The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLouie's married lifeThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Louie's married lifeAuthor: Sarah DoudneyIllustrator: W. RaineyRelease date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73473]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: S. W. Partridge & Co, 1894*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIE'S MARRIED LIFE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Louie's married lifeAuthor: Sarah DoudneyIllustrator: W. RaineyRelease date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73473]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: S. W. Partridge & Co, 1894
Title: Louie's married life
Author: Sarah DoudneyIllustrator: W. Rainey
Author: Sarah Doudney
Illustrator: W. Rainey
Release date: April 26, 2024 [eBook #73473]
Language: English
Original publication: London: S. W. Partridge & Co, 1894
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIE'S MARRIED LIFE ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
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THERE WAS SOMETHING IMPOSINGAND SUMPTUOUS ABOUT HER BEAUTY.
BY
SARAH DOUDNEY
AUTHOR OF "WHEN WE TWO PARTED," "WHERE THE DEW FALLS IN LONDON,""A ROMANCE OF LINCOLN'S INN," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY W. RAINEY, R. I.
LONDON
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO.
8 & 9 PATERNOSTER ROW.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. BEGINNING
II. LOOKING BACK
III. INEZ
IV. RONALD
V. RECOVERY
VI. THE GUITAR
VII. JARS
VIII. MARIAN
IX. GOING OUT
X. SHADOWS DEEPEN
XI. POISONED WORDS
XII. JEALOUSY
XIII. ANGUISH
XIV. STRICKEN
XV. FLIGHT
XVI. A FEVERISH DREAM
XVII. AWAKING
XVIII. HEART TO HEART
XIX. THE OLD ALBUM
XX. THE JEWELS
XXI. CLOSING WORDS
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LOUIE'S MARRIED LIFE
BEGINNING.
"Sweetheart, sweetheart," I hear the two clear notes,And see the sunlight shining through the shower;"Sweetheart," how faintly from the meadow floatsThe early fragrance of the cuckoo-flower!The wind is keen, and April skies are grey;But love can wait till rain-clouds break apart;And still the bird sings through the longest day;"Sweetheart, sweetheart."When lives are true, the springtide never dies,When souls are one, the love-notes never cease;Our bird sings on beneath the cloudy skies,Our little world is full of light and peace;Fresh as the breath of violets new-bornComes the sweet thought to hearts that cannot part,"After the night of weeping breaks the morn,"Sweetheart, sweetheart."
SURELY no one would ever believe that this song was written by a Londoner, and yet I, who wrote it, am a Londoner in heart and soul. But I was born far away in the country, and all the familiar sights and sounds of old days lend themselves to my rhymes, so that I oftener sing of fields, and birds, and flowers, than of those things which are always before my eyes. Moreover, as all authors know, it is sometimes easier to write of the unseen than of the seen, and these home fields of mine have borrowed much of their beauty from the glamour of distance.
It is because this tale is called "Louie's Married Life," that I shall give you my songs. They were all written for Ronald to sing to the accompaniment of his guitar; and if it had not been for Ronald, I hardly think that they would ever have been written at all. For if I had married somebody else (as I nearly did, once upon a time), this little flame of song which is in me would have been extinguished altogether, and I should have become the dullest woman in the world. These songs are a part of my life as a wife.
I daresay, however, that many people have wasted a great deal of pity on the wife of Ronald Hepburne; and if they do not openly point at the lines on my forehead and the crow's feet at the corners of my eyes, they convey by looks and tones their deep distress on seeing my altered appearance. I admit that they have every possible right to indulge in polite lamentations. Never having been a buxom woman, I had not much flesh to lose; and nursing through long days, and watching through longer nights, have left upon me certain traces which are not likely to be effaced, even in this present time of peace.
When I wrote the foregoing little song, it was early in an April morning; the only sunbeams that I could see were shining on brick walls, blackened with smoke; and the only sky that I could see was a patch of pale blue above the chimney-tops. But, as I lifted my head from my pillow, a feeling of unutterable gratitude thrilled me through and through: it was the last night that we should ever spend in that dreary London room, and Ronald had been sleeping soundly and long. Weeping may endure for a night (and with me it had endured for many nights), but joy cometh in the morning.
I thought of all the other watchers in the crowded houses around me, of mothers counting the hours by the beds of sick children, of wives who had agonised as I had done and prayed as I had prayed; and then, as I looked at Ronald's face, in the dim dawn, I began to recall the note of an early bird in my old country home—and so the song was made.
We had only been married six months when Ronald was stricken with fever. First a slight cold, a few days of languor and depression, and then, before I had had time to realise the danger, he was face to face with death. So the battle for life was fought and won in the dark chamber of a London lodging, and on that April morning I was tasting the first sweets of the great deliverance.
But when with a great effort he rose from the bed whereon he had lain for weeks, I almost feared that the conflict was about to begin again. He had never answered to the popular notion of a fine, handsome man (and I must needs say here that I have no fancy for burly men), yet I had not thought it possible that he could become so fragile, so spectre-like, as he now appeared. Mine is, I suppose, a transparent character, for Ronald always reads my thoughts at a glance; and as his eyes met mine, he gave me a reassuring smile.
"Never fear, Louie," he said, cheerfully. "I shall grow more substantial by-and-by." And then, touching my thin arm, he added, with a sadder look, "I am afraid, poor child, that you have thrown your own strength away in trying to save mine."
"I'm very strong," I answered, buttoning his great-coat with vigorous fingers. "The cab will be here in a minute, and we have no time to spend in bemoaning our leanness. Are you not very glad, Ronald, to leave this dismal old sick room fer ever and ever?"
But, even while I spoke, there flitted across my brain a faint foreshadowing of a time when the memory of that dim little room would become painfully dear. The feeling passed as quickly as it came, and I drew the folds of Ronald's wrapper over his mouth to guard him from the chilly wind of spring. Then the cab came up to the door, and we stood at the window to watch the disposal of our luggage on the roof.
"The guitar will go inside," said I to the servant.
So the guitar was carried out in its case and deposited on the front seat, and Ronald followed, so slowly and feebly that my heart ached to see him. I was the last to get in; and so we turned our backs upon that dreary house where we had suffered the sharpest sorrow that we had ever yet known.
The drive to our new abode was not a long one; and as it was fated that we were to meet with a disaster, it was well that it did not come upon us until we were very near our home. As we turned sharply out of Welbeck Street another cab came smashing into ours, and we were overturned in a moment. Assistance was soon forthcoming; the two drivers exchanged compliments after the manner of their kind; ready helpers collected our boxes, and placed us, quite unharmed, in another vehicle; in short, it was one of those "marvellous escapes" of which one hears so much, and there was only one thing belonging to us which was much the worse for the accident.
And that one thing was Ronald's guitar.
Until I was fairly inside our new rooms, I did not realise that the poor guitar was completely done for, and then I confess I shed some very bitter tears. Our new landlady (who had been a dear old nurse of mine) was much amazed and scandalised by my excessive grief, and instantly fell to reproving me as she had done in the days of my childhood.
"I'm astonished at you, Miss Louie," said she, forgetting my matronly dignity. "If your husband's bones had been smashed, you couldn't have made a greater fuss, and all about a musical instrument of no account whatever! A pianner, now, would be worth crying over, but there never was much noise to be got out of that poor silly stringed thing."
I am quick of temper, and I felt very much inclined to slap nurse at that moment.
"Go away," I said, crying anew. "You never can understand how dear that guitar is to me. I first f-f-fell in love with Ronald when he was playing upon it."
"What a fool I be!" soliloquised nurse, smiling. "I might have known as much. Why, I remember that I took a fancy to my old man when he was blowing his flute; and yet most folks say that a flute's dreadfully disfiguring to the countenance."
After that I kissed nurse, and she went off cheerfully to prepare our seven o'clock dinner, while I took my way to our little sitting-room. Finding Ronald lying tranquilly on an old-fashioned sofa, and looking a trifle more like his old self, my spirits rose again, and I began to feel myself a happy woman.
Most Londoners are well enough acquainted with Chapel Place—that convenient little alley which runs from Oxford Street into Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square—and it was in Chapel Place that we, a lonely pair of lovebirds, had now found a settled nest. Our rooms were on the ground-floor, and we looked out upon the grey stone wall of the great post-office, and were thankful for any "small mercies" vouchsafed us by stray sunbeams.
And yet, from that very first afternoon in nurse's house, I felt that here was to be the truest and happiest home that I had ever known. I watched the pigeons fluttering softly about the east gable of St. Peter's Church, and saw the faint crescent of the new moon rise above the house-roofs, and show its pale golden outline against a background of misty lilac sky. And Ronald, languid but content, studied my brightened face, and lazily whispered that I was once more like the girl he had wooed two years ago.
When I read a novel, I always make a point of skipping the explanations, and now that I am writing a story I shall endeavour to explain as little as I can, and to leave as much as possible to the instincts of my intelligent readers. It is necessary, however, that I should briefly state how I came to know Ronald Hepburn, and who and what my husband was.
First of all, let me say that he was a soldier, sprung from a long line of soldiers who had fought and served in India. In India he was born, and when I met him, he had just been invalided home and had left the service. You have only to stroll into the neighbourhood of the best clubs and you will see dozens of men exactly like him any day. He was not in any way remarkable, and he had never been handsome, but he possessed a certain indolent grace of manner and bearing—a certain air of high breeding and perfect repose, which are attractions in the eyes of some women. After saying all this, I have merely to add that I like high breeding and repose, and it was therefore not surprising, perhaps, if Ronald Hepburne succeeded, pretty easily, in fascinating me.
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LOOKING BACK.
I HAD grown-up, a penniless little orphan, in my uncle's quiet country cottage, and when he died, I knew not where to look for another home. He had commended me to the care of his oldest friend, the rector of the parish, and had left me all that he had to leave—a thousand pounds and his blessing. The rector was a good man and a wise; he invested my small fortune to the best advantage, and sent me up to town to be the protégée and companion of his widowed sister, Lady Waterville.
It had seemed to me a hard thing that nurse, who had been my loving tyrant from baby-hood, should have left me just twelve months before my uncle's death. After years of comfortable widowhood, she had yielded to the prayers of an old admirer, whose liking for her comely, rustic face had survived through many chances and changes. And so, with tears, she had taken leave of my uncle and me, and had gone off with her husband to his London home, little thinking how soon I was destined to follow her.
Lady Waterville was very stout, very amiable, and indescribably lazy. I have said "indescribably," because no word in any language would ever completely express that wonderful indolence of hers. Many people are sufficiently ashamed of their idleness to veil it under pretty shams of work; but Lady Waterville never was ashamed in the least. She was uncompromisingly honest, and would plainly admit that anything in the shape of an occupation was hateful to her. The world was far too busy, she declared; as for herself, it had not pleased a kind Providence to give her a vocation, and she did not mean to thwart its designs by trying to find employment.
"Here I sit," she would say, "with my idle hands before me, and even Satan himself has never found any mischief for them to do. So Dr. Watts is not infallible, my dear."
In one of his stories, Mr. Wilkie Collins has introduced us to a lady who sat through life, and she must certainly have borne a strong resemblance to Lady Waterville. Strange as it may seem, this sitting existence appeared to agree with her extremely well; and, despite her obesity, she was a pretty old woman, with an open, good-tempered face, and soft hair which was a mixture of silver and gold. I have heard Ronald say that she always reminded him of an immense doll, smiling fatuously upon you through its glass window, untouched by any human ills, unaltered by the lapse of time. But although she was not blessed (or cursed) with any deep feelings, she was very comfortable to live with, and unvarying in her kindness to me.
Her husband, Sir Clement Waterville, had been knighted for his services in India; and, having done with the army, he had settled himself in an old house in George Street, Hanover Square. There his widow was still living when I came up to town to be her companion, and there she continued to live to the end of her days.
The house was let on a long lease at two hundred and sixty pounds a year, and was the property of Ronald Hepburne. It was the only property that he possessed, and it had been left to him by his aunt, Inez Greystock, who had perished in the Indian Mutiny.
Sir Clement Waterville and Colonel Greystock (the husband of Inez) had been intimate friends in India; and so it came to pass that Ronald became acquainted with the Watervilles, and continued to visit the widow after Sir Clement's death.
Lady Waterville did not receive many visitors, as she hated the trouble of entertaining; but any one who had been liked by her husband was welcomed to her house; and there were two young men in whom Sir Clement had taken an especial interest. These two were William Greystock and Ronald Hepburne.
Colonel Greystock had survived his wife many years; he had never had any children, and William, his nephew, had taken the place of a son. Through his influence, William had obtained a Government appointment in India, and had inherited all that his uncle had to leave. When I came to live with Lady Waterville, the colonel had been dead some time; and William, a single man, was living comfortably on his means.
"William Greystock would be a good match for you, Louie," said Lady Waterville one day.
How well I remember that day! It was May time; the drawing-room was sweet with flowers, and through the open windows came the first warm breath of summer. We sat with a little tea-table between us; the clocks were just striking four, and the sunshine lay brightly on the old street and square. I had been in town three months, and my ears had grown accustomed to the ceaseless roll of wheels; the noises that had seemed deafening at first were pleasant now, and I had already begun to love that loud hum of unresting life which is still dear to me.
Not being in the least in awe of Lady Waterville, I never hesitated to speak my mind.
"I don't like Mr. Greystock much," I said, frankly.
"You might like him better, if he were to pay you particular attentions, my dear."
"I don't think I should. I liked our curate very much indeed until he became particularly attentive, and then I turned against him in the most extraordinary way. If I could have married him I would, just to please my uncle and the rector."
"So you are not quite such 'an unlesson'd girl' as I supposed," said Lady Waterville, surveying me with a benign smile. "You have had a lover; but as he didn't succeed, I think he must have played his cards very badly."
"He played them well enough, I believe," I replied, smiling at the remembrance of sundry proofs of devotion.
"I don't mean that he was not in earnest." The widow was still smiling at me across her teacup. "But he must have been terribly deficient in tact. You were in the dullest of country places; you saw nobody, and went nowhere. Under such circumstances, I don't see how any decent man could have failed to win you. My brother used to be rather fastidious about curates, so I suppose your admirer was presentable."
"Decidedly presentable and good-looking; but I got tired of him and his face."
"What was the matter with his face?"
"Nothing; but it was a face that had no story in it."
Lady Waterville held out her cup for more cream, and then looked at me with a slight shake of the head.
"I know you now," she said. "Louie, you are just the kind of girl who will marry badly or not marry at all."
I laughed gaily.
"What an awful prophecy, Lady Waterville!" I cried.
"Do you know what it is that writes the story on a man's face?" she went on. "I will tell you—folly, extravagance, sin, and bitter repentance."
I grew graver as I listened. Was she thinking of the very face that I was silently picturing at that moment? Despite her laziness, Lady Waterville possessed the faculty of observation; perhaps she saw all the more of life because she was wholly unoccupied. Her eyes were always at liberty; never being bent on crewelwork or patchwork, they studied human countenances in a leisurely fashion, and it is possible that they discovered a good many little secrets. I felt my cheeks beginning to burn.
"Give me another cup of tea, my dear," she said, speaking in quite a different tone. "The last was not sweet enough. How well those buttercups suit you!"
I had fastened a cluster of large water-buttercups into my bodice, and I thoroughly appreciated the widow's kindness in looking at them, and taking no notice of my blushes. She was talking on in a pleasant, rambling way, and I was gradually getting cool again, when the page threw open the door and announced Mr. Greystock.
William Greystock came in, dark, bland, inscrutable as he always was. He had black eyes, deep-set, and black hair, closely cropped, that lay in thick ripples over his head. As he wore no moustache, there was nothing to veil the hard outline of his thin lips and prominent chin; and I thought then (as I think now) that his was the strongest and most cruel profile I had ever seen in all my life.
He talked well and fluently; admired Lady Waterville's flowers, and even deigned to praise my humble buttercups. I told him that I had bought them of a little girl in the street, just because they reminded me of my old home; and then he asked me if I had not lately written some verses about the country.
My cheeks grew hot again. Lady Waterville looked with an amused glance from William Greystock's face to mine.
"I did not know that Miss Coverdale ever wrote poetry," she said to him. "Pray, how did you find it out?"
"Through Ronald," he replied, with one of his peculiar smiles. "I went into his room last night and found him as usual with his beloved guitar. He was setting some lines to music; I asked who had written them, and he told me."
"Does he always tell you everything?" I inquired, trying to speak playfully, and succeeding very badly.
"Yes," was the quiet answer.
"He has inherited his love of the guitar from his Aunt Inez," said Lady Waterville, not looking at me. "She had quite an unreasonable fondness for her guitar, poor woman! I used to see her sometimes when she was first married to Colonel Greystock, and I always thought her a most extraordinary person. Ronald's mother, her own sister, was not like her in the least."
"I have often looked at those two portraits in the dining-room," said I. "Mrs. Hepburne was not nearly as handsome as her sister, but I like her face better."
"Ronald is exactly like his aunt," Mr. Greystock remarked.
"As I was saying," went on Lady Waterville, "I always thought Inez a most extraordinary person. She expected too much happiness and never got any at all. Poor thing! She was a disappointed woman from beginning to end. Any one with a genius for scribbling might make a novel out of her history."
"I should like to hear it," I said.
Lady Waterville was rather fond of storytelling, and she had been, as I soon discovered, more than commonly interested in Inez Greystock.
"Inez and Estella Winton," she began, "were the daughters of Captain Winton, an English naval officer who had married a Spanish lady. The mother died when the children were young; the father was often at sea, and they were left a good deal to their own devices. Inez was beautiful, and had, of course, a train of admirers; but she cared for no one save a young soldier, who was known in those days as Lieutenant Greystock. He liked her well enough, Louie, but not half as well as she liked him. She lavished gold, you see, and got only silver in return."
"My uncle was a matter-of-fact man," put in William, in his quiet voice. "There never could have been an atom of romance in his nature."
"Just so," said Lady Waterville. "Inez was a fool to expect too much from him. He was not rich enough to marry, nor patient enough to bear with her exacting ways, and the affair ended, as such affairs often do, in a quarrel and a parting."
"What a pity," I cried, regretfully.
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Inez
"I don't know that it was a pity, Louie. They would have gone wrangling through their youth together. But Inez, foolish girl, could never forget Greystock, although she married the richest man of her acquaintance, a Mr. Wendall. He was a diamond merchant, and after their marriage, he brought her to this very house, and invited Estella to come and live with them."
"He was a good husband, I believe," said William.
"He must have had the patience of Job," Lady Waterville replied. "After enduring his wife's irritable temper for seven years, he died, and left her handsomely provided for. And then, for two years more she lived here in peace and quietness with Estella and the guitar."
"No wonder that she chose to be painted playing on it," William Greystock remarked. "Her fondness for the thing must have amounted to a positive mania. It had belonged to her mother, had it not?"
"To her mother and grandmother. It was never far from her side, and she would compose airs and set words to them, just as Ronald does now-a-days. That portrait in the dining-room is Inez herself; there she sits as she did in life, her great Spanish eyes looking into space, and her guitar resting on her knees. It is a fine picture."
"It is beautiful," I said, "but very sad. And her second marriage—how did that come to pass?"
"It came to pass through Colonel Greystock's need of money," answered Lady Waterville, with her usual frankness. "William knows that I am telling an unvarnished tale. His uncle returned from India on leave, and sought out his old love, and Inez fancied, no doubt, that she had found her lost youth again. Captain Hepburne was Colonel Greystock's friend, and he happened to fall in love with Estella. On the same day the two sisters were married, very quietly, in St. George's Church, and the two husbands took their wives back with them to India."
"Then Inez was happy in her last days?" said I.
But Lady Waterville shook her head.
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INEZ.
WILLIAM GREYSTOCK was looking at me with a quiet, provoking smile.
"Miss Coverdale will be disappointed in the story," he said. "It is only in the fairy-tales that the prince and princess, when they are brought together, 'live happily ever afterwards.' For my part, I think a woman is sincerely to be pitied if she marries the hero of her first love-dream."
I knew that he was talking at me. From the very beginning of my intercourse with Ronald Hepburne, he had been watching me silently, and reading this tell-tale face of mine until I had often wished desperately for Mokanna's silver veil to hide my burning cheeks. They did not burn when he was not present; it was that quiet, persistent scrutiny which made me intolerably self-conscious, and deprived me of all ease and freedom. I disliked William Greystock heartily, and I was unwise enough to show my aversion. If I had been a woman of the world, I should have concealed it under a pleasant manner and a sweet smile; but even then I could hardly have helped making an enemy of him.
For, if he had found out my secret, I had discovered his. Strange and incredible as it may seem, he had actually fallen in love with Lady Waterville's companion, the simple little girl fresh from the country. And with him, and with those like him, love merely means a strong desire for possession, not a willingness for self-sacrifice. It was the sort of love that will strike because it is forbidden to caress, and longs to wound the thing that will have none of its kisses. I do not think that a love of this kind is very common now-a-days; strong feelings have gone out of fashion, and men and women usually accept their disappointments with admirable coolness and good sense. But here and there we do occasionally find a fierce heart beating under everyday broadcloth, and then we are wise if we avoid, as much as possible, all intimate association with its owner.
I would not take any notice of Mr. Greystock's remark, and did my best to look as if it had made no impression upon my mind. But Lady Waterville could not let it pass; and I fancied that she, too, felt it was aimed at me.
"I really believe William is right," she said, thoughtfully. "There is nothing in life so sad as disillusion, and nothing that so embitters a woman's nature. Well, I must tell you the end of my story, Louie; it is nearly finished now."
"You left Inez and Estella in India," said I, a little impatiently.
"Yes; they went to India, and the elder sister had the satisfaction of seeing the happiness of the younger. This was the only joy that poor Inez could ever have known, her own wedded life was a bitter disappointment; she had been married—not for the old love's sake, but for the money's sake."
"Yet she might have been happy if she could have been content with a moderate affection," put in William, with his detestable smile.
"She could be content with nothing that fell short of her expectations," Lady Waterville went on. "There are children who refuse the crust because they cannot get the cake; Inez was only a passionate, grown-up child. She had quarrels with her husband: and Estella made peace between the pair more than once. But the peace-maker was soon removed; her health failed after the baby Ronald was born, and Captain Hepburne sent his wife and child home to England."
My eyes filled with tears, and I drew back into the shade to shelter my face from William's glances. From Ronald I had heard how his father had fallen at the taking of Delhi, and I hoped that Lady Waterville would pass quickly over the last parting of the husband and wife. Perhaps she divined my thoughts; moreover, it was the story of Inez Greystock, and not the story of Estella Hepburne that she had volunteered to tell.
"After Estella's departure," she continued, "the breach widened between Colonel Greystock and Inez. She left off her tantrums, and ceased to make bitter speeches—indeed I think her stock of bitter speeches must have been quite exhausted—but she cared less and less for her husband's society, and loved to shut herself up alone with the guitar. She had no children; she made no friends; other women could not break through the impenetrable barrier of reserve which she had built up around her. I daresay a great many people pitied Colonel Greystock; but I don't think he concerned himself very much about his melancholy wife. He went his way, and left her strumming on the guitar and brooding over her miseries. You are angry with him, Louie, I see."
"He is just the kind of man I could hate!" cried I.
"Nonsense, my dear. He was moral and highly respectable, quite an ornament, as people said, to his profession. A heart, you know, is a most unfortunate thing for any one to possess; it is sure to retard one's advancement in life. Colonel Greystock was a lucky man; he had no heart, and he got on very well indeed. In fact, he seemed always to escape the disasters that overtook others, and when the mutiny broke out at Meerut, he happened to be away from the place."
"It was there that his wife met her death," said William Greystock.
"Yes, but the particulars have never been fully known. It was on a Sunday that the Sepoys rose, and most of the ladies of Meerut were in church. Inez, poor soul, was at home in her own house, and was killed there. It was said afterwards that a native soldier tried vainly to save her life, and that she had begged him with her last breath to take care of her guitar. A most incredible story, it seems to me."
"I don't know that it is incredible," William remarked. "She was either quite mad, or there really was a mysterious reason for preserving her guitar. Ronald, you know, has always inclined to the latter belief. He thinks that if the guitar could be found, those missing jewels of hers would be found also."
"That story of the missing jewels is a mere fiction," Lady Waterville answered, contemptuously. "Surely, William, you are not romantic enough to believe in such a wild tale! No one ever saw those wonderful jewels; even Colonel Greystock declared that his wife had never mentioned them to him. The only person who ever spoke of their existence was Estella Hepburne, and her account of them was of the vaguest kind."
"But she believed in them," said William, "and I fancy she must have had some substantial reason for her belief. They were chiefly diamonds, I think; and had been left, of course, to Inez Greystock by her first husband, Wendall, the diamond merchant."
Lady Waterville was so astonished at Mr. Greystock's absurdity that she became almost excited.
"It was just because Wendall happened to be a diamond merchant that somebody started that fable," she cried. "If Inez had ever possessed any diamonds, she would have flung them at your uncle's feet in the excess of her devotion. Why, she was perfectly infatuated about him! The moment he returned to her, all her old love revived, and she gave him everything she had."
"Excepting this old house," said William.
"Excepting this house. This was intended to be the home of the Hepburnes and their son. Inez never meant to live in it again; she always said that when the Colonel had done with India, she should persuade him to go to some quiet country place. I think she had a dream of growing old with her husband, and of finding him a lover to the very last."
"But the guitar, was it never found?" I asked.
"My dear Louie, is it likely that such a thing would ever be found? Imagine all the destruction and confusion of that terrible time! No, don't imagine it, for if you do you will not get a moment's sleep to-night."
I had no desire to picture the horrors of the mutiny, and I said so. Yet I secretly resolved that the next time Ronald and I were alone together, I would lead him on to talk of the lost guitar.
It was now time to dress for our usual drive before dinner. Mr. Greystock, who was well acquainted with Lady Waterville's habits, rose to depart, but lingered, standing, to say a few last words to me.
"Hereditary traits are an interesting study, Miss Coverdale; don't you think so?" asked he.
"I suppose they are," I replied, carelessly. "It is clear that Ronald has inherited his aunt's passion for the guitar," he went on.
"He is a happier fellow than I am."
"Indeed!" I said, with an air of incredulity.
"Well, he is young, to begin with. And he has gifts, and I have none; do you wonder that I envy him a little?"
"Yes, I do wonder," I answered. "I thought you were very well satisfied with yourself and your lot."
"Lately I have become dissatisfied. Mine is an empty life, and I'm beginning to grow disgusted with it. As to Ronald, he gets all the good things that he wants."
I only said: "Does he?"
"I am sure you know that he does. I am no judge of such matters, but I have heard it said that he has a way which no woman can resist. It must have been his Aunt Inez who gave him those tragic, musing eyes, and that look of unfathomable sorrow which he puts on sometimes. It is all very effective."
I gathered up my energies and succeeded, I believe, in preserving a tolerably calm face.
"Good-bye," he said. Then stepping back, he added, in an easy tone: "We were speaking of hereditary traits; by the way, there is one trait which Ronald has inherited from his father."
"What is that?" I foolishly asked.
"A love of gambling."
William went his way in quiet triumph, and left me with a dull ache in my heart. I ran quickly upstairs to dress for the drive; and then, finding that Lady Waterville was not quite ready, I went down to the dining-room and stood gazing at the portrait of Inez.
It was painted by a master's hand, and showed a beautiful brunette, wearing a gown of dark-red velvet, and holding the guitar upon her lap. The face, perfectly oval in shape, was thrown a little forward, as if listening; and the wonderful eyes, large, luminous, heavily fringed with black lashes, were so full of passion and sorrow that their gaze thrilled me with pain. Ronald's eyes were not so splendid as these, yet they had a little of this unfathomable melancholy; and the shape of his face was like hers. There was a strong likeness between this ill-fated Inez and the nephew who had never known her.
Hearing Lady Waterville's slow footstep on the stairs, I turned away from the picture and went out into the hall.
"You look rather sad, Louie," she said, as I joined her.
image010
RONALD.
I LIVED two years with Lady Waterville; and to outside observers, mine must have seemed the most peaceful and uneventful of lives.
But any one who could have seen beneath the surface would have found impatience, anxiety, and heartache always going on within me; and yet I was neither impatient nor anxious about myself. It was for Ronald that I suffered. Until he entered my life, I had been contented with little joys; pleased with trifles; easily moved to gladness; but he came, and shadows came with him. It was a very common love-story after all; and I know that many a girl who reads these pages will pause and say to herself: "This is my experience."
He loved me deeply and truly, all the more because I was not only his love but his friend. To me were confided embarrassments, worries, even mistakes, and there was never any fear of being repulsed or misunderstood. I was a mere country girl; but I had thought and read and studied in my uncle's quiet cottage, and I found the hero of my real life-story not so very much unlike some of the heroes of fiction. My knowledge of human nature was only second-hand, but affection turned it to good account, and made the best of it.
Moreover, I had always possessed that useful power of assimilation which makes it a positive delight to be confided in. In old days, when boys came to stay at the rectory, I had seldom failed to adapt myself readily to such themes as interested them. I learned the names of their schoolfellows and masters in a trice, and never confused identities, and I would talk with them for hours about people I had never seen, and games I had never played. To this very day, I retain the parting tokens of their boyish friendship—a formidable knife with several blades, some marbles, and a pocket telescope, through which I have never yet been able to discern a single object, near or far.
And now that Ronald Hepburne came to me for sympathy, I seemed to live, move, and have my being in him and his concerns. Outwardly I belonged to Lady Waterville, but I scarcely gave her a thought; I could think only of Ronald and the difficulties that beset his path, and made it impossible for us to walk side by side.
Later on, I learned that William Greystock had pretended to remove those difficulties. To him, as to an elder brother, Ronald had naturally confided his desire to increase his income and marry. Mr. Greystock had acquired a reputation for keen sagacity; he was acquainted with city men, and even Lady Waterville spoke with respect of his abilities for business. With his knowledge and influence it seemed easy for him to obtain a post for Ronald, but somehow that post was never found, and once or twice when the poor fellow, had thought himself almost sure of a situation, there had been a mysterious obstacle placed in his way.
Yet his belief in William remained unshaken. Ronald himself was constitutionally delicate, and seemed to have a natural incapacity to push through the crowd of fortune-seekers and gain his end. But William, who had never known a day's illness, seldom failed in getting anything he wanted, and yet he was always so cool and deliberate in his actions, that his object was attained without apparent effort or fuss. He was an energetic man, and Ronald was an indolent one.
Impartial observers, looking at the two men, invariably decided that William Greystock was a far better and grander character than Ronald Hepburne. William had added to his income by shrewd and cautious money-making; he gave liberally to public charities, he bestowed advice on frivolous bachelor friends, and was regarded by them as a model counsellor. Lady Waterville quoted his wise sayings continually, and was often heard to wish that Ronald—"poor, foolish, fascinating Ronald—" would put himself completely under the guidance of Mr. Greystock.
"Do you think Mr. Hepburne fascinating?" I said, one day.
"Yes," she answered, "and so do you, Louie. I admire that soft, languid manner of his; and you are in love with his melancholy face and manifold misfortunes. It does not matter to you that he brought a good many of those misfortunes on himself; like all women of your type, you are willing to heal wounds without inquiring how they were gained. In my opinion, you are a ridiculous girl, and I won't waste any more sound advice upon you!"
These words were said in her usual good-humoured way, and accompanied by a caressing pat on the shoulder. I had not then acknowledged that Ronald was my lover, and in Lady Waterville's presence we met only as friends. But I think she suspected that there was something more than friendship between us.
"I grant that your advice is always sound," I said, "yet if I followed it, I don't believe I should be happy. It is quite possible for some natures to be uncomfortable in the midst of comfort."
"Perfectly true," she replied. "As for you, Louie, you could not rest without wearing yourself out for another's sake. Your life is not worth living unless it is lived for somebody else. For me, and for thousands of other women, self is sufficient. It is not sufficient for you; but you are as heaven made you."
I knew that if I married Ronald, Lady Waterville would persist in regarding me as an interesting martyr to the end of her days. I knew that she would speak of me to her friends as a perfectly unselfish girl who had thrown herself away on a good-for-nothing man. But was Ronald really good-for-nothing? I was a better judge of his character than any one else could possibly be. A true love is never blind; it is keener-sighted even than hate, it makes itself acquainted with all the weak places in the loved one's nature that it may mount guard over the undefended spots. And my insight into Ronald's inner self revealed to me a wealth of unsuspected good.
Knowing that I understood him far better than she did, I permitted Lady Waterville to say what she liked; but she could not delude me into the belief that I was a heroine. Nor could she even persuade me to alter my opinion of Mr. Greystock.
It was Lady Waterville's custom to leave town in the beginning of August, and stay away until the first of October; and when I first came to live with her, this autumn holiday had seemed very pleasant to me. I enjoyed the life one leads at a gay watering-place, and found that military bands, stylish costumes, and casual acquaintance were much to my liking. But the second autumn was not half as delightful as the first. I did not want to leave London, and felt listless and bored at the seaside. Straitened means had condemned Ronald to do penance in town till through the hot weather; and what were sea-breezes to me? It was a joyful day when my term of banishment was ended, and we returned to the old house in Hanover Square.
It was afternoon when we found ourselves in George Street again—a dim, quiet afternoon, made cheerful by some last gleams of autumn sunshine. The cab stopped at our door, and I got out with such a beaming face that the parlour-maid congratulated me on my appearance. It was the last time that I ever heard that cheery phrase:
"How well you are looking, miss, to be sure!"
In the days that came and went afterwards, most people surveyed me with a silence that was more eloquent than words. Miss Coverdale, the petted companion of Lady Waterville, with her rounded cheeks and smiling lips, was soon destined to become a creature of the past.
We lingered long over our afternoon tea, and were still sitting with the cups and the little table between us, when Ronald came in. He was looking noticeably worn and sad—so sad, that after one glance at his face all my gay spirits deserted me.
"We have been enjoying ourselves immensely," said Lady Waterville, in a mischievous tone. "Louie got through a good deal of flirting; it's astonishing to see the progress that she has made in the art! Last year she was a mere beginner, but now—"
"Now she is more disgusted with flirtation than she ever was in her life!" I interrupted, with impatience. "Why do you misrepresent Louie, Lady Waterville? You know she is sick of the band, and the pier, and all the seaside nonsense, and heartily glad to be at home again!"
Lady Waterville gave a sleepy little laugh, and sank back upon the cushions of her chair. In the next minute, she was snoring audibly; and Ronald and I were as much left to ourselves as if she had been in another room.
He drew nearer to my side as I sat in the glow of the firelight. There was a shaded lamp on a distant table, and the drawing-room was but dimly illuminated that evening. But the flickering flames revealed the lines on his face, and lit up the melancholy eyes that sought mine with a troubled gaze.
"I have been very lonely, Louie."
Is there any woman who can hear this confession from a man, and refrain from pitying him? Women are themselves accustomed to loneliness, and to many of them it is only another word for peace. We are not, as a rule, so sociably inclined as men; we can be content with a soft chair, a book, and the unfailing cup of tea, when a man will pine for companionship, and go out of doors, in rain or wind, to seek the face of a friend. I had learnt from Ronald's letters that he had missed me, but when we came face to face again, I knew, for the first time, that his yearning had become an absolute pain.
I could not find words to say to him at that moment; but involuntarily my hand touched his, and was seized and held in a close clasp. My eyes were fixed upon the fire; but they saw visions of an Eden, sunlit and glorious, full of granted desires and realised dreams. Perhaps he, too, saw the same vision, and rebelled all the more fiercely against his cramped and fettered life.
"Are we never to be happy together?" he whispered, passionately. "Are we to wait on and on, and let the best part of our lives go by? I have only a poor home to offer you, Louie; but I will work for you, dear. Will you come to me?"
Lady Waterville still slumbered peacefully; the large tabby cat kept up a drowsy purr on the hearth-rug at my feet, and there was no one near to utter a word of caution. Yet, in my own heart, a stern voice failed not to make itself heard above all love's fervent pleadings; and for an instant I paused, and listened to that inward warning. Then Ronald's eyes met mine, and the bright vision of an Eden came back at once; I should have been more than woman if I could have resisted its spell.
"I will come to you," I said, softly. And a brilliant flame shot suddenly up from the neglected fire, and showed me all the joy and triumph in his face.