Slowly his face, which had been deeply flushed before, lost all its colour; his jaw dropped a little.
He was staring at the picture of himself which he had painted for Phoebe in the parlour of the Green Nab Cottage thirteen years before. The young face, in its handsome and arrogant vigour, the gypsy-black hair and eyes, the powerful shoulders in the blue serge coat, the sunburnt neck exposed by the loose, turn-down collar above the greenish tie—there they were, as he had painted them, lying once more under his hand. The flickering light of the candle showed him his signature and the date.
He laid it down and drew a long breath. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he stood staring at it, his brain, under the sharp stimulus, beginning to work more clearly. So Phoebe, too, was alive—and in England. The picture was her token. That was what it meant.
He went heavily to the door, unlocked it, and called. The charwoman appeared.
'Who brought this parcel?'
'A boy, sir.'
'Where's the note?—he must have brought something with it.'
'No, he didn't, sir—there was no note.'
'Don't be absurd!' cried Fenwick. 'There must have been.'
Mrs. Flint, outraged, protested that she knew what she was a-saying of. He questioned her fiercely, but there was nothing to be got out of her rigmarole account, which Fenwick cut short by retreating into the studio in the middle of it.
This fresh check unhinged him altogether—seemed to make a mere fool of him—the sport of gods and men. There he paced up and down in a mad excitement. What in the Devil's name was the meaning of it? The picture came from Phoebe—no one else. But it seemed she had only sent it to him to torment him to punish him yet more? Women were the cruellest of God's creatures. And as for himself—idiot!—if he had only finished his business an hour ago, both she and he would have been released by this time. He worked himself up into a wild passion of rage, stopping every now and then to look at that ghost of his youth, which lay on the table, propped up against some books—and once at the reflexion of his haggard face and grey hair as he passed in front of an old mirror on the wall.
Then suddenly the tension gave way. He sank on the chair beside the table, hiding his face on his arms in an utter exhaustion, while yet, through the physical weakness, something swept and vibrated, which was in truth the onset of returning life.
As he lay there a cab drove up to the front door, and a lady dressed in black descended from it. She rang, and Mrs. Flint appeared.
'Is Mr. Fenwick at home?'
'He is, ma'am,' said the woman, hesitating—'but he did say he wasn't to be disturbed.'
'Will you please give him my card and say I wish to see him at once? I have brought him an important letter.'
Mrs. Flint, wavering between her dread of Fenwick's ill-humour and the impression produced upon her by the gentle decision of her visitor, retreated into the house. The lady followed.
'Well, if you'll wait there, ma'am'—the charwoman opened the door of the dismantled sitting-room—'I'll speak to Mr. Fenwick.'
She shuffled off. Eugénie de Pastourelles threw back her veil. She had arrived only that morning in London after a night journey, and her face showed deep lines of fatigue. But its beauty of expression had never been more striking. Animation—joy—spoke in the eyes, quivered in the lips. She moved restlessly up and down, holding in one hand a parcel of letters. Once she noticed the room—the furniture ticketed in lots—and paused in concern and pity. But the momentary cloud was soon chased by the happiness of the thought which held her. Meanwhile Mrs. Flint knocked at the door of the studio.
'Mr. Fenwick! Sir! There's a lady come, sir, and she wishes to speak to you particular.'
An angry movement inside.
'I'm busy. Send her away.'
'I've got her card here, sir,' said Mrs. Flint, dropping her voice. 'It's a queer name, sir—somethin furrin—Madam somethin. She says it'smostpertickler. I was to tell you she'd only got home to-day, from abroad.'
A sudden noise inside. The door was opened.
'Where is she? Ask her to come in.'
He himself retreated into the darkness of the studio, clinging, so the charwoman noticed, to the back of a chair, as though for support. Wondering 'what was up,' she clattered back again down the long passage which led from the sitting-room to the studio.
But Eugénie had heard the opening door and came to meet her.
'Is anything wrong?' she asked, anxiously. 'Is Mr. Fenwick ill?'
'Well, you see, ma'am,' said Mrs. Flint, cautiously—'it's theSheriff's horficers—though they do it as kind as they can.'
Eugénie looked bewildered.
'A hexecution, ma'am,' whispered the woman as she led the way.
'Oh!' It was a cry of distress, checked by the sight of Fenwick, who stood in the door of his studio.
'I am sorry you were kept waiting,' he said, hoarsely.
She made some commonplace reply, and they shook hands. Mrs. Flint looked at them curiously, and withdrew again into the back premises.
Fenwick turned and walked in front of Eugénie towards the table from which he had risen. She looked at him in sudden horror—arrested—the words she had come to speak stifled on her lips. Then a quick impulse made her shut the door behind her. He turned again, bewildered, and raised his hand to his head.
'My God!' he said, in a low voice; 'I oughtn't to have let you come in here. Go away—please go away.'
Then she saw him totter backward, raise an overcoat which hung across the back of a chair, and throw it over something lying on the table. Terror possessed her; his aspect was so ghastly, his movements so strange. She flew to him, and took his hand in both hers.
'No, no—don't send me away! My friend—my dear friend—listen to me.You look so ill—you've been in trouble! If I'd only known!But I've thought of you always—I've prayed for you. Andlisten—listen!—I've brought you good news.'
She paused, still holding him. Her eyes were bright with tears, but her mouth smiled. He looked at her, trembling. Her pale charm, her pleading grace moved him unbearably; this beauty, this tenderness—the sudden apparition of them in this dark room—unmanned him altogether.
But she came nearer.
'We got home only this morning. It was a sudden wish of my father's—he thought Italy wasn't suiting him. We came straight from Rome. I wrote to you by this morning's post. Then—this afternoon—after we'd settled my father—I drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields. And I found them so excited—just sending off a messenger to you. A letter had arrived by the afternoon post, an hour after you left the office. I have it here—they trusted it to me. Oh, dear Mr. Fenwick, listen to me! They are on the track—it's arealclue this time! Your wife has been in Canada—they know where she was three months ago—it's only a question of time now. Oh! and they told me about the theatre—howwonderful! Oh! I believe they're not far off—know it—I feel it!'
He had fallen on his chair; she stood beside him.
'And you've been ill,' she said, sadly, 'and in great distress, I'm afraid—about money, was it? Oh, if I'd only known! But you'll let me make that right, won't you?—you couldn't refuse me that? And think! you'll have them again—your wife—your little girl.'
She smiled at him, while the tears slipped down her cheeks. She cherished his cold hands, holding them close in her warm, soft palms.
He seemed to be trying to speak. Then suddenly he disengaged himself, rose feebly, went to the mantelpiece, lit another candle, and brought it, holding it towards something on a chair—beckoning to her. She went to him—perceived the unframed portrait—and cried out.
'Phoebe sent it me—just now,' he said, almost in a whisper—'without a word—without a single word. It was left here by a boy—with no letter—no address. Wasn't it cruel?—wasn't it horribly cruel?'
She watched him in dismay.
'Are you sure there was nothing—no letter?'
He shook his head. She released herself, took up the picture, and examined it. Then she shook out the folds of the shawl, the fragments of the brown paper, and still found nothing. But as she took the candle and stooped with it to the floor, something white gleamed. A neatly folded slip of paper had dropped among some torn letters beneath the table. She held it up to him with a cry of delight.
He made a movement, then fell back.
'Read it, please,' he said, hoarsely, refusing it. 'There's something wrong with my eyes.'
And he held his hands pressed to them, while she—little reluctantly, wistfully—opened and read:
* * * * *
MY DEAR JOHN,—I have Phoebe safe. She can't write. But she sends you this—as her sign. It's been with her all through. She knows she's been a sinful wife. But there, it's no use writing. Besides, it makes me cry. But come!—come soon! Your child is an angel. You'll forget and forgive when you see her.
[Illustration: 'Be my messenger']
I brought Phoebe here last week. Do you see the address?—it's the old cottage! I took it with a friend—three years ago. It seemed the right place for your poor wife—till she could make up her mind how and when to let you know.
As to howIcame to know—we'll tell you all that.
Carrie knows nothing yet. I keep thinking of the first look in her eyes! Come soon!
Ever your affectionate old friend,
There was silence. Eugénie had read the letter in a soft voice that trembled. She looked up. Fenwick was staring straight before him, and she saw him shudder.
'I know it's horrible,' he said, in a low voice—'and cowardly—but I feel as if I couldn't face it—I couldn't bear it.'
And he began feebly to pace to and fro, looking like an old, grey-haired man in the dim grotesqueness of the light. Eugénie understood. She felt, with mingled dread and pity, that she was in the presence of a weakness which represented far more than the immediate emotion; was the culmination, indeed, of a long, disintegrating process.
She hesitated—moved—wavered—then took courage again.
'Come and sit down,' she said, gently.
And, going up to him, she took him by the arm and led him back to his chair.
He sank upon it, his eyes hanging on her. She stooped over him.
'Shall I,' she said, uncertainly—'shall I—go first? Oh, Ioughtn'tto go! Nobody ought to interfere—between husband and wife. But if you wish it—if I could do any good—'
Her eyes sought the answer of his.
Her face, framed in the folds of her black veil, shone in the candle-light; her voice was humble, yet brave.
The silence continued a moment. Then his lips moved.
'Be my messenger!' he said, just breathing it.
She made a sign of assent. And he, feebly lifting her hands, brought them to his lips. Close to them—unseen by her—for the moment unremembered by him—lay the revolver with which he had meant to take his life—and the letter in which he had bid her a last farewell.
Great Langdale was once more in spring. After the long quiet of the winter, during which these remoter valleys of the Lakes resume their primitive and self-dependent life, there were now a few early tourists in the two Dungeon Ghyll hotels, and the road traffic had begun to revive. Phoebe Fenwick, waiting and listening for the post in an upper room of Green Nab Cottage, ran hurriedly to the window several times in vain, drawn by the sound of wheels. The cart which clattered past was not that which bore Her Majesty's mails.
At the third of these false alarms she lingered beside the open casement window, looking out into the valley. It was a very weary woman who stood thus—motionless and drooping; a woman so tired, so conscious of wasted life and happiness, that although expectation held her in a grip of torture, there was in it little or nothing of hope.
Twelve years since she had last looked on those twin peaks, those bare fields and winding river! Twelve years! Time, the inexorable, had dealt with her, and not softly. All that rounded grace which Fenwick had once loved to draw had dropped from her, as the bloom drops from a wild cherry in the night. Phoebe was now thirty-five—close on thirty-six; and twelve years of hard work, joyless struggle, and pursuing remorse had left upon her indelible marks. She had grown excessively thin, and lines of restlessness, of furtive pain and suspicion, had graven themselves, delicately, irrevocably, about her eyes and mouth, on her broad brow and childish neck. There were hollows in the cheeks, the cutting of the face seemed to be ruder and the skin browner than of old. Nevertheless, the leanness of the face was that of energy, not that of emaciation. It pointed to life in the open air, a strenuous physical life; and, but for the look of fretting, of ceaseless and troubled longing with which it was associated, it would rather have given beauty than taken it away.
Her eyes were more astonishing than ever; but there was a touch of wildness in them, and they were grown, in truth, too big and staring for the dwindled face. A pathetic face!—as of one in whom the impulse to weep is always present, yet for ever stifled. It had none of that noble intimacy with sorrow which so often dignifies a woman's whole aspect; it spoke rather of the painful, struggling, desiring will, the will of passion and regret, the will which fights equally with the past and with the future, and is, for Buddhist and Christian alike, the torment of existence.
Again a sound of wheels drew her eyes to the road. But it was only the Hawkshead butcher going his rounds. He stopped below the cottage, and Miss Anna's servant went out to him. Phoebe sighed afresh in disappointment, her ears still strained the while to catch the first sound of that primitive horn, wherewith the postman in his cart, as he mounts the Langdale Valley, summons the dwellers in the scattered farms and cottages to come and take their letters.
But very likely there would be no letter at all. This was Thursday. On Saturday Miss Anna had met her and Carrie at Windermere, and had brought them to the old place. Sunday and Monday had been filled with agitated consultations. Then, on Tuesday, a neighbour living in Elterwater, and an old friend of Miss Anna's, had gone up to London, bearing with her a parcel addressed to 'John Fenwick, Constable House, East Road, Chelsea,' which she had promised to deliver, either personally or through one of the servants of the boarding-house whither she was bound.
This lady must have delivered it on Wednesday—some time on Wednesday—she would not pledge herself. But probably not till the afternoon or evening. If so, there could be no letter. But if not a letter, a telegram; unless, indeed, John were determined not to take her back; unless her return were in his eyes a mere trouble and burden; unless they were to be finally and for ever separated. Then he would take his time—and write.
But—Carrie! Phoebe resumed her wandering from room to room and window to window, her mind deafened as it were by the rush of her own thoughts—unable to rest for a moment. He must want to see Carrie! And that seeing must and should carry with it at least one interview with his wife, at least the permission to tell her story, face to face.
Was it only a week since, under a sudden impulse, she had written to Miss Anna?—from the Surrey lodging, where for nearly two months she had hidden herself after their landing in England. Each day since then had been at once the longest and the shortest she had ever known. Every emotion of which she was capable had been roused into fresh life, crowding the hours; while at the same time each day had flown on wings of flame, bringing the moment—so awful, yet so desired—when she should see John's face again. After the slow years of self-inflicted exile; after the wavering weeks and months of repentance, doubt, and changing resolution, life had suddenly become breathless—a hurrying rush down some Avernian descent, towards crashing pain and tumult. For how could it end well? She was no silly girl to suppose that such things can be made right again with a few soft words and a kiss.
Idly her mind wandered through the past; through the years of dumb, helpless bitterness, when she would have given the world to undo what she had done, and could see no way, consistently with the beliefs which still held her; and through the first hours of sharp reaction, produced partly by events in her own history and partly by fresh and unexpected information. She had thought of John as hard, prosperous, and cruel; removed altogether out of her social ken, a rich and fashionable gentleman who might have and be what he would. The London letter of a Canadian weekly paper had given her the news of his election to the Academy. Then, from the same source, she had learnt of the quarrel, the scene with the Hanging Committee, the noisy resignation, and all the controversy surrounding it. She read and re-read every line of this scanty news, pondering and worrying over it. How like John, to ruin himself by these tempers! And yet, of course, he had been abominably treated!—any one could see that. From her anger and concern sprang new growths of feeling in a softened heart. If she had only been there!
Well!—what did it matter? The great lady who advised and patronised him no doubt had been there. If she had not been able to smooth out the tangle, what chance would his despised wife have had with him?
Then—last fall—there had come to the farm in the green Ontario country, a young artist, sent out on a commission from an English publishing firm who were producing a great illustrated book on Canada. The son of the house, who was at college in Montreal, had met him, and made friends with him; had brought him home to draw the farm, and the apple-orchards, heavy with fruit. And there, night after night, he had sat talking in the rich violet dusk; talking to this sad-faced Mrs. Wilson, this Englishwoman, who understood his phrases and his ways, and had been in contact with artists in her youth.
John Fenwick! Why, of course, he knew all about John Fenwick! Quarrelsome, clever chap! Had gone up like a rocket, and was now nowhere. What call had he to quarrel with the Academy? The Academy had treated him handsomely enough—much better than it had treated a lot of other fellows. The public wouldn't stand his airs and his violence. He wasn't big enough. A Whistler might be insolent, and gain by it; but the smaller men must keep civil tongues in their heads. Oh, yes, talent of course—enormous talent!—but a poor early training, and a man wants all his time to get the better ofthat—instead of spouting and scribbling all over the place. No—John Fenwick would do nothing more of importance. Mrs. Wilson might take his word for that—sorry if he had said anything unpleasant of a friend of hers. General report, besides, made him an unhappy, moody kind of fellow, living alone, with very few friends, taking nobody's advice—and as obstinate as a pig about his work.
So said this young Daniel-come-to-judgement, between the whiffs of his pipe, in the Canadian farm-garden, while the darkness came down and hid the face of the silent woman beside him.
And so Remorse, and anguished Pity, sprang up beside her—grey and stern comrades—and she walked between them night and day. John, a lonely failure in England—poor and despised. And she, an exile here, with her child. And this dumb, irrevocable Time, on which she had stamped her will, so easily, so fatally, flowing on the while, year by year, towards Death and the End!—and these voices of 'Too late!' in her ears!
But still the impulse of return grew—mysteriously it seemed—independently. And other facts and experiences came strangely to its aid. In the language of Evangelicalism which had been natural to her youth, Phoebe felt now, as she looked back, that she had been wonderfully 'led.' It was this sense, indeed, which had softened the humiliation and determined the actual steps of her homeward pilgrimage; she seemed to have been yielding to an actual external force in what she had done.
For it had not been easy, this second uprooting. Carrie, especially, had had her own reasons for making it difficult. And Phoebe had never yet had the courage to tell her the truth. She had spoken vaguely of 'business' obliging them to take a journey to England—had asked the child to trust her—and taken refuge in tears and depression from Carrie's objections. In consequence, she had seen the first shadow descend on Carrie's youth; she had been conscious of the first breach between herself and her daughter.
In a sudden agony, she walked back to the window in her own room, looking this time, not towards Elterwater and the post, but towards Dungeon Ghyll and the wild upper valley.
Anna Mason had taken Carrie for a walk. At that moment, on Phoebe's prayer, she was telling the child the story of her father and mother.
Phoebe's eyes filled. She was, in truth, waiting for judgement—at the hands of her husband—and her daughter. Ever since their flight together, Carrie had been taught to regard her father as dead. As the years went on, 'poor papa' was represented to her by a few fading memories, by the unframed picture which her mother kept jealously locked from sight, which she had been only once or twice allowed to see.
And now? Phoebe recalled the anguish of that night, when Carrie, returning to her mother in Surrey, from a day's expedition to town, with a Canadian friend, described the queer, passionate, grey-haired man—'Mr. Fenwick, they called him'—whom she had seen directing the rehearsal at the Falcon Theatre. Phoebe had a vision of herself leaning back in her chair, wrapped in shawls, feigning the exhaustion and blindness of nervous headache—while the child gave her laughing account of the scene, in the intervals of kissing and comforting 'poor mummy.'
And that drive from Windermere, beside Miss Anna, with Carrie opposite!—Carrie excitable, happy, talkative—her father's child—now absorbed in a natural delight, exclaiming at the beauty of the mountains, the trees, the river, catching her mother's hand, to make her smile too, and then in a sudden shyness and hardness, looking with her deep jealous eyes at the unknown friend opposite, wondering clearly what it all meant, resenting that she was told so little, and too proud to insist on more—or, perhaps, afraid to pierce what might turn out to be the unhappy or shameful secret of their life?
Yet Phoebe had tried to make it plausible. They were going to stay with an old friend, in a place which Carrie and her parents had lived in when she was a baby, near to the town where she was born. She knew already that her mother was from Westmoreland, from a place called Keswick; but she understood that her mother's father was dead, and all her people scattered.
Until they came actually in sight of the cottage, the child had betrayed no memory of her own; though as they entered Langdale her chatter ceased, and her eyes sped nervously from side to side, considering the woods and fells and whitewashed farms. As they stopped, however, at the foot of the steep pitch leading to the little house, Carrie suddenly caught sight of it—the slate porch, the yew-tree to the right, the sycamore in front. She changed colour, and as she jumped down, she wavered and nearly fell.
And without waiting for the others she ran up the hill and through the gate. When she met them again at the house-door, her eyes were wet.
'I've been into the kitchen,' she said, breathlessly—'and it's so strange! I remember sitting there, and a man'—she drew her hand across her brow—'a man, feeding me. That—that was father?'
Phoebe could not remember how she had answered her; only some trembling words from Anna Mason, and an attempt to draw the child away—that her mother might enter the cottage alone and unwatched. And she had entered it alone—had walked into the little parlour.
The next thing she recollected—amid that passion of desperate tears which had seemed to dissolve her, body and soul—were Carrie's arms round her, Carrie's face pressed against hers.
'Mother! mother! Oh! what is the matter? Why did we come here? You've been keeping things from me all these weeks—for years even. There is something I don't know—I'm sure there is. Oh, itisunkind. You think I'm not old enough—but I am. Oh! you ought to tell me, mother!'
How had she defended herself? staved off the inevitable once again? All she knew was that Miss Anna had again come to the rescue, had taken the child away, whispering to her. And since then, in these last forty-eight hours—oh! Carrie had been good! So quiet, so useful—unpacking their clothes, helping Miss Anna's maid with the supper, cooking, dusting, mending, as a Canadian girl knows how—only stopping sometimes to look round her, with that clouded, wondering look, as though the past invaded her.
Oh! she was a darling! John would see that—whatever he might feel towards her mother. 'I stole her—but I've brought her back. I may be a bad wife—but there's Carrie! I've not neglected her—I've done the best by her.'
It was in incoherent, unspoken words like this that Phoebe was for ever pleading with her husband, even now.
Presently, in her walk about the room, she came to stand before the mantelpiece, where a photograph had been propped up against the wall by Carrie—of a white walled farm, with its out-buildings and orchards—and, gleaming beneath it, the wide waters of Lake Ontario. Phoebe shuddered at the sight of it. Twelve years of her life had been wasted there.
Carrie, indeed, took a very different view.
Restlessly the mother left her room and wandered into Carrie's. It was already—by half-past nine—spotlessly clean and neat; and Eliza, the girl from Hawkshead, had not been allowed to touch it. On the bed lay a fresh 'waist,' which Carrie had just made for herself, and on the dressing-table stood another photograph—not a place this time, but a person—a very evident and very good-looking young man!
Phoebe stood looking at it forlornly. Carrie's young romance—and her own spoilt life—these two images held her. Carrie would go back, in time, across the sea—would marry, would forget her mother.
'And I'm not old, neither—I'm not old.'
Trembling she left the room. The door of Miss Anna's was open. Phoebe stood on the threshold, looking in. It had been her room and John's in the old days. Their very furniture was still there—as in the parlour, too. For John had sold it all to their landlord, when he wound up affairs. Miss Anna knew even what he had got for it—poor John!
She dared not go in. She stood leaning against the door-post, looking from outside, like one in exile, at the low-raftered room, with its oak press, and its bed, and its bit of green carpet. Thoughts passed through her mind—thoughts which shook her from head to foot.
The cottage was now enlarged. Miss Mason, when she took it on lease three years before this date, had built two new rooms, or got the Hawkshead landlord to build them. She had retired now, on her savings; and there lived with her an old friend, a tired teacher like herself. It was one of those spinster marriages—honourable and seemlyménages—for which the Lakes have always been famous. But Miss Wetherby was now away, visiting her relations in the South. Had she been there, Phoebe could never have made up her mind to accept Miss Anna's urgent invitation. She shrank from everybody—strangers, or old acquaintance—it was all one. The terror which ranked, in her mind, next to the disabling, heart-arresting terror of the first meeting with her husband, was that of the first moment when she must discover herself to her old acquaintance in Langdale or Elterwater—in Kendal or Keswick—as Phoebe Fenwick. She had arrived, closely veiled, as 'Mrs. Wilson,' and she had never yet left the cottage door.
Then again she caught her breath, remembering that at that very moment Carrie was learning her true name from Miss Anna—was realising that she had seen her father without knowing it—was hearing the story of what her mother had done.
'Perhaps she'll hate me!' thought Phoebe, miserably. Through the window came the soft spring air. The big sycamore opposite was nearly in full leaf, and in the field below sprawled the helpless, new-born lambs, so white beside their dingy mothers. The voice of the river murmured through the valley, and sometimes, as the west wind blew stronger, Phoebe's fine and long-practised ear could distinguish other and more distant sounds, wafted from the leaping waterfalls which threaded the ghyll, perhaps even from the stream of Dungeon Ghyll itself, thundering in its prison of rocks. It was a characteristic Westmoreland day, with high grey cloud and interlacing sun, the fells clear from base to top, their green or reddish sides marked with white farms or bold clumps of fir; with the blackness of scattered yews, landmarks through generations; or the purple-grey of the emerging limestone. Fresh, lonely, cheerful—a land at once of mountain solitude, and of a long-settled, long-humanised life—it breathed kindly on this penitent, anxious woman; it seemed to bid her take courage.
Ah! the sound of a horn echoing along the fell. Phoebe flew down to the porch; then, remembering she might be seen, perhaps recognised, by the postman, she stepped back into the parlour, listening, but out of sight.
The servant, who had run down to fetch the letters, seemed to be having something of an argument with the postman. In a few minutes she reappeared, breathless.
'There's no letters, mum,' she said, seeing Phoebe at the parlour window—'and I doan't think this has owt to do here.' She held up a telegram, doubtfully—yet with an evident curiosity and excitement in her look. It was addressed to 'Mrs. John Fenwick.' The postman had clearly made some remark upon it.
Phoebe took it.
'It's all right. Tell him to leave it.'
The girl, noticing her agitation and her shaking fingers, ran down the hill again to give the message. Phoebe carried the telegram upstairs to her room, and locked the door.
For some moments she dared not open it. If it said that he refused to come?—that he would never see her again? Phoebe felt that she should die of grief—that life must stop.
At last she tore it open:
Sending messenger to-day. Hope to follow immediately. Welcome.
She gasped over the words, feeling them in the first instance as a blow—a repulse. She had feared—but also she had hoped—she scarcely knew for what—yet at least for something more, something different from this.
He was not coming, then, at once! A messenger! What messenger could a man send to his wife in such a case? Who knew them both well enough to dare to come between them? Old fiercenesses woke up in her. Had the word been merely cold and unforgiving it would have crushed her indeed; but there was that in her which would have scarcely dared complain. An eye for an eye—no conscience-stricken creature but admits the wild justice of that.
But a 'messenger'!—when she that was lost is found, when a man's wife comes back to him from the dead! Phoebe sat voiceless, the telegram on her lap, a kind of scorn trembling on her lip.
Then her eye caught the word 'welcome,' and it struck home. She began to sob, her angry pride melting. And suddenly the door of her room opened, and there on the threshold stood Carrie—Carrie, who had been crying, too—with wide, startled eyes and flushed cheeks. She looked at her mother, then flew to her, while Phoebe instinctively covered the telegram with her hand.
'Oh, mother! mother!—how could you? And Ilaughedat him—I did—Idid!' she cried, wringing her hands. 'And he looked so tired! And on the way home Amélie mimicked him—and his voice—and his queer ways; and I laughed. Oh, what a beast I was! Oh, mother, and I told you his name, and you never—never—said a word!'
The child flung herself on the floor, her feet tucked under her, her hands clasped round her knees, swaying backwards and forwards in a tempest of excited feeling, hardly knowing what she said.
Phoebe looked at her, bewildered; then she removed her hand, and Carrie saw the telegram. She threw herself on it, read the address, gulping, then the words:
'A messenger!' She understood that no more than her mother. It meant a letter, perhaps? But she fastened on 'immediately'—'welcome.'
And presently—all in a moment—she leapt to her feet, and began to dance and spring about the room. And as Phoebe watched her, startled and open-mouthed, wondering if this was all the reproach that Carrie was ever going to make her, the flushed and joyous creature came and flung her arms round Phoebe's neck, so that the fair hair and the brown were all in a confusion together, and the child's cheek was on her mother's.
'Mummy!—and I was only five, and you weren't so very old—only seven years older than I am now—and you thought father was tired of you—and you went off to Canada right away. My!—it was plucky of you—I will say that for you. And if you hadn't gone, I should never have seen George. But—oh, mummy, mummy!'—this between laughing and crying—'I do guess you were just a little fool! I guess you were!'
Miss Anna sat downstairs listening to the murmur of those hurrying voices above her in Phoebe's room. She was darning a tablecloth, with the Manchester paper beside her; and she sat peculiarly erect, a little stern and pinched,—breathing protest.
It was extraordinary how Carrie had taken it. These were your Canadian ways, she supposed. No horror of anything—no shyness. Looking a thing straight in the face, at a moment's notice—with a kind of humorous common sense—refusing altogether to cry over spilt milk, even such spilt milk as this—in a hurry, simply, to clear it up! A mere metaphorical refusal to cry, this—for, after all, there had been tears. But the immediate rebound, the determination to be cheerful, though the heavens fell, had been so amazing! The child had begun to laugh before her tears were dry—letting loose a flood of sharp, shrewd questions on her companion; wondering, with sparkling looks, how 'George' would take it; and quite refusing to provide that fine-drawn or shrinking sentiment, that 'moral sense,' in short, with which, as it seemed to the elder woman, half-hours of this quality in life should be decently accompanied. Little heathen! Miss Anna thought grimly of all the precautions she had taken to spare the young lady's feelings—of her own emotions—her sense of a solemn and epoch-making experience. She might have saved her pains!
But at this point the door upstairs opened, and the 'little heathen' descended presently to the parlour, bringing the telegram. She came in shyly, and it might perhaps have been seen that she was conscious of her disgrace with Miss Anna. But she said nothing; she merely held out the piece of pink paper; and Miss Anna, surprised out of her own 'moral sense,' fell upon it, hastily adjusting her spectacles to a large and characteristic nose.
She read it frowning. A messenger! What on earth did they want with such a person? Just like John!—putting the disagreeables on other people. She said to herself that one saw where the child's levity came from.
'It's nice of father, isn't it?' said Carrie, rather timidly, touching the telegram.
'He'd better have come himself,' said Miss Anna, sharply.
'But he is coming!' cried Carrie. 'He's only sending a letter—or a present—or something—to smooth the way—just as George does with me. Well, now then'—she bent down and brought her resolute little face close to Miss Anna's—'where's he to sleep?'
Miss Anna jumped, pushed back her chair, and said, coldly, 'I'll see to that.'
'Because, if he's going into my room,' said Carrie, thoughtfully, 'something'll have to be done to lengthen that bed. The pillow slips down, and even I hung my feet out last night. But, if you'll let me, I could fix it up—I could make that room real nice.'
Miss Anna told her to do what she liked. 'And where'll you sleep to-night, pray?'
'Oh, I'll go in to mother.'
'There's a second bed in my room,' said Miss Anna, stiffly.
'Ah! but that would crowd you up,' said the girl, softly; and off she went.
Presently there was a commotion upstairs—hammering, pulling, pushing.
Miss Anna wondered what on earth she was doing to the bed.
Then, Phoebe came down, white and fluttered enough to satisfy the most exacting canons. Miss Anna tried not to show that she was dissatisfied with the terms of the telegram, and Phoebe did not complain. But her despondency was very evident, and Miss Anna was extremely sorry for her. In her restlessness she presently said that she would go out to the ghyll and sit by the water a little. If anybody came, they were to shout for her. She would only be a stone's throw from the house.
She went away along the fell-side, her head drooping—so tall and thin, in her plain dress of grey Carmelite and her mushroom hat trimmed with black.
Miss Anna looked after her. She knew very little indeed, as yet, of what it was that had really brought the poor thing home. Her own fault, no doubt. Phoebe would have poured out her soul, without reserve, on that first night of her return to her old home. But Miss Anna had entirely refused to allow it. 'No, no!' she had said, even putting her hand on the wife's trembling lips; 'you shan't tell me. Keep that for John—it's his right. If you've got a confession—it belongs toJohn!'
On the other hand, of the original crisis—of the scene in Bernard Street, the spoilt picture, and the letters of Madame de Pastourelles—Miss Anna had let Phoebe tell her what she pleased; and in truth—although Phoebe seemed to be no longer of a similar opinion—it appeared to the ex-schoolmistress that John had a good deal to explain—John and the French lady. If people are not married, and not relations, they have no reasonable call whatever to write each other long and interesting letters. In spite of her education and her reading, Miss Anna's standards in these respects were the small, Puritanical standards of the English country town.
The gate leading to the steep pitch of lane opened and shut. Miss Anna rose hastily and looked out.
A lady in black entered the little garden, walked up to the door, and knocked timidly. Was this the 'messenger'? Miss Anna hurried into the little hall.
'Is Mrs. Fenwick in?' asked a very musical voice.
'Mrs. Fenwick is sitting a little way off on the fell,' said MissAnna, advancing. 'But I can call her directly. What name, please?'
The lady took out her card.
'It's a French name,' she said, with smiling apology, handing it toMiss Anna.
Miss Anna glanced at it, and then at the bearer.
'Kindly step this way,' she said, pointing to the parlour, and holding her grey-capped head rather impressively high.
Madame de Pastourelles obeyed her, murmuring that she had sent her carriage on to the Dungeon Ghyll Hôtel, whence it would return for her in an hour.
Eugénie had made her first speech—her first embarrassed explanation. She and Miss Anna sat on either side of the parlour table, their eyes on each other. Eugénie felt herself ill at ease under the critical gaze of this handsome, grey-haired woman, with her broad shoulders and her strong brows. She had left London in hurry and agitation, and was, after all, but very slenderly informed as to the situation in Langdale. Had she inadvertently said something to set this formidable-looking person against her and her mission?
On her side Miss Anna surveyed the delicate refinement of her visitor; the black dress so plain, yet so faultless; the mass of brown hair, which even after a night's railway journey was still perfectly dressed, no doubt by the maid without whom these fine ladies never venture themselves abroad; the rings which sparkled on the thin fingers; the single string of pearls, which alone relieved the severity of the black bodice. She noticed the light, distinguished figure, the beauty of the small head; and her hostility waxed within her. John's smart friend belonged to the pampered ones of the earth, and Miss Anna did not intend to be taken in by her, not for a moment.
'Mr. Fenwick has been terribly overworked,' Eugénie repeated, colouring against her will, 'and yesterday he was quite broken down by your letter. It seemed too much for him. You will understand, I'm sure. When a person is so weak, they shrink—don't they?—even from what they most desire. And so he asked me—to—to come and tell Mrs. Fenwick something about his health, and his circumstances these last two years—just to prepare the way. There is so much—isn't there?—Mrs. Fenwick cannot yet know; and I'm afraid—it will pain her to hear.'
The speaker's voice faltered and ceased. She felt through every nerve that she was in a false position, and wondered how she was to mend it.
'Do I understand you that John Fenwick is coming to see his wife to-night?' said Miss Mason at last, in a voice of battle.
'He arrives by the afternoon train,' said Eugénie, looking at her questioner with a slight frown of perplexity.
'What is the matter with him?' said Miss Anna, dryly.
Eugénie hesitated; then she bent forward, the colour rushing again into her cheeks.
'I think'—her voice was low and hurried, and she looked round her to see that the door was shut and they were really alone—'I think it has been an attack of depression—perhaps—perhaps melancholia. He has had great misfortunes and disappointments. Unfortunately, my father and I were abroad, and did not understand. But, thank God!'—she clasped her hands involuntarily—'I got home yesterday—I went to see him—just in time—'
She paused, looking at her companion as though she asked for the understanding which would save her further words. But Miss Anna sat puzzled and cold.
'Just in time?' she repeated.
'I didn't understand at first,' said Eugénie, with emotion; 'I only saw that he was ill and terribly broken. But he has told me since—in a letter I got just before I started. And I want you to advise me—to tell me whether you think Mrs. Fenwick should know—'
'Know what?' cried Miss Anna.
Madame de Pastourelles bent forward again, and said a few words under her breath.
Anna Mason recoiled.
'Horrible!' she said; 'and—and so cowardly! So like a man!'
Eugénie could not help a tremulous smile; then she resumed:
'The picture had come—just come. It was that which saved him. Ah, yes'—the smile flashed out again—'I had forgotten! Of course Mrs. Fenwick must know! It was the picture—it wasshethatsavedhim. But your note, by some strange accident, had escaped him. It had fallen out, among some other papers on the floor—and he was nearly beside himself with disappointment. I was lucky enough to find it and give it him. But oh! it was pitiful to see him.'
She shaded her eyes with her hand a moment, waiting for composure.Miss Anna watched her, the strong mouth softening unconsciously.
'And so, when he asked me to come and see his wife first—to tell her about his troubles and his breakdown—I felt as if I could not refuse—though, of course, I know'—she looked up appealingly—'it may well seem strange and intrusive to Mrs. Fenwick. But perhaps when she understands how we have all been searching for her these many months—'
'Searching!' exclaimed Miss Anna. 'Who has been searching?'
Her question arrested her companion. Eugénie drew herself more erect, collecting her thoughts.
'Shall we face the facts as they are?' she said at last, quietly. 'I can tell you very shortly how the case stands.'
Miss Anna half-rose, looked at the door, sat down again.
'Mrs. Fenwick, you understand, may return at any time!'
'I will be very short. We must consult—mustn't we?—for them both?'
Timidly, her eyes upraised to the vigorous old face beside her, Eugénie held out her delicate hand. With a quick, impulsive movement, wondering at herself, Miss Anna grasped it.
A little while later Miss Anna emerged from the parlour. She went upstairs to find Carrie.
Carrie was sitting beside the open door of her room, calmly ripping up a mattress. The bed behind her had been substantially lengthened, apparently by the help of a packing-case in which Mrs. Fenwick had brought some of her possessions across the Atlantic. A piece of white dimity had been tacked round the packing-case.
'Carrie, what on earth are you doing?' cried Miss Anna, in dismay.
'It's all right,' said Carrie—'I'm only making it over. It's got lumpy.' Then she laid down her scissors, flushed, and looked at Miss Anna. 'Who's that downstairs?'
'It's a lady who wants to see your mother. Will you go and fetch her?'
'Father's "messenger"?' cried Carrie, springing up, and breathing quick.
Miss Anna nodded.
'Your mother should be very grateful to her,' she said, in rather a shaky voice.
Carrie put on her hat in silence, and descended. The door of the parlour was open, and between it and the parlour window stood the strange lady, staring at the river and the fell opposite, apparently deep in thought.
At the sound of the girl's step Eugénie turned.
'Carrie!' she cried, involuntarily—'you are Carrie!' And she came forward, impetuously holding out both her hands. 'How like the picture—how like!'
And Eugénie gazed in delight at the small, slight creature, so actively and healthily built, in spite of her fairy proportions, at the likeness to Fenwick in hair and skin, at the apple-freshness of her colour, the beauty of her eyes, the lightness of her pretty feet.
Twelve years!—and then to findthis, dropped into your arms by the gods—this living, breathing promise of all delight! Deep in Eugénie's heart there stirred the pang of her own pitiful motherhood, of the child who had just flickered into life, and out of it, through one summer's day.
She shyly put her arm round the girl.
'May I,' she said, timidly—'may I kiss you?'
Carrie, with down-dropped eyes, a little grave, submitted.
'I am going to tell my mother. Father sent you, didn't he?'
Eugénie said 'Yes' gently, and released her. The child ran off.
Phoebe came slowly into the room, with an uncertain gait, touching the door and the walls like one groping her way.
'Oh, Mrs. Fenwick!'
It was a little cry from Eugénie—deprecating, full of pain.
Phoebe took no notice of it. She went straight to her visitor.
'Where is my husband, please?' she said, in a strong, hoarse voice, mechanically holding out her hand, which Eugénie touched and then let drop—so full of rugged, passionate things were the face and form she looked at.
'He's coming by the afternoon train.' Eugénie threw all her will into calmness and clearness. 'He gets to Windermere before five—and he thought he might be here a little after six. He was so ill yesterday—when I found him—when I went to see him! That's what he wanted me to tell you before you saw him again—and so I came first—by the night train.'
'You went to see him—yesterday?' said Phoebe, still in the same tense way.
She had never asked her guest to sit, and she stood herself, one hand leaning heavily on the table.
'I had heard from the lawyers—the lawyers my father had recommended to Mr. Fenwick—that they had found a clue—they had discovered some traces of you in Canada—and I went to tell him.'
'Lawyers?' Phoebe raised her left hand in bewilderment. 'I don't understand.'
Eugénie came a little nearer. Hurriedly, with changing colour, she gave an account of the researches of the lawyers during the preceding seven months—interrupted in the middle by Phoebe.
'But why was John looking for us, after—after all this time?' she said, in a fainter, weaker voice, dropping at the same time into a chair.
Eugénie hesitated; then said, firmly, 'Because he wished to find you, more than anything else in the world. And my father and I helped him all we could—'
'But you didn't know?'—Phoebe caught piteously at her dress—'you didn't know—?'
'That Mr. Fenwick was married? No—never!—till last autumn. That was his wrong-doing, towards all his old friends.'
Phoebe looked at the dignity and pureness of the face before her, and shrank a little.
'And how was it found out?' she breathed, turning away.
'There was a Miss Morrison—'
'Bella Morrison!' cried Phoebe, suddenly, clasping her hands—'Bella!Of course, she did it to disgrace him.'
'We never knew what her motive was. But she told—an old friend—who told us.'
'And then—what did John say?'
The wife's hands shook—her eyes were greedy for an answer.
'Oh! it was all miserable!' said Eugénie, with a gesture of emotion. 'It made my father very angry, and we could not be friends any more—as we had been. And Mr. Fenwick had a wretched winter. He was ill—and his painting seemed to go wrong—and he was terribly in need of money—and then came that day at the theatre—'
'I know,' whispered Phoebe, hanging on the speaker's lips—'when he saw Carrie?'
'It nearly killed him,' said Eugénie, gently. 'It was like a light kindled, and then blown out.'
Phoebe leant her head against the table before her, and began to sob—
'If I'd never let her go up that day! When we first landed I didn't know what to do—I couldn't make up my mind. We'd taken lodgings down at Guildford—near some acquaintances we'd made in Canada. And the girl was a great friend of Carrie's—we used to stay with them sometimes in Montreal. She had acted a little at Halifax and Montreal—and she wanted an opening in London—and somebody told her to apply at that theatre—I forget its name.'
'Halifax!' cried Eugénie—'Halifax, Nova Scotia? Oh, now I understand! We have searched England through. The stage-manager said one of the young ladies mentioned Halifax. Nobody ever thought—'
She paused. Phoebe said nothing; she was grappling with some of the new ideas presented to her.
'And this was his second search, you know,' said Eugénie, laying a hand timidly on Phoebe's shoulder. 'He had done all he could—when you left him. But when he lost sight of Carrie again—and so of you both—it wore his heart out. I can see it did. He is a broken man.' Her voice trembled. 'Oh, you will have to nurse—to comfort him. He has been in despair about his art—in despair about everything. He—'
But she checked herself. The rest was for him to tell.
'For a long time he seemed so—so—successful,' said Phoebe, plucking at the tablecloth, trying to compose voice and features.
'Yes—but it didn't last. He seemed to get angry with himself—and everybody else. He quarrelled with the Academy—and his work didn't improve—it went back. But then—when one's unhappy—'
Her smile and the pressure of her hand said the rest.
'He'll never forgive me!' said Phoebe, her voice thick and shaking.'It can never be the same again. I was a fool to come home.'
Eugénie withdrew her hand. Unconsciously, a touch of sternness showed itself in her bearing, her pale features.
'No, no!'—she said, with energy. 'You will comfort him, Mrs. Fenwick—you will give him heart and hope again. It was a cruel thing—forgive me if I say it once!—it was a cruel thing to leave him! A man like that—with his weaknesses and his temperament—which are part of his gift really—its penalty—wants his wife at every turn—the woman who loves him—who understands. But to desert him for a suspicion!—a dream! Oh! Mrs. Fenwick, there are those who—who are really starved—really forsaken—really trampled under foot—by those they love!'
Her voice broke. She stood gazing straight before her, quivering with the passion of recollection. Phoebe looked up—awed—remembering what John had said, so long ago, of the unhappy marriage, the faithless and cruel husband. But Eugénie's hand touched her again.
'And I know that you thought—I—had made Mr. Fenwick—forget you. That was so strange! At that time—and for many years afterwards—my husband was still alive. If he had sent me a word—any day—any hour—I would have gone to him—to the ends of the world. I don't mean—I don't pretend—that my feeling for him remained unchanged. But my pride was—my duty was—that he should never findmelacking. And last year—he turned to me—I was able to help him—through his death. I had been his true wife—and he knew it.'
She spoke quietly, brushing the tears from her eyes. But with the last words, her voice wavered a little. Phoebe had bowed her head upon the hand which held hers, and there was no spectator of the feeling in Eugénie's face. Was her pure conscience tormented with the thought that she had not told all, and could never tell it? Her innocent tempting of Fenwick—as an act, partly, of piteous self-defence against impulses of quite another quality and power—this must remain her secret to the end. Sad evasions, which life forces upon even the noblest worshippers of truth!
After a minute she stooped and kissed Phoebe's golden hair.
'I was so glad to help Mr. Fenwick—he interested me so. If I had only known of you—and the child—why, how happy we might all have been!'
She withdrew her hand, and walked away to the window, trying to calm herself.
Phoebe rose and followed her.
'Do you know?'—she said, piteously—'can't you tell me?—will John take me back?'
Eugénie paused just a moment; then said, steadily, 'He is coming here, because you are his wife—because he is faithful to you—because he wants you. Don't agitate him too much! He wants resting and healing. And so do you!' She took Phoebe's hands again in hers. 'And how do you think anybody is to deny you anything, when you bring such a gift as that?'
Carrie and Miss Mason were entering the little garden. Eugénie's smile, as she motioned towards the girl, seemed to reflect the May sunshine and Carrie's young charm.
But after Madame de Pastourelles was gone, a cloud of nervous dread fell upon the little cottage and its inmates. Phoebe wandered restlessly about the garden, waiting—and listening—hour after hour.
The May evening drew towards sunset. Flame descended on the valley, striking athwart the opening which leads to its furthest recess, superbly guarded by the crags of Bowfell, and turning all the mountain-side above the cottage, still dyed with the fern of 'yesteryear,' to scarlet. A fresh breeze blew through the sycamore leaves, bringing with it the cool scents of rain-washed grass. All was hushed—richly hued—expectant—like some pageant waiting for its king.
Alas—poor king! In the full glory of the evening light, a man alighted from a wagonette at the foot of the cottage hill, and dragged his weary limbs up the steep ground. He opened the gate, looking round him slowly to right and left.
Then, in the porch, Fenwick saw his wife. He walked up to her, and gripped her wrists. She fell back with a stifled cry; and they stood there—speechless and motionless—looking into each other's eyes.
Phoebe first withdrew herself. In that first moment of contact, Fenwick's changed aspect had pierced her to the heart. But the shock itself brought self-control.
'Come in,' she said, mechanically; 'Miss Anna's gone out.'
'Where's Carrie?'
He followed her in, glancing from side to side.
'She—she'll be here directly.'
Phoebe's voice stumbled over the words.
Fenwick understood that the child and Anna Mason were leaving them to themselves, out of delicacy; and his exhaustion of mind and body recoiled impatiently from the prospect of a 'scene,' with which he felt himself wholly unable to cope. He had been sorely tempted to stay at Windermere, and telegraph that he was too ill to come that day. Such a course would at least have given him the night's respite. But a medley of feelings had prevailed over the impulse; and here he was.
They entered the little parlour, and he looked round him in amazement, muttering, 'Why, it looks just as it did—not a thing changed.'
Phoebe closed the door, and then turned to him, trembling.
'Won't you—won't you say you're glad to see me, John?'
He looked at her fixedly, then threw himself down beside the table, and rested his head on his hands.
'It's no good to suppose we can undo these twelve years,' he said, roughly; 'it's no good whatever to suppose that.'
'No,' said Phoebe—'I know.'
She too sat down on the other side of the table, deadly pale, not knowing what to say or do.
Suddenly he raised his head and looked at her, with his searching painter's eyes.
'My God!' he said, under his breath. 'We are changed, both of us—aren't we?'
She too studied the face before her—the grey hair, the red-rimmed eyes, of which the lids fluttered perpetually, shrinking from the light, the sombre mouth; and slowly a look of still more complete dismay overspread her own; reflected, as it were, from that half-savage discouragement and weariness which spoke from the drawn features, the neglected dress, and slouching figure, and seemed to make of the whole man one sore, wincing at a touch. Her heart sank—and sank.
'Can't we begin again?' she said, in a low voice, while the tears rose in her eyes. 'I'm sorry for what I did.'
'How does that help it?' he said, irritably. 'I'm a ruined man.I can't paint any more—or, at any rate, the world doesn't care aha'p'orthwhatI paint. I should be a bankrupt—but for Madame dePastourelles—'
'John!' cried Phoebe, bending forward—'I've got a little money—I saved it—and there are some shares a friend advised me to buy, that are worth a lot more than I gave for them. I've got eight hundred pounds—and it's all yours, John,—it's all yours.' She stretched out her hands in a yearning anguish, and touched his.
'What friend?' he said, with a quick, suspicious movement, taking no notice of her statement; 'and where have you been—all these years?'
He turned and looked at her sharply.
'I've been in Canada—on a farm—near Montreal.'
She held herself erect, speaking slowly and carefully, as though a moment had arrived for which she had long prepared; through rebellion, and through yielding; now in defiance, and now in fear: the moment when she should tell John the story of her flight. Her manner, indeed—for one who could have understood it—proved a curious thing; that never, throughout their separation, had she ceased to believe that she should see her husband again. There had been no finality in her action. In her eyes the play had been always going on, the curtain always up.
'You know I told you about Freddy—Freddy Tolson's—coming to see me—that night? Well, it was the things he said about Canada made me do it. Of course I didn't want to go where he was going. But he said that one could get to Canada for a few pounds, and it took about nine days. And it was a fine place, and any one could find work. He'd thought of it, he said, but as he had friends in Australia, he was going there. And so, when he'd left the cottage, I thought—if, when I came up to town—I—I did find what I expected—I'd take Carrie—and go to Canada.'
Fenwick rose, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, began to walk up and down excitedly.
'And of course—as you expected it—you found it,' he said, bitterly. 'Who could ever haveconceivedthat a woman could act in such a way! Why, I had been kissing your photograph the minute before! Lord Findon had been there, to tell me my pictures were in the Academy all right, and he'd given me five hundred pounds for them—and the cheque'—he stopped in front of her, rapping the table with his finger for emphasis—'the cheque was actually in the drawer!—under your hand—where I'd left it. It was too late to catch the North post for a letter to you, so I went out to tell one or two people, and on the way I bought some things for you at a shop—prettinesses that I'd never been able to give you. Why, I thought of nothing but you.'
His voice had risen to a cry. He stooped, bending over the table, his haggard face close to hers.
She recoiled, and burst into a wild sob:
'John, I—I couldn't know!'
'Well, go on,' he said, abruptly, raising himself—'go on. You found that picture in my room—I'll tell you about that presently—and you wrote me the letter. Well, then you went back to Euston, and you sent Daisy away. After that?'
His stern, sharp tone, which was really the result of a nerve-tension hardly to be borne, scared her. It was with painful difficulty that she collected her forces enough to meet his gaze and to reply.
'I took Carrie to Liverpool. We had to wait three days there. Then we got on a steamer for Québec. The voyage was dreadful. Carrie was ill, and I was so—so miserable! We stopped at Québec a little. But I felt so strange there, with all the people speaking French—so we went on to Montreal. And the Government people there who look after the emigrants found me a place. I got work in an hotel—a sort of housekeeper. I looked after the linen, and the servants, and after a bit I learnt how to keep the accounts. They paid me eight dollars a week, and Carrie and I had a room at the top of the hotel. It was awfully hard work. I was so dead tired at night, sometimes, I couldn't undress. I would sit down on the side of my bed to rest my feet; and then the next thing I'd know would be waking in the morning, just as I was, in my clothes. But so long as I slept, it was all right. It was lying awake—that killed me!'
The trembling of her lips checked her, and she began to play nervously with the fringe of the tablecloth, trying to force back emotion. He had again seated himself opposite to her, and was observing her with a half-frowning attention, as of one in whom the brain action is physically difficult. He led her on, however, with questions, seeing how much she needed the help of them.
From Montreal, it appeared, she had gone to a fruit-farm in the Hamilton district, Ontario, as housekeeper to a widower with a family of children varying in age from five to sixteen. She had made the acquaintance of this man—a decent, rough, good-tempered fellow, Canadian-born—through the hotel. He had noticed her powers of management, and her overwork; and had offered her equal pay, an easier task, and country air, instead of the rush of Montreal.
'I accepted for Carrie's sake. It was an apple-farm, running down to Lake Ontario. I had to look after the house and the children—and to cook—and wash—and bake—and turn one's hand to anything. It wasn't too hard—and Carrie went to school with the others—and used to run about the farm. Mr. Crosson was very kind. His old mother was living there—or I—wouldn't have gone'—she flushed deeply—'but she was very infirm, and couldn't do anything. I took in two English papers—and used to get along somehow. Once I was ill, with congestion of the lungs, and once I went to Niagara, with some people who lived near. And I can hardly remember anything else happening. It was all just the same—day after day—I just seemed to be half-alive.'
'Ah! you felt that?' he said, eagerly—'you felt that? There's a stuff they call curare. You can't move—you're paralysed—but you feel horrible pain. That's what I used to feel like—for months and months. And then sometimes—it was different—as if I didn't care twopence about anything, except a little bit of pleasure—and should never vex myself about anything again. One was dead, and it didn't matter—was rather pleasant indeed.'
She was silent. Her seeking, pitiful eyes were on him perpetually, trying to make him out, to acquaint herself with this new personality, which spoke in these harsh staccato phrases—to reconcile it with the exciteable, sanguine, self-confident man whom she had deserted in his youth.
'Well,' he resumed, 'and what was your farmer like?' Then, suddenly—lifting his eyes—'Did he make love to you?'
She coloured hotly, and threw back her head.