When he awoke next morning, the weather was so gloomy that he seriously resumed his thought of getting away from London. Why, indeed, did he make London his home, when it would be easy to live in places vastly more interesting, and under a pure sky? He was a citizen of no city at all, and had less desire than ever to bind himself to a permanent habitation. All very well so long as he kept among his male friends, at the club and elsewhere; but this 'society' played the deuce with him, and he had not the common-sense, the force of resolve, to keep out of it altogether.
Well, he must go to his bank this morning, to draw cash.
It was about twelve o'clock when he stood at the counter, waiting with his cheque. The man before him talked with the teller.
'Do you know that the "Britannia" has shut up?'
'The bank? No!'
'But it has. I passed just now, and there were a lot of people standing about. Closed at half-past eleven, they say.
Harvey had a singular sensation, a tremor at his heart, a flutter of the pulses, a turning cold and hot; then he was quite calm again, and said to himself, 'Of course.' For a minute or two the quiet routine of the bank was suspended; the news passed from mouth to mouth; newcomers swelled a gossiping group in front of the counter, and Harvey listened. The general tone was cynical; there sounded scarcely a note of indignation; no one present seemed to be personally affected by the disaster. The name of Bennet Frothingham was frequently pronounced, with unflattering comments.
'Somebody'll get it hot,' remarked one of the speakers; and the others laughed.
Rolfe, having transacted his business, walked away. It struck him that he would go and look at the closed bank, but he did not remember the address; a policeman directed him, and he walked on, the distance not being very great. At the end of the street in which the building stood, signs of the unusual became observable—the outskirts of a crowd, hanging loose in animated talk, as after some exciting occurrence; and before the bank itself was gathered a throng of men, respectability's silk hats mingling with the felts and caps of lower strata. Here and there a voice could be heard raised in anger, but the prevailing emotion seemed to be mere curiosity. The people who would suffer most from the collapse of this high-sounding enterprise could not reach the scene of calamity at half an hour's notice; they were dwellers in many parts of the British Isles, strangers most of them to London city, with but a vague mental picture of the local habitation of the Britannia Loan, Assurance, Investment, and Banking Company, Limited.
His arm was seized, and a voice said hoarsely in his ear—
'By God! too late.'
Hugh Carnaby had tumbled out of a cab, and saw his friend in the same moment that he got near enough to perceive that the doors of the bank were shut.
'The thieves have lost no time,' he added, pale with fury.
'You had warning of it?'
Hugh pulled him a few yards away, and whispered——
'Bennet Frothingham shot himself last night.'
Again Harvey experienced that disagreeable heart-shock, with the alternation of hot and cold.
'Where? At home?'
'At the office ofStock and Share. Come farther away. It'll be in the evening papers directly, but I don't want those blackguards to hear me. I got up late this morning, and as I was having breakfast, Sibyl rushed in. She brought the news; had it from some friend of her mother's, a man connected somehow withStock and Share. I thought they would shut up shop, and came to try and save Sibyl's balance—a couple of hundred, that's all—but they've swallowed it with the rest.'
'With the rest?'
Hugh laughed mockingly.
'Of hers. Devilish bad luck Sibyl has. It was just a toss-up that a good deal of my own wasn't in, one way or another.'
'Do you know any more about Frothingham?'
'No. Only the fact. Don't know when it was, or when it got known. We shall have it from the papers presently. I think every penny Mrs Larkfield had was in.'
'But it may not mean absolute ruin,' urged Harvey.
'I know what to think when B. F. commits suicide. We shall hear that some of the others have bolted. It'll be as clean a sweep as our housekeeper's little job.'
'I've had queer presentiments,' Harvey murmured.
'Why, damn it, so have I! So had lots of people. But nobody ever does anything till it's too late. I must get home again with my agreeable news. You'll be going to the club, I dare say? They'll have plenty to talk about for the next month or two.'
'Try to come round tonight to my place.'
'Perhaps. It depends on fifty chances. There's only one thing I know for certain—that I shall get out of this cursed country as soon as possible.'
They parted, and Harvey walked westward. He had no reason for hurry; as usual, the tumult of the world's business passed him by; he was merely a looker-on. It occurred to him that it might be a refreshing and a salutary change if for once he found himself involved in the anxieties to which other men were subject; this long exemption and security fostered a too exclusive regard of self, an inaptitude for sympathetic emotion, which he recognised as the defect of his character. This morning's events had startled him, and given a shock to his imagination; but already he viewed them and their consequences with a self-possession which differed little from unconcern. Bennet Frothingham, no doubt, had played a rascally game, foreseeing all along the issues of defeat. As to his wife and daughter, it would be strange if they were not provided for; suffer who might, they would probably live on in material comfort, and nowadays that was the first consideration. He was surprised that their calamity left him so unmoved; it showed conclusively how artificial were his relations with these persons; in no sense did he belong to their world; for all his foolish flutterings, Alma Frothingham remained a stranger to him, alien from every point of view, personal, intellectual, social. And how many of the people who crowded to her concert last night would hear the news this morning with genuine distress on her account? Gratified envy would be the prevailing mood, with rancorous hostility in the minds of those who were losers by Bennet Frothingham's knavery or ill-fortune. Hugh Carnaby's position called for no lament; he had a sufficient income of his own, and would now easily overcome his wife's pernicious influence; with or without her, he would break away from a life of corrupting indolence, and somewhere beyond seas 'beat the British drum'—use his superabundant vitality as nature prompted.
After all, it promised to clear the air. These explosions were periodic, inevitable, wholesome. The Britannia Loan, &c, &c, &c, had run its pestilent course; exciting avarice, perturbing quiet industry with the passion of the gamester, inflating vulgar ambition, now at length scattering wreck and ruin. This is how mankind progresses. Harvey Rolfe felt glad that no theological or scientific dogma constrained him to a justification of the laws of life.
At lunchtime, newspaper boys began to yell. The earliest placards roared in immense typography. In the Metropolitan Club, sheets moist from the press suddenly descended like a fall of snow. Rolfe stood by a window and read quietly. This first report told him little that he had not already learnt, but there were a few details of the suicide. Frothingham, it appeared, always visited the office ofStock and Shareon the day before publication. Yesterday, as usual, he had looked in for half an hour at three o'clock; but unexpectedly he came again at seven in the evening, and for a third time at about eleven, when the printing of the paper was in full swing. 'It was supposed by the persons whom he then saw that Mr. Frothingham finally quitted the office; whether he actually left the building or not seems to remain uncertain. If so, he re-entered without being observed, which does not seem likely. Between two and three o'clock this morning, whenStock and Sharewas practically ready for distribution, a man employed on the premises is said, for some unexplained reason, to have ascended to the top floor of the building, and to have entered a room ordinarily unused. A gas-jet was burning, and the man was horrified to discover the dead body of Mr. Frothingham, at full length on the floor, in his hand a pistol. On the alarm being given, medical aid was at once summoned, and it became evident that death had taken place more than an hour previously. That no one heard the report of a pistol can be easily explained by the noise of the machinery below. The dead man's face was placid. Very little blood had issued from the wound, and the shot must have been fired with a remarkably steady hand.'
'A room on the top floor of the building, ordinarily unused——' What story was it that Alma Frothingham told last night, of her visit to the office ofStock and Share? Rolfe had not paid much attention to it at the time; now he recalled the anecdote, and was more impressed by its significance. That room, his first place of business, the scene of poor beginnings, Bennet Frothingham had chosen for his place of death. Perhaps he had long foreseen this possibility, had mused upon the dramatic fitness of such an end; for there was a strain of melancholy in the man, legible on his countenance, perceptible in his private conversation. Just about the time when Alma laughingly told the story, her father must have been sitting in that upper room, thinking his last thoughts; or it might be that he lay already dead.
Later issues contained much fuller reports. The man who found the body had explained his behaviour in going up to the unused room, and it relieved the dark affair with a touch of comedy. Before coming to work, he had quarrelled with his wife, and, rather than go home in the early hours of the morning, he hit upon the idea of finding a sleeping-place here on the premises, to which he could slink unnoticed. 'It's little enough sleep I get in my own house,' was his remark to the reporter who won his confidence. Clubmen were hilarious over this incident, speculating as to the result of its publication on the indiscreet man's domestic troubles.
It was not unremarked that a long time elapsed between the discovery of the suicide and its being heard of by anyone who had an interest in making it generally known. With the exception of two persons, all who were engaged upon the production of the newspaper went home in complete ignorance of what had happened, so cautiously and successfully was the situation dealt with by the sub-editor and his informant. When, after an examination by the doctor, who had been summoned in all secrecy, it became necessary to communicate with the police, the employees had all gone away, and the printed sheets had been conveyed to the distributing agents. Naturally, the subeditor ofStock and Share' preserved a certain reticence in the matter; but one could hardly be mistaken in assuming that the directors of the Britannia Company—two or three of them, at all events—had an opportunity of surveying their position long before the hour when this momentous news got abroad.
With regard to the company's affairs, only conjecture could be as yet indulged in. In view of the immediate stoppage of business, it was pretty safe to surmise that alarming disclosures awaited the public. No one, of course, would be justified in prejudging the case against the unhappy man who, amid seemingly brilliant circumstances, had been driven to so desperate an act.
And so on, and so on, in one journal after another, in edition upon edition. Harvey Rolfe read them till he was weary, listened to the gossip of the club till he was nauseated. He went home at length with a headache, and, having carefully avoided contact with Buncombe or Mrs Handover, made an effort to absorb himself in a volume of Gregorovius, which was at present his study. The attempt was futile. Talk still seemed to buzz about him; his temples throbbed; his thoughts wandered far and wide. Driven to bed long before his accustomed hour, he heard raucous voices rending the night, bellowing in hideous antiphony from this side of the street and the other, as the vendors of a halfpenny paper made the most of what Providence had sent them.
The first thing after breakfast next morning, he posted a line to Hugh Carnaby. 'Is there any way in which I can be of use to you? If you think not, I shall be off tomorrow to Greystone for a few days. I feel as if we were all being swept into a ghastly whirlpool which roars over the bottomless pit. Of course, I will stay if I can do anything, no matter what. Otherwise, address for a week to Basil Morton's.'
This he dropped into the nearest pillar-box, and, as the sun was endeavouring to shine, he walked the length of the street, a pretence of exercise. On his way back he was preceded by a telegraph boy, who stopped at Buncombe's front door, and awoke the echoes with a twofold double knock. Before the servant could open, Harvey was on the steps.
'What name?'
'Rolfe.'
'For me, then.'
He tore open the envelope.
'Could you come at once? Something has happened.—Abbott.'
The boy wished to know if there would be a reply. Harvey shook his head, and stepped into the hall, where he stood reflecting. What could have happened that Edgar Abbott should summon him? Had his wife run away?— Ah, to be sure, it must have something to do with Wager's children—an accident, a death. But why send forhim?
He made a little change in his dress, and drove forthwith to Kilburn. As his cab stopped, he saw that all the blinds in the front of the Abbotts' house were drawn down. Death, then, obviously. It was with a painful shaking of the nerves that he knocked for admission.
'Mr. Abbott——?'
The servant girl, who had a long-drawn face, said nothing, but left him where he stood, returning in a moment with a mumbled 'Will you please to come in, sir?' He followed her to the room in which he had talked with Mrs. Abbott two days ago; and she it was who again received him. Her back to the light, she stood motionless.
'Your husband has telegraphed for me——'
A voice that struggled with a sob made thick reply——
'No—I—he is dead!'
The accent of that last monosyllable was heart-piercing. It seemed to Harvey as though the word were new-minted, so full it sounded of dreadful meaning.
'Dead?'
Mrs. Abbott moved, and he could see her face better. She must have wept for hours.
'He has been taking morphia—he couldn't sleep well—and then his neuralgia. The girl found him this morning, at seven o'clock—there.'
She pointed to the couch.
'You mean that he had taken an overdose—by accident——'
'Itmusthave been so. He had to work late—and then he must have lain down to sleep.'
'Why here?'
'A flood of anguish whelmed her. She uttered a long moan, all the more terrible for its subdual to a sound that could not pass beyond the room. Her struggle for self-command made her suffering only the more impressive, the more grievous to behold.'
'Mr. Rolfe, I sent for you because you are his old friend. I meant to tell you all the truth, as I know it. Ican'ttell it before strangers—in public! Ican'tlet them know—the shame—the shame!'
Harvey's sympathy gave way to astonishment and strange surmise. Hurriedly he besought her not to reveal anything in her present distress; to wait till she could reflect calmly, see things in truer proportion. His embarrassment was heightened by an inability to identify this woman with the Mrs. Abbott he had known; the change in her self-presentment seemed as great and sudden as that in her circumstances. Face and voice, though scarce recognisable, had changed less than the soul of her—as Harvey imaged it. This entreaty she replied to with a steadiness, a resolve, which left him no choice but to listen.
'I cannot, dare not, think that he did this knowingly. No! He was too brave for that. He would never have left me in that way—to my despair. But it was my fault that made him angry—no, not angry; he was never that with me, or never showed it. But I had behaved with such utter selfishness——'
Her misery refused to word itself. She sank down upon a chair and sobbed and moaned.
'Your grief exaggerates every little fault,' said Harvey.
'No—you must hear it all—then perhaps I can hide my shame from strangers. What use would it be if they knew? It alters nothing—it's only in my own heart. I have no right to pain you like this. I will tell you quietly. You know that he went to Waterbury, on business. Did he tell you?—it was to buy a share in a local newspaper. I, in my blindness and selfishness, disliked that. I wanted to live here; the thought of going to live in the country seemed unbearable. That Edgar was overworked and ill, seemed to me a trifle. Don't you remember how I spoke of it when you came here the other morning?—I can't understand myself. How could I think so, speak so!'
The listener said nothing.
'He did what he purposed—made a bargain, and came back to conclude the purchase by correspondence. But his money—the small capital he counted upon—was in "Britannia" shares; and you know what happened yesterday—yesterday, the very day when he went to sell the shares, thinking to do so without the least difficulty.'
Harvey gave a grim nod.
'He came home, and I showed that I was glad——'
'No! You accuse yourself unreasonably.'
'I tell you the truth, as my miserable conscience knows it. I was crazy with selfishness and conceit. Rightly, he left me to my cowardly temper, and went out again, and was away for a long time. He came back to dinner, and then the suffering in his face all but taught me what I was doing. I wanted to ask him to forgive me—to comfort him for his loss; but pride kept me from it. I couldn't speak—I couldn't! After dinner he said he had a lot of work to do, and came into this room. At ten o'clock I sent him coffee. I wished to take it myself—O God! if only I had done so! Iwishedto take it, and speak to him, but still I couldn't. And I knew he was in torture; I saw at dinner that pain was racking him. But I kept away, and went to my own bed, and slept—whilst he was lying here.'
A rush of tears relieved her. Harvey felt his own eyes grow moist.
'It was only that he felt so worn out,' she pursued. 'I know how it was. The pain grew intolerable, and he went upstairs for his draught, and then—not having finished his work—he thought he would lie down on the sofa for a little; and so sleep overcame him. He never meantthis. If I thought it, I couldn't live!'
'Undoubtedly you are right,' said Harvey, summoning an accent of conviction. 'I knew him very well, and he was not the man to do that.'
'No? You are sure of it? You feel it impossible, Mr. Rolfe?'
'Quite impossible. There are men—oh, you may assure yourself that it was pure accident. Unfortunately, it happens so often.'
She hung on his words, leaning towards him, her eyes wide and lips parted.
'So often! I have seen so many cases, in the papers. And he was absent-minded. But what right have I to seek comfort for myself? Was I any less the cause of his death? But must I tell all this in public? Do you think I ought to?'
With comfortable sincerity Rolfe was able to maintain the needlessness of divulging anything beyond the state of Abbott's health and his pecuniary troubles.
'It isn't as if we had lived on ill terms with each other,' said the widow, with a sigh of gratitude. 'Anything but that. Until of late we never knew a difference, and the change that came was wholly my fault. I hadn't the honesty to speak out and say what was in my mind. I never openly opposed his wish to leave London. I pretended to agree to everything, pretended. He showed me all his reasons, put everything simply and plainly and kindly before me, and if I had said what I thought, I feel sure he would have given it up at once. It was in my own hands to decide one way or the other.'
'Why should you reproach yourself so with mere thoughts, of which he never became aware?'
'Oh, it was yesterday, when he came back from the City. He knew then that I was glad he couldn't carry out his purpose. He looked at me as he never had done before—a look of surprise and estrangement. I shall always see that look on his face.'
Harvey talked in the strain of solace, feeling how extraordinary was his position, and that of all men he had least fitness for such an office. It relieved him when, without undue abruptness, he could pass to the practical urgencies of the case. Were Wager's children still in the house? Alas! they were, and Mrs. Abbott knew not what to do about them.
'You can't think of anyone who would take them—for a day or two, even?'
Among her acquaintances there was not one of whom she could venture to ask such a service. 'People have such a dread of children.' Her sister was a governess in Ireland; other near relatives she had none. Edgar Abbott's mother, old and in feeble health, lived near Waterbury; how was the dreadful news to be conveyed to her?
Harvey bestirred himself. Here, at all events, was a call to active usefulness; he felt the privilege of money and leisure.
'Can you give me the name of any one at Waterbury who would be a fit person to break the news to Mrs. Abbott?'
Two names were mentioned, and he noted them.
'I will send telegrams at once to both.'
'You will say it was an accident——'
'That shall be made clear. As for the children, I think I can have them taken away this morning. In the house where I live there is a decent woman who I dare say would be willing to look after them for the present. Will you leave this entirely in my hands?'
'I am ashamed—I don't know how to thank you.'
'No time shall be lost.' He rose. 'If Mrs. Handover will help us, I will bring her here; then I shall see you again. In any case, of course, I will come back—there will be other business. But you ought to have some friend—some lady.'
'There'snoone I can ask.'
'Oh, but of all the people you know in London—surely!'
'They are not friends in that sense. I understand it now—fifty acquaintances; no friend.'
'But let me think—let me think. What was the name of that lady I met here, whose children you used to teach?'
'Mrs. Langland. She is very kind and friendly, but she lives at Gunnersbury—so far—and I couldn't trouble her.'
Upon one meeting and a short conversation, with subsequent remarks from Edgar Abbott, Rolfe had grounded a very favourable opinion of Mrs Langland. She dwelt clearly in his mind as 'a woman with no nonsense about her', likely to be of much helpfulness at a crisis such as the present. With difficulty he persuaded Mrs. Abbott to sit down and write a few lines, to be posted at once to Gunnersbury.
'I haven't dared to ask her to come. But I have said that I am alone.'
'Quite enough, I think, if she is at home.'
He took his leave, and drove back to Bayswater, posting the letter and despatching two telegrams on the way.
Of course, his visit to Greystone was given up.
Hugh Carnaby was gratified by the verdict offelo de se. He applauded the jury for their most unexpected honesty. One had taken for granted the foolish tag about temporary madness, which would have been an insult to everybody's common-sense.
'It's a pity they no longer bury at four cross-roads, with a stake in his inside. (Where's that from? I remember it somehow.) The example wouldn't be bad.'
'You're rather early-Victorian,' replied Sibyl, who by this term was wont to signify barbarism or crudity in art, letters, morality, or social feeling. 'Besides, there's no merit in the verdict. It only means that the City jury is in a rage. Yet every one of them would be dishonest on as great a scale if they dared, or had the chance.'
'Something in that, I dare say,' conceded Hugh.
He admired his wife more than ever. Calm when she lost her trinkets, Sibyl exhibited no less self-command now that she was suddenly deprived of her whole fortune, about eight hundred a year. She had once remarked on the pleasantness and fitness of a wife's possessing in her own name an income equal to that of her husband; yet she resigned it without fuss. Indeed, Sibyl never made a fuss about anything. She intimated her wishes, and, as they were always possible of gratification, obtained them as a matter of course. Naturally, since their marriage, she and Hugh had lived to the full extent of their means. Carnaby had reduced his capital by a couple of thousand pounds in preliminary expenses, and debt to the amount of two or three hundred was outstanding at the end of the first twelvemonth; but Sibyl manifested no alarm.
'We have been great fools,' she said, alluding to their faith in Bennet Frothingham.
'It's certain thatIhave,' replied her husband. 'I oughtn't to have let your mother have her way about that money. If there had been a proper settlement, you would have run no risk. Trustees couldn't have allowed such an investment.'
The same day Sibyl bought a fur for her neck which cost fifteen guineas. The weather was turning cold, and she had an account at the shop.
That afternoon, too, she went to see her mother, and on returning at six o'clock looked into the library, where Hugh sat by the fire, a book in his hand. Carnaby found the days very long just now. He shunned his clubs, the Metropolitan and the Ramblers', because of a fear that his connection with the 'Britannia' was generally known; to hear talk on the subject would make him savage. He was grievously perturbed in mind by his position and prospects; and want of exercise had begun to affect his health. As always, he greeted his wife's entrance with a smile, and rose to place a chair for her.
'Thanks, I won't sit down,' said Sibyl. 'You look comfortable.'
'Well?'
She looked at him reflectively, and said in balanced tones——
'I really think I can boast of having the most selfish mother in England.'
Hugh had his own opinion concerning Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, but would not have ventured to phrase it.
'How's that?'
'I never knew anyone who succeeded so well in thinking steadily and exclusively of herself. It irritates me to see her since this affair; I shan't go again. I really didn't know what a detestable temper she has. Her talk is outrageous. She doesn't behave like a lady. Could you believe that she has written a violent letter to Mrs. Frothingham—"speaking her mind", as she says? It's disgraceful!'
'I'm sorry she has done that. But it isn't every one that can bear injury as you do, Sibyl.'
'I supposed she could behave herself. She raises her voice, and uses outrageous words, and shows temper with the servants. I wouldn't spend a day in that house now on any account. And, after all, I find she hasn't lost much more than I have. She will be able to count on six hundred a year at least.'
Carnaby received the news with a brightened visage.
'Oh come! That's something.'
'She took very good care, you see, not to risk everything herself.'
'It's possible,' said Hugh, 'that she hadn't control of all her money.'
'Oh yes, she had. She let that fact escape in her fury—congratulated herself on being so far prudent. Really, I never knew a more hateful woman.'
It was said without vehemence, with none of that raising of the voice which so offended her: a deliberate judgment, in carefully chosen words. Hugh tried to smile, but could not quite command his features; they expressed an uneasy thoughtfulness.
'Do you go out this evening?' he asked, after a pause.
'No; I'm rather tired and out of sorts. Dinner is at seven. I shall go to bed early.'
The police had as yet failed to get upon the track of the felonious housekeeper, known as Mrs. Maskell. Mrs. Carnaby's other servants still kept their places, protesting innocence, and doubtless afraid to leave lest they should incur suspicion. Domestic management was now In the hands of the cook. Sibyl always declared that she could not eat a dinner she had had the trouble of ordering, and she seemed unaffectedly to shrink from persons of the menial class, as though with physical repulsion. Perforce she submitted to having her hair done by her maid, but she found the necessity disagreeable.
The dinner was simple, but well cooked. Sibyl never ate with hearty appetite, and declined everything not of excellent quality; unlike women in general, she was fastidious about wine, yet took of it sparingly; liqueurs, too, she enjoyed, and very strong coffee. To a cigarette in the mouth of a woman she utterly objected; it offended her sense of the becoming, her delicate perception of propriety. When dining alone or with Hugh, she dressed as carefully as for a ceremonious occasion. Any approach to personal disorder or neglect was inconceivable in Sibyl. Her husband had, by accident, heard her called 'the best-groomed woman in London'; he thought the praise well merited, and it flattered him.
At table they talked of things as remote as possible from their immediate concerns, and with the usual good humour. When he rose to open the door, Hugh said——
'Drawing-room or library?'
'Library. You would like to smoke.'
For ten minutes he sat with his arms on the table, his great well-shapen hands loosely clenched before him. He drank nothing. His gaze was fixed on a dish of fruit, and widened as if in a growing perplexity. Then he recovered himself, gave a snort, and went to join his wife.
Sibyl was reading a newspaper. Hugh lit his pipe in silence, and sat down opposite to her. Presently the newspaper dropped, and Sibyl's eyes were turned upon her husband with a smile.
'Well?'
'Well?'
They smiled at each other amiably.
'What do you suggest, Birdie?'
The fondling name was not very appropriate, and had not been used of late; Carnaby hit upon it in the honeymoon days, when he said that his wife was like some little lovely bird, which he, great coarse fellow, had captured and almost feared to touch lest he should hurt it. Hugh had not much originality of thought, and less of expression.
'There are places, you know, where one lives very comfortably on very little,' said Sibyl.
'Yes; but it leads to nothing.'
'Whatwouldlead to anything?'
'Well, you see, I have capital, and some use ought to be made of it. Everybody nowadays goes in for some kind of business.'
She listened with interest, smiling, meditative.
'And a great many people come out of it—wishing they had done so before.'
'True,' said Carnaby; 'there's the difficulty. I had a letter from Dando this morning. He has got somebody to believe in his new smelting process—somebody in the City; talks of going out to Queensland shortly. Really—if I could be on the spot——'
He hesitated, timidly indicating his thoughts. Sibyl mused, and slowly shook her head.
'No; wait for reports.'
'Yes; but it's those who are in it first, you see.'
Sibyl seemed to forget the immediate subject, and to let her thoughts wander in pleasant directions. She spoke as if on a happy impulse.
'There's one place I think I should like—though I dread the voyage.'
'Where's that?'
'Honolulu.'
'What has put that into your head?'
'Oh, I have read about it. The climate is absolute perfection, and the life exquisite. How do you get there?'
'Across America, and then from San Francisco. It's anything but a cheap place, I believe.'
'Still, for a time. The thing is to get away, don't you think?'
'No doubt of that.—Honolulu—by Jove! it's an idea. I should like to see those islands myself.'
'And it isn't commonplace,' remarked Sibyl. 'One would go off with a certain eclat. Very different from starting for the Continent in the humdrum way.'
The more Carnaby thought of it, the better he liked this suggestion. That Sibyl should voluntarily propose so long a journey surprised and delighted him. The tropics were not his favourite region, and those islands of the Pacific offered no scope for profitable energy; he did not want to climb volcanoes, still less to lounge beneath bananas and breadfruit-trees, however pleasant such an escape from civilisation might seem at the first glance. A year of marriage, of idleness amid amusements, luxuries, extravagances, for which he had no taste, was bearing its natural result in masculine restiveness. His robust physique and temper, essentially combative, demanded liberty under conditions of rude or violent life. He was not likely to find a satisfying range in any mode of existence that would be shared by Sibyl. But he clutched at any chance of extensive travel. It might be necessary—it certainly would be—to make further incision into his capital, and so diminish the annual return upon which he could count for the future; but when his income had already become ludicrously inadequate, what did that matter? The years of independence were past; somehow or other, he must make money. Everybody did it nowadays, and an 'opening' would of course present itself, something would of course 'turn up'.
He stretched his limbs in a sudden vast relief.
'Bravo! The idea is excellent. Shall we sell all this stuff?' waving a hand to indicate the furniture.
'Oh, I think not. Warehouse it.'
Hugh would have rejoiced to turn every chair and table into hard cash, not only for the money's sake, but for the sense of freedom that would follow; but he agreed, as always, to whatever his wife preferred. They talked with unwonted animation. A great atlas was opened, routes were fingered; half the earth's circumference vanished in a twinkling. Sibyl, hitherto mewed within the circle of European gaieties and relaxations, all at once let her fancy fly—tasted a new luxury in experiences from which she had shrunk.
'I'll order my outfit tomorrow. Very light things, I suppose? Who could advise me about that?'
Among a number of notes and letters which she wrote next day was one to Miss Frothingham. 'Dear Alma,' it began, and it ended with 'Yours affectionately'—just as usual.
'Could you possibly come here some day this week? I haven't written before, and haven't tried to see you, because I felt sure you would rather be left alone. At the same time I feel sure that what has happened, though for a time it will sadden us both, cannot affect our friendship. I want to see you, as we are going away very soon, first of all toHonolulu. Appoint your own time; I will be here.'
By return of post came the black-edged answer, which began with 'Dearest Sibyl,' and closed with 'Ever affectionately'.
'I cannot tell you how relieved I am to get your kind letter. These dreadful days have made me ill, and one thing that increased my misery was the fear that I should never hear from you again. I should not have dared to write. How noble you are!—but then I always knew that. I cannot come tomorrow—you know why—but the next day I will be with you at three o'clock, if you don't tell me that the hour is inconvenient.'
They met at the appointed time. Mrs. Carnaby's fine sense of the becoming declared itself in dark array; her voice was tenderly subdued; the pressure of her hand, the softly lingering touch of her lips, conveyed a sympathy which perfect taste would not allow to become demonstrative. Alma could at first say nothing. The faint rose upon her cheek had vanished; her eyes were heavy, and lacked their vital gleam; her mouth, no longer mobile and provocative, trembled on the verge of sobs, pathetic, childlike. She hung her head, moved with a languid, diffident step, looked smaller and slighter, a fashionable garb of woe aiding the unhappy transformation.
'I oughtn't to have given you this trouble,' said Sibyl. 'But perhaps you would rather see me here——'
'Yes—oh yes—it was much better——'
'Sit down, dear. We won't talk of wretched things, will we? If I could have been of any use to you——'
'I was so afraid you would never——'
'Oh, you know me better than that,' broke in Mrs. Carnaby, almost with cheerfulness, her countenance already throwing off the decorous shadow, like a cloak that had served its turn. 'I hope I am neither foolish nor worldly-minded.'
'Indeed, indeed not! You are goodness itself.'
'How is Mrs. Frothingham?'
The question was asked with infinite delicacy, head and body bent forward, eyes floatingly averted.
'Really ill, I'm afraid. She has fainted several times—yesterday was unconscious for nearly half an hour.'
Sibyl flinched. Mention of physical suffering affected her most disagreeably; she always shunned the proximity of people in ill health, and a possibility of infection struck her with panic.
'Oh, I'm so sorry. But it will pass over.'
'I hope so. I have done what I could.'
'I'm sure you have.'
'But it's so hard—when every word of comfort sounds heartless—when it's kindest to say nothing——'
'We won't talk about it, dear. You yourself—I can see what you have gone through. You must get away as soon as possible; this gloomy weather makes everything worse.'
She paused, and with an air of discreet interest awaited Alma's reply.
'Yes, I hope to get away. I shall see if it's possible.'
The girl's look strayed with a tired uncertainty; her hands never ceased to move and fidget; only the habits of good breeding kept her body still.
'Of course, it is too soon for you to have made plans.'
'It's so difficult,' replied Alma, her features more naturally expressive, her eyes a little brighter. 'You see, I am utterly dependent upon Mamma. I had better tell you at once—Mamma will have enough to live upon, however things turn out. She has money of her own; but of course I have nothing—nothing whatever. I think, most likely, Mamma will go to live with her sister, in the country, for a time. She couldn't bear to go on living in London, and she doesn't like life abroad. If only I could do as I wish!'
'I guess what that would be,' said the other, smiling gently.
'To take up music as a profession—yes. But I'm not ready for it.'
'Oh, half a year of serious study; with your decided talent, I should think you couldn't hesitate. You are a born musician.'
The words acted as a cordial. Alma roused herself, lifted her drooping head and smiled.
'That's the praise of a friend.'
'And the serious opinion of one not quite unfit to judge,' rejoined Sibyl, with her air of tranquil self-assertion. 'Besides, we have agreed—haven't we?—that the impulse is everything. What you wish for, try for. Just now you have lost courage; you are not yourself. Wait till you recover your balance.'
'It isn't that I want to make a name, or anything of that sort,' said Alma, in a voice that was recovering its ordinary pitch and melody. 'I dare say I never should; I might just support myself, and that would be all. But I want to be free—I want to break away.'
'Of course!'
'I have been thinking that I shall beg Mamma to let me have just a small allowance, and go off by myself. I know people at Leipzig—the Gassners, you remember. I could live there on little enough, and work, and feel free. Of course, there's really no reason why I shouldn't. I have been feeling so bound and helpless; and now that nobody has any right to hinder me, you think it would be the wise thing?'
Alma had occasionally complained to her friend, as she did the other evening to Harvey Rolfe, that easy circumstances were not favourable to artistic ambition, but no very serious disquiet had ever declared itself in her ordinary talk. The phrases she now used, and the look that accompanied them, caused Sibyl some amusement. Only two years older than Alma, Mrs. Carnaby enjoyed a more than proportionate superiority in knowledge of the world; her education had been more steadily directed to that end, and her natural aptitude for the study was more pronounced. That she really liked Alma seemed as certain as that she felt neither affection nor esteem for any other person of her own sex. Herself not much inclined to feminine friendship, Alma had from the first paid voluntary homage to Sibyl's intellectual claims, and thought it a privilege to be admitted to her intimacy; being persuaded, moreover, that in Sibyl, and in Sibyl alone, she found genuine appreciation of her musical talent. Sibyl's choice of a husband had secretly surprised and disappointed her, for Hugh Carnaby was not the type of man in whom she felt an interest, and he seemed to her totally unworthy of his good fortune; but this perplexity passed and was forgotten. She saw that Sibyl underwent no subjugation; nay, that the married woman did but perfect herself in those qualities of mind and mood whereby she had shone as a maiden. It was a combination of powers and virtues which appeared to Alma little short of the ideal in womanhood. The example influenced her developing character in ways she recognised, and in others of which she remained quite unconscious.
'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last question; 'provided that——'
She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland wisdom.
'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise me—tell me just what you think.'
'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly conventionalities and proprieties—our old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'
'That's it! You understand me perfectly, as you always do.'
'If it had been possible, we would have lived together.'
'Ah! how delightful! Don't speak of what can't be.'
'I was going to say,' pursued Sibyl thoughtfully, 'that you will meet with all sorts of little troubles and worries, which you have never had any experience of. For one thing, you know'—she leaned back, smiling, at ease—'people won't behave to you quite as you have been accustomed to expect. Money is very important even to a man; but to a woman it means more than you can imagine.'
'Oh, but I shan't be living among the kind of people——'
'No, no. Perhaps you don't quite understand me yet. It isn't the people you seek who matter, but the people that will seekyou; and some of them will have very strange ideas—very strange indeed.'
Alma looked self-conscious, kept her eyes down, and at length nodded.
'Yes. I think I understand.'
'That's why I said "provided". You are not the ordinary girl, and you won't imagine that I feared for you; I know you too well. It's a question of being informed and on one's guard. I don't think there's anyone else who would talk to you like this. It doesn't offend you?'
'Sibyl!'
'Well, then, that's all right. Go into the world by all means, but go prepared—armed; the word isn't a bit too strong, as I know perfectly. Some day, perhaps—but there's no need to talk about such things now.'
Alma kept a short silence, breaking it at length with note of exultation.
'I'm quite decided now. I wanted just to hear what you would say. I shan't wait a day longer than I can help. The old life is over for me. If only it had come about in some other way, I should be singing with rapture. I'm going to begin to live!'
She quivered with intensity of feeling, or with that excitement of the nerves which simulates intense feeling in certain natures. A flush stole to her cheek; her eyes were once more full of light. Sibyl regarded her observantly and with admiration.
'You never thought of the stage, Alma?'
'The stage? Acting?'
'No; I see you never did. And it wouldn't do—of course it wouldn't do. Something in your look—it just crossed my mind—but of course you have much greater things before you. It means hard work, and I'm only afraid you'll work yourself all but to death.'
'I shouldn't wonder,' replied the girl, with a little laugh of pride in this possibility.
'Well, I too am going away, you know.'
Alma's countenance fell, shame again crept over it, and she murmured, 'O Sibyl——!'
'Don't distress yourself the least on my account. That's an understood thing; no mention, no allusion, ever between us. And the truth is that my position is just a little like yours: on the whole, I'm rather glad. Hugh wants desperately to get to the other end of the world, and I dare say it's the best thing I could do to go with him. No roughing it, of course; that isn't in my way.'
'I should think not, indeed!'
'Oh, I may rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever seemed worth the trouble.—In a year or two, we shall meet and compare notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do indifferently what other people have done well and put into print—it's a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm sure, at Honolulu.'
They drank tea together, and talked, in all, for a couple of hours. When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at first presented herself.
'There's no one else,' she said, 'who would have behaved to me so kindly and so nobly.'
'Nonsense! Butthat'snonsense, too. Let us admire each other; it does us good, and is so very pleasant.'
'I shall say goodbye to no one but you. Let people think and say of me what they like; I don't care a snap of the fingers. In deed, Ihatepeople.'
'Both sexes impartially?'
It was a peculiarity of their intimate converse that they never talked of men, and a jest of this kind had novelty sufficient to affect Alma with a slight confusion.
'Impartially—quite,' she answered.
'Do make an exception in favour of Hugh's friend, Mr. Rolfe. I abandon all the rest.'
Alma betrayed surprise.
'Strange! I really thought you didn't much like Mr. Rolfe,' she said, without any show of embarrassment.
'I didn't when I first knew him; but he grows upon one. I think him interesting; he isn't quite easy to understand.'
'Indeed he isn't.'
They smiled with the confidence of women fancy-free, and said no more on the subject.
Carnaby came home to dinner brisk and cheerful; he felt better than for many a day. Brightly responsive, Sibyl welcomed his appearance in the drawing-room.
'Saw old Rolfe for a minute at the club. In a vile temper. I wonder whether he really has lost money, and won't confess? Yet I don't think so. Queer old stick.'
'By-the-bye, whatishis age?' asked Alma unconcernedly.
'Thirty-seven or eight. But I always think of him as fifty.'
'I suppose he'll never marry?'
'Rolfe? Good heavens, no! Too much sense—hang it, you know what I mean! It would never suithim. Can't imagine such a thing. He gets more and more booky. Has his open-air moods, too, and amuses me with his Jingoism. So different from his old ways of talking; but I didn't care much about him in those days. Well, now, look here, I've had a talk with a man I know, about Honolulu, and I've got all sorts of things to tell you.—Dinner? Very glad; I'm precious hungry.'