CHAPTER X.
Henry Hindes reached Hampstead quite early in the afternoon, and his wife met him with a foreign letter in her hand.
Hannah was much changed by this time as well as himself. Always quiet and refined, her manner had settled down into a general melancholy. She tried to smile sometimes, and to look cheerful for the sake of her little Wally, whom it was sad to think should be brought up between such a father and mother, but the attempt was usually abortive. How could she smile, whilst memory remained to her? But she never mentioned the terrible secret between them to her husband. Only he could see, but too plainly by the expressionof her eyes, that she never forgot it, and it made him nervous and uneasy in her presence. They had been as happy as most husbands and wives before, and much happier than some; but though Hannah clung to him through a sense of duty, she shuddered if he touched her, or attempted to caress her, and Henry Hindes saw it. The little girls, too, being banished from home, made a great difference in ‘The Old Hall.’ Elsie and Laurie never came back, even for the holidays, though their mother saw them frequently, and their father dared not ask to see them. Wally, too, was confined to the nursery whenever he was indoors, and if he wanted to see him, it was almost by stealth he was obliged to accomplish it. So the house, which once had rung with childish laughter, was very much changed, as well as everybody in it; and the servants, though not admitted to their employer’s confidence, saw and heard enough to make them participators inthe fact, that something very unpleasant had come between the master and the mistress. But, on that particular day, as Hannah met him with the foreign letter in her hand, she tried to assume one of her old smiles, and to welcome her husband cheerfully.
‘Here is a letter from Arthur, Henry,’ she said; ‘it came by the twelve o’clock post, just after you had driven away this morning.’
She held out a large, thin envelope to him as she spoke, and with a species of grunt, which was the usual salutation Henry Hindes accorded her, he took the letter and tore it open. The contents did not appear to please him.
‘Here’s a pretty kettle of fish,’ he exclaimed; ‘the doctors out there say that Edith must not pass another hot season in Bombay, so Arthur has applied for furlough, and they are all coming home as soon as they can pack up their traps.’
This announcement took Hannah completely by surprise. Captain ArthurHindes was her husband’s younger and only brother, indeed, his only near relation, who had married a very nice girl from their house some seven years before, and taken her out to Bombay, where they had a family of five children. They had visited England once during that period, when they had resided for a year at ‘The Old Hall,’ and now they were coming home again, and expected evidently to do the same thing—now, when they least expected them—least needed them.
‘Coming back so soon,’ she faltered. ‘Why! in one of her last letters, Edith said they were bound to remain in Bombay for at least three years more. Why doesn’t Arthur send her to the hills instead? Does he mention it as a settled thing?’
‘If you don’t believe me, read for yourself and see!’ replied her husband, as he tossed the letter across the table. Hannah picked it up, and read,—
‘Dear Harry,—You’ll be surprised, but I hope not sorry, to hear that weare all on the hop for home again. Edith has had a nasty attack lately—uncommonly like cholera—and it has left her so weak, that the doctor says I must not keep her in Bombay another hot season. We thought of the Hills at first, but he so strongly recommends England, that I have applied for my long leave, and, as all our fellows are here, have no doubt that I shall get it. I think, after all, it is just as well we should make a move. Fanny and Hal have grown so tall and thin that they look more as if they had been run up through gas-pipes than ever; and the last addition has suffered terribly with its teething, so we shall be none the worse for seeing dear old England again. We shall be there three years, so as to settle the elder chicks at school before we return to India. How I am longing to see The Old Hall again, and your lovely garden. It will be in its spring dress by the time we arrive. I hope the son and heir is flourishing, and not grown too proud toacknowledge his poor relations under his accession to the fortune that has come to him. There are only six months between him and my little Charlie. They will be nice playmates. What a jolly old fellow Mr Crampton must have been. How you must regret his loss! Our best love to Hannah and the girls. You may expect to see us home about the middle of April, or beginning of May. Good-bye, old chappie.—Ever your affectionate brother,Arthur Hindes.’
‘Dear Harry,—You’ll be surprised, but I hope not sorry, to hear that weare all on the hop for home again. Edith has had a nasty attack lately—uncommonly like cholera—and it has left her so weak, that the doctor says I must not keep her in Bombay another hot season. We thought of the Hills at first, but he so strongly recommends England, that I have applied for my long leave, and, as all our fellows are here, have no doubt that I shall get it. I think, after all, it is just as well we should make a move. Fanny and Hal have grown so tall and thin that they look more as if they had been run up through gas-pipes than ever; and the last addition has suffered terribly with its teething, so we shall be none the worse for seeing dear old England again. We shall be there three years, so as to settle the elder chicks at school before we return to India. How I am longing to see The Old Hall again, and your lovely garden. It will be in its spring dress by the time we arrive. I hope the son and heir is flourishing, and not grown too proud toacknowledge his poor relations under his accession to the fortune that has come to him. There are only six months between him and my little Charlie. They will be nice playmates. What a jolly old fellow Mr Crampton must have been. How you must regret his loss! Our best love to Hannah and the girls. You may expect to see us home about the middle of April, or beginning of May. Good-bye, old chappie.—Ever your affectionate brother,
Arthur Hindes.’
Hannah read the letter through in silence, and laid it down.
‘Well!’ ejaculated her husband, ‘you see they are coming, and mean to share The Old Hall with us, as they did last time. Let me see! How long is it since they were in England? Three years, isn’t it—or nearly so? And a couple more youngsters in that time. Artie will have his hands full before he has done.’
Still she was silent.
‘What’s the row now?’ demanded Hindes. ‘Are you going to set your back up against their coming here? There’s plenty of room; all the more now the girls have gone to school. The children can have the whole of the top floor. They need not inconvenience you.’
‘Henry,’ said his wife, slowly, ‘they cannot come here!’
‘Cannot come here,’ he repeated, reddening. ‘What do you mean? Is the house yours or mine? It’s a pretty thing when you commence to shut my doors against my own relations. But they expect to come here, and they must.’
‘They cannot come here,’ repeated Hannah, decidedly.
‘Why not?’ said Hindes, boldly.
She lifted her eyes and looked him full in the face.
‘Oh, you’rethere, are you?’ he exclaimed, dropping his own. ‘You want to make what you learnt by your eavesdropping public property. You will prevent my brother entering my house, andmake him curious to learn the reason; cause a quarrel between us, and drive me into a corner until I let the cat out of the bag. That’s your object, is it? A neat way to get rid of me altogether.’
‘I want none of these things, Henry,’ she replied; ‘but you must act honestly in this matter. You must not let your brother and his wife and children do anything for which they may reproach you in after years. You must think of an excuse to keep them away. They shall not take up their residence here, to be brought in hourly contact with—to be contaminated by association with—with—’
‘Say it out at once,’ retorted Hindes, angrily. ‘Let all the world know what you know. Run up to the house-top and bawl it out from the roof, that all Hampstead may hear the story of your devotion to me. Why don’t you ring the bell and assemble the servants and tell them what a master they are serving—a man who is not to be trusted with his own children, nor to associate with his brother. You’vebeen itching to do it ever since that accursed night. You women can never keep a secret. I might have been prepared for that from the beginning. But mark my words, madam, the first moment you hint at such a thing, you go out of my house, and never see your children more. They’remychildren, and I will submit to no more of your tantrums concerning them. You only say these things to try and show your power over me. But, after all, what power have you? Where are your witnesses? A man cannot be convicted on the testimony of a nightmare. Itwasa nightmare! All these silent accusations of yours are the outcome of your own vivid imagination. You have no more power over me thanthat,’ snapping his fingers in her face, ‘and I defy you to injure me—I defy you.’
He sank down exhausted in a chair after this outbreak, and shook like an aspen. The habits he had contracted had robbed him of all physical and moralcourage. Hannah stood for a few moments in silence, until he was in a fitter state to listen to her, and then she said,—
‘It is true that, legally speaking, I may have no power over you, nor would I wield it if I had. But, if you show so little sorrow for what I know to be a fact, so little consideration for Arthur and his family, I will not stay in The Old Hall to be a partaker in it. If you cannot, or will not, devise some plan by which you can induce your brother to take up his quarters elsewhere, I shall leave you to entertain them by yourself. I shall go back to my mother, and take my children with me. The law still permits me the custody of two of them, but, if you attempt to touch any one of the three, I will appeal to its protection, and tell all I know in extenuation of my conduct. You must accept this, Henry, as my ultimatum. I willnotremain here to receive your brother’s family.’
Was it possible that this was Hannah—Hannah,who was renowned for her gentleness and meekness and docility. Her face did not flush as she spoke, nor did she show any signs of anger, but she stood facing her husband, calm and pale, but perfectly decided. Guilt had made a coward of him, and he turned from her shuddering, and hid his face in the sofa cushion.
‘You want to ruin me!’ he murmured.
‘No, Henry, no. I want to make you regard your past in its true light, and to make what amends for it you can. What if this terrible secret should ever come out? Do you wish to involve others in your disgrace? Would you rather be quoted as having led the life of a hypocrite, or that of a penitent man?’
‘Come out—come out,’ he echoed, ‘how can it come out, unless you betray me?’
‘You need not be afraid of that, but God has His own ways of working. If it is His will to reveal it, no efforts of ours will prevent it. But the more persons you have in the house, the more risk you run.Who can answer for what servants and children overhear? You are so strange sometimes, even in the middle of the day, that I hardly know what to think of you. You do not seem like yourself, or as if you had your proper senses. You ramble at such times, and are not safe. I am protecting instead of betraying you, by advising you not to let Arthur bring his family to The Old Hall.’
A grey shade passed over Hindes’ features.
‘Do I talk much?’ he inquired fearfully. ‘Do I talk ofher? What do you do at such times, Hannah? How do you keep the servants out?’
She crossed the room then to the sofa where he lay, and sitting down beside him, took his head and laid it on her bosom. As he felt the warm touch, he clung to her, as a child clings to its mother in the dark.
‘Don’t be afraid, dear,’ she said softly. ‘Neither servants nor friends shall gain access to you at such times. I guard youtoo well for that. Should you be downstairs, I take you to your bedroom; if the fit comes on whilst you are in your own room, I lock the door. Have no fear on that score. I will never leave you whilst you are true to yourself.’
He sunk his face lower and lower in her bosom, and kissed her arm and her shoulder and any part of her that came within his reach.
‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,’ he murmured, ‘my only hope is in you.’
‘But, Henry,’ said Hannah, thinking this a favourable opportunity for remonstrance, ‘are you not taking too much morphia, or brandy, or something, for your health? You must be careful, or you will circumvent the object you have in view.’
‘I must take it, Hannah!I must!I have such dreadful dreams without it. I cannot sleep, or think, or act. It is my salvation. You mustn’t take it from me.’
‘No! no! I had no thought of that,and if you suffer from neuralgia, I do not see how you could go through your daily work without some sort of remedy. Only morphia is dangerous if taken in too large quantities, and you mustn’t cloud your active brain, or where will the business be?’
‘How Ihatethe business,’ he said. ‘Hannah, we have more than enough for our need. Couldn’t we go away together somewhere; all together, and let me begin a new life? Out in Australia, or New Zealand, in a purer air, you would trust me with the children, wouldn’t you? I will be so good, darling, if you would. I will try so hard not to bring any further disgrace upon their name, or yours. Butherelife is killing me. It is so full of bitter memories—bitter associations. Sometimes I feel as if I could cry on these stones of Hampstead to cover me; I feel so desperate. But in a newer air and amidst new scenes, perhaps—if you will let me have the children—I may—forget.’
The tears were running fast down Hannah’s cheeks by this time. The man she held in her arms was no longer the one she had feared and shrunk from, and almost loathed in her contempt, for months past, but the lover of her girlhood—the husband of her youth—the father of her children—and her heart went out with a mighty compassion towards him, notwithstanding his weakness and his sin.
‘Would you come with me?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Would you try to forget everything, but that once we loved each other very dearly?’
‘Yes! yes! I would,’ she answered, as she kissed his forehead. ‘You are right, Harry. We ought to have thought of it before. We will leave this country together; it is too full of hateful memories for both of us, and see if it will please God to prosper us in another land. How soon can we start, dear? How soon can we be ready? The sooner the better.’
‘It cannot be done in a moment,’ replied Hindes. ‘A business like mine requires time to wind up. But I will put it in hand as soon as possible. Yet on what plea?’
‘Your health, Henry. I am sure it is bad enough for anything. Mr Moreton said yesterday that you looked as if you were in a decline. Heaps of people have commented on your looks before me. I am sure they would accept your state of health as a plea for anything.’
‘But Arthur—Arthur is coming home,’ said Hindes, with the old look of fear.
‘I will manage Arthur’s business for you,’ returned his wife, with decision. ‘I will write to him at once and say that we are very sorry, but the state of your health and nerves is so bad, that we have been obliged to send Elsie and Laura away from home, and you are quite unequal to standing the noise of children about the house. That will be sufficient explanation for everything. And soon, I hope, we shall be far beyond the need of explaining our actions to anybody.’
‘There will be a great deal to do first, you know, Hannah,’ said her husband. ‘“The Old Hall” must be put up for sale, or to let. I wonder what Arthur will say to that?’
‘If you wish to reach the goal you have set before you, Henry,’ replied Hannah; ‘you must cease to think what people will say to your decision. They have no right to say anything, and your anxiety may betray your motive. You have proposed this plan very suddenly. You had better consider it well before you decide. But oh! my dear, if I saw you trying to purify yourself by leading a newer and better life, I should be happier than I ever expected to be in this world.’
‘We must see about it, we must see,’ said Hindes, as he staggered to his feet; ‘but what I am thinking of now is, what Arthur will say.’
She found it useless to try and lead his mind back to the softening mood which had for awhile possessed it, so she let him maunder on in his old style, but took careto write the letter to her brother-in-law before she retired to rest that night.
Captain Arthur Hindes was very much surprised, and just a little put out, when he received it, which was just as he was on the point of starting for home with his wife and family. It arrived too late to enable him to make any alteration in his plans; but to spend a long furlough in England on his own account, and to live with his brother, paying a complimentary sum towards the housekeeping, were two different things. The Henry Hindes had appeared so pleased to receive them, on the former occasion of their visiting home, and The Old Hall was such a big place, that want of room there could never be an excuse for not taking them in.
‘I never was so vexed in my life, Edie,’ he observed to his wife, as they read the letter together. ‘I had so hoped and expected that the former arrangement would have held good, and Hannah would have taken all the trouble of housekeeping off your hands. You’re not ina fit state to be worried about anything, just now. I feel almost inclined to chuck it all up and go to the hills instead.’
‘Oh, no, Arthur, don’t do that,’ said his wife, who was ready to cry over the disappointment. ‘Perhaps Henry will feel better after a while, and able to receive us. You see, you mustn’t forget, dear, that we are two more in number since we were in England last, and seven people are really a formidable addition to any household.’
‘Nonsense, my dear. The Old Hall contains about twenty bedrooms, and Hannah says their own girls are away. And with their seven or eight servants, what difference should we make, especially as you take your nurses? I’m afraid there is some other reason than the one given. I can’t fancy old Hal being nervous, or seedy. He has always been so jolly and hearty and strong. There can’t be anything wrong with the business, surely?’
‘Oh, no, not likely; but don’t youremember, Artie, that when those poor Cramptons died, Hannah told us that Henry was terribly upset. Perhaps he has not recovered the shock yet.’
‘No, my dear, I’m afraid that sentimental explanation won’t hold water. Men don’t mourn their partner’s demise quite so long as all that, particularly when they remember their sons so handsomely in their wills. Let me see. How long has old Crampton been dead, quite nine months, if not more. Hal has had plenty of time to get over that, however much it may have shocked him at the time. He must have worked too hard at the business. That’s what shatters men’s nerves more than anything.’
‘But what shall we do, Arthur, when we get home?’ inquired Mrs Hindes.
‘That’s easily enough settled, dear. I see Hannah offers to look out for a furnished house near them; but it will be best to go a little further off. If we are too near, there will always be atemptation to run in and out, and that will be more distracting to Henry’s nerves, I should imagine, than if we lived there altogether. I shall take you on arrival to a hotel in London, and when we have been there for a few weeks, and seen a few sights, we will get a cottage in the country somewhere, where I can have a little fishing, and you can keep your cocks and hens, and have a pony carriage to drive about the lanes in.’
‘Oh, Artie, dear, that will be delightful! I like the idea better that the other. I never had you a moment to myself last time we were in England.’
And thereupon Mrs Arthur embraced her husband so heartily, that it was evident that here, at least, was a happy couple, with no secrets between them.
They reached their native land about the time they had intimated; and the first thing they did, was naturally to go down to Hampstead and see their relatives. It was about nine o’clock one evening that they were suddenly announced.Hannah was sitting alone in the drawing-room, occupied with needlework, when the footman showed her brother and sister-in-law into her presence. She rose in the utmost confusion, letting her crewels and canvas fall to the ground without noticing it.
‘Edith! Arthur!’ she exclaimed, nervously. ‘Oh, how you have taken me by surprise! I did not think the mail was due till to-morrow, or next day. When did you arrive? Where are you staying? How glad I am to see you.’
But she did not appear glad, to judge from the tremulous sound of her voice.
‘My dear Hannah,’ replied Captain Hindes, ‘Henry might have told you the mail was due this morning. We reached London at noon, and only waited to settle the little ones at a hotel and see their creature comforts attended to before we came on here. We couldn’t wait till to-morrow, you know, to see you and dear old Hal. By the way, where is he? Not out, I hope!’
‘No,’ replied Hannah, in the same timid manner, ‘he is not out. He never goes out of an evening now; but he is in bed. He retired quite an hour ago.’
‘Hal in bed at eight o’clock!’ exclaimed Arthur. ‘Oh, impossible! What’s come to him? I must go and wake him again. I never heard of such a lazy fellow in my life.’
He was about to suit the action to the word, when Hannah stopped him.
‘No, Arthur, please don’t go. You must not wake him, indeed. He sleeps very badly, and is sometimes quite light-headed if roused unexpectedly. I cannot let him be disturbed.’
Captain Hindes sat down with a serious face.
‘So bad as that?’ he said; ‘you quite alarm me, Hannah! Light-headed—what should make him that?’
‘Oh! nothing very serious, if he is only left to himself,’ she answered, trying to smile; ‘Henry suffers from neuralgia, you know, and he often takes morphia to dullthe pain. It always causes a person to ramble and talk nonsense if disturbed.’
‘But why does he not consult the doctor for this neuralgia?’ asked Arthur. ‘My wife has suffered very much from it at times, but it has always yielded to medicine.’
‘Henry is not much addicted to doctors, you may remember,’ replied Hannah.
‘No; he never needed them. I never saw a stronger or healthier man than he used to be. What is he suffering from? What has caused the difference?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hannah, shaking her head; ‘but he has much gone off in strength and appearance lately. You will see a great difference in him when you meet.’
‘He’s been moping, I suppose, over this Crampton business,’ returned Captain Hindes; ‘but, now I’ve come home, I won’t let him mope any more. I’ll make the old boy come out with me and show me round town. We used to have noend of larks in the old days. We’ll have them again. But now come, Hannah,’ he added, taking his sister-in-law’s hand, ‘just tell me the plain truth. What is the matter with him?’
END OF VOL. II.
COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.