On the third floor of a house in Delahay Street there used to be a room which was at once sitting-room and "workshop." A blue plate here and there over the mirror, the shabby arm-chair on the hearth, and a modest collection of books on the wall, gave it an air of home. The long white table, littered with plans and paints, before the window, and a theodolite in the corner, showed that it served for office too.
A man familiar with that interior had just entered the passage, and as he began to ascend the stairs a smile of anticipated welcome softened the rigidity of his face. He was a tall, loosely-built man, who was generally credited with five more years than the two-and-thirty he had really seen; a man who, a physiognomist would have asserted, formed few friendships and was a stanch friend. Possibly it was the gauntness of the face that caused him to appear older than he was, possibly its gravity. He did not look as if he laughed readily, as if he saw much in life to laugh at. He did not look impulsive, or emotional, or a man to be imagined singing a song. He could be pictured the one cool figure in a scene of panic with greater facility than participating in the enthusiasm of a grand-stand. Not that you found his aspect heroic, but that you could not conceive him excited.
He turned the handle as he knocked at the door, and strode into the room without awaiting a response. The occupant dropped his T-square with a clatter, giving a quick halloa:
"Philip! Dear old chap!"
Dr. Kincaid gripped the outstretched hand.
"How are you?" he said.
Walter Corri pushed him into the shabby chair, and lounged against the mantelpiece, smiling down at him.
"How are you?" repeated Dr. Kincaid.
"All right. When did you come up?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"Going to stay long?"
"Only a day or two."
"Pipe?"
"Got a cigar; try one!"
"Thanks."
Corri pulled out a chair for himself. "Well, what's the news?" he said.
"Nothing particular; anything fresh with you?"
"No. How's your mother?"
"Tolerably well; she came up with me."
"Did she! Where are you?"
"Some little hotel. I'm charged with a lot of messages——"
"That you don't remember!"
"I remember one of them: you're to come and see her."
"Thanks, I shall."
"Come and dine to-night, if you've nothing on. We have a room to ourselves, and——"
"I'd like to. What are you going to do during the day?"
"There are two or three things that won't take very long, but I was obliged to come. What areyoudoing?"
"I've an appointment outside at twelve; I shall be back in about an hour, and then I could stick a paper on the door without risking an independence."
"You can go about with me?"
"If you'll wait."
"Good! Where do you keep your matches?"
"Matches are luxuries. Tear upThe Times!"
"Corri's economy! Throw meThe Times, then!"
Kincaid lit his cigar to his satisfaction, and stretched his long legs before the fire. Both men puffed placidly.
"Well," said Corri, "and how's the hospital? How do you like it?"
"My mother doesn't like it; she finds it so lonely at home by herself. I thought she'd get used to it in a couple of months—I go round to her as often as I can—but she complains as much as she did at the beginning. She's taken up the original idea again, and of course it is dull for her. And she's not strong, either."
"No, I know."
"Tell her I'm going to be a successful man by-and-by, Wally, and cheer her up. It enlivens her to believe it."
"I always do."
"I know you do; whenever she's seen you, she looks at me proudly for a week and tells me what a 'charming young man' Mr. Corri is—'how clever!' The only fault she finds with you is that you haven't got married."
"Tell her that I have what the novelists call an 'ideal.'"
"When did you catch it?"
"Last year. A fellow I know married the 'Baby'—an adoring daughter that thought all her family unique."
"And——?"
"My ideal is the blessing who is still unappropriated at twenty-eight. She'll have discovered by then that her mother isn't infallible; that her brothers aren't the first living authorities on wines, the fine arts, horseflesh, and the sciences; and that the 'happy home' isn't incapable of improvement. In fact, she'll have got a little tired of it."
"You've the wisdom of a relieved widower."
"I have seen," said Corri widely. "The fellow, you know! Married fellows are an awfully 'liberal education.' This one has been turned into a nurse—among the several penalties of his selection. The treasure is for ever dancing on to wet pavements in thin shoes and sandwiching imbecilities between colds on the chest. He swears you may move the Himalayas sooner than teach a girl of twenty to take care of herself. He told me so with tears in his eyes. I mean to be older than my wife, and she has got to be twenty-eight, so it's necessary to wait a few years. I may be able to support her, too, by then; that's another thing in favour of delay."
"I'll represent the matter in the proper light for you on the next occasion."
"Do; it's extraordinary that every woman advocates matrimony for every man excepting her own son."
"She makes up for it by her efforts on behalf of her own daughter."
"Is that from experience?"
"Not in the sense you mean; I'm no catch to be chased myself; but I've seen enough to make you sick. The friends see the ceremonies—I see the sequels."
"'There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.' But Yorick was an amateur! I should say a horrid profession, in one way; it can't leave a scrap of illusion. What's a complexion to a man who knows all that's going on underneath? I suppose when a girl gives a blush you see a sort of chart of her muscles and remember what produces it."
"I knew a physician who used to say he had never cared for any woman who hadn't a fatal disease," replied Kincaid; "how does that go with your theory? She was generally consumptive, I believe."
"Do you understand it?"
"Pity, I dare say, first. Doctors are men."
"Yes, I suppose they are; but somehow one doesn't think of them that way. Between the student and the doctor there's such an enormous gap. It's a stupid idea, but one feels that a doctor marries, as he goes to church on Sunday—because the performance is respectable and expected. Some professions don't make any difference to the man himself; you don't think of an engineer as being different from anybody else; but with Medicine——"
"It's true," said Kincaid, "that hardly anybody but a doctor can realise how a doctor feels; his friends don't know. The only writer who ever drew one was George Eliot."
"If you're a typical——"
"Oh, I wasn't talking about myself; don't take me! When a man's thoughts mean worries, he acquires the habit of keeping them to himself very soon; that is, if he isn't a fool. It isn't calculated to make him popular, but it prevents him becoming a bore."
"Out comes your old bugbear! Isn't it possible for you to believe a man's pals may listen to his worries without being bored?"
"How many times?"
"Oh, damn, whenever they're there!"
"No," said Kincaid meditatively, "it isn't. They'd hide the boredom, of course, but he ought to hide the worries. Let a man do his cursing in soliloquies, and grin when it's conversation."
"Would it be convenient to mention exactly what you do find it possible to believe in?"
"In work, and grit, and Walter Corri. In doing your honest best in the profession you've chosen for the sake of the profession, not in the hope of what it's going to do for you. You can't, quite—that's the devil of it! Your own private ambitionswillobtrude themselves sometimes; but they're only vanity, when all's said and done—just meant for the fuel. What does nine out of ten men's success do for anyone but the nine men? Leaving out the great truths, the discoveries that benefit the human race for all time, what more good does a man effect in his success than he did in his obscurity? Who wants to see him succeed, excepting perhaps his mother—who's dead before he does it? Who's the better for his success? who does he think will be any better off for it? Nobody but No. 1! Then, whenever the vanity's sore and rubbed the wrong way, you'd have him go to his friends and take it out of them. What a selfish beast!"
"Bosh!" said Corri. "Oh, I know it isn't argument, but 'bosh!'"
"My dear fellow——"
"My dear fellow, you had a rough time of it yourself for any number of years, and——"
"And they've left their mark. Very naturally! What then?"
"Simply that now you want to stunt all humanity in the unfortunate mould that was clapped onyou. You understand the right of every pain to shriek excepting mental pain. You'd sit up all night pitying the whimpers of a child with a splintered finger, but if a man made a moan because his heart was broken, you'd call him a 'selfish beast'!"
Kincaid ejected a circlet of smoke, and watched it sail away before he answered.
"'Weak,'" he said, "I think I should call that 'weak.' It was a very good sentence, though, if not quite accurate. This reminds me of old times; it takes me back ten years to sit in your room and have you bully me. There's something in it, Corri; circumstances are responsible for a deuce of a lot, and we're all of us accidents. I'm a bad case, you tell me; I dare say it's true. You're a good chap to put up with me."
"Don't be a fool," said Corri.
The "fool" stared into the coals, nursing his big knee. He seemed to be considering his chum's accusation.
"When I was sixteen," he said, still nursing the knee and contemplating the fire, "I was grown up. In looking back, I never see any transition from childhood to maturity. I was a kid, and then I was a man. I was a man when I went to school; I never had larks out of hours; I went there understanding I was sent to learn as much, and as quickly as I could. Then from school I was put into an office, and was a man who already had to hide what he felt; my people knew I wanted to make this my profession, and they couldn't afford it. If I had let the poor old governor see—well, he didn't see; I affected contentment, I said a clerkship was 'rather jolly'! Good Lord! I said it was 'jolly'! The abasement of it! The little hypocritical cur it makes of you, that life, where a gape is regarded as a sign of laziness and you're forced to hide the natural thing behind an account-book or the lid of your desk; when the knowledge that you mustn't lay down your pen for five minutes under your chief's eyes teaches you to sneak your leisure when he turns his back, and to sham uninterrupted industry at the sound of—his return. With the humbug, and the 'Yes, sirs,' and the 'No, sirs,' you're a schoolboy over again as a clerk, excepting that in an office you're paid."
"My clerk has yet to come!" said Corri, grimacing.
"Yes, he's being demoralised somewhere else. How I thanked God one night when my father told me if I hadn't outgrown my desire he could manage to gratify it! The words took me out of hell. But when I did become a student I couldn't help being conscious that to study was an extravagance. The knowledge was with me all the time, reminding me of my responsibility—although it wasn't till the governor died that I knew how great an extravagance it must have seemed to him. And I never spreed with the fellows as a student any more than I had enjoyed myself with the lads in the playground. Altogether, I haven't rollicked, Corri. Such youth as I have had has been snatched at between troubles."
"Poor old beggar!"
Kincaid smiled quickly.
"There's more feeling in 'you poor old beggar!' than in a letter piled up with condolence. It's hard lines one can't write 'poor old beggar' to every acquaintance who has a bereavement." The passion that had crept into his strong voice while speaking of his earlier life to the one person in the world to whom he could have brought himself to speak so, had been repressed; his tone was again the impassive one that was second-nature to him.
"Believe me," he said, harking back after a pause, "that idea of the medical profession, that 'respectable and expected' idea of yours, is quite wrong. Oh, it isn't yours alone, it's common? enough; every little comic paragraphist thinks himself justified in turning out a number of ignorant jokes at the profession's expense in the course of the year; every twopenny-halfpenny caricaturist has to thank us for a number of his dinners. No harm's meant, and nobody minds; but people who actually know something of the subject that these funny men are so constant to can tell you that there's more nobility and self-sacrifice in the medical profession than in any under the sun, not excepting the Church. Yes, and more hardships too! The chat on the weather and the fee for remarking it's a fine day isn't every medical man's life; the difficulty is to get the fees in return for loyal attendance. Nobody's reverenced like the family doctor in time of sickness. In the days of their child's recovery the parents love the doctor almost as fervently as they do the child; but the fervour's got cold when Christmas comes and the gratitude's forgotten. And they know a doctor can't dun them; so he has to wait for his account and pretend the money's of no consequence when he bows to them, though the butcher and the baker and the grocer don't pretend tohim, but look fortheirbills to be settled every week. I could give you instances——"
He gave instances. Corri spoke of difficulties, too. They smoked their cigars to the stumps, talking leisurely, until Corri declared that he must go.
"In an hour, then, I'll call back for you," said Kincaid; "you won't be longer?"
"I don't think so. But why not wait? You can make yourself comfortable; there's plenty ofThe Timesleft to read."
"I will. I want to write a couple of letters—can I?"
"There's a desk! Have I got everything? Yes, that's all. Well, I'll be as quick as I can, but if Ishouldbe detained I shall find you here?"
"You'll find me here," said Kincaid, "don't be alarmed."
The other's departure did not send him to the desk immediately, however. Left alone, it was manifest how used the man had been to living alone. It was manifest in his composure, in his deliberation, in the earnestness he devoted to the task when at last he attacked it. He had just reached the foot of the second page when somebody knocked at the door.
"Come in," he said abstractedly.
The knock was repeated. It occurred to him that Corri had omitted to provide for the contingency of a client's calling. "Come in!" he cried more loudly, annoyed at the interruption.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw that the intruder was a woman, with something in her hand.
"Mr. Corri?"
"Mr. Corri's not in," he replied, fingering the pen; "he'll be back by-and-by."
Mary lingered irresolutely. Her temples throbbed, and in her weakness the sight of a chair magnetised her.
"Shall I wait?" she murmured; "perhaps he won't be very long?"
"Eh?" said Kincaid. "Oh, wait if you like, madam."
She sank into a seat mutely. The response had not sounded encouraging, but it permitted her to rest, and rest was what she yearned for now. How indifferent the world was! how mercilessly little anybody cared for anybody else! "Wait, if you like, madam"—go and die, if you like, madam—go and lay your bones in the gutter, madam, so long as you don't bother me! She watched the big hand hazily as it shifted to and fro across the paper. The man probably had money in his pocket that signified nothing to him, and to her it would have been salvation. He lived in comfort while she was starving; he did not know that she was starving, but how much would it affect him if he did know? She wondered whether she could induce him to give an order for the book; perhaps he was just as likely to order it as the other man? Then she would take a cab back to Mr. Collins and ask him for her commission at once, and go and eat something—if she were able to eat any longer.
She roused herself with an effort, and crossed the room to where he sat.
"I came to see Mr. Corri from Messrs. Pattenden," she faltered, "about a new work they're publishing. I've brought a specimen. If I am not disturbing you——?"
She put it down as she spoke, and stood a pace or two behind him, watching the effect.
"Is this woman very nervous?" said Kincaid to himself. "So she's a book-agent! I thought she had something to sell. Good Lord, what a life!"
"Thanks," he answered. "I'm very busy just now, and I never buy my books on the subscription plan."
"You could have it sent in to you when it's complete," she suggested.
He drummed his fingers on the title-page. "I don't want it."
"Perhaps Mr. Corri——?"
"I can't speak for Mr. Corri; but don't wait for him, on my advice. I'm afraid it would be patience wasted."
He shut theAlbumup, intimating that he had done with it. But the woman made no movement to withdraw it, and he invited this movement by pushing the thing aside. He drew the blotting-pad forward to resume his letter; and still she did not remove her obnoxious specimen from the desk. He was beginning to feel irritated.
"If you choose to wait, madam, take a seat," he said.... "I say take——"
He turned, questioning her continued silence, and sprang to his feet in dismay. The book-agent's head was lolling on her bosom; and his arm—extended to support her—was only out in time to catch her as she fell.
"Now," said Kincaid, when she opened her eyes, "what's the matter with you? No nonsense; I'm a doctor; you mustn't tell lies to me! What's the matter with you?"
There are some things a woman cannot say; this was one of them.
"You're very exhausted?"
"Oh," she said weakly, "I—just a little."
"When had you food last?"
She gave no answer. He scrutinised her persistently, noting her hesitation, and shot his next question straight at the mark.
"Are you hungry?"
The eyes closed again, and her lips quivered.
"Boor!" he said to himself, "she's starving, and you wouldn't buy her book. Beast! she's starving, and you tried to turn her out."
But his sympathy was hardly communicated by his voice; indeed, in her shame she thought him rather rough.
"You stop here a minute," he continued; "don't you go and faint again, because I forbid it! I'm going to order a prescription for you. Your complaint isn't incurable—I've had it myself."
He left her in quest of the housekeeper, whom he interrogated on the subject of eggs and coffee. A shilling brightened her wits.
"Mr. Corri's room; hurry!"
His patient was sitting in the arm-chair when he went back; he saw tear-stains on her cheek, though she turned away her face at his approach.
"The prescription's being made up," he said. "Would you like the window shut again? No? All right, we'll keep it open. Don't talk if you'd rather not; there's no need—I know all you want to say."
He ignored her ostentatiously till the tray appeared, and then, receiving it at the doorway, brought it over to her himself.
"Come," he said, "try that—slowly."
"Oh!" she murmured, shrinking.
"Don't be silly; do as I tell you! There's nothing to be bashful about; I know you're not an angel—your having an appetite doesn't astonish me."
"How good you are!" she muttered; "what must you think of me?"
"Eat," commanded Kincaid; "ask me what I think of you afterwards."
She was evidently in no danger of committing the mistake that he had looked for—his difficulty was, not to restrain, but to persuade her; nor was her reluctance the outcome of embarrassment alone.
"It has gone," she said, shaking her head; "I am really not hungry now."
He encouraged her till she began. Then he retired behind the newspaper, to distress her as little as might be by his presence. At the end of a quarter of an hour he putThe Timesdown. The eggshells were empty, and he stretched himself and addressed her:
"Better?"
"Much better," she said, with a ghost of a smile.
"Have you been having a long experience of this sort of thing?"
"N—no," she returned nervously, "not very."
He caressed his moustache; she was ceasing to be a patient and becoming a woman, and he didn't quite know what he was to do with her. Somehow, despite her situation, the offer of a sovereign looked as if it would be coarse. Mary divined his dilemma, and made as if to rise.
"Sit down," he said authoritatively. "When you're well enough to go I'll tell you; till I do, stay where you are!"
She felt that she ought to say something, proffer some explanation, but she was at a loss how to begin. There was a pause. And then:
"Is there any likelihood of this business of yours improving?" inquired Kincaid. "Suppose you were able to hold out—is there anything to look forward to?"
"No," she said; "I don't think there is. I'm afraid I am no use at it."
"Was it an attractive career, that you made the attempt?"
"Not in the least; but it was a chance."
"I see!"
He saw also that she was a gentlewoman fitted for more refined pursuits. How had she reached this pass? he wondered. Would she volunteer the information, or should he ask her? He failed to perceive what assistance he could render if he knew; yet if he did not help her she would go away and die, and he would know that she was going away to die as he let her out.
"I was introduced to the firm by a very old connection of theirs. I couldn't find anything to do, and he fancied that as I was—well, that as I was a lady—it sounds rather odd under the circumstances to speak of being a lady, doesn't it——?"
"I don't see anything odd about it," he said.
"He fancied I might do rather well. But I think it's a drawback, on the contrary. It's not easy to me to decline to take 'No' for an answer; and nobody can do any good at work she's ashamed of."
"But you shouldn't be ashamed," he said; "it's honest enough."
"That's what the manager tells me. Only when la woman has to go into a stranger's office and bother him, and be snubbed for her pains, the honesty doesn't prevent her feeling uncomfortable. You must have found me a nuisance yourself."
"I'm afraid I was rather brusque," he said quickly. "I was busy; I hope I wasn't rude?"
Her colour rose.
"I didn't mean that at all," she stammered; "I shouldn't be very grateful to remind you of it even if you had been!"
"I should have thought a book of that sort would have been tolerably easy to sell. It's a useful work of reference. What's the price?"
"Two pounds ten altogether. It isn't dear, but people won't buy it, all the same."
"Yes, it's got up well," he said, taking it from the desk and turning the leaves. "How many volumes, did you say?"
"Four."
She made a little tentative movement to recover it, but he went on as if the gesture had escaped him.
"If it's not too late I'll change my mind and subscribe for a copy. Put my name down, please, will you?"
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
"No," she said, "thank you, I'd rather not."
"Why?"
"You don't want the book, I know you don't. You've fed me and done enough for me already; I won't take your money too; I can't!"
Her bosom began to swell tempestuously. He saw by the widened eyes fixed upon the fire that she was struggling not to cry again.
"There," he said gently, "don't break down! Let's talk about something else."
"Oh!"—she sneaked a tear away—"I'm not used ... don't think——"
"No, no," he said, "Iknow,Iunderstand. Poke it for me, will you? let's have a blaze."
She took the poker up, and prolonged the task a minute while she hung her head.
Remarked Kincaid:
"It's awful to be hard up, isn't it? I've been through all the stages; it's abominable!"
"Youhave?"
"Oh yes; I know all about it. So I don't tell you that 'money's the least thing.' Only people who have always had enough say that."
"One wants so little in the world to relieve anxiety," she said; "it does seem cruel that so few can get enough for ease."
"What do you mean by 'ease'?"
"Oh, I should call employment 'ease' now."
"Did you ask for more once, then?"
"Yes, I used to be more foolish. 'Experience teaches fools.'"
"No, it doesn't," said Kincaid. "Experience teaches intelligent people; fools go on blundering to the end. 'Once——?' I interrupted you."
"Well, it used to mean a home of my own, and relations to care for me, and money enough to settle the bills without minding if they came to five shillings more than I had expected. It's a beautiful regulation that the less we have, the less we can manage with. But the horse couldn't live on the one straw."
"How did you come to this?" asked Kincaid; "couldn't you get different work before the last straw?"
"If you knew how I tried! I haven't any friends here; that was my difficulty. I wanted a situation as a companion, but I had to give the idea up at last, and it ended in my going to Pattenden's. Don't think they know! I mean, don't imagine they guess the straits I'm in: that would be unfair. They have been very kind to me."
"You've never been a companion, I suppose?"
"No; but I hoped, for all that. Everything has to be done for the first time; every adept was a novice once.".
"That's true, but there are so many adepts in everything to-day that the novices haven't much chance."
"Then how are they to qualify?"
"That's the novices' affair. You can't expect people to pay incompetence when skilled labour is loafing at the street corners."
"I expect nothing," she answered; "my expectations are all dead and buried. We've only a certain capacity for expectation, I think; under favourable conditions it wears well and we say, 'While there's life there's hope;' but; when it's strained too much, it gives out."
"And you drift without a fight in you?"
"A woman can't do more than fight till she's beaten."
"She shouldn't acknowledge to being beaten."
"Theory!" she said between her teeth; "the breakfast-tray is fact!"
"What do you reckon is going to become of; you?"
"I don't anticipate at all."
"Oh, that's all rubbish! Answer straight!"
"I shall starve, then," she said.
"Sss! You know it?"
"I know it, and I'm resigned to it. If I weren't resigned to it, it would be much harder. There's nothing that can happen to provide for me; there isn't a soul in the world I can—'will,' to be accurate—appeal to for help. You've delayed it a little by your kindness, but you can't prevent its coming. Oh, I've hoped and struggled till I am worn out!" she went on, her; voice shaking. "If there were a prospect, I could rouse myself, weak as I am, to reach it; but there isn't a prospect, not the glimmer of a prospect! I'm not cowardly; I'm only rational. I admit what is; I've finished duping myself."
She could express her despair, this woman; she had education and manner. He contemplated her attentively; she interested him.
"You speak like a fatalist, for all that," he said to her.
"I speak like a woman who has reached the lowest rung of destitution and been fed on charity. I——Oh, don't,don'tkeep forcing me to make a child of myself like this; let me go! Perhaps you're quite right—things 'll improve."
"You shall go presently; not yet—not till I say you may."
There was silence between them once more. He lay back, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser-pockets, and his feet crossed, pondering.
"You weren't brought up to anything, of course?" he said abruptly. "Never been trained to anything? You can't do anything, or make anything, that has any market value?"
"I lived at home."
"And now you're helpless! What rot it is! Why didn't your father teach you to use your hands?"
"I think you said you were a doctor?" she returned, lifting her head.
"Eh? Yes, my name is 'Kincaid.'"
"My father was Dr. Anthony Brettan; he never expected his daughter to be in such want."
"You don't say so—your father was one of us? I'm glad to make your acquaintance. Is it 'Miss Brettan'?"
She nodded, warming with an impulse to go further and cry, "Also I have been a nurse: you are a doctor, can't you get me something to do?" But if she did, he would require corroboration, and, in the absence of her certificate, institute inquiries at the hospital; and then the whisper would circulate that "Brettan was no longer living with her husband"—they would soon ascertain that he had not died—and from that point to the truth would be the veriest step. "Never married at all—the disgrace! Of course, an actor, but fancyher!" She could see their faces, the astonishment of their contempt. Narrow circle as it was, it had been her world—she could not do it!
"But surely, Miss Brettan," he said, "there must be someone who can serve you a little—someone who can put you in the way of an occupation?"
Immediately she regretted having proclaimed so much as she had.
"My father lived very quietly, and socially he was hardly a popular man. For several reasons I wouldn't like my distress to be talked about by people who knew him."
"Those people are your credentials, though," he urged; "you can't afford to turn your back on them. If you'll be guided by advice, you will swallow your pride."
"I couldn't; I made the resolve to stand alone, and I shall stick to it. Besides, you are wrong in supposing that any one of them would exert himself for me to any extent; my father did not have—was not intimate enough with anybody."
A difficult woman to aid, thought Kincaid pityingly. A notion had flashed across his mind, at her reference to the kind of employment she had desired, and the announcement of her parentage was strengthening it; but there must be something to go upon, something more than mere assertion.
"If a post turned up, who is there to speak for you?"
"Messrs. Pattenden; I believe they'd speak for me willingly."
"Anybody else?"
"No; but the manager would see anyone who went to him about me, I'm almost sure."
"You need friends, you know," he said; "you're very awkwardly placed without any."
"Oh, I do know! To have no friends is a crime; one's helpless without them. And a woman's helplessness is the best of reasons why no help should be extended to her. But it sounds a merciless argument, doctor—horribly merciless, at the beginning!"
"It's a merciless life. Look here, Miss Brettan, I don't want to beat about the bush: you're in a beastly hole, and if I can pull you out of it I shall be glad—for your own sake, and for the sake of your dead father. It's like this, though; the only thing I can see my way to involves the comfort of someone else. You were talking about a place as companion; I can't live at home now, and my mother wants one."
"Doctor!"
She caught her breath.
"If I were to take the responsibility of recommending you, it's probable she'd engage you; I think you'd suit her, but——Well, it's rather a large order!"
"Oh, you should never be sorry!" she cried. "You shall never be sorry for trusting me, if you will!"
"You see, it's not easy. It's not usual to go engaging a lady one meets for the first time."
"Why, you wouldn't meet anybody else oftener," she pleaded eagerly; "if you advertised, you'd take the woman after the one interview. You wouldn't exchange a lot of visits and get friendly before you engaged her."
He pulled at his moustache again.
"But of course she wouldn't—wouldn't be starving," she added; "she wouldn't have fainted in your room. It'd be no more judicious, but it would be more conventional."
"You argue neatly," he said with a smile.
The smile encouraged her. She smiled response. He could not smile if he were going to refuse her, she felt.
"Dr. Kincaid——"
"One minute," he said; "I hear someone coming, I think. Excuse me!"
It was Corri; he met him as he turned the handle, and drew him outside.
"There's a woman in there," he said, "and a breakfast-tray. Come down on to the next landing; I want to speak to you."
"What on earth——" said Corri. "Are you giving a party? What do you mean by a woman and a breakfast-tray? Did the woman bring the breakfast-tray?"
"No, she brought a book. It's serious."
They leant over the banisters conferring, while Mary, in the arm-chair, remained trembling with suspense. The vista opened by Kincaid's words had shown her how tenaciously she still clung to life, how passionately she would clutch at a chance of prolonging it. Awhile ago her one prayer had been to die speedily; now, with a possibility of rescue dangled before her eyes, her prayer was only for the possibility to be fulfilled. Would he be satisfied, or would he send her away? Her fate swung on the decision. She did not marvel at the tenacity; it seemed to her so natural that she did not question it at all. Yet it is of all things the oddest—the love of living which the most life-worn preserve in their hearts. Every day they long for sleep, and daily the thought of death alarms them—terrifies their inconsistent souls, though few indeed believe there is a Hell, and everybody who is good enough to believe in Heaven believes also that he is good enough to go to it.
"O God," she whispered, "make him take me! Forgive me what I did; don't let me suffer any more, God! You know how I loved him—how I loved him!"
"Well," said Corri, on the landing, "and what are you going to do?"
"I'm thinking," said Kincaid, "of letting my mother go to see her."
"It's wildly philanthropic, isn't it?"
"It looks wild, of course." He mused a moment. "But, after all, one knows where she comes from; her father was a professional man; she's a lady."
"What was her father's name, again?"
"Brettan—Anthony."
"Ever heard it before?"
"If there wasn't such a person, one can find it out in five minutes. Besides, my mother would have to decide for herself. I should tell her all about it, and if an interview left her content, why——"
"Well," said Corri, "go back to the Bench and sum up! You'll find me on the bed. By the way, if you could hand my pipe out without offending the young lady, I should take it as a favour."
"You've smoked enough. Wait! here's a last cigar; go and console yourself with that!"
Kincaid returned to the room; but he was not prepared to sum up at the moment. Mary looked at him anxiously, striving to divine, by his expression, the result of the consultation on the stairs. The person consulted had been Mr. Corri, she concluded, the man that she had been sent to importune. Old or young? easy-going or morose? On which side had he cast the weight of his opinion—this man that she had never seen?
"We were talking about the companion's place, Miss Brettan," began Kincaid. "Now, what do you say?"
Instantly she glowed with gratitude towards the unknown personage, who, in reality, had done nothing.
"Never should you regret it, Dr. Kincaid, never!"
"Understand, I couldn't guarantee the engagement in any case," he said hastily. "The most I could do would be to mention the matter; the rest would depend on my mother's own feelings."
"I should be just as thankful to you if she objected. Don't think I under-estimate my draw-backs—I know that for you even to consider engaging me is generous. But——Oh, I'd do my best!—I would indeed! The difficulty's as clear to me as to you," she went on rapidly, "I see it every bit as plainly. See it? It has barred me from employment again and again! I'm a stranger, I've no credentials; I can only look you in the face and say: 'I have told you the truth; if I were able to take your advice and pocket my pride, I couldprovethat I have told you the truth,' And what's that?—anybody might say it and be lying! Oh yes, I know! Doctor, my lack of references has made me suspected till I could have cried blood. Doors have been shut against me, not because I was ineligible in myself, but because I was a woman who hadn't had employers to say, 'I found her a satisfactory person.' Things I should have done for have been given to other women because they had 'characters,' and I hadn't. At the beginning I thought my tones would carry conviction—I thought I could say: 'Honestly, this tale is true,' and someone—one in a dozen, perhaps, one in twenty—would be found to believe me. What a mistake, to hope to be believed! Why, in all London, there's no creature so forsaken as a gentleman's daughter without friends. A servant may be taken on trust; an educated woman, never!"
"She may sometimes," said Kincaid. "Hang it! it isn't so bad as all that. What I can do for you I will! Very likely my mother will call on you this afternoon. Where are you staying?"
A hansom had just discharged a fare at one; of the opposite houses, and he hailed it from the window.
"The best thing you can do now is to go home and rest, and try not to worry. Cheer up, and hope for the best, Miss Brettan—care killed a cat!"
She swallowed convulsively.
"That is the address," she said. "God bless you, Dr. Kincaid!"
He led the way down to the passage, and put her into the cab. It was, perhaps, superfluous to show her that he remembered that cabs were beyond her means; yet she might be harassed during the drive by a dread of the man's demand, and he paid him so that she should see.
The occurrence had swelled his catalogue of calls. He told Corri they had better drop in at Guy's, and glance at a medical directory; but in passing a second-hand bookstall they noticed an old copy exposed for sale, and examined that one. He found Anthony Brettan's name in the provincial section with gladness, and remarked, moreover, that Brettan had been a student of his own college.
"'Brettan' is going up!" he observed cheerfully. "Now step it, my son!"
Mary's arrival at the lodging was an event of local interest. Mrs. Shuttleworth, who stood at the door conversing with a neighbour, watched her descent agape. Two children playing on the pavement suspended their game. She told Mrs. Shuttleworth that a lady might ask for her during the day, and, mounting to the garret, shut herself in to wrestle unsuccessfully with her fears of being refused, or forgotten altogether. Would this mother come or not? If not—she shivered; she had been so near to ignominious death that the smell of it had reached her nostrils—if not, the devilish gnawing would be back again directly, and the faint sick craving would follow it; and then there would be a fading of consciousness for the last time, and they would talk about her as "it" and be afraid.
But the mother did come. It seemed so wonderful that, even when she sat beside her in the attic, and everything was progressing favourably, Mary could scarcely realise that it was true. She came, and the engagement was made. There are some women who are essentially women's women; Mary was one of them. Mrs. Kincaid, who came already interested, sure that her Philip could make no mistake and wishful to be satisfied, was charmed with her. The pleading tones, the repose of manner, the—for so she described it later—"Madonna face," if they did not go "straight to her heart," mightily pleased her fancy. And of course Mary liked her; what more natural? She was gentle of voice, she had the softest blue eyes that ever beamed mildly under white hair, and—culminating attraction—she obviously liked Mary.
"I'm a lonely old woman now my son's been appointed medical officer at the hospital," she said. "It'll be very quiet for you, but you'll bear that, won't you? I do think you'll be comfortable with me, and I'm sure I shall want to keep you."
"Quiet for me!" said Mary. "Oh, Mrs. Kincaid, you speak as if you were asking a favour of me, but your son must have told you that—what——I suppose he saved my life!"
"That's his profession," answered the old lady brightly; "that's what he had to learn to do."
"Ah, but not with hot breakfasts," Mary smiled. "I accept your offer gratefully; I'll come as soon as you like."
"Can you manage to go back with us the day after to-morrow? Don't if it inconveniences you; but if you can be ready——"
"I can; I shall be quite ready."
"Good girl!" said Mrs. Kincaid. "Now you must let me advance you a small sum, or—I daresay you have things to get—perhaps we had better make it this! There, there! it's your own money, not a present; there's nothing to thank me for. Good-afternoon, Miss Brettan; I will write letting you know the train."
"This" was a five-pound note. When she was alone again Mary picked it up, and smoothed it out, and quivered at the crackle. These heavenly people! their tenderness, their consideration! Oh, how beautiful it would be if they knew all about her and there were no reservations! She did wish she could have, revealed all to them—they had been so nice and kind.
She sought the landlady and paid her debt—the delight she felt in paying her debt!—and said that she would be giving up her room after the next night. She went forth to a little foreign restaurant in Gray's Inn Road, where she dined wholesomely and well, treating herself to cutlets, bread-crumbed and brown, and bordered with tomatoes, to pudding and gruyere, and a cup of black coffee, all for eighteenpence, after tipping the waiter. She returned to the attic—glorified attic! it would never appal her any more—and abandoned herself to meditating upon the "things." There was this, and there was that, and there was the other. Yes, and she must have a box! She would have had her initials painted on the box, only the paint would look so curiously new. Should she have her initials on it? No, she decided that she would not. Then there were her watch, and the bag to be redeemed at the pawnbroker's, and she must say good-bye to Mr. Collins. What a busy day would be the morrow! what a dawn of new hope, new peace, new life! Her anxieties were left behind; before her lay shelter and rest. Yet on a sudden the pleasure faded from her features, and her lips twitched painfully.
"Tony!" she murmured.
She stood still where she had risen. A sob, a second sob, a torrent of tears. She was on her knees beside the bed, gasping, shuddering, crying out on God and him:
"O Tony, Tony, Tony!"
The sun shone bright when she met Mrs. Kincaid at Euston. The doctor was there, lounging loose-limbed and bony, by his mother's side. He shook Mary's hand and remarked that it was a nice day for travelling. She had been intending to say something grateful on greeting him, but his manner did not invite it, so she tried to throw her thanks into a look instead. She suffered at first from slight embarrassment, not knowing if she should take her own ticket, nor what assistance was expected of a companion at a railway-station. Perhaps she ought to select the compartment, and superintend the labelling of the luggage? Fortunately the luggage was not heavy, her own being by far the larger portion; and the tickets, she learnt directly, he had already got.
Her employer lived in Westport, a town that Mary had never visited, and a little conversation arose from her questions about it. She did not say much—she spoke very diffidently, in fact; the consciousness that she was being paid to talk and be entertaining weighted her tongue. She was relieved when, shortly after they started, Mrs. Kincaid imitated her son's example, who lay back in his corner with his face hidden behindThe Lancet.
They travelled second class, and it was not till a stoppage occurred at some junction that their privacy was invaded. Then a large woman, oppressed by packages and baskets, entered; and, as the new-comer belonged to the category of persons who regard a railway journey as a heaven-sent opportunity to eat an extra meal, her feats with sandwiches had a fascination that rivalled the interest of the landscape.
Of course, three hours later, when the train reached Westport, Mary felt elated. Of course she gazed eagerly from the platform over the prospect. It was new and pleasant and refreshing. There was a little winding road with white palings, and a cottage with a red roof. A bell tolled softly across the meadows, and somebody standing near her said he supposed "that was for five o'clock service." To have exchanged the jostle of London for a place where people had time to remember service on a week-day, to be able to catch the chirp of the birds between the roll of the wheels, was immediately exhilarating. Then, too, as they drove to the house she scented in the air the freshness of tar that bespoke proximity to the sea. Her bosom lifted. "The blessed peace of it all!" she thought; "how happy I ought to be!"
But she was not happy. That first evening there came to her the soreness and sickness of recollection. She was left alone with Mrs. Kincaid, and in the twilight they sat in the pretty little parlour, chatting fitfully. How different was this arrival from those that she was used to! No unpacking of photographs; no landlady to chatter of the doings of last week's company; no stroll after tea with Tony just to see where the theatre was. How funny! She said "how funny!" but presently she meant "how painful!" And then it came upon her as a shock that the old life was going on still without her. Photographs were still being unpacked and set forth on mantelpieces; landladies still waxed garrulous of last week's business; Tony was still strolling about the towns on Sunday evenings, as he had done when she was with him. And he was going to be Miss Westland's husband, whileshewas here! How hideous, how frightful and unreal, it seemed!
She got up, and went over to the flower-stand in the window.
"Are you tired, Miss Brettan? Perhaps you would like to go to your room early to-night?"
"No," she said, "thank you; I'm afraid I feel a trifle strange as yet, that's all."
At the opposite corner was a hoarding, and a comic-opera poster shone among the local shopkeepers' advertisements. The sudden sight of theatrical printing was like a welcome to her; she stood looking at it, thrilling at it, with the past alive and warm again in her heart.
"You'll soon feel at home," Mrs. Kincaid said after a pause; "I'm sure I can understand your finding it rather uncomfortable at first."
"Oh, not uncomfortable," Mary explained quickly; "it is queer a little, just that! I mean, I don't know what I ought to do, and I'm afraid of seeming inattentive. What is a companion's work, Mrs. Kincaid?"
"Well, I've never had one," the old lady said with a laugh. "I think you and I will get on best, do you know, if we forget you've come as companion—if you talk when you like, and keep quiet when you like. You see, it is literally a companion I want, not somebody to ring the bell for me, and order the dinner, and make herself useful. This isn't a big house, and I'm not a fashionable person; I want a woman who'll keep me from moping, and be nice."
Her answer expressed her requirements, and Mary found little expected of her in return for the salary; so little that she wondered sometimes if she earned it, small as it was. Excepting that she was continually conscious that she must never be out of temper, and was frequently obliged to read aloud when she would rather have sat in reverie, she was practically her own mistress. Even, as the days went by she found herself giving utterance to a thought as it came to her, without pausing to conjecture its reception; speaking with the spontaneity which, with the paid companion, is the last thing to be acquired.
Few pleasures are shorter-lived than the one of being restored to enough to eat; and in a week her sense of novelty had almost worn away. They walked together; sometimes to the sea, but more often in the town, for the approach to the sea tired Mrs. Kincaid. Westport was not a popular watering-place; and in the summer Mary discovered that the population of fifty thousand was not very greatly increased. From Laburnum Lodge it took nearly twenty minutes to reach the shore, and a hill had to be climbed. At the top of the incline the better-class houses came to an end; and after some scattered cottages, an expanse of ragged grass, with a bench or two, sloped to the beach. Despite its bareness, Mary thought the spot delightful; its quietude appealed to her. She often wished that she could go there by herself.
Of the doctor they saw but little. Now and again he came round for an hour or so, and at first she absented herself on these occasions. But Mrs. Kincaid commented on her retirement and said it was unnecessary; and thenceforward she remained.
She did not chance to be out alone until she had been here nearly three months; and when Mrs. Kincaid inquired one afternoon if she would mind choosing a novel at the circulating library for her she went forth gladly. A desire to seeThe Eraand ascertain Carew's whereabouts, had grown too strong to be subdued.
She crossed the interlying churchyard, and made her way along the High Street impatiently; and, reaching the railway bookstall, bought a copy of the current issue. It was with difficulty she restrained herself from opening it on the platform, but she waited until she had turned down the little lane at the station's side, and reached the gate where the coal-trucks came to an end and a patch of green began. She doubted whether the company would be touring so long, but the paper would tell her something of his doings anyhow. She ran her eye eagerly down the titles headed "On the Road." No,The Foiblesevidently was not out now. Had the tour broken up for good, she wondered, or was there merely a vacation? She could quickly learn by Tony's professional card. How well she knew the sheet! The sheet! she knew the column, its very number in the column—knew it followed "Farrell" and came before "de Vigne." She even recalled the week when he had abandoned the cheaper advertisements in alphabetical order; he had been cast for a part in a production. She remembered she had said,
"Now you're going to create," and, laughing, he had answered, "Oh, I must have half a crown's worth 'to create'!" He had been lying on the sofa—how it all came back to her! What was he doing now? She found the place in an instant:
"MR. SEATON CAREW,RESTING,Assumes direction of Miss Olive Westland's Tour, Aug. 4th.See 'Companies' page."
They were married! She could not doubt it. "Oh," she muttered, "how he has walked over me, that man! For the sake of two or three thousand pounds, just for the sake of her money!" She sought weakly for the company advertisement referred to, but the paragraphs swam together, and it was several minutes before she could find it. Yes, here it was: "The Foibles of Fashionand Répertoire, opening August 4th."Camille, eh? She laughed bitterly. He was going to play Armand; he had always wanted to play Armand; now he could do it! "Under the direction of Mr. Seaton Carew. Artists respectfully informed the company is complete. All communications to be addressed: Mr. Seaton, Carew, Bath Hotel, Bournemouth." Oh, my God!
To think that while she had been starving in that attic he had proceeded with his courtship, to reflect that in one of those terrible hours that she had passed through he must have been dressing himself for his wedding, wrung her heart. And now, while she stood here, he was calling the other woman "Olive," and kissing her. She gripped the bar with both hands, her breast heaved tumultuously; it seemed to her that her punishment was more than she had power to bear. Wasn't his sin worse than her own? she questioned; yet what price would he ever be called upon to pay for it? At most, perhaps, occasional discontent! Nobody would-blame him a bit; his offence was condoned already by a decent woman's hand. In the wife's eyes she, Mary, was of course an adventuress who had turned his weakness to account until the heroine appeared on the scene to reclaim him. How easy it was to be the heroine when one had a few thousand pounds to offer for a wedding-ring!
She let the paper lie where it had fallen, and went to the library. In leaving it she met Kincaid on his way to the Lodge. He was rather glad of the meeting, the man to whom women had been only patients; he had felt once or twice of late that it was agreeable to talk to Miss Brettan.
"Hallo," he said, in that voice of his that had so few inflexions; "what have you been doing? Going home?"
"I've been to get a book for Mrs. Kincaid," she answered. "She was hoping you'd come round to-day."
"I meant to come yesterday. Well, how are you getting on? Still satisfied with Westport? Not beginning to tire of it yet?"
"I like it very much," she said, "naturally. It's a great change from my life three months ago; I shouldn't be very grateful if I weren't satisfied."
"That's all right. Your coming was a good thing; my mother was saying the other evening it was a slice of luck."
"Oh, I'm so glad! I have wanted to know whether I—did!"
"You 'do' uncommonly; I haven't seen her so content for a long while. You don't look very bright; d'ye feel well?"
"It's the heat," she said; "yes, I'm quite well, thank you; I have a headache this afternoon, that's all."
She was wondering if her path and Carew's would ever cross again. How horrible if chance brought him to the theatre here and she came face to face with him in the High Street!
"Hasn't my mother been out to-day herself? She ought to make the most of the fine weather."
"I left her in the garden; I think she likes that better than taking walks."
And it might happen so easily! she reflected. Why notthatcompany, among the many companies that came to Westport? She'd be frightened to leave the house.
"I suppose when you first heard there was a garden you expected to see apple-trees and strawberry-beds, didn't you?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's not a bad little garden. We had tea in it last night."
She might be walking with Mrs. Kincaid, and Tony and his wife would come suddenly round a corner. And "Miss Westland" would look contemptuous, and Tony would start, and—and if she turned white, she'd loathe herself!
"Did you? You must enliven the old lady? a good deal if she goes in for that sort of thing!"
"Oh, it was stuffy indoors, and we thought that tea outside would be nicer. I daresay I'm better than no one; it must have been rather dull for her alone."
"Is that the most you find to say of yourself—'better than no one'?"
"Well, I haven't high spirits; some women are always laughing. We sit and read, or do needlework; or she talks about you, and——"
"And you're bored? That's a mother's privilege, you know, to bore everybody about her son; you mustn't be hard on her."
"I am interested; I think it's always interesting to hear of a man's work in a profession. And, then, Medicine was my father's."
"Were you the only child?"
"Yes. I wasn't much of a child, though! My mother died when I was very young, and I was taught a lot through that. The practice wasn't very good—very remunerative, that's to say—and if a girl's father isn't well off she becomes a woman early. If I had had a brother now——"
"If you had had a brother—what?"
"I was thinking it might have vmade a difference. Nothing particular. I don't suppose he'd have been of any monetary assistance; there wouldn't have been anything to give him a start with. But I should have liked a brother—one older than I am."
"You'd have made the right kind of man of him, I believe."
"I was thinking of what he'd have made of me. A brother must be such a help; a boy gets experience, and a girl has only instinct."
"It's a pretty good thing to go on with."
"It needs education, doctor, surely?"
"It needs educating by a mother. Half the women who have children are no more fit to be mothers than——And one comes across old maids with just the qualities! Fine material allowed to waste!"
The entrance to a cottage that they were passing stood open, and she could see into the parlour. There were teacups on the table, and a mug of wild flowers. On a garden-gate a child in a pink pinafore was slowly swinging. The brilliance of the day had subsided, and the town lay soft and yellow in the restfulness of sunset. A certain liquidity was assumed by the rugged street in the haze that hung over it; a touch of transparence gilded its flights of steps, the tiles of the house-tops, and the homely faces of the fisher-folk where they loitered before their doors. There a girl sat netting among the hollyhocks, withholding confession from the youth who lounged beside her, yet lifting at times to him a smile that had not been wakened by the net. The melody of the hour intensified the discord in the woman's soul.
"Don't you think——" said Kincaid.
He turned to her, strolling with his hands behind him. He talked to her, and she answered him, until they reached the house.
Slowly there stole into Kincaid's life a new zest. He began to be more eager to walk round to the Lodge; was often reluctant to rise and say "good-night"; even found the picture of the little lamplit room lingering with him after the front door had closed. Formerly the visits had been rather colourless. Despite her affection for her son, Mrs. Kincaid was but tepidly interested in the career that engrossed him. She was vaguely proud to have a doctor for a son, but she felt that his profession supplied them with little to talk about when he came; and the man felt that his mother's inquiries about his work were perfunctory. A third voice had done much for the visits, quickened the accustomed questions, the stereotyped replies into the vitality of conversation.
Kincaid did not fail to give Miss Brettan credit for the brighter atmosphere of the villa. But winter was at hand before he admitted that much of the pleasure that he took in going there was inspired by a hearty approval of Miss Brettan. The cosiness of the room, with two women smiling at him when he entered—always with a little, surprise, for the time of his coming was uncertain—and getting things for him, and being sorry when he had to leave had had a charm that he did not analyse. It was by degrees that he realised how many of his opinions were directed to her. His one friendship hitherto had been for Corri; and Corri was not here. The months when his cordial liking for Mary was clear to him, and possessed of a fascination due very largely to its unexpectedness, were perhaps the happiest that he had known.
The development was not so happy; but it was fortunately slow. He had gone to the house earlier than usual, and the women were preparing for a walk. Mary stood by the mantelpiece. There was something they had meant to do; she said she would go alone to do it. He lay back in the depths of an arm-chair, and watched her while she spoke to his mother, watched the play of her features and the quick turn of her cheek. Then—it was the least significant of trivialities—she plucked a hairpin from her hair, and began to button her glove. It was revealed to him as he contemplated her that she was eminently lovable. His eyes dwelt on the tender curve of her figure, displayed by the flexion of her arm; he remarked the bend of the head, and the delicate modelling of her ear and neck. These things were quite new to him. He was stirred abruptly by the magic of her sex. The admiration did not last ten seconds, and before he saw her again he recollected it only once, quite suddenly. But the development had begun.
In his next visit he looked to see these beauties, and found them. This time, being voluntary, the admiration lasted longer. It was recurrent all the evening. He discovered a novel excellence in her performance of the simplest acts, and an additional enjoyment in talking with her.
Thoughts of her came to him now while he sat at night in his room. The bare little room witnessed all the phases of the man's love—its brightness, and then its misgivings. He had no confidant to prose to; he could never have spoken of the strange thing that had happened to him, if he had had a confidant. He used to sit alone and think of her, wondering if God would put it into her heart to care for him, wondering in all humility if it could be ordained that he should ever hold this dear woman in his arms and call her "wife."
He would not be in a position to give her luxury, and for a couple of years certainly he could not marry at all; but he believed primarily that he could at least make her content; and in reflecting what she would make of life for him, he smiled. The salary that he drew from his post was not a very large one, but his mother's means sufficed for her requirements, and he was able to lay almost the whole of it aside. He thought that when a couple of years had gone by, he would be justified in furnishing a small house, and that he might reasonably expect, through the introductions procured by his appointment, to establish a practice. It would be rather pinched for them at first, of course, but she wouldn't mind that much if she were fond of him. "Fond" of him! Could it be possible? he asked himself—Miss Brettan fond of him! She was so composed, so quiet, she seemed such a long way off now that he wanted her for his own. Would it really ever happen that the woman whose hand had merely touched him in courtesy would one day be uttering words of love for him and saying "my husband"?
He wrestled long with his tenderness; the misgivings came quickly. After all, she was comfortable as she was—she was provided for, she had no pecuniary cares here. Had he the right to beg her to relinquish this comparative ease and struggle by his side oppressed by the worries of a precarious income? Then he told himself that they might take in patients: that would augment the income. And she was a dependant now; if she married him she would be her own mistress.
He weighed all the pros and cons; he was no boy to call the recklessness of self-indulgence the splendour of devotion. He balanced the arguments on either side long and carefully. If he asked her to come to him, it should be with the conviction he was doing her no wrong. He saw how easy it would be to deceive himself, to feel persuaded that the fact of her being in a situation made matrimony an advance to her, whether she married well or ill. He would not act impatiently and perhaps spoil her life. But he was very impatient. Through months he used to come away from the Lodge striving to discern importance in some answer she had made him, some question she had put to him. It appeared to him that he had loved her much longer than he had; and he had made no progress. There were moments when he upbraided himself for being clumsy and stupid; some men in his place, he thought, would have divined long ago what her feelings were.
He never queried the wisdom of marrying her on his own account; the privilege of cherishing her in health and nursing her in sickness, of having her head pillowed on his breast, and confiding his hopes to her sympathy; of going through life with her in a union in which she would give to him all her sacred and withheld identity, looked to him a joy for which he could never be less than intensely grateful while life endured. He ceased to marvel at the birth of his love, it looked natural now; she seemed to belong to Westport so wholly by this time. He no longer contrasted the present atmosphere of the villa with the duller atmosphere that she had banished. He had forgotten that duller atmosphere. She was there—it was as if she had always been there. To reflect that there had been a period when he had known no Mary Brettan was strange. He wondered that he had not felt the want of her. The day that he had met her in Corri's office appeared to him dim in the mists of at least five years. The exterior of the man, and the yearnings within him—Kincaid as he knew himself, and the doctor as he was known to the hospital—were so at variance that the incongruity would have been ludicrous if it had not been beautiful.
When Mary saw that he had begun to care for her, it was with the greatest tremor of insecurity that she had experienced since the date of her arrival. She had foretasted many disasters in the interval, been harassed by many fears, but that Dr. Kincaid might fall in love with her was a contingency that had never entered her head. It was so utterly unexpected that for a week she had discredited the evidence of her senses, and when the truth was too palpable to be blinked any longer, her remaining hope was that he might decide never to speak. Here the meditations of the man and the woman were concerned with the same theme—both revolved the claims of silence; but from different standpoints. His consideration was whether avowal was unjust to her; she sustained herself by attributing to him a reluctance to commit himself to a woman of whom he knew so little. She clung to this haven that she had found; her refusal, if indeed he did propose to her, would surely necessitate her relinquishing it. Mrs. Kincaid might not desire to see her companion marry her son, but still less would she desire to retain a companion who had rejected him. It had been as peaceful here as any place could be for her now, felt Mary; the thought of being driven forth to do battle with the world again terrified her. She wondered if Mrs. Kincaid had "noticed anything"; it was hard to believe she could have avoided it; but she had evinced no sign of suspicion: her manner was the same as usual.
With the complication that had arisen to disturb her, the woman perceived how prematurely old she was. Her courage had all gone, she told herself; she said she had passed the capability for any sustained effort; and it was a fact that the uneventful tenor of the life that she had been leading, congenial because it demanded no energy, had done much to render her lassitude permanent. Her pain, the rawness of it, had dulled—she could touch the wound now without writhing; but it had left her wearied unto death. To attempt to forget had been beyond her; recollection continued to be her secret luxury; and the inertia permitted by her position lent itself so thoroughly to a dual existence that, to her own mind, she often seemed to be living more acutely in her reminiscences than in her intercourse with her employer.
From the commencement of the tour, which had started in the autumn of the preceding year, she had kept herself posted in Carew's movements as regularly as was practicable. It was frequently very difficult for her to gain access to a theatrical paper; but generally she contrived to see one somehow, if not on the day that it reached the town, then later. She knew what parts he played, and where he played them. It was a morbid fascination, but to be able to see his name mentioned nearly every week made her glad that he was an actor. If he could have gone abroad or died, without her being aware of it, she thought her situation would have been too hideous for words. To steal that weekly glimpse of the paper was her weekly flicker of sensation; sometimes the past seemed to stir again; momentarily she was in the old surroundings.