You've not much money, but I've plenty, and none to care for but her. One thing, how much are you in debt?"
"Not a sixpence."
"On your honour?"
"On my honour."
"That's enough for me! Your father knows of this."
"Not yet, sir. I haven't mentioned it to him; but--"
"But I have! We talked it all over when he was here. So you see we old people are not so blind as you think us. Now, you're dying to go to Emily, and I'm dying to have a nap. Let us oblige each other."
Mr. Prescott did not need a repetition of the hint. In the course of the next two minutes he was in the drawing-room; and the selections fromLucia, with which the piano was resounding, were suddenly stopped, and were heard no more until the advent of the old gentleman caused a necessity for candles and calm propriety. I do not think it is necessary for me to reproduce the dialogue which was carried on during the interval. It was very silly and very pleasant; perfectly easy to be imagined, and ought never to be described. Only one bit of it is worth preservation.
"Were you ever in love before, James?"
"Once, dearest; only once in my life." (If he had been the age of old Parr instead of six-and-twenty, he could not have said it with more earnestness.)
"And why did you not marry her?"
"It would not have done, darling. She was not of our grade in life. It would have been a wretched business. She felt that, and told me so."
"Poor girl, poor girl!" said little Emily; "I wonder where she is now!"
Prescott did not answer. He was too full of his present happiness to think of his former love, who was at that moment lying with her life's breath ebbing fast away.
As Frank Churchill advanced into the dining-room in the fading light, he saw Barbara standing by the mantelpiece. Her face was turned towards him, but her eyes were dropped to the ground. She did not raise them as her husband entered, but remained in the same attitude, while he stopped short as the butler closed the door behind him. Frank Churchill was not entirely taken by surprise; he knew that his wife had been staying with her friend Mrs. Schröder, and this fact flashed across him when he first received Kate Mellon's summons: but he thought that she might have left the house; that she might have gone probably to her aunt Miss Lexden--at all events, that there was no earthly reason to prevent him from obeying that summons, and going to one who had always understood that she had a claim upon him. If his wife were there, it was not likely that he would come across her. She had now been absent some weeks from her home, and during that time she had not made the slightest sign, had not shown the least contrition, the least desire for a reconciliation; had not made the smallest advance in any one shape or way; consequently, she would be as opposed to any interview as he could be, and would take care to prevent it. As opposed as he could be? Yes; that was giving it a very definite range; he felt that he could trust himself now under any influence. All that had been ductile within him had gradually been growing hard and rigid; all his love and tenderness, his devotion to and pride in his wife had gradually died out; his very nature seemed to have changed: where he had been trusting, he had become sceptical, where he had been hopeful, he had become doubtful; where he had been generous, he had become cynical. All his good aspirations, his domestic virtues, seemed to have deserted him. What his mother had fondly hoped, when the separation between husband and wife came,--that her son would be restored to her as he was before his marriage,--never had been realised. For the first few days, fearing the gossip of the world, he came home regularly to the house in Great Adullam Street, where the old lady had been reinstalled; dined, and remained at home during the evening, until he went down to see the proof of his article at theStatesmanoffice. But while at home, he was any thing but his old self. In the bygone days he had been full of chat and rattle, keeping his mother alive to all the current gossip of the day, talking to her of new books, new men, new opinions. Now he sat moody and silent over the dinner-table--moody and silent over his meerschaum-pipe after dinner over the fire, resting his chin on his hand, dreaming vaguely of the past, vaguely of the future. Then, after a little time, he began to tire of the sameness, to want excitement and variety, and he commenced to dine at the Retrenchment night after night, sitting long over his wine in the coffee-room, then going up and sitting in the smoke-room until late hours of the night. He never joined tables with any one at dinner; he never gave or accepted any further courtesy with his friends than the interchange of a short nod; but occasionally at night he would launch out into conversation in the smoke-room, where he began to gain some renown as a sayer of harsh sayings and bitter jests.
Yes, this was what remained of the genial, kind-hearted, easy-going Frank Churchill. His friends were in despair. His mother, poor old lady, felt that the state of things now was infinitely worse than when Barbara was in the home; for then, though she only saw her son occasionally, she believed him to be happy; but now she scarcely ever saw him at all, and knew him to be thoroughly wretched. She had no satisfaction in keeping house for him; there was no use in ordering dinner which he did not eat; in "tidying" a house which he did not look at; in hunting up and hustling into order servants who might have been as servile as Eastern slaves, or as insolent as American helps, for all their master cared. The old lady's occupation was gone, and she knew it; she felt even more than ever that her position was lost, that she could not hope to supply the place of her who was absent now, however well she and her son might have got on before his marriage; and she was proportionably miserable and disappointed. George Harding too was greatly annoyed at Frank's conduct. His loyal soul allowed that his friend had been hardly dealt by; but he contended boldly that since Barbara's first false step, Frank had been entirely in the wrong. He contended that the husband should have gone to seek his erring wife, and should have endeavoured, by every means in his power, to bring her back to his home. When you talked of pride and that sort of thing to George Harding in a matter of this kind, he snapped his fingers loudly and said, "stuff!" There was no hint at any crime, at even any lightness of conduct, was there? Well then, there was but one course to pursue. When Frank distinctly refused to follow this advice, Harding shrugged his shoulders and left him to himself; but when he saw the dreary, vapid, aimless life that his friend was pursuing, the change that had come over him in every way, he prayed for an opportunity of once more taking him to task in an affectionate and friendly spirit. This opportunity had not been given, and Harding could find no chance of fault-finding in his friend's work, which, though horribly bitter and slashing, was cleverer than ever.
The noise of the closing door rang drearily through the room, and Barbara keeping silence, Churchill felt it incumbent on him to speak. His throat was quite dry, his lips parched and quivering; but he made an effort, and the words came out. "You sent for me?" he said.
"I did," replied Barbara, still keeping her head bent and her eyes downcast: "I wished to speak with you."
"I am here," said Churchill coldly.
"I wished to tell you that--that I have learned a bitter lesson. I wished to tell you that, only to-night, only within the last few minutes, I have discovered that I have been deceived in--in certain matters that have passed between us--that I have done you--done you wrong."
Churchill merely bowed his head.
"I was present in the next room when what has just passed there took place. I was present, and I heard every word. It was by no chance, by no accident, I heard it; I was there intentionally and for the purpose. When that poor girl now lying there sent for you, I felt assured that I should gain the key to that mystery which ruined our married happiness; I felt assured that I should arrive at a solution of that mystery; and now it is solved. You, who know my pride, may judge what fearful interest that question must have had for me when I descended to such means to gain my ends."
Churchill bowed again, but said not a word.
"I have heard it," continued Barbara--"heard the story from first to last. That poor stricken creature lying there, on what we both know to be her deathbed, is ignorant even of my name far more of my relationship to you. From her lips I stand convicted of my mistake; from her lips I learn that I have done you an injustice. I asked you to come in here that I might acknowledge this to you." For the first time during the interview, she raised her eyes; they met those of her husband, which were cold and pitiless.
"You are very good; but don't you think your admission comes rather late? Pardon me one minute,"--Barbara had made a sign as though about to speak,--"I'll not detain you more than one minute. I wooed you as humbly as any rightminded man could, more humbly than some would think fit and proper; but let that pass. Before I asked you to share my life, I showed you plainly what that life was; I did not withhold one jot of its difficulties, its restrictions, its poverty, if you will. I pointed out to you plainly and unsparingly the sacrifices you would have to make, certain luxuries--little perhaps in themselves, but difficult to do without, from constant use--which you would have to give up. I put before you what I knew would prove (as it has proved) the fact, that, if you married me, the set of people amongst whom you had always lived would consider you had demeaned yourself, and would give you up. I pointed all this plainly out to you,--did I not?"
"You did."
"And you, having heard it all, and weighed it as much as women with any thing like heart in them do weigh such matters, agreed to link your lot with mine. Good. We married, and I brought you to your home; not a brilliant home by any means, not a fairy bower likely to catch the fancy of a young girl, but still, I make bold to say, a comfortable enough home, and one out of which, mind you, my mother--one of the common-minded, commonplace people so sneered at by your superior race--removed, of her own free will, in order that you might be its sole mistress. You follow me?" he asked, for her head had drooped again and he could not see her face.
She murmured some indistinct answer, and as he looked across he thought he saw the trace of tears upon her cheeks.
"What was the result?" he continued. "From that time out, you began to change. There were great allowances to be made for you, I grant. The place was dull, the house small, the furniture meagre; the persons amongst whom you were thrown strange and entirely different from any you had previously mixed with. But the house was your own; the furniture sufficient for our wants; the people anxious to receive you kindly and hospitably, to make you feel welcome, to do any thing for you for my sake. My mother, in some respects a peculiar woman, came out of the semi-seclusion in which she had lived for years, to show her regard for you; she wanted you to share in that wealth of affection which she lavished on me; she wanted you to be as much her daughter as I was her son. Did you respond to this in any way? No. Did you try to content yourself with the lot which you had accepted? No. Did you, knowing full well how all were striving for you, endeavour to accommodate yourself to, and make the best of, circumstances? No, no, no! You sit moping and indolent in your house, leaving things to go on as they best can; nursing your grief and disappointment and rage until you see every thing through a distorted medium; you alienate my friends by your undisguised contempt; you affront my mother by openly spurning her proffered affection. All this you do, wilfully or foolishly ignoring the fact that in each and every act you inflict a stab on me--on me, slaving for you, loving you, adoring you!"
"Oh, Frank, Frank!"
"Yet one minute, if you please; I will not detain you longer; I should never have sought this opportunity,"--Barbara winced,--"but having it, I must in self defence avail myself of it to the utmost. Not merely do you pursue the line of conduct I have just described, but you forget yourself and annoy me in a far greater degree. I am told of your constantly receiving visits from a gentleman during the hours of my absence from home. I mention this mildly, and beg you to hint to him to call at some other time. You are offended at this; and after a discussion, I acknowledge I may have been hasty, and the subject is dropped. I take you to a party where you meet some of your old friends; your spirits revive; you are more like your old self than you have been since your marriage; and you walk off; away from all the rest of the party, with this same gentleman, with whom I myself see you in singularly earnest conversation. I again speak to you on this point; you deny that I have any occasion for complaint, and I again give way. And now what return do you make me for my kindness, my trust, my confidence? You accuse me of receiving letters, which as your husband I should not receive: and you demand to know the purport of the letters, and the name of the writer. I give a general denial to your suspicions; but as to telling you what you require, my pride--"
"Oh, even you have pride, then?" said Barbara, with a half-sneer.
"Proper pride! my honour, if you will,--for my honour was pledged in the matter--forbade it. Then, acting on a wild and miserable impulse,--without one thought or care for me, for yourself, for our name and reputation,--you took a step which has brought misery on my life. You left my house, your home,--left it and left me to be the talk, the object of the gossip, and the pity of all who heard the wretched story. Not content with that, you come to this house, and I am given to understand that, since you have been here, you have been constantly visited by the man I have before spoken of--Captain Lyster!"
No drooping head now! Barbara is standing erect as a dart. Her cheeks dead white, her lips compressed, her eyes flaming fire.
"You have been told lies!" she said; "lies which, were it not to cure your madness, and to show you how weak you are, and how mercilessly you have been played upon, I would scorn to answer! So these dear delightful people have started that story about me, have they; have tried to degrade me in my husband's eyes by such a miserable concoction as that; and my husband has believed them. It is only on a par with the rest of the generous sympathy they have shown me, and like all the rest of their wretched machinations, it has some slight shadow of a foundation. Captain Lysterhasbeen here; has been here frequently,--oh, you need not raise your eyebrows,--it was not to see me he came. I will tell you, in self-defence, what I would not have mentioned otherwise. Ever since Mrs. Schröder's trouble, Captain Lyster has been her kindest and most active friend. Before she was married he took the greatest interest in her; and it was only her father's incontrovertible desire that she should marry as she did, that prevented him from proposing for her. More; when you saw us walking together at that garden-party at Uplands, it was of Alice he was speaking; it was to tell me of how her reputation had been imperilled by false and cowardly reports, that he had sought me out; and it was to ask my advice and assistance, to enlist me on her side, that he was so urgent."
"How can I be sure of this?"
"How can you be sure of it! Did I ever tell you a falsehood in my life? You know perfectly well,--you would know, at least, if you had not been blinded by ridiculous jealousy, springing from suspicions artfully sown,--that I am incapable of deceiving you in any way."
"What brought Captain. Lyster so frequently to my house, in the early days,--before the garden-party at Uplands, I mean,--and why did he always come when I was away?"
"Shall I tell you what I believe brought Captain Lyster so frequently to your house, Frank Churchill? I did not intend to mention it; I intended to have spared you. Mind you, he never said as much to me,--he is too true and too honourable a gentleman to cast a slur on any one; but I honestly believe that Captain Lyster's visits to me were paid through sheer pity."
"Pity!"
"Ay, pity! He is a keen observer, a shrewd man of the world, for all his vapidity and his drawl; and I firmly believe that he pitied me from his soul. He had known me in other days, recollect; he had seen me when--well, there is no vanity in saying it; you know it as well as I do--when I was thought and made much of; when the world was to me a very light and pleasant place, in which I moved about as one of the favoured ones; when I did not know what it was to be checked or thwarted, and when all paths were made smooth for me. He found me solitary, dull, wretched; in a dreary quarter of the town, which was utterly unknown to me; my only acquaintance, people with whom I had not one single thing in common,--people looking with horror on all I had been accustomed to enjoy, and enjoying all I had heartily detested. He found metristeand low; he thought I was becoming dejected and unhappy; not that I ever told him so, of course,--my pride is as great as his; but he is, as I have said, no fool, and he found it out. What did he do? In the most delicate manner possible, he tried to rouse me, and to show me what source of happiness I had in my new position and in your love. He was the only link between my old and my new life; the only person I used to see, who went among the people with whom I had formerly lived. Was it very extraordinary for a girl to ask news of those with whom the whole of her life had been spent? I used to ask Captain Lyster for such news; and he would give it me, always in the gentlest and most delicate manner; telling me, of course, of gaieties that had taken place, but pointing out how silly they were, and how happy the most fêted girls at them would be to settle down into a calm happy love, such as--such as he thought I possessed."
"Did he say all this?"
"He did; and more--much more. Since I have been here, Alice Schröder has told me that on several occasions when your name has been freely commented upon, Captain Lyster has defended you with the utmost warmth, and with a spirit which one can scarcely imagine so naturally indolent a man to be capable of exercising. More than this: when the unhappy story of our separation became public scandal, I, having hitherto refrained from speaking to Captain Lyster about it, but knowing that he must now have heard all, was about one day to ask his advice. He stopped me at once. 'Pardon me, my dear Mrs. Churchill,' he said; 'this is a topic on which I cannot and must not enter. The time will come when--when it will be all happily settled again; and you would then very much regret having discussed the subject with me. If it should ever be my luck to be married, and I had--as undoubtedly I should have--a dispute with my wife, I would lock the door until we had settled it, and returned to our usual equable state. Not one living soul should ever be able to jeer me about a matrimonial quarrel.'"
"He was right; God knows he was right!" said Churchill, bitterly.
"And yet this is the man whom you have chosen to misrepresent in such a matter. Believe me, that people unfortunately situated as we are, could have found very few friends with the kind heart, the tact, and delicacy of Captain Lyster."
And then Barbara, heated and fatigued with her defence, stopped, and her head drooped again, and she was silent. There was an awkward pause; then Churchill said,
"You sent for me to--"
"As I have told you--to confess that I had heard the statement made in the next room, and to admit that I was in error in imagining that those letters came from an improper source."
Now was Frank Churchill's time. One kind word from him, and the misery of his life was at an end. But with that strange perversity which not unfrequently is a characteristic of good and clever men, he fell into the snare of saying and doing exactly what he should not.
"And you are prepared to come home--" he commenced, in a hard voice.
"Not if invited in that tone," broke in Barbara abruptly.
"To come home," continued Churchill, not noticing the interruption,--"to come home confessing that you were entirely in the wrong, and that you had no shadow of excuse for leaving as you did. To come home--"
"Stop, Frank!" burst out Barbara, unable any longer to control herself; "this is not the way to win a person of my temperament to agree to any measures which you may propose. To come home, confessing this and acknowledging that,--why, you know perfectly that you yourself were equally to blame in the preposterous jealousy which you showed of Captain Lyster! I will confess and acknowledge nothing. I will come home to you as your wife,--to be the first in your regard,--to devote myself to you; but I will make no pledges as to accepting other people's interference, or submitting to--"
"In fact," said Frank, "as to being any thing different from what you were. Now that will not do. Much as--as I may have loved you"--his voice broke here--"I would sooner live away from you than undergo the torture of those last few weeks at home again. It would be better for us both that--well, I will not say more about it. God's will be done! One thing, I shall be able to make you now some definite allowance, on which you can live comfortably without being a burden on your relatives or friends. Sir Marmaduke Wentworth is dead; and I understand from his lawyer that I am a legatee, though to what extent I do not yet know. I had hoped that--"
He was interrupted by a soft knock at the door. Presently the door opened, and the nurse put in her head, with an alarmed expression of face. "Come, come!" said she; "quickly! both of you!" and withdrew.
Frank stopped, and motioned Barbara to pass before him.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed wildly, clasping her hands and looking piteously into his face; "not into the presence of Death!--we cannot go into the presence of Death with these wild words on our lips, this wicked rage at our hearts! Frank, Frank, my darling! fancy if either of us were summoned while feeling so to each other. It is a horrible madness, this; a wild inexplicable torture; but let it end--oh, let it end! I will pray for forgiveness; I will be humble; I will do all you wish! Oh, Frank, Frank, take me once more to yourself!"
His strong arms are round her once again; once more her head is pillowed on his breast; while between his sobs he says, "Forgive you, my darling! Oh, ought not I also to implore your forgiveness!"