‘If it is an explanation you want,’ said Millicent, ‘it will not be difficult to bring that about,—now;’ and the blood rushed to her face, and her heart began to beat. Not because she loved Ben. It was a different feeling that moved her. The object for which she had been trained, the aim of her life, had come so near to her,—in a day, in an hour, in a few minutes more, if it came to that, she might be a changed creature, with all that was wretched banished from her, and all that was good made possible. She might be, instead of a poor girl, immersed in all the shameful shifts of dishonest poverty, a rich man’s bride, fearing no demand, above all tricks, with honourable plenty in her hands and about her. What a change it would be! The chance of leaping at one step from misery to wealth, from destitution to luxury, has always a more or less demoralising effect when held steadily before human eyes, and this chance had always been put foremost in those of Millicent Tracy. Nobody had ever dreamed of work for her, or honest earning. She was to win wildly the prize of wealth out of the very depths of abject poverty. Hers was not the extraordinary nobility of character which could resist the influences of such training. She was demoralised by it. Ben Renton was to her a prize in the lottery which she might win and be rich and splendid and exalted for ever,—or which she might lose in mortification and deepest downfall. It was this which flushed her cheek and made her heart beat. Not because he was a man who loved her. And yet something not mercenary, something like nature, had been in the vague intercourse between the two,—the man’s advances, the woman’s retreat from them andinterest in them. Alas! Millicent had been wooed, and had done her best to attract and fascinate before. It was a trade to her. She lighted up into a gambler’s flush of excitement now when the crisis was so near.
‘Then let it come,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘it is time after six months of nonsense. I never knew a young man before who would be kept off and on so long, living in such a hole, out of those lovely rooms. And, by-the-bye, I wonder why he wants to sell those sweet cabinets. Getting rid of his chambers one can understand. Perhaps it is for some racing debt or something; but he must not be allowed to do it. If the family should make themselves disagreeable, Millicent, I hope I can trust to your good sense. Of course they must come round in the end.’
‘You may trust me, mamma,’ said Millicent, with a smile; and her mother came round to her and kissed her, as she might have kissed her had she been on her way to draw the fateful ticket at a lottery.
‘Now, mind you have your wits about you,’ Mrs. Tracy said.
It was the afternoon of a spring day, rather cold but bright, and a remnant of dusty fire, half choked with ashes, was in the grate. Millicent trembled as she sat in her favourite place by the window, chiefly with cold,—for she was very susceptible to discomfort,—and a little with excitement. When her mother left her, she let her work fall on her lap, and felt, as many a woman of truer heart has felt, the very airrustling and whispering in her ears with excess of stillness, as if a hundred unseen spectators were pressing round to look on. He would come, and she would listen to him and lead him on, and the step would be taken;—the immense, unspeakable change would be made. A curious medley of thoughts was in the young woman’s mind,—not all of them bad or unnatural thoughts. She would be grateful to the man who changed her life for her so completely. She would be kind to the poor,—those poor, struggling, shifting, miserable creatures upon whom already she felt herself entitled to look with pity. She would be very fine and grand, and deck her beauty with every adornment, and win admiration on every side; and yet she would be good at the same time. She would be good,—that she determined upon. And poor Fitz, if he had but been less impatient! if he had but lived to see this day! Thus she sat awaiting her lover. Poor, polluted, and yet unawakened virgin soul, knowing nothing about love!
The mother for her part put on her bonnet,—not without a keen momentary observation that the crape was beginning to be rusty,—and drew her shawl slowly round her shoulders. She had been a handsome woman in her day, and with her rusty crape still looked more imposing than many a silken fine lady. With a thrill of excitement, too, she took her way down-stairs, with more sordid thoughts than those of her child. She was thinking, also, whichwould be best for herself,—to live with them and share their grandeur, or to secure a certainty for herself from the bridegroom’s liberality. There are women ignoble enough to act as Mrs. Tracy was doing, and still with so much divinity in them as to be willing to disappear, or die, or obliterate themselves when the daughter for whom they laboured has won her prize. But Millicent’s mother had not even this virtue. She was drawing her ticket by her child’s hand;—which would be most comfortable, she was thinking; and it was in the very midst of this thought that she contrived to brush past Ben, who was lingering at the door of his room, hoping to see something of his neighbours.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Renton,’ she said. ‘I did not see you were there. Not out this lovely afternoon? It is the old people who are active now; you young ones are all alike, dreaming and building castles, I suppose. Millicent stays up-stairs all by herself, instead of coming out with me. But indeed she is dull, poor child. An old woman, even when it is her mother, is poor company for a young girl.’
‘I am sure she does not think so,’ said Ben, to whom Millicent was half divine.
‘No, I am sure she does not think so,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘she is such a good child. But you may run up and talk to her for half-an-hour, and cheer her up while I am gone. There are not many gentlemen I would say as much to,’ she added playfully. Herplayful speeches were not very successful generally, but Ben was no critic at that moment. His eyes blazed up with sudden fire. He took her hand, and would have kissed it, so much was he touched by this mark of confidence, but Mrs. Tracy knew there were holes in her glove, and drew it back.
‘May I?’ he said. ‘How good you are to me!’ and had rushed up-stairs before she had time to draw breath. She turned round, looking after him, with a certain grim satisfaction on her handsome worn face.
‘That is all safe,’ she said to herself with a little sigh of relief; and went out philosophically to let the crisis enact itself, and buy a little lobster for Millicent’s supper, by way of reward to her fortunate child.
Benrushed up the narrow stairs three steps at a time, while Millicent sat listening with her heart beating against her breast. If he had known the flutter it was making, how glad, how hopeful, how proud the poor young fool would have been! And it was all for him. A sudden hush fell upon him as he went in at the sacred door. Such a privilege had never been accorded him before. He had sat with Millicent by her mother’s side; he had spoken to her even while Mrs. Tracy went about from one occupation to another, leaving them virtually alone; but to have her all to himself for,—how long?—a year,—half an hour,—a splendid moment detached from ordinary calculations of time! His eagerness died into the stillness of passion as he went in. She did not get up from her seat, but greeted him with a little touch of her lovely hand, with a subdued gracious smile. If it could be possible that she was a little moved by it,—a little breathless, too! He came and sat down opposite the window, as near heras he dared;—his eyes now shining, poor fellow! and great waves of colour passing over his face.
‘Your mother said I might come,’ he faltered, with the very imbecility of blessedness. And Millicent nodded her beautiful head kindly at him again.
‘Mamma thought I would be lonely,’ she said. ‘Poor dear mamma! she thinks too much of me.’
‘That is not possible,’ said Ben. ‘And,—how could she think of anything else? Ah, if you would but let me try to amuse you a little! You are so young,—so——; I envy your brother,’ said the lover, growing red, ‘when I see how you give him all your thoughts.’
‘Not all,’ said Millicent, ‘oh, indeed, not all! Poor Fitzgerald! But we have so many things to think of. There is no more amusement for poor mamma and me.’
‘Amusement is a poor sort of thing,’ said Ben. ‘You don’t think I meant balls and operas? I am not such a wretched fellow as that. What I meant was, if—if you would but try to look round you, and see that there are others in the world——’ here he made a pause, half out of awe of the words that were on his lips, half with a lover’s device to fix her attention upon them, half because of the grasp of passion upon himself which impeded his breathing and his voice,—‘who love you,’ said Ben at last, abruptly, ‘as well,—ten thousand times better than any brother in the world.’
He was not thinking of Hamlet,—but passion is something like genius, and finds a similar expression now and then in very absence of all thought.
‘Ah, Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, ‘you must not say those sort of things to me. Poor, dear Fitzgerald was not so very fond of me. Some women get loved like that, but I don’t think I am one of them. Hush now! If you are going to speak nonsense I must send you away.’
‘It is no nonsense,’ said Ben. ‘If you could but have seen my heart all the time I have been here! It has had no thought but one. I know I am a fool to say so,—if I were a prince instead of a disinherited knight—— ’
‘Disinherited?’ said Millicent, losing in a moment the soft droop of her hand, the soft fall of her eyelids,—all those tender indications of a modest emotion,—sitting bolt upright and looking him straight in the face. ‘Mr. Renton, what do you mean?’
The suddenness of the change gave him a certain thrill. He did not understand it, nor had he time at such a moment to pause and ask himself what it meant. He felt the jar all over him, but went on all the same. ‘Yes, I am disinherited,’ he said, leaning over her, meeting her startled glance with eyes full of such a real and fiery glow of passion as struck her dumb. ‘If it had not been so, could I have borne to keep silent all this time and never say a word to you? I am a wretch to say anything now. I have been afool to come here. Now I think of it, I have no right to any answer. I have nothing—nothing to offer. But, Millicent, let me tell you,—don’t deny me that,—this once!’
‘Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, ‘I do not know what you have to tell me. It is so strange, all this. And I have been thinking all the time you were—— Never mind speaking to me about myself; that does not interest me. Tell me about this.’
‘I will tell you everything,’ said Ben, ‘and then you will give me my sentence,—death or life,—that is what it will be. Don’t take up your work. Oh, how can you be so calm, you women? Cannot you see what it is to me;—death or life?’
Millicent looked up at him, dropping her work hesitatingly on her knee. When he met that glance, the blue eyes looked so wondering, so wistful, so innocent, that poor Ben in his madness got down on his knees and kissed the hand that lay in her lap and the muslin that surrounded it, and cried out, with a kind of sweet heart-break;—‘Yes, it is right you should be calm; I love you best so. For me, the earth and the passions; for you, heaven. I agree,—that is what God must have meant.’
With a deeper wonder still,—a real wonder,—that made her face angelic, Millicent listened, and felt the hot lips touch her hand. What did the madman mean? What was he agreeing to and approving? Had he found her out? Was he mockingher? She was so bewildered that she said nothing; and she was touched, too, at her heart. She had an impulse to lay her other hand on his head, and smooth down the curls upon it with a touch of natural kindness and pity. Poor boy! whose head was all running on wild nonsense, and who could not understand the nature of her thoughts. ‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with a little tremble in her voice, which was not affected,—‘I am alone. Whatever you have to say to me it must not be said in this way.’
He rose up abashed and penitent, poor fellow! feeling the serene, fair creature worlds above him; and yet taking courage because of that little shake in her voice. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, with broken words,—‘I did not know any better. I thought on my knees was the most natural way. But I see. A man goes on his knees to the woman that loves him; but I—— only love you.’
And then he stood away from her and gazed at her, looking down from his height on her low seat, her drooping head, with such humility and splendour of devotion, that poor Millicent was dazzled. Men had told her this same thing before, but never in this way. Somehow it made her shrink a little, and feel a certain shame. Not good enough to go on his knees to her, he thought;—and yet, oh, so much more innocent, so much purer and better than she! Such an extraordinary scene had never occurred toher before; and in face of the unknown being standing before her, all her experience failed, and she could not tell what to do. ‘Don’t speak like that,’ she said, half peevishly, in her discomfiture. ‘I am not a queen, nor Una, nor anything of the kind; and you are not King Arthur, that I know of. Come and sit down by me as you were before, and tell me about yourself. That is much more interesting. I do not believe you are disinherited. Come and tell me what you mean.’
After a moment Ben obeyed. He was nearer to her so; and she sat and gazed up at him, with heartfelt interest, which made him flush all over with a warm thrill of happiness. She gave all her attention to his story. He told her everything, watching the fluctuations, the shades of surprise, of sympathy, of something else which he could not divine, on her face. Once she put out her hand to him with a momentary compassionate impulse. She was deeply interested; there was no fiction in that. She was still more deeply disappointed,—sorry for herself, sorry for him. And Ben thought it was all for him. When she took her hand back again, away from him, and sighed, and suffered the cloud to fall over her face, his heart began to ache for her; for her, not for himself. He had roused her sympathy too far;—he had given her pain.
‘Don’t be so sorry for me,’ he said, with his lip quivering, ‘or you will make me too happy. Whatdo I mind if you care? I am young enough to make a way for myself,—and, Millicent, for you too,—if——’ cried the young man, drawing closer to her. What could she do with such a passionate suitor? Perhaps she was not so sensitive to avoid the touch, the close approach, the almost embrace of the man she could not accept, as a more innocent girl would have been; though, indeed, there was not a touch of the wanton in her, poor girl! She was an adventuress and mercenary;—that was all.
‘Oh, Mr. Renton, don’t speak so!’ she said, ‘you don’t know what you are saying. Though I am a woman I know the world better than you do. It is very, very hard to make your way. Look at poor Fitzgerald. And when you have tied a burden round your neck to begin with! Ah, no; you must not talk of this any more.’
‘Burden!’ cried Ben, all glowing and brightening. ‘I like that! Divine cordial, you mean;—elixir of life, to make a man twice as strong, twice as able. Ah, look here, Millicent—you said round my neck!’
‘I said nonsense,’ she said, withdrawing from him; ‘and so do you. Double nonsense,—folly! What could we two do together? I did not know about this, or that your father was dead, or anything. Don’t look so wondering at me. What had I to do with it? Mr. Renton, I have not been brought up rich like you. I know what the world is,and bitter, bitter poverty. Oh, how bitter it is! You are playing at being poor; but if you should ever be put to such shifts as some people are;—if you should have to fly and hide yourself for the want of a little money;—if you had to live hard, and be shabby, and not very honest—— Oh, don’t speak to me!’ cried Millicent, turning away from him, and bursting into uncontrollable tears. She was angry, and her heart was sore; she had seemed so near comfort, and prosperity, and happiness. ‘Even I could have been fond of him!’ she said to herself, bitterly. And now he could tell her calmly that he was disinherited! Such a disappointment after such a delicious sense of security was more than Millicent could bear. She could govern herself, as a man guides a horse, when she chose; but when she did not choose, her self-abandonment was absolute. Since he was to be good for nothing to her, she cared no longer for what Ben Renton might think. She thrust her pretty shoulders up, and turned from him and cried. She was sick with disappointment. And it was her way not to care for appearances except when they were of use, which they could no longer be here.
As for Ben, he sat looking on with a consternation and amazement not to be described. He grew sick, too, and faint, and giddy with the great downfall. But he was no more able to understand her now than she had been to understand him a little while before.For some minutes he only gazed at her, his own eyes brimming over with remorse,—for was it not he who had driven her to tears? And he felt for her the tenderest longing and pity. He wanted to take her into his arms to comfort her; and would not, being too reverent to take such advantage of her distress. But he could not sit still and look on. He got up and went away to the other end of the room, shaking the whole house with his agitated steps. Then he came and knelt down before her, and touched softly the hands that covered her face.
‘Oh, Millicent,’ he cried, ‘don’t break my heart! I would rather have died than deceived you. Tell me what is the matter. Tell me what I can do. I will do anything in the world you please. It cannot be you who are poor. You ought to have everything. Oh, Millicent, say one word to me if you do not mean to break my heart!’
‘It would do no good if I were to speak,’ sobbed Millicent. ‘I have nothing to say. Go away, and never mind,—that is the best.’
‘But I will mind; and I cannot go away,’ said Ben; and he drew one of her hands from her flushed cheek, and held it fast. He ‘made her do it.’ That was what she said to herself years after when the remembrance would rankle in her mind. He made her do it. He held her hand close in his, and drew from her the story of all her woes: their debts, their destitution; her mother’s health, which was failing,the baths in Germany which she was ordered, but could not get to,—all the miserable story. She poured it out to Ben as she never would have done had he been her accepted lover,—mingling the narrative with tears, with broken sobs, with entreaties to him not to make her say more. And all the time her hand was in his,—soft, and warm, and trembling;—her eyes now raised to him with pitiful looks, now sinking in shame and distress. And there was nobody near to interfere in this humiliating scene. Even the mother, who was lingering intentionally along the streets to give full time for the explanation, would have shrunk with a pang of pride and horror from such a revelation as this. But the two were alone, and had it all their own way. Ben himself sat by Millicent’s side in a very ecstasy of tenderness and pity. If he could but have taken her in his arms, and carried her away,—away from the suffering, the trouble, the shame! Yes, he felt there was shame in it,—confusedly, painfully, with a burning red on his cheek,—and yet was intoxicated and overwhelmed by her touch, by her look, by the love he had for her. They sat together as in a trance,—passion, tenderness, trickery, mean hopes and great, shame and pride and dear love, all mingling together. Such a story to be linked on to a love-tale! such a love, veiling its face with its wings, loving the deeper to hide the shame!
When Mrs. Tracy returned, with a very audibleknock at the door, Ben rose and tore himself away, his heart, and even his bodily frame, all thrilling and tingling with the excitement through which he had passed. She had no sooner ascended the stairs than he seized his hat and tore out, jumping into the first hansom he encountered, with the instinct of old times, and dashing down to the far-off City,—blocked up as ever in all its thoroughfares where men in haste would pass. It was not too late to find his father’s agent in one of the mean alleys about Cheapside, who would pay him his allowance. It was just the time for it, by good luck. And then he rushed off to Christie’s, and had an earnest conversation about the buhl and the china which were not yet sold. He took no time to consider anything;—such a state of affairs could not, must not last a day. This was what he was saying to himself over and over. It must not last. He had no room for more than that thought.
When Mrs. Tracy entered the drawing-room she found her daughter lying back in her chair, with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes. Millicent let her approach without uncovering her face, or taking any notice, and the anxiety of the mother grew into alarm as she drew near. She had said ‘Well?’ with expectation and interest as she came in, feeling very sure of the tale there must be to tell. But as she came nearer and saw that Millicent did not move, Mrs. Tracy got very much frightened. ‘Good heavens, Millicent! do you mean to say it has cometo nothing?’ she cried sharply, with keen anxiety. But Millicent was by no means prepared to answer. She had been shaken by this totally unexpected, unlikely sort of interview. It had gone to her heart, though she had not been very sure whether she had a heart; and she did not know now how to explain, or what to say.
‘Has it come to nothing?’ Mrs. Tracy repeated, coming up and shaking her daughter by the shoulder. ‘Millicent! are not you ashamed of yourself? What have you been doing? I know he has only just left you, for I heard him rush down-stairs.’
‘It has come to a great deal,’ said Millicent, uncovering her flushed and tear-stained cheeks. ‘Don’t worry me, mamma. I will tell you everything if you will but let me alone.’
‘Everything!’ said Mrs. Tracy in an excited tone.
‘Yes, everything; but it is nothing,’ said Millicent, doggedly. ‘You must not give yourself any hopes. It is all over. It will never come to more; but you shall not say a word,’ she added, with indignation. ‘I tell you I am fond of him. I will not have anything said. He is too good for you or me.’
‘It will never come to more!’ echoed Mrs. Tracy, holding up her hands in amaze and appeal to heaven. ‘And she dares to look me in the face and say so! Six months lost,—and rent, and firing, and the bills!’ cried the injured mother. Then she threw herselfdown in a chair, and moaned, and rocked herself. ‘If it is to come to nothing!’ she said. ‘Oh, you ungrateful, unkind girl! oh, my poor Fitzgerald!—perhaps you’ll tell me what we are to do.’
A little pause ensued. The disappointment was too sharp and bitter to be kept within the bounds of politeness, and Millicent was not prepared to enter into full explanations. While Mrs. Tracy vented her disappointment in reproaches, her daughter sat flushed, tearful, motionless, dreaming over the scene that had passed, wondering within herself whether anything could, anything would come of it after all,—neither hearing nor listening to her mother,—half ashamed of herself, and yet not come to an end of expectation still. ‘He will do something, whatever it is,’ she said to herself. ‘It has not ended here.’
‘I never would have stayed on in these dear lodgings,’ Mrs. Tracy went on: ‘never, but for this; you know I wouldn’t. It was only to have been for a week or two when we came. Oh, the money you have cost me,—you and your nonsense! And now nothing is to come of it! Am I never to be the better of my children,—I that have done so much for them? To waste all my life and my means, and everything; and nothing to come of it!’ she cried. ‘Oh, you are a beautiful manager! And six months lost for this!’
‘Mamma, you need not be so violent,’ said Millicent. ‘It is not my fault. Do you think I am notas disappointed as you can be? And some good may come of it, though not what we thought. He will make it up to you somehow. For my part I have no doubt of that.’
‘What is it you have no doubt of?’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘You are more and more a mystery to me. Good gracious, Millicent! you make me think you have fallen in love with him,—or—some folly! But you must leave that sort of thing to people who can afford it. We must have some prospect for the future,—or—we must leave this.’
‘Yes, mamma; only just leave me alone,—I can’t talk,’ she said, fretfully; but then added, with an effort, ‘It is not his fault, poor fellow! He is disinherited. Could he help that? It was we who were the fools to think he would come to this poky place all for me.’
Mrs. Tracy swelled to such heights of moral indignation as would have annihilated Ben had he been present, when she heard this. ‘Disinherited!’ she cried. ‘Millicent, you may say what you like, but it is nothing less than swindling. Good heavens, to think of such a thing! Disinherited! Do you mean to tell me it is a man without a penny that one has been paying such attention to? Oh, what a world this is! He might just as well have robbed me of fifty pounds,—not that fifty pounds would pay the expense I have been at. And I don’t believe a word of it!’ she cried, getting up with sudden passion. Ifthere had been any one below to hear how her foot thrilled across the echoing floor, she might even now have restrained herself. But she knew that nobody was below.
‘I believe it,’ said Millicent, rousing up. ‘He was too much in earnest, poor boy! He wanted to work for me, and all kinds of nonsense. And it would be better to have him to work for me,’ she added, half-tenderly, half-defiant, ‘though he has not a penny, than be worried and bullied like this every day of one’s life.’
‘Are you mad?’ cried her mother, stopping suddenly, appalled by the words. ‘You are in love with him, you wicked girl! You are in a plot with this beggar against me.’
‘He shall not be called a beggar!’ cried Millicent, ‘so long as I am here to speak for him. It is we who are beggars, not Ben Renton.’
‘You are in love with him!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, almost with a scream of scorn. The accusation was such that Millicent shrank before it for the moment, but she did not give way.
‘I wonder if I shall be in love with anybody again?’ she said; and then a sigh burst from her unawares. ‘Poor fellow! poor boy! He is so good, and he will never forget me!’
‘If he had really cared a straw for you he would never have come here!’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Love!—call that love! for a man without a penny! I call it pure selfishness. But he shall never come near you again,—never. Oh, what am I to do?—where am I to take you? We cannot stay here.’
‘We are going to Wiesbaden, for your health,’ said Millicent. It came upon her all at once that she had told him so, making use, involuntarily, of her mother’s suggestion. ‘Wait, and see what comes of it,’ she added, with oracular meaning, which she did not herself understand. And after a while Mrs. Tracy’s passion sank into quiet too. When people live from day to day without any power of arranging matters beforehand, and specially when they live upon their wits, trusting to the scheme of the minute for such comforts as it can secure, they have to believe in chances good and evil. Something might come of it. Somehow, at the last moment, matters might mend. She sat down with that power of abstracting herself from her anxiety which is given to the mind of the adventurer, and recovered her breath, and took her cup of tea. She had scarcely finished that refreshment when the maid knocked at the drawing-room door with Ben’s letter. Mrs. Tracy flew at her daughter as though she would have torn the meaning out of the paper, which Millicent opened with the slowness of agitation; but she had to wait all the same while it was gone over twice, every word; the very enclosures in it,—and it was very evident thatthere were enclosures,—were hidden in Millicent’s clenched hand from her mother’s eyes. She was wilfully cruel in her self-humiliation. And yet it was Mrs. Tracy, and not Millicent, who answered the letter which poor Ben had written, as it were, with his heart’s blood.
Mrs. Tracy’sanswer to Ben’s letter was as follows:—
‘My Dear Mr. Renton,—Millicent has placed your most kind and generous letter in my hands. It is everything I have said, but it is a very extraordinary letter as well; and it is impossible for a young creature without any knowledge of the world to answer it. It takes all my judgment,—and I have passed through a good deal,—to decide how to do it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings, dear Mr. Renton, and I am convinced that to act according to the dictates of pride, and decline your most kind little loan, would be to hurt your feelings. Therefore I make the sacrifice of my own. I don’t replace your notes in this, as pride tempts me to do. I keep them for your sake.‘And, besides,—why should I hesitate to confess it?—we are poor. I cannot do for Millicent,—I cannotdo for myself, though that matters less,—what I would. I don’t know how far my poor child went in her confidences to you to-day. She was agitated,—and she is still agitated,—though I have done all I could to soothe her. She is much affected by your sympathy and generosity; and yet, with the shrinking delicacy which characterises her, she cannot forgive herself for telling you. “I could not help it, mamma,—he was so feeling,” my poor darling says to me, with tears in her eyes. God bless you, dear Mr. Renton! With this timely aid, which I accept as a loan, my Millicent’s poor mother may still be spared to watch over her child. It would have been impossible for me to go, and I tried to hide from my pet the urging of my physicians. Now it is all clear before us. I enclose a memorandum for the amount at five per cent interest; but what interest can ever repay the kind consideration, the ready thoughtfulness? I can never forget it, and neither can Millicent. When I say that we shall leave almost immediately, I but say that we are carrying out your intention. We shall miss you in that strange land. How sweet if we could hope to meet our benefactor among its gay groups! Millicent tells me something about your circumstances, which it seems impossible to believe. But if it should be true, dear Mr. Renton, how sweet it will be to your mind to feel that your little savings, if diverted from their original intention, will yet go to carry out one of the most sacred officesof Christianity,—to save a mother, the sole guide and protector of her innocence, to her only child!‘Believe me, my dear Mr. Renton, with the sincerest kind regards and good wishes,‘Yours obliged and most truly,‘Maria Tracy.’
‘My Dear Mr. Renton,—Millicent has placed your most kind and generous letter in my hands. It is everything I have said, but it is a very extraordinary letter as well; and it is impossible for a young creature without any knowledge of the world to answer it. It takes all my judgment,—and I have passed through a good deal,—to decide how to do it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings, dear Mr. Renton, and I am convinced that to act according to the dictates of pride, and decline your most kind little loan, would be to hurt your feelings. Therefore I make the sacrifice of my own. I don’t replace your notes in this, as pride tempts me to do. I keep them for your sake.
‘And, besides,—why should I hesitate to confess it?—we are poor. I cannot do for Millicent,—I cannotdo for myself, though that matters less,—what I would. I don’t know how far my poor child went in her confidences to you to-day. She was agitated,—and she is still agitated,—though I have done all I could to soothe her. She is much affected by your sympathy and generosity; and yet, with the shrinking delicacy which characterises her, she cannot forgive herself for telling you. “I could not help it, mamma,—he was so feeling,” my poor darling says to me, with tears in her eyes. God bless you, dear Mr. Renton! With this timely aid, which I accept as a loan, my Millicent’s poor mother may still be spared to watch over her child. It would have been impossible for me to go, and I tried to hide from my pet the urging of my physicians. Now it is all clear before us. I enclose a memorandum for the amount at five per cent interest; but what interest can ever repay the kind consideration, the ready thoughtfulness? I can never forget it, and neither can Millicent. When I say that we shall leave almost immediately, I but say that we are carrying out your intention. We shall miss you in that strange land. How sweet if we could hope to meet our benefactor among its gay groups! Millicent tells me something about your circumstances, which it seems impossible to believe. But if it should be true, dear Mr. Renton, how sweet it will be to your mind to feel that your little savings, if diverted from their original intention, will yet go to carry out one of the most sacred officesof Christianity,—to save a mother, the sole guide and protector of her innocence, to her only child!
‘Believe me, my dear Mr. Renton, with the sincerest kind regards and good wishes,
‘Yours obliged and most truly,‘Maria Tracy.’
‘Will that do?’ she said, thrusting the paper across the table to Millicent, who sat looking on. Her mother’s style of letter-writing was very well known to her; but her heart was beating a little quicker than usual, and it was not without excitement that she took it up. Altogether, the day had been a strange one for her. It had brought her in contact with genuine, real passion; and at the same time with a rare, almost unknown thing to her,—a man, with all the instincts of power, unconscious of those restraints which make I dare not wait upon I would. There is something in wealth which now and then confers a certain moral power and unthought-of force and energy. Millicent’s friends and lovers had been hitherto of a class quite different from Ben. They had been men to whom appearance was more than reality,—who were accustomed to look richer than they were, and to own the restrictions of small means,—men who could not, had they wished it, have cut a way for her through a difficulty, as Ben did with sudden flash of purpose. In fact, he was poorer thanany of the half-bred men to whom Mrs. Tracy had all but offered her daughter; but the habit of hesitation or considering possibilities had not yet come upon him. Simply, he had not been able to bear the thought of want or difficulty or pain for her, and had rushed at the matter without a moment’s pause, or any consideration but that of doing her service. It was quite new to Millicent. It dazzled her imagination more a long way than it touched her heart. She was not grateful to speak of, but she was profoundly impressed by the man to whom a hundred pounds,—that mighty object of thought to herself and everybody she had ever known,—was no more than a bouquet or a pair of gloves. She was not, even at that moment, ashamed of having all but asked, or of receiving, his help. She was only dazzled by the magnificence, the sudden lavish zeal and service of her lover. She read her mother’s letter slowly and critically. ‘As if he wanted to be paid back, or have interest at five per cent!’ she said. The mother’s were very different thoughts.
‘It looks better,’ she said. ‘And if we ever are able to pay him back, Millicent,—besides, it is putting it in a business way. Every man likes to see things put in a business way; though this is such a young fool——’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I never met with such a fool in my life.’
‘He is not a fool,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘It is the way he has been brought up. He has not beentaught to consider money as we have. Oh, me! should we all be like that if we were all rich?’ she asked herself with a thrill of wonder. Mrs. Tracy smiled grimly as she put poor Ben’s bank-notes,—everything the foolish youth had possessed in the world,—into an old pocket-book, which she took out of her desk.
‘No, indeed,’ she said, ‘not such fools as to give solid good for nonsense. Why, only fancy what he might have had for his hundred pounds! He might have gone to Homburg himself, and got a great deal of amusement out of it. He might have gone to Switzerland. With all his friends and good introductions, he might have got through the season with it,’—this was all Mrs. Tracy knew,—‘with his club and dining out, and so forth. And because you cry a little he gives it to you! No, if I were made of money, I never could be so foolish as that.’
‘Nobody ever minded my crying much before,’ said Millicent, with a touch of sullenness; and then she threw the letter on the table. ‘Certainly,’ she said, ‘a hundred pounds is a high price for that.’
‘I accept it as a loan,’ said Mrs. Tracy, wrapping herself once more in the appearances she loved. Of course I should never think of taking money from Mr. Renton in any other way. And I wish you would see to your packing at once. We never had such a chance before. Oh, Millicent, if you don’t make something of it this time, how can I ever have anyheart again? There are all sorts of people at Homburg; and you look very nice in your mourning. One does when one has a nice complexion. What will become of us if I have to bring you back here again?’
‘I have no desire to be brought back,’ said Millicent, sharply. ‘I am ready to do whatever I can;—you may see that. But fate seems against me somehow,’ she added, putting up her hand to her eyes. ‘One had every reason to think it was settled and done with without any more trouble; and here is the treadmill just beginning again. You are pleased because you have got your money; but it is hard upon me all the same.’
‘I believe you are in love with him, after all,’ said the mother with profound scorn. Millicent did not make any direct answer; but she turned away indignantly, with a frown on her face. In love with him!—no, not so foolish as that; but still it was hard when you come to think of it,—never to be any nearer the end,—just to have to begin again. And when everything seemed so clear and easy! A hundred pounds was very nice, but it was not equal to Renton Manor and a house in Berkeley Square, and everything that heart could desire. Poor Millicent sighed,—she could not help it. And he was so fond of her too, poor fellow! It seemed breaking faith with him to take his money and go off to Germany to marry somebody else on the strength of it. And it wasnice to have him always there,—ready, on the shortest notice, to come and worship. ‘All because I am rather pretty,’ Millicent said to herself, with that half scorn with which a woman recognises that it is the least part of her that is loved. Her beauty was everything she had in the world, and yet it was a little strange that that was all Ben Renton could see in her. Her transparent scheming,—her hungry poverty,—her readiness to marry him or any man who had money enough, and asked her,—that all this should be glozed over and hidden by a pair of pretty eyes! This is a weakness of which a great many women take advantage, but which always fills them with a certain contempt. Millicent, who might have had something better in her, and who could have been fond of Ben had he not have been disinherited, saw his folly with a half-disdain. No woman would have been such a fool as that! And yet she could not bear to hear her mother call him a fool.
She got up immediately, however, to begin her packing; and then she took into very serious consideration the question whether a new dress was not absolutely necessary for the new campaign,—a thin dress which she could wear over her old black silk, and which would looked ‘dressed’ at a table-d’hôte or other public place. ‘Don’t you think grenadine would be best?’ she asked her mother, anxiously,—‘or perhaps my white with black ribbons?’ Whatever might be her feelings towards Ben Renton, it was evident there was no time to be lost.
‘It must be black,’ said Mrs. Tracy, decisively, ‘when you can have so few dresses. White is always the next step to colours, and we can’t afford that,—not to speak of washing. Black grenadine wears very well, and looks very nice,—on you, at least,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with a stifled sigh. She was too old for grenadine herself. To play her part aright, she wanted a rich black silk becoming her years. But it would make such a hole in the hundred pounds! She was compelled to give that up. They spent the evening with the room littered all over with ‘things,’ examining into their deficiencies,—two warriors setting out for the battle, and looking to all the crevices of their armour. And Ben down-stairs heard their soft, womanly footsteps thrill the floor over his head, and strained his ears to catch every moment they made. They seemed to have accepted his offering;—what were they going to do with himself? He sat, sick at heart, and listened while they went to and fro up-stairs to their sleeping-rooms, down again to the drawing-room. He had put his door ajar, and heard everything. Sometimes her mother called ‘Millicent!’ from below; sometimes it was the sweeter voice of the daughter that replied; and every word rang through his heart, poor fellow! as he sat and listened. That there was a commotion of some sort going on up-stairs was certain; and it was he who was the cause of it; and yet they did not call him to share the excitement. Or were they, perhaps, preparing to go away, to punish him for his presumption,—to return him his impudent gift of money, and reject his friendship? Poor Ben sat trembling, absorbed in a cruel fever of suspense all the evening. Perhaps they had meant him to be so,—perhaps it was only carelessness, their own suspense being over; but certain it is that Mrs. Tracy’s answer to his letter was not put into Ben’s hands till the movement up-stairs was quieted, and the ladies preparing to go to bed. Then Mrs. Tracy rang the bell. ‘That poor boy has not got his answer yet,—how careless, Millicent!’ she said; and Millicent half smiled as she went and sought it on the writing-table, underneath a heap of muslin. ‘It can’t matter much,’ she said, with a slight shrug of her graceful shoulders, and yet gave it with her own hands to the maid. ‘Tell Mr. Renton you forgot it,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘it should have gone to him some time ago.’ And this was how the evening ended for the adventurers on the eve of their campaign.
It had been a trying day for Millicent. Thinking it over when she finally retired to the little dressing-room she occupied, this was the conclusion she came to,—a very trying day. Neither her education nor her experience, such as it was, had at all prepared her for such trials. She knew how to deal with the ordinary young man who was to be met with inGuildford Street; and as she sat with her hair hanging about her shoulders, in the thoughtfulness of the moment a whole array rose up before her of men who had admired her, followed her about, and satisfied her vanity to the fullest extent, but who were not to be compared to Ben Renton in any particular. Millicent, knowing no better, would have married young Mr. Cholmley, of the firm of Cholmley and Territ, if he could have settled anything on her; or young Hurlstone, the solicitor, if he had been in better practice; or the engineer, who everybody said was likely to make so much money, had he not been so impudent about mothers-in-law, and so determined that Mrs. Tracy should have nothing to do in his house. She would have taken any of them, and thought it her duty. She had been even—must it be confessed?—a quarter part engaged to all of them before their shortcomings were apparent. And each in succession was eager to have purchased her and her beauty, though they all haggled about the price. But to have betrayed her poverty to them, or her mother’s difficulties, was the last thing in the world that Millicent would have dreamed of doing. Had she done so her lovers would have regarded her,—she knew it,—with a certain contempt. Her beauty was much, and that she was an officer’s daughter, and supposed to have high connexions, was much too,—enough to cover the want of fortune which she never attempted to conceal; but penniless, struggling with poverty, indebt—oh, words of fear!—Millicent would have starved rather than have breathed such damning syllables in the ears of Cholmley or Hurlstone. But she had told Ben all, ‘as if he were a friend,’ she said to herself in amazement. And Ben, still as if he were a friend, had rushed forth and found what she wanted, letting no grass grow under his feet. What a curious, bewildering, unaccountable business it was! Poor fellow! Could he be a fool, as Mrs. Tracy thought? or was he more infatuated, more wild about her than any of them had been? or was it a new species she had to deal with,—a being of a different kind? She was so puzzled that she let her hair stray all over her shoulders and get into hopeless tangles. Poor Ben! And after all it was out of the question that she should marry him. This hundred pounds which he had thrust upon her,—and surely, surely, if he were not a fool he must be a very indiscreet, prodigal sort of young man, throwing his money about in such a wild way,—must be the end, as it was the beginning, of anything between them. It was very hard, Millicent thought; but for that horrid old Mr. Renton and his ridiculous will, instead of setting out on her adventures to Homburg, in the hope of finding somebody to marry her, she might have had Ben and the Manor and excellent settlements, and no more trouble. Old men should not be allowed to be so wicked, she said to herself. She would have made Ben a verygood wife; she would even have grown fond of him. A sigh trembled out of Millicent’s rose lips as these thoughts filled her soul. What a hair’s breadth it was that divided this shifty, tricky, sordid life, with its most miserable aim, from an existence so different! Berkeley Square,—that was, alas! the foremost thing in her thoughts. Her mind strayed off to caress the idea for a moment. She saw herself in the great old-fashioned, splendid rooms,—splendid to Mrs. Tracy’s daughter, and not old-fashioned, you may be sure of that, from the moment Mrs. Benedict Renton had got possession of them. She saw herself getting into her carriage at the door, with such horses, such footmen, such a glimmer and sheen of luxury, and sighed again very heavily. Last night it seemed so near, so certain; and now, the old treadmill to begin again, the old game to be played, the old risks to be run! It had not occurred to Millicent even now how humiliating was that game. It was natural to her;—she had been brought up to it. But she doubled the beautiful, soft, white hand which Ben had kissed, and shook it figuratively at his horrid old father. ‘Wretched old miser!’ said Millicent, setting her pearly teeth together. And she could have made a good wife, and even grown fond of Ben.
Mrs. Tracy, on the other side of the partition, was not half so much disturbed. She had a hundredpounds in her pocket, as good as a gift, she said to herself; for, of course, he would never ask either interest or principal. What a fool the young man must be! or did he, could he, think that she was such a fool as to throw away her beautiful daughter upon him because of his hundred pounds? Not quite so silly as that, Mrs. Tracy said to herself. It was the first real bit of good fortune her beautiful daughter had brought her. For husband-hunting, adopted as a profession in the very serious way in which Mrs. Tracy had entered into it, is a dangerous and difficult trade. Perhaps it would be safe to say there is no work in the world more hazardous, dreary, and unremunerative. Millicent’s dresses had cost a great deal, and it had been very expensive taking her ‘out,’ before poor Fitzgerald’s downfall and death made that impossible, and on the whole she had lost a great deal more than she had gained up to this moment. Now, here was the first earnest of coming fortune. With her looks Millicent might marry anybody;—a Russian prince rolling in money, most likely; or a millionnaire with more than he could count. The world was at her feet. Notwithstanding the small results her beauty had produced in the past, Mrs. Tracy jumped to the highest heights of hope. And as for Ben Renton and his hundred pounds! instead of regretting, like her daughter, she was rather glad that the game was still all to play. Theexcitement had its charm for her. She was a gambler going about the world with one piece to stake; and, like most gamblers, could not divest herself of the idea that if she could but wait and hold on, she must win.
WhenBen received Mrs. Tracy’s letter his mind was in a condition which it would be very difficult to describe. He had taken, as he thought, a step which would decide his whole life. And even in the moment of taking it he had been put to the severest test which a man can meet;—his love had been suddenly arrested in its high tide, and the woman he loved placed, as it were, at the bar before his better judgment, his finer taste. The shock had been so great that Ben’s mind for the moment had reeled under it. He had felt equal to nothing but wild and sudden action, it did not matter much of what kind. He had rushed out and had done what we have already recorded, and now for two or three hours he had been sitting with no pretence at doing anything, waiting to see what was to come of it. Wild visions of being called to her,—of being made to forget in the charm and intoxication of her presence all the tinglings of shame and disquietude which against his will had come upon him,—possessed him atfirst. He sat for long, expecting that every movement he heard was towards him,—expecting to hear her voice, or her mother’s voice, calling him. He could not go out to his club for dinner as he generally did; he could not have eaten anything; he did not even recollect that it was his duty to go and dine. Such a madness to have taken possession of Ben Renton, a practised man of the world! But so it was. He sat and listened, thinking he heard her on the stair, thinking he heard soft taps at the door, saying sometimes, ‘Come in!’ in his foolishness, to the ghost of his own fancy. But nobody came near him. One would have thought that this want of any response after the great sacrifice he had made for her, would have acted upon him like a shrill gust of reality blowing away the mists. But, in fact, it was not so. Instead of opening his eyes it but dimmed them more with a feverish haze of suspense. How could he judge her when he was watching with breathless anxiety for her call, for her answer, for some message from her? The footsteps above him were treading lightly, cruelly on his heart; but the very continuance of their sound rapt him so that he could think of nothing else. What were they doing? What meaning had they towards himself, these women who seemed to hold his life in their hands? Every lingering moment in which the true state of affairs should have become visible to him, in which he should have come to see,however unwilling, something of the real character of the creature that had bewitched him, encircled Ben with but another coil of her magic. Not now!—not now! After he knew what she was going to do he might then be able to judge. At present he could but listen, breathless,—watch, wait, wonder, and catch with a quickened ear the meaning of every movement. Any rational observer would have concluded that Ben Renton was out of his wits before, but the climax of his madness was reached that night. He had stripped himself of everything he had in the world,—at the moment,—for Millicent; he would have spent his life for her if she had but made him a sign; not in the way of self-murder, which nobody could have required of him, but of that more total suicide which consists in the sacrifice of all the prospects, and hopes, and possibilities of life. His love was not a selfish, complacent impulse, but a passion which mastered him. Thus the moments which passed so lightly overhead in that argument about the black grenadine were ages of sickening uncertainty to Ben.
This was brought to an end by Mrs. Tracy’s letter. Such a plunge into dead fact after the wild heat of his excitement was enough to have brought any man to his wits. He read it over and over in his consternation. At first there shot across him a pang of disappointment, a sinking of heart, such as comes inevitably to those who are thrownback upon themselves out of a roused state of expectation. And then he re-read it till the words lost their meaning. But there was something else which could not fail of expressiveness, and that was the silence which had succeeded so much movement and commotion up-stairs. For half-an-hour he refused to believe, even with the sudden stillness above and the letter in his hand to prove it, that all possibility of further intercourse was over for the night. He could not believe it. They were only stiller than usual. The note should have come to him earlier. There was still time to call him to them. He took out his watch and placed it on the table before him. Eleven o’clock, and every thing so quiet. Then he went out and listened in the dingy little hall, where a faint lamp was burning; then, half mad, opened the outer door, and rushed into the street to make sure. There, indeed, he was convinced of the fact which had been evident to all his faculties before. The dining-room was quite dark, evidently vacant, and above, in the higher storey, was the glimmer of Mrs. Tracy’s candles. She was going to bed, respectable, virtuous woman that she was, with the hundred pounds accepted as a loan under her pillow, too virtuous to think of rewarding the giver even by a smile from Millicent’s lips, which would have cost nothing. The poor young fellow came in with his heart bleeding and palpitating, one knows how, and then seized his hat and went out again for a long, agitated walk in the dark, not caring nor knowingwhere he went. Yes; this was how it was to be. They had accepted his offering, but they had not a word to give him, nor a look, nor a smile; nothing but the formal acknowledgment of his ‘kindness,’ and Mrs. Tracy’s I. O. U.,—which was worth so much! Ben walked on and on through the dreary, half-lighted streets, thinking, he supposed; but he was not in the least thinking. He was but going over and over the fact that there was nothing for him that night, that all hope was over, that the exquisite moment he had been expecting,—and it was only now that he knew how he had been expecting it,—was not to be. When some long-desired and promised meeting has failed to take place, and the watcher, obstinately believing to the last, has to confess that the day is over, the possibility gone, that the hour is never to be won out of the hands of time,—then he or she knows how Ben felt. And most of us have had some experience of such feelings. Thrills came over him, as he walked, of wild suggestion,—how she might, after all, have stolen down-stairs to say the fault was not hers; how she might have tapped at his door after he was gone. Ah! no, never that! Millicent would never have done that. And it was over for to-night, absolutely over! A hot dew of mortification and disappointment forced itself into his eyes as he marched along, nobody seeing him. Those dark London streets, wet pavements, gleams of dreary lamplight, miserable creatures here and there huddled up at corners, here and there loudin miserable gaiety, danced before his eyes, a kind of grey phantasmagoria. What had he done? what was he doing? What would life be with all its inconceivable chances missed, and the golden moments gone away into darkness like this? For the moment Ben was ready to have recognised the claim of fellowship with the most pitiable wreck upon that stony strand. Like every real pang of the heart, his sudden ache went beyond its momentary cause. It struck out from that small misery,—as anybody in their senses would have thought it,—into the wide ocean of suffering beyond. The thrill that shook his being cast off echoes into the awful depths around him, of which he was but vaguely conscious. Such fooling,—because a young man had been disappointed of an hour’s talk with his love! But these fantastic pangs are not the least sharp that humanity has to bear, though even the sufferer may get to smile at them afterwards; and any pain, if it is keen enough, brings the sufferer into the comprehension of pain; just as nature, it is said, makes the whole world kin. He walked for hours, forgetful of the poor maid-of-all-work in No. 10, Guildford Street, who was nodding with her head against the wall, and her arms wrapped up in her apron, waiting up for his return; and yet during all this time not one rational thought about the real position of Millicent Tracy and her mother, not one sensible reflection about his lost money, presented themselves to the young man’s mind. He had notseen her, could not see her now till the morning of another day,—most probably was going to lose her altogether. Such were the vain things that occupied his thoughts.
Next morning, however, Ben was desperate. The day went on till past its height and no further notice was taken of him,—perhaps intentionally, perhaps only because the ladies were packing, and had no time for visitors. When he could stand it no longer he went boldly up-stairs, and knocked at their door. To tell the truth, they had forgotten him,—even Millicent had forgotten him, having given him but too much of her thoughts the night before, and exhausted the subject. They were in full discussion of the black grenadine when he went to the door, and bade him ‘Come in,’ calmly, expecting the maid, or the landlady, or some other unimportant visitor. ‘I must have something decent for evenings,’ Millicent was saying, with quiet decision, absorbed in her subject, and not thinking it worth while to raise her eyes; and then, suddenly feeling a presence of some sort in the room, she started and looked up, and gave a little scream. ‘Oh! it is Mr. Renton, mamma!’ she said, with sudden bewilderment. She had thought he could be kept off,—kept at arm’s-length,—and she had forgotten the important part he played in all this preparation, and the new start which was coming. She dropped her work, and her hands trembled alittle. ‘Mr. Renton!’ There was dissatisfaction, annoyance, surprise, in every inflection of her tone.
‘How glad I am to see you so early!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with the ‘tact’ which distinguished her, rising and coming up to him with outstretched hands. She gave her daughter a reproving glance, which was not lost upon poor Ben. ‘Do come in. We had hoped to see you this evening; but this is quite an unlooked-for pleasure. You gentlemen are generally so much engaged in the day.’
‘I have not much to engage me,’ said Ben; and then he stopped short, with his heart aching, and gave a piteous look at Millicent, who was not paying the least attention to him. ‘If I have come too soon,’ he said, ‘let me return in the evening. I did not mean to disturb you.’
‘You could not disturb us,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with her most gracious smile. ‘If Millicent is too busy to talk, she shall go away and look after her chiffons, and come back to us when her mind is at rest. As we are going so soon, I shall be very glad of a little talk with our kindest friend.’
‘Oh, very well, mamma,’ said Millicent; and she got up, with no softening of her looks. She was vexed that he had come; yet vexed to go away and leave him with her mother,—vexed to see him, with a feeling of doing him wrong, with which Mrs. Tracy’s obtuse faculties were not troubled. Sheswept out of the room without so much as looking at him, and then stood outside with a thousand minds to go back. She was not callous, nor cruel, nor without heart, though she had been brought up to one debasing trade. If she had never seen him after, it would have made the whole matter practicable; but to know all he had done, and why he had done it; to see the love,—such love!—in his eyes; and to be obliged to be polite and grateful, and no more! Nature rebelled to such an extent in the young woman’s mind that it woke her to sudden alarm! Could she be falling in love with Ben? as her mother said. When that absurd idea entered her thoughts she turned quickly away, and ran up-stairs to her room, and went to her packing, leaving her mother to deal with him. No, not quite;—not so ridiculous as that!
‘Have I offended her?’ said Ben. ‘Is she angry with me for my—presumption? What have I done to make her go away?’
‘Nothing, my dear friend,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking his hand, and pressing it; ‘nothing but the kindest, the noblest action. Oh, Mr. Renton, you must not be hard upon my poor child! She feels your generosity so much, and she feels our miserable position so much,—and, in short, it is a conflict of pride and gratitude——’
‘Gratitude!’ said Ben, sadly. ‘Ah, how ill you judge me;—as if I wanted gratitude! I wish I hadwealth to pour at her feet. I wish I could give her—— But that is folly. Has she not a word to say to me, after all?’
What he meant by ‘after all,’ was, after the opening of his heart,—after the pouring forth of his love. But to Mrs. Tracy it meant after the hundred pounds; and here was a way of making an end of him very ready to her hands.
‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with an assumption of dignity which sat very well, and looked natural enough, ‘it was my doing, accepting it,—it was not Millicent’s doing. I thought it was offered out of kindness and friendship. Any one, almost, would pity two women left alone as we were; and I accepted it, as I thought, in the spirit it was offered; but if I had thought it was a price for my child’s affections——’
Ben turned away, sickening at her, as she spoke to him. ‘Bah!’ he said, half aloud in his disgust. He would not condescend to explain. He turned half round to the door, and gazed at it in an uncertain pause. Millicent might come back. When he thought of it, mothers were,—or books were liars,—all miserable, bargaining creatures like this. He would not take the trouble to discuss it with her. If he had not been so weary and worn-out and sick at heart he would not have been thus incivil. But he said to himself that he could not help it, and turned impatiently away.
‘Ah, I thought it was not so,—I felt sure it wasnot so!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, recovering herself as her mistake became apparent. ‘Dear Mr. Renton, sit down, and let us talk it over. Forgive a mother’s jealous care. But let me thank you first——’
‘I don’t want any thanks,’ said Ben, with a certain sullenness, as he sat down at her bidding on the nearest chair.
‘For my life,’ said Mrs. Tracy, looking him calmly in the face. ‘Yes, it was as serious as that. Not that I care much for my life, except for Millicent’s sake. It has no more charms nor hopes for me, Mr. Renton! But I could not die until I see her in better hands than mine. Don’t be angry with me. You asked her,—you offered her—— What was it, in reality, that passed between you yesterday? My darling child was too much agitated to know.’
‘I had nothing to offer,’ said Ben, with sullen disgust. To pour out his heart to Millicent, and to make his confession thus to her mother, were two very different things. ‘I am penniless, and disinherited. I had to tell her so. Nothing but what I might be able to make as a day-labourer, perhaps,’ he went on, with angry vehemence. ‘Whatever folly said, she has apparently no answer to give.’
‘In such a case, Mr. Renton,’ said Mrs. Tracy, facing him, ‘it is not my daughter who has to be consulted, but me.’ He had given her an advantage by his ill-breeding, and now he had to rouse himself, and turn round to her and mutter some prayer for pardon. He was in the wrong. As this flashed upon him his colour rose. Had he spoken as he now said he had it would have been an insult. It was an insult, the way in which he was addressing her mother now. ‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, ‘I have put myself into a false position by taking your money; and what is life itself in comparison with one’s true character? I cannot let you despise Millicent’s mother. Here it is; you shall have it back.’
‘Mrs. Tracy, forgive me, for heaven’s sake! I did not know what I was saying,’ cried Ben.
‘There it is,’ said his opponent, laying the pocket-book on the table between them. ‘Now I can speak. Millicent is an innocent girl, Mr. Renton. She is not one of the kind who fall in love without being asked. Probably, now that she knows you love her, she might learn to love you if you were thrown together. But after the honourable way in which you have told me what your position is, I cannot permit that. I will speak to you frankly. If things had been different I should have been on your side; but I cannot let my child marry a man with nothing. She is too sensitive, too finely organised, too—— I cannot suffer it, Mr. Renton. That is the honest truth. We are going away, and you may not meet again, perhaps.’
‘That is impossible,’ said Ben, with a firmness of resolution which made her pause in her speech. Hespoke so low that it might have been to himself, but she heard it, and it startled her much.
‘I will not let her marry a poor man,’ cried Mrs. Tracy with the violence of alarm, ‘whatever comes of it. She is not a girl who may marry anybody! She must make a good marriage. She must have comfort. She must have what she has been used to,’ the woman cried in agitation, with a certain gloomy irony. She was afraid of him, not knowing that he might not put his hand across the table, and clutch his money back.
‘Good; I will work for that,’ said Ben. ‘She shall have it. It is only a question of time. What more? What do you want more?’
‘What do I want?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Is that how you speak to a lady, Mr. Renton? I want a good deal more. I want position and respect for my Millicent, and civility, at least, for myself.’
Ben got up and went and made a gloomy survey of the room, round and round, after the fashion of men, and then he came back to the point he had started from. ‘I did not mean to be rude,’ he said; ‘I beg your pardon. I have spoken to you like an ass. I feel I have; but it is you who have the better of me. Put away that rubbish, for heaven’s sake, if you would not drive me mad! I don’t suppose she cares for me,—how should she? I’ll go to work and take myself out of the way to-morrow. Only promiseme to wait,—wait till you see how I get on. You can’t tell what progress I may make. If I do well you have nothing against me. You said so this minute. Wait and see.’
‘And let my child sacrifice her youth,—for what?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Oh, my dear Mr. Renton, things are harder than you think! You don’t know what you say.’
‘Perhaps I don’t,’ said Ben; ‘perhaps I do. Neither of us know. Give me your word to this, at least,—that nothing shall be done without telling me; nothing shall happen before I know.’
‘Oh, what am I to do?’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘How can I make such an engagement? As if I should be sure to know even before—anything happened! I will do what I can. You know I wish you well.’
‘You will promise to let me know before—you bind her to any other,’ Ben repeated, bending over the little table which stood between them, to look into her face. She thought it was to take up the famous pocket-book upon which everything depended, and uttered a little scream.
‘I will do whatever I can,’ she said. ‘I will plead your cause all I can. I will promise,—oh, yes! Mr. Renton, I promise,’ she cried, eagerly. He had even, as he stooped towards her, touched the price,—as she thought,—of the promise with his sleeve.
And then, utterly to Mrs. Tracy’s bewilderment, Ben dropped into his chair, and covered his face withhis hands, and sighed. The sigh was so deep, and heavy, and full of care that it startled her. Had he not just got what he had been struggling for? She had given him her promise,—a reluctant, and perhaps not very certain bond,—and yet he gave but a sigh over it,—the sigh of a man ruined and broken. She looked at his bowed head, at the curious strain of the hands into which his face was bent. What a strange, unsatisfactory, ungracious way of receiving a favour! What a highflown, exaggerated sort of a young man! She was thinking so, gazing across the table at him, sometimes letting her eye stray a little anxiously to the pocket-book, with a pucker on her forehead and a cold dread in her heart, when the unaccountable fellow as suddenly unveiled his cloudy countenance and looked straight up into her face. Probably he caught her glance retreating from the pocket-book, for he laughed, and all at once, to her amaze and consternation, took that up.
‘You must take care of your health,’ he said,—and whether he was speaking in mockery or in kindness Mrs. Tracy could not make out,—‘and when this is done let me know,’ he added, dropping it softly without any warning into her lap. ‘I may be rich by that time; and when I am rich, you know, you are to be on my side.’
‘Oh my dear, I am on your side now!’ she cried with a half-sob, and stretched out to take his hand, and would have kissed it, in the relief of getting whatshe wanted. She did not understand the glow of shame that came over Ben’s face, the stern clasp he gave to her hand, almost hurting her, resisting her soft attempt to draw it to her. And he held her thus, as in a vice, and looked down upon her stormily, keenly, as if asking himself whether he could believe her or not. ‘And I will see her, too, before you go,’ he said, with an abruptness she had never seen in him before; and then suddenly left her, without another word, closing the door behind him, and audibly, with heavy, rude footsteps, descending the stairs.
Mrs. Tracy sat motionless, with her fingers all white and crumpled together, and the pocket-book lying in her lap, and heard the street-door shut behind him, and his steps echo along the street. Then only did she draw breath. It had been a tough moment, but she could flatter herself she had won the victory. And yet she had a cry to herself, as she sat alone awaking out of her stupefaction. What a brute he was! Her fingers were crushed, her nerves quite shaken. But then she had the hundred pounds in her lap, and had given only the vaguest general promise by way of paying for it,—a promise which might be forgotten or not as it should happen when there were a thousand miles of land and water between the two.
‘Of course I shall see him,’ Millicent said, when she came down-stairs and heard a kind of report of the interview,—a very partial report given to suit theexigencies of the moment. ‘I would not be so ungrateful,’ she said; and there was a little flutter of colour and light about her, which looked like excitement, the anxious mother thought. Could she be such a fool as to have fallen in love with him? was the painful idea which flashed again across Mrs. Tracy’s mind. Surely, surely, not anything so ridiculous as that. And the best thing in the circumstances was to fall back upon the black grenadine, which indeed was a matter of the first importance. It was not quite so pretty as tulle, nor so light: but then it would be cheaper and wear better, and at those summer dinners in daylight, which are always so trying, would probably look even better than tulle. ‘It must be put in hand at once,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘for we have no time to lose.’ And it was a great relief to her when Millicent settled down quietly to try a new trimming, which she thought would be pretty for the sleeve. After all, she was a very good girl, with no nonsense about her; and her mother’s blessing, could it have secured her the best reward a good girl can have,—the conventional reward for all exemplary young women,—fell upon Millicent on the spot. A good husband, a rich husband,—a very rich, very grand, very noble mate; if that were but attained what more could the round world give? Mrs. Tracy went and locked up her pocket-book, and got through an endless amount of arrangements that very afternoon. She had been in haste before, but nowshe was in a hurry. It occurred to her even that it would be better to get the black grenadine in Paris, though it might be a little dearer. Anything rather than another such interview! On that point her mind was made up.