The day following that on which Sydney Campion paid his afternoon visit to his club in Pall Mall was one of considerable importance to his sister Lettice.
She was an early riser, and generally contrived to write half-a-dozen pages of easy translation or straightforward fiction before ten o'clock. That was the hour when she was due in her mother's room, to help her in dressing, and to settle her comfortably in her arm-chair, with her Bible and spectacles at her side, and a newspaper or magazine waiting its turn after the lessons for the day had been read. Mrs. Campion was growing very feeble, both in mind and in body, but she got through her waking hours with a fair amount of satisfaction, thanks to the attention which was paid to all her wants and wishes. Lettice did not suffer anything to interfere with the regular routine which she had marked out for her mother's comfort. She and her maid Milly between them kept the old lady in peace of mind and constant good humor; and if Mrs. Campion still believed that Sydney was their great benefactor, and that it behoved her to comport herself with dignity and grace as the mother of a Lord Chancellor, Lettice did not attempt the hopeless task of undeceiving her.
On this particular day there had been a poor pretence of morning work. She had arranged her papers, the ink and pen were ready to her hand, and a few lines were actually written. But her ideas were all in confusion, and eluded her when she tried to fix them. She could not settle to anything, and instead of writing she found herself drawing figures on the blotting-pad. She knew that of old as a bad symptom, and gave up trying to be industrious. The French window stood open, and the balmy June morning tempted her out into the garden. She picked some flowers for her vases, and pinned a rosebud on the collar of her soft grey dress. It was a simple, straight-flowing dress, of the make which suits every woman best, tall or short, handsome or plain, depending for its beauty on shape and material alone, without any superfluous trimmings; for Lettice had a man's knack of getting her dressmaker to obey orders, and would have scorned to wear and pay for, as a matter of course, whatever trappings might be sent home to her in lieu of what she wanted.
Clearly there were special reasons for her perturbation of mind, and if any other woman had been at her side, and watched her in and out of the house for ten minutes at a time, she would have had no difficulty in divining that Lettice expected a visitor. She would probably go further than this, and draw some confident conclusion as to the kind of welcome likely to be accorded to the visitor; but here, at any rate, the criticism would have been premature. Lettice did expect a visitor—Mr. Alan Walcott to wit; but she had not the slightest notion as to how she should receive him, or whether she would prefer that he should come or stay away.
Her friendship with the poet had grown steadily since their first meeting, and they were now on tolerably familiar terms. His manner had made it impossible for her to doubt that he liked to talk and listen to her, that he sought her company, and even considered himself entitled to her sympathy. But when on the previous day he had gone so far as to assert his title in words, he had done so with what seemed to her remarkable audacity. And, although she had given him permission to come to her house this morning, she was thinking now whether it would not have been better if she had suggested the transfer of the volume of which he spoke at Mrs. Hartley's on the following Sunday, or if she had made her hint still broader by praising the cheapness and despatch of the Parcels Delivery Company.
She had done nothing of this kind. She had been neither rude nor effusive, for it was not in her nature to be either. He was coming "some time after twelve," and in fact, punctually as the clock struck twelve, Mr. Alan Walcott was at the door.
Milly announced him demurely. She observed him carefully, however, as she admitted him into Lettice's room, and studied his card with interest while carrying it to Miss Campion. No man so young and handsome had ever called at Maple Cottage in her time before.
Lettice had been sitting with her mother, and she came down to her study and received her visitor with a frank smile.
"It is really, very kind of you," she said, taking the innocent book which he held out as a sort of warrant for his intrusion, "to be at all this trouble. And this is a splendid copy, it reminds me of the volumes my father used to be so fond of. I will take great care of it. How long did you say I might keep it?"
"Till you have read it, at any rate. Or till I ask you for it again—which I don't think I shall. You say that you used to see volumes like this on your father's bookshelves. I should not wonder if you had seen this very book there. It is a strange coincidence that I should have had it in my possession for some time, and yet never noticed until this morning, when I took it down to bring to you, that it had your name on the fly-leaf. Look!"
He opened the book and held the fly-leaf against the window. The name had been rubbed out with a wet finger, after the manner of second-hand booksellers, but the "Lawrence Campion" was still easily legible. Lettice could not restrain a little cry of delight.
"Yes, that is his dear handwriting, I know it so well! And this is his book-plate, too, and his motto—'Vive ut vivas in vitam æternam.' Oh, where did you get the book? But I suppose my father's library was scattered all over the country."
"No doubt it was. I have a few—perhaps twenty—with the same plate. My uncle gave me them. I—a—Miss Campion—I came this morning—"
Apparently he did not quite know why he came, or at any rate he did not find it easy to say. Lettice spoke again in order to relieve his embarrassment, which she did not understand.
"It is so strange that I should have one of his books in my hand again. You can imagine what a grief it was to him when he had to let them go."
"I am so glad to have restored to you something that was your father's. I want you to give me a great pleasure, Miss Campion. These books—there are not more than forty outside—I want you to have them. They are yours, you know, because they were his, and he ought never to have been deprived of them."
"I could not take them, indeed, Mr. Walcott. You are most kind to think of it, but I could not!"
"Why?"
"That is hardly a reasonable question," she said, with a quiet little laugh. "How could I?"
"I see very well how you could, but why should you not? It will be a good deed, and there is no good deed without a sacrifice."
"And you want to sacrifice these books, which are so valuable!"
"No, it is no sacrifice to me, as I could easily prove to you. Believe that it pleases me, and sacrifice your own feelings by taking them."
"I don't see why you should ask me. It is too great a present to make, and—oh, dear me, I am afraid I do not know how to say what I mean! But if you will give me this one book, with my father's name in it, I will take it from you, and thank you very much for it."
"I shall not be satisfied if I may not send the rest. Miss Campion, I came to say——"
Again he stammered and broke down. Lettice, who thought that he had already delivered himself of his mental burden, was a little startled now, especially as he got up and stood by her chair at the window.
"What a lovely little garden!" he said. "Why, you are quite in the country here. What delightful roses! I—I want to say something else, Miss Campion!"
"Yes," said Lettice, faintly, and doing her best to feel indifferent.
"We have not known each other long, but it seems to me that we know each other well—at any rate that I know you well. Before I met you I had never made the acquaintance of a woman who at the same time commanded my respect, called my mind into full play, and aroused my sympathy. These last few months have been the happiest of my life, because I have been lifted above my old level, and have known for the first time what the world might yet be to me. There is something more I want to say to you. I think you know that I have been married—that my wife is—is no more. You may or may not have heard that miserable story, of my folly, and——"
"Oh, no!" cried Lettice, impulsively. "It is true that Mrs. Hartley told me of the great trouble which fell upon you in the loss of which you speak."
"The great trouble—yes! That is how Mrs. Hartley would put it. And the Grahams, have they told you nothing?"
"Nothing more."
A look as of relief passed across his face, followed by a spasm of pain; and he stood gazing wearily through the window.
"Perhaps they do not know, for I have never spoken of it to anyone. But I want to speak; I want to get rid of some of the wretched burden, and an irresistible impulse has brought me here to you. I am utterly selfish; it is like taking your money, or your manuscripts, or your flowers, or anything that you value, to come in this way and almost insist on telling you my sordid story. It is altogether unjustifiable—it is a mad presumption which I cannot account for, except by saying that a blind instinct made me think that you alone, of all the people in this world, could help me if you would!"
Lettice was deeply moved by various conflicting emotions; but there was no hesitation in the sympathy which went out to meet this strange appeal. Even her reason would probably have justified him in his unconventional behavior; but it was sympathy, and not reason, which prompted her to welcome and encourage his confidence.
"If I can help you—if it helps you to tell me anything, please speak."
"I knew I was not mistaken!" he said, with kindling eyes, as he sat down in a low chair opposite to her. "I will not be long—I will not tell you all; that would be useless, and needlessly painful. I married in haste, after a week's acquaintance, the daughter of a French refugee, who came to London in 1870, and earned a living by teaching his language to the poorest class of pupils. Don't ask me why I married her. No doubt I thought it was for love. She was handsome, and even charming in her way, and for some months I tried to think I was happy. Then, gradually, she let me wake from my fool's paradise. I found—you will despise me for a dupe!—that I was not the first man she had pretended to love. Nay, it was to me that she pretended—the other feeling was probably far more of a reality. Before the year was out she had renewed her intimacy with my rival—a compatriot of her own. You will suppose that we parted at once when things came to this pass; but for some time I had only suspicion to go upon. I knew that she was often away from home, and that she had even been to places of amusement in this man's company; but when I spoke to her she either lulled my uneasiness or pretended to be outraged by my jealousy. Soon there was no bond of respect left between us; but as a last chance, I resolved to break up our little home in England, and go abroad. I could no longer endure my life with her. She had ceased to be a wife in any worthy sense of the word, and was now my worst enemy, an object of loathing rather than of love. Still, I remember that I had a gleam of hope when I took her on the Continent, thinking it just possible that by removing her from her old associations, I might win her back to a sense of duty. I would have borne her frivolity; I would have endured to be bound for life to a doll or a log, if only she could have been outwardly faithful.
"Well, to make a long story short, we had not been abroad more than six weeks when this man I have told you about made his appearance on the scene. She must have written to him and asked him to come, at the very moment when she was cheating me with a show of reviving affection; and I own that the meeting of these two one day in the hotel gardens at Aix-les-Bains drove me into a fit of temporary madness. We quarrelled; I sent him a challenge, and we fought. He was not much hurt, and I escaped untouched. The man disappeared, and I have never seen him from that day to this, but I have some reason to think that he is dead."
He paused for a moment or two; and Lettice could not refrain from uttering the words, "Your wife?" in a tone of painful interest.
"My wife?" he repeated slowly. "Ah yes, my wife. Well, after a stormy scene with her, she became quiet and civil. She even seemed anxious to please me, and to set my mind at rest. But she was merely hatching her last plot against me, and I was as great a fool and dupe at this moment as I had ever been before."
And then, with averted face, he told the story of his last interview with her on the hills beyond Culoz. "I will not repeat anything she said," he went on—it was his sole reservation—"although some of her sentences are burned into my brain for ever. I suppose because they were so true."
"Oh, no!" Lettice murmured involuntarily, and looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes. She was intensely interested in his story, and Alan Walcott felt assured by her face that the sympathy he longed for was not withheld.
"My wound was soon healed," he said when the details of that terrible scene were told; "but I was not in a hurry to come back to England. When I did come back, I avoided as much as possible the few people who knew me; and I have never to this moment spoken of my deliverance, which I suppose they talk of as my loss."
"They think," said Lettice, slowly, for she was puzzled in her mind, and did not know what to say, "that you are a widower?"
"And what am I?" he cried, walking up and down the room in a restless way. "Am I not a widower? Has she not died completely out of my life? I shall never see her again—she is dead and buried, and I am free? Ah, do not look at me so doubtfully, do not take back the sympathy which you promised me! Are you going to turn me away, hungry and thirsty for kindness, because you imagine that my need is greater than you thought it five minutes ago? I will not believe you are so cruel!"
"We need not analyze my feelings, Mr. Walcott. I could not do that myself, until I have had time to think. But—is it right to leave other people under the conviction that your wife is actually dead, when you know that in all probability she is not?"
"I never said she was dead! I never suggested or acted a lie. May not a man keep silence about his own most sacred affairs?"
"Perhaps he may," said Lettice. "It is not for me to judge you—and at any rate, you have told me!"
She stood up and looked at him with her fearless grey eyes, whilst his own anxiously scanned her face.
"I am very, very sorry for you. If I can do anything to help you, I will. You must not doubt my sympathy, and I shall never withdraw my promise. But just now I cannot think what it would be best to do or say. Let me have time to think."
She held out her hand, and he took it, seeing that she wanted him to go.
"Good-bye!" he said. "God bless you for being what you are. It has done me good to talk. When we meet again—unless you write and give me your commands—I promise to do whatever you may tell me."
And with that, he went away.
As soon as her visitor was gone, Lettice fell into a deep study. She had two things especially to think about, and she began by wondering what Mrs. Hartley would say if she knew that Alan Walcott's wife was alive, and by repeating what he had said to her that morning: that a man was not bound to tell his private affairs to the world. No! she told herself, it was impossible for any man of self-respect to wear his heart on his sleeve, to assume beforehand that people would mistake his position, and to ticket himself as a deserted husband, lest forward girls should waste their wiles upon him.
The thought was odious; and yet she had suggested it to him! Had she not done more than that? Had she not implied that he had done a dishonorable thing in concealing what he was in no way bound to reveal? What would he think of her, or impute to her, for raising such a point at the very moment when he was displaying his confidence in her, and appealing for her sympathy? She blushed with shame at the idea.
He was already completely justified in her mind, for she did not go so far as to put the case which a third person might have put in her own interest. If Alan had been unfair or inconsiderate to anyone, it was surely to Lettice herself. He had spoken familiarly to her, sought her company, confessed his admiration in a more eloquent language than that of words, and asked for a return of sentiment by those subtle appeals which seem to enter the heart through none of the ordinary and ticketed senses. It is true that he had not produced in her mind the distinct impression that she was anything more to him than an agreeable talker and listener in his conversational moods; but that was due to her natural modesty rather than to his self-restraint. He had been impatient, at times, of her slowness to respond, and it was only when he saw whither this impatience was leading him that he resolved to tell her all that she ought to know. It was not his delay, however, that constituted the injustice of his conduct, but the fact of his appealing to her in any way for the response which he had no right to ask.
Lettice was just as incapable of thinking that she had been unjustly treated as she was of believing that Alan Walcott loved her. Thus she was spared the humiliation that might have fallen on her if she had understood that his visit was partly intended to guard her against the danger of giving her love before it had been asked.
Having tried and acquitted her friend, and having further made up her mind that she would write him a letter to assure him of his acquittal, she summoned herself before the court of her conscience; and this was a very different case from the one which had been so easily decided. Then the presumption was all in favor of the accused; now it was all against her. The guilt was as good as admitted beforehand, for as soon as Lettice began to examine and cross-examine herself, she became painfully aware of her transgressions.
What was this weight which oppressed her, and stifled her, and covered her with shame? It was not merely sorrow for the misfortunes of her friend. That would not have made her ashamed, for she knew well that compassion was a woman's privilege, for which she has no reason to blush. Something had befallen her this very morning which had caused her to blush, and it was the first time in all her life that Lettice's cheek had grown red for anything she had done, or thought, or said, or listened to, in respect of any man whatever. Putting her father and brother on one side, no man had had the power, for very few had had the opportunity, to quicken the pulses in her veins as they were quickened now. She had not lived to be six and twenty years old without knowing what love between a man and woman really meant, but she had never appropriated to herself the good things which she saw others enjoying. It was not for want of being invited to the feast, for several of her father's curates had been ready to grace their frugal boards by her presence, and to crown her with the fillets of their dignity and self-esteem. The prospect held up to her by these worthy men had not allured her in any way; she had not loved their wine and oil, and thus she had remained rich, according to the promise of the seer, with the bread and salt of her own imaginings.
It would be wrong to suppose that Lettice had no strong passions, because she had never loved, or even thought that she loved. The woman of cultivated mind is often the woman of deepest feeling; her mental strength implies her calmness, and the calm surface indicates the greatest depth. It is in the restless hearts which beat themselves against the shores of the vast ocean of womanhood that passion is so quick to display itself, so vehement in its shallow force, so broken in its rapid ebb. The real strength of humanity lies deep below the surface; but a weak woman often mistakes for strength her irresistible craving for happiness and satisfaction. It is precisely for this reason that a liberal education and a full mind are even more essential to the welfare of a woman than they are to the welfare of a man. The world has left its women, with this irresistible craving in their hearts, dependent, solitary, exposed to attack, and unarmed for defence; and as a punishment it has been stung almost to death by the scorpions which its cruelty generates. But a woman who has been thoroughly educated, a woman of strong mind and gentle heart, is not dependent for happiness on the caprice of others, or on the abandonment of half the privileges of her sex, but draws from an inexhaustible well to which she has constant access.
So Lettice, with the passions of her kind, and the cravings of her sex, had been as happy as the chequered circumstances of her outer life would permit; but now for the first time her peace of mind was disturbed, and she felt the heaving of the awakened sea beneath.
Why had her heart grown cold when she heard that Alan Walcott's wife was still alive? Why had her thought been so bitter when she told herself that she had no right to give the man her sympathy? Why had the light and warmth and color of life departed as soon as she knew that the woman whom he had married, however unworthy she might be, was the only one who could claim his fidelity? Alas, the answer to her questions was only too apparent. The pain which it cost her to awake from her brief summer's dream was her first admonition that she had dreamed at all. Not until she had lost the right to rejoice in his admiration and respond to his love, did she comprehend how much these things meant to her, and how far they had been allowed to go.
The anguish of a first love which cannot be cherished or requited is infinitely more grievous when a woman is approaching the age of thirty than it is at seventeen or twenty. The recoil is greater and the elasticity is less. But if Lettice suffered severely from the sudden blow which had fallen upon her, she still had the consolation of knowing that she could suffer in private, and that she had not betrayed the weakness of her heart—least of all to him who had tried to make her weak.
In the course of the evening she sat down and wrote to him—partly because he had asked her to write, and partly in order that she might say without delay what seemed necessary to be said.
"Dear Mr. Walcott,—After you were gone this morning I thought a great deal about all that you said to me, and as you asked me for my opinion, and I promised to give it, perhaps I had better tell you what I think at once. I cannot see that you are, or have been, under any moral compulsion to repeat the painful events of your past life, and I am sorry if I implied that I thought you were. Of course, you may yourself hold that these facts impose a certain duty upon you, or you may desire that your position should be known. In that case you will do what you think right, and no one else can properly decide for you."I was indeed grieved by your story. I wish it was in my power to lessen your pain; but, as it is not, I can only ask you to believe that if I could do so, I would."You will be hard at work, like myself (as you told me), during the next few months. Is not hard work, after all, the very best of anodynes? I have found it so in the past, and I trust you have done so too, and will continue to do so."Believe me, dear Mr. Walcott, yours very sincerely,"Lettice Campion."
"Dear Mr. Walcott,—After you were gone this morning I thought a great deal about all that you said to me, and as you asked me for my opinion, and I promised to give it, perhaps I had better tell you what I think at once. I cannot see that you are, or have been, under any moral compulsion to repeat the painful events of your past life, and I am sorry if I implied that I thought you were. Of course, you may yourself hold that these facts impose a certain duty upon you, or you may desire that your position should be known. In that case you will do what you think right, and no one else can properly decide for you.
"I was indeed grieved by your story. I wish it was in my power to lessen your pain; but, as it is not, I can only ask you to believe that if I could do so, I would.
"You will be hard at work, like myself (as you told me), during the next few months. Is not hard work, after all, the very best of anodynes? I have found it so in the past, and I trust you have done so too, and will continue to do so.
"Believe me, dear Mr. Walcott, yours very sincerely,
"Lettice Campion."
She hesitated for some time as to whether she had said too much, or too little, or whether what she had said was expressed in the right way. But in the end she sent it as it was written.
Then, if she had been a thoroughly sensible and philosophical young woman, she would have forced herself to do some hard work, by way of applying the anodyne of which she had spoken. But that was too much to expect from her in the circumstances. What she actually did was to go to bed early and cry herself to sleep.
She had not considered whether her letter required, or was likely to receive an answer, and she was therefore a little surprised when the postman brought her one on the afternoon of the following day. Not without trepidation, she took it to her room and read it.
"Dear Miss Campion"—so the letter began—"I thank you very much for your kindness. I have learned to find so much meaning in your words that I think I can tell better than anyone else how to interpret the spirit from the letter of what you say. So, when you tell me that no one can decide for me what it is my duty to do, I understand that, if you were in my position at this moment, you would rather desire that it should be known. Henceforth I desire it, and I shall tell Mrs. Hartley and Mrs. Graham as much as is necessary the next time I see them. This will be equivalent to telling the world—will it not?
"Two other things I understand from your letter. First, that you do not wish to meet me so often in future; and, second, that though you know my pain would be diminished by the frank expression of your sympathy, and though you might find it in your heart to be frankly sympathetic, yet you do not think it would be right, and you do not mean to be actively beneficent. Am I wrong? If I am, you must forgive me; but, if I am not, I cannot accept your decision without entering my protest.
"Think, my dear friend—you will allow me that word!—to what you condemn me if you take your stand upon the extreme dictates of conventionality. You cannot know what it would mean to me if you were to say, 'He is a married man, and we had better not meet so frequently in future.' To you, that would be no loss whatever. To me, it would be the loss of happiness, of consolation, of intellectual life. Listen and have pity upon me! I could not say it to your face, but I will say it now, though you may think it an unpardonable crime. You have become so necessary to me that I cannot contemplate existence without you. Have you not seen it already—or, if you have not, can you doubt when you look back on the past six months—that respect has grown into affection, and affection into love? Yes, I love you, Lettice!—in my own heart I call you Lettice every hour of the day—and I cannot live any longer without telling you of my love.
"When I began this letter I did not mean to tell you—at any rate not to-day. Think of the condition of my mind when I am driven by such a sudden impulse—think, and make allowance for me!
"I am not sure what I expected when I resolved to make my sad story known to you. Perhaps, in my madness, I thought, 'There is a right and a wrong above the right and wrong of society's judgments; and she is on the higher levels of humanity, and will take pity on my misfortunes.' I only say, perhaps I thought this. I don't know what I thought. But I knew I could not ask you to be my wife, and I determined that you should know why I could not.
"Oh, how I hate that woman! I believe that she is dead. I tell myself every day that she is dead, and that there is nothing to prevent me from throwing myself at your feet, and praying you to redeem me from misery. Is not my belief enough to produce conviction in you? No—you will not believe it; and, perhaps, if you did, you would not consent to redeem me. No! I must drag my lengthening chain until I die! I must live in pain and disgust, bound to a corpse, covered with a leprosy, because the angel whose mission it is to save me will not come down from her heaven and touch me with her finger.
"You shall not see these words, Lettice—my dear Lettice! They are the offspring of a disordered brain. I meant to write you such a calm and humble message, telling you that your counsel was wise—that I would follow it—that I knew I had your sympathy, and that I reverenced you as a saint. If I go on writing what I do not mean to send, it is only because the freedom of my words has brought me peace and comfort, and because it is good that I should allow myself to write the truth, though I am not allowed to write it toyou!
"Not allowed to write the truth to you, Lettice? That, surely, is a blasphemy! If I may not write the truth to you, then I may not know you—I may not worship you—I may not give my soul into your keeping.
"I will test it. My letter shall go. You will not answer it—you will only sit still, and either hate or love me; and one day I shall know which it has been.Alan."
Whilst Lettice read this wild and incoherent letter, she sank on her knees by her bedside, unable in any other attitude to bear the strain which it put upon her feelings.
"How dare he?" she murmured, at the first outbreak of his passionate complaint; but, as she went on reading, the glow of pity melted her woman's heart, and only once more she protested, in words, against the audacious candor of her lover.
"How could he?"
And as she finished, and her head was bowed upon her hands, and upon the letter which lay between them, her lips sought out the words which he had written last of all, as though they would carry a message of forgiveness—and consolation to the spirit which hovered beneath it.
The day after Sydney Campion had heard Brooke Dalton's story of the disappearance of Alan Walcott's wife had been a very busy one for him. He had tried to get away from his work at an early hour, in order that he might pay one of his rare visits to Maple Cottage, and combine with his inquiries into the welfare of his mother certain necessary cautions to his sister Lettice. It was indispensable that she should be made to understand what sort of man this precious poet was known to be, and how impossible it had become that a sister of his should continue to treat him as a friend.
Why, the fellow might be—probably was—a murderer! And, if not that, at all events there was such a mystery surrounding him, and such an indelible stain upon his character, that he, Sydney Campion, could not suffer her to continue that most objectionable acquaintance.
But his duties conspired with his dinner to prevent the visit from being made before the evening, and it was nearly eight o'clock when he arrived at Hammersmith. He had dined with a friend in Holborn, and had taken a Metropolitan train at Farringdon Street, though, as a rule, he held himself aloof from the poison-traps of London, as he was pleased to call the underground railway, and travelled mostly in the two-wheeled gondolas which so lightly float on the surface of the stream above.
As he was about to leave the station, his eye encountered a face and figure which attracted him, and made him almost involuntarily come to a standstill. It was Milly Harrington, Lettice's maid, who, having posted her mistress' letter to Alan Walcott, had turned her listless steps in this direction.
Milly's life in London had proved something of a disappointment to her. The cottage on Brook Green was even quieter than the Rectory at Angleford, where she had at least the companionship of other servants, and a large acquaintance in the village. Lettice was a kind and considerate mistress, but a careful one: she did not let the young country-bred girl go out after dark, and exercised an unusual amount of supervision over her doings. Of late, these restrictions had begun to gall Milly, for she contrasted her lot with that of servants in neighboring houses, and felt that Miss Lettice was a tyrant compared with the easy-going mistresses of whom she heard. Certainly Miss Lettice gave good wages, and was always gentle in manner and ready to sympathize when the girl had bad news of her old grandmother's health; but she did not allow Milly as much liberty as London servants are accustomed to enjoy, and Milly, growing learned in her rights by continued comparison, fretted against the restraints imposed upon her.
She might have "kept company" with the milkman, with the policeman, with one of the porters at the station: for these, one and all, laid their hearts and fortunes at her feet; but Milly rejected their overtures with scorn. Her own prettiness of form and feature had been more than ever impressed upon her by the offers which she refused; and she was determined, as she phrased it, "not to throw herself away."
Her fancy that "Mr. Sydney" admired her had not been a mistaken one. Sydney had always been susceptible to the charms of a pretty face; and Nature had preordained a certain measure of excuse for any man who felt impelled to look twice at Milly, or even to speak to her on a flimsy pretext. And Milly was on Nature's side, for she did not resent being looked at or spoken to, although there was more innocence and ignorance of evil on her side than men were likely to give her credit for. Therefore Sydney had for some time been on speaking terms with her, over and above what might have been natural in an occasional visitor to the Rectory and Maple Cottage. He saw and meant no harm to her in his admiration, and had no idea at present that his occasional smile or idle jesting compliment made the girl's cheeks burn, her heart beat fast, made her nights restless and her days long. He took it for granted that gratified vanity alone made her receive his attentions with pleasure. His gifts—for he could be lavish when he liked—were all, he thought, that attracted her. She was a woman, and could, no doubt, play her own game and take care of herself. She had her weapons, as other women had. Sydney's opinion of women was, on the whole, a low one; and he had a supreme contempt for all women of the lower class—a contempt which causes a man to look on them only as toys—instruments for his pleasure—to be used and cast aside. He believed that they systematically preyed on men, and made profit out of their weakness. That Milly was at a disadvantage with him, because she was weak and young and unprotected, scarcely entered his head. He would have said that she had the best of it. She was pretty and young, and could make him pay for it if he did her any harm. She was one of a class—a class of harpies, in his opinion—and he did not attribute any particular individuality to her at all.
But Milly was a very real and individual woman, with a nature in which the wild spark of passion might some day be roused with disastrous results. It is unsafe to play with the emotions of a person who is simply labelled, often mistakenly and insufficiently, in your mind as belonging to a class, and possessing the characteristics of that class. There is always the chance that some old strain of tendency, some freak of heredity, may develop in the way which is most of all dangerous to you and to your career. For you cannot play with a woman's physical nature without touching, how remotely soever, her spiritual constitution as well; and, as Browning assures us, it is indeed "an awkward thing to play with souls, and matter enough to save one's own."
Sydney Campion, however, concerned himself very little with his own soul, or the soul of anybody else. He went up to Milly and greeted her with a smile that brought the color to her face.
"Well, Milly," he said, "are you taking your walks abroad to-night? Is your mistress pretty well? I was just going to Maple Cottage."
"Yes, sir, mistress is pretty well; but I don't think Miss Lettice is," said Milly, falling back into her old way of speaking of the rector's daughter. "She mentioned that she was going to bed early. You had better let me go back first and open the door for you."
"Perhaps it would be best. Not well, eh? What is the matter?"
"I don't know, but I think Miss Campion has a bad headache. I am sure she has been crying a great deal." Milly said this with some hesitation.
"I am sorry to hear that."
"I am afraid Mr. Walcott brought her bad news in the morning, for she has not been herself at all since he left."
"Do you say that Mr. Walcott was there this morning?"
Sydney spoke in a low tone, but with considerable eagerness, so that the girl knew she had not thrown her shaft in vain.
"Milly, this concerns me very much. I must have a little talk with you, but we cannot well manage it here. See! there is no one in the waiting-room; will you kindly come with me for a minute or two? It is for your mistress' good that I should know all about this. Come!"
So they went into the dreary room together, and they sat down in a corner behind the door, which by this time was almost dark. There Sydney questioned her about Alan Walcott, with a view to learning all that she might happen to know about him. Milly required little prompting, for she was quite ready to do all that he bade her, and she told him at least one piece of news which he was not prepared to hear.
Five minutes would have sufficed for all that Milly had to say; but the same story may be very long or very short according to the circumstances in which it is told. Half-an-hour was not sufficient to-night: at any rate, it took these two more than half-an-hour to finish what they had to say. And even then it was found that further elucidations would be necessary in the future, and an appointment was made for another meeting. But the talk had turned on Milly herself, and Milly's hopes and prospects, before that short half-hour had sped.
"Good-night, Milly," said Sydney, as they left the station. "You are a dear little girl to tell me so much. Perhaps you had better not say to your mistress that you saw me to-night. I shall call to-morrow afternoon. Good-night, dear."
He kissed her lightly, in a shadowy corner of the platform, before he turned away; and thought rather admiringly for a minute or two of the half-frightened, half-adoring eyes that were riveted upon his face. "Poor little fool!" he said to himself, as he signalled a cab. For even in that one short interview he had mastered the fact that Milly was rather fool than knave.
The girl went home with a light heart, believing that she had done a service to the mistress whom she really loved, and shyly, timorously joyous at the thought that she had met at last with an admirer—a lover, perhaps!—such as her heart desired. Of course, Miss Lettice would be angry if she knew; but there was nothing wrong in Mr. Sydney's admiration, said Milly, lifting high her little round white chin; and if he told her to keep silence she was bound to hold her tongue.
This was a mean thing that Sydney had done, and he was not so hardened as to have done it without a blush. Yet so admirably does our veneer of civilization conceal the knots and flaws beneath it that he went to sleep in the genuine belief that he had saved his sister from a terrible danger, and the name of Campion from the degradation which threatened it.
On the next day he reached Maple Cottage between four and five o'clock.
"How is your mistress?" he said to Milly.
She had opened the door and let him in with a vivid blush and smile, which made him for a moment, and in the broad light of day, feel somewhat ashamed of himself.
"Oh, sir, she is no better. She has locked herself in, and I heard her sobbing, fit to break her heart," said Milly, in real concern for her mistress' untold grief.
"Let her know that I am here. I will go to Mrs. Campion's room."
"Well, mother!" he said, in the hearty, jovial voice in which he knew that she liked best to be accosted, "here is your absentee boy again. How are you by this time?"
"Not very bright to-day, Sydney," said his mother. "I never am very bright now-a-days. But what are you doing, my dear? Are you getting on well? Have they——"
"No, mother, they have not made me Lord Chancellor yet. We must wait a while for that. But I must not complain; I have plenty of work, and my name is in the papers every day, and I have applied for silk, and—have you found your spectacles yet, mother?"
Details of his life and work were, as he knew, absolutely unmeaning to Mrs. Campion.
"Oh, the rogue! He always teased me about my spectacles," said Mrs. Campion, vaguely appealing to an unseen audience. "It is a remarkable thing, Sydney, but I put them down half an hour ago, and now I cannot find them anywhere."
"Well, now, that is strange, Mrs. Campion; but not very unusual. If I remember right, you had lost your spectacles when I was here last; and as I happened to pass a good shop this morning, it occurred to me that you would not object to another pair of pebbles. So here they are; and I have bought you something to test them with."
He produced a cabinet portrait of himself, such as the stationers were beginning to hang on the line in their shop windows. The fact marked a distinct advance in his conquest of popularity; and Sydney was not mistaken in supposing that the old lady would appreciate this portrait of her handsome and distinguished son. So, with her spectacles and her picture, Mrs. Campion was happy.
When Sydney's knock came to the door, Lettice was still crouching by her bedside over the letter which had reached her an hour before. She sprang up in nervous agitation, not having recognized the knock, and began to bathe her face and brush her hair. She was relieved when Milly came and told her who the caller was; but even Sydney's visit at that moment was a misfortune. She was inclined to send him an excuse, and not come down; but in the end she made up her mind to see him.
"My dear child," Sydney said, kissing her on the cheek, "how ill you look! Is anything the matter?"
"No, nothing. Don't take any notice of me," Lettice said, with a significant look at her mother.
They conversed for a time on indifferent matters, and then Sydney asked her to show him the garden. It was evident that he wanted to speak to her privately, so she took him into her study; and there, without any beating about the bush, he began to discharge his mind of its burden.
"I want to talk to you seriously, Lettice, and on what I'm afraid will be a painful subject; but it is my manifest duty to do so, as I think you will admit before I go. You are, I believe, on friendly terms—tolerably familiar terms—with Mr. Walcott?"
This was in true forensic style; but of course Sydney could not have made a greater mistake than by entering solemnly, yet abruptly, on so delicate a matter. Lettice was in arms at once.
"Stay a moment, Sydney. You said this was to be a painful subject to me, and then you mention the name of Mr. Walcott. I do not understand."
"Well!" said Sydney, somewhat disconcerted; "I don't know what made me conclude that it would be painful. I did not mean to say that. I am very glad it is not so."
He stopped to cough, then looked out of the window, and softly whistled to himself. Lettice, meanwhile, cast about hastily in her mind for the possible bearing of what her brother might have to say. She was about to take advantage of his blunder, and decline to hear anything further; but for more than one reason which immediately occurred to her, she thought that it would be better to let him speak.
"I do not think you could have any ground for supposing that such a subject would be specially painful to me; but never mind that. What were you going to say?"
Now it was Sydney's turn to be up in arms, for he felt sure that Lettice was acting a part.
"What I know for a fact," he said, "is that you have seen a good deal of Mr. Walcott during the past six months, and that people have gone so far as to remark on your—on his manifest preference for your company. I want to say that there are grave reasons why this should not be permitted to go on."
Lettice bit her lip sharply, but said nothing.
"Do you know," Sydney continued, becoming solemn again as he prepared to hurl his thunderbolts, "that Mr. Walcott is a married man?"
"Whether I know it or not, I do not acknowledge your right to ask me the question."
"I ask it by the right of a brother. Do you know that if he is not a married man, he is something infinitely worse? That the last time his wife was seen in his company, they went on a lonely walk together, and he came back again without her?"
"How do you know this?" Lettice asked him faintly. He set down her agitation to the wrong cause, and thought that his design was succeeding.
"I know it from the man who was most intimately connected with Walcott at the time. And I heard it at my club—in the course of the same conversation in which your name was mentioned. Think what that means to me! However, it may not have gone too far if we are careful to avoid this man in future. He does not visit here, of course?"
"He has been here."
"You surely don't correspond?"
"We have corresponded."
"Good heavens! it is worse than I thought. But you will promise me not to continue the acquaintance?"
"No, I cannot promise that!"
"Not after all I have told you of him?"
"You have told me nothing to Mr. Walcott's discredit. I have answered your questions because you are, as you reminded me, my brother. Does it not strike you that you have rather exceeded your privilege?"
Sydney was amazed at her quiet indifference.
"I really cannot understand you, Lettice. Do you mean to say that you will maintain your friendship with this man, although you know him to be a——"
"Well?"
"At any rate, apossiblemurderer?"
"The important point," said Lettice coldly, "seems to be what Mr. Walcott is actually, not what he is possibly. Your 'possible' is a matter of opinion, and I am very distinctly of opinion that Mr. Walcott is an innocent and honorable man."
"If you believe him innocent, then you believe that his wife is living?"
"I know nothing about his wife. That is a question which does not concern me."
"Your obstinacy passes my comprehension." When Sydney said this, he rose from the chair in which he had been sitting and stood on the hearth-rug before the grate, with his hands behind him and his handsome brows knitted in a very unmistakable frown. It was in a lower and more regretful voice that he continued, after a few minutes' silence: "I must say that the independent line you have been taking for some time past is not very pleasing to me. You seem to have a perfect indifference to our name and standing in the world. You like to fly in the face of convention, to——"
"Oh, Sydney, why should we quarrel?" said Lettice, sadly. Hitherto she had been standing by the window, but she now came up to him and looked entreatingly into his face. "Indeed, I will do all that I can to satisfy you. I am not careless about your prospects and standing in the world; indeed, I am not. But they could not be injured by the fact that I am earning my own living as an author. I am sure they could not!"
"You say that you will do all you can to satisfy me," said Sydney, who was not much mollified by her tenderness. "Will you give up the acquaintance of that man?"
"I am not certain that I shall ever see Mr. Walcott again; but if you ask me whether I will promise to insult him if I do see him, or to cut him because he has been accused of dishonorable acts, then I certainly say, No!"
"How you harp upon his honor! The honor of a married man who has introduced himself to you under a false name!"
"What do you mean?" said Lettice, starting and coloring. "Are there any more charges against him?"
"You seem to be so well prepared to defend him that perhaps you will not be surprised to hear that his name is not Walcott at all, but Bundlecombe, and that his mother kept a small sweet-stuff shop, or something of that kind, at Thorley. Bundlecombe! No wonder he was ashamed of it!"
This shaft took better than either of the others. Lettice was fairly taken aback. The last story did not sound as if it had been invented, and Sydney had evidently been making inquiries. Moreover, there flashed across her mind the remembrance of the book which Alan Walcott had given her—only yesterday morning. How long ago it seemed already! Alan Bundlecombe! What did the name signify, and why should any man care to change the name that he was born with? She recollected Mrs. Bundlecombe very well—the old woman who came and took her first twenty pounds of savings; the widow of the bookseller who had bought part of her father's library. If he was her son, he might not have much to be proud of, but why need he have changed his name?
Decidedly this was a blow to her. She had no defence ready, and Sydney saw that she was uncomfortable.
"Well," he said, "I must not keep you any longer. I suppose, even now"—with a smile—"you will not give me your promise; but you will think over what I have told you, and I dare say it will all come right."
Her eyes were full of wistful yearning as she put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him.
"You believe that Imeanto do right, don't you, Sydney?" she asked.
He laughed a little. "We all mean to do right, my dear. But we don't all go the same way to work, I suppose. Yes, yes; I believe you mean well; but do, for heaven's sake, try to act with common-sense. Then, as I said, everything will come right in the end."
He went back to his mother's room, and Lettice stood for some minutes looking out of the window, and sighing for the weariness and disillusion which hung like a cloud upon her life.
"All will come right?" she murmured, re-echoing Sydney's words with another meaning. "No. Trouble and sorrow, and pain may be lived down and forgotten; but without sinceritynothingcan come right!"