Chapter XIII: Book II (5)

“I decline to take that answer. I cannot believe that you mean it seriously. I think that you loved me two, nearly three years ago, and that you have loved me of late since last October—some nine months. I know that I have never for a moment ceased to love you. Through your engagement—horrible entanglement as it was—through your years of married life—miserable eclipse—my love has gone on, my need has increased. You know that; you cannot doubt me. It was not my doing that you were false to our love; I couldn’t interfere; it was begun without my suspicion, and all the mischief done before I could get home. After that I did my honest best to get on without you—and then your fool of a husband must drag me in. What next? The inevitable, the undoubted. We two were drawn together: it had to be. And now you ask me to believe that—for no reason at all—it must stop. My dear girl, you can’t swap horses crossing the stream, you know. I decline to be switched off like so much electric current. Who’s the other man?”

This surprising turn to his speech nearly threw her off her pedestal. But she could answer him truthfully.

“There is no question of caprice or of other people at all. The real truth is that I have grown wiser. I know now that I was losing my self-respect by permitting you to love me as you did—in the manner you saw fit to use. It was not love at all—you had got into the habit of considering me as your property, and you could not bear that anybody else should claim a right to me. Directly I saw that, I knew that I couldn’t allow myself to think of you, to be with you—if I was to be—if I could hope to hold up my head.”

He was very angry. “May I know what, or who, enabled you to see this unfortunate aspect of my affairs?”

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “It came to me suddenly. I think your asking me to meet you in such an extraordinary place had something to do with it.”

“I beg your pardon for that,” he said at once. “Honestly and sincerely I am ashamed of that. Only it is fair to say that I meant no possible disrespect to you. I couldn’t well meet you in your own house. The weather was beastly—I thought we could discuss our plans—and might as well do it under a glass cover as under umbrellas. We might have been there five minutes. Really, I can’t admit that the base is broad enough to hold all the superstructure.”

“It was nothing,” she admitted; “I was only offended for a moment—and of course if I had still been nursery governess I should have gone, without a question. I should have been flattered, I am sure. But—ah, surely you can be honest with yourself, surely you know what it is you want of me. Why, if I could bring myself—would it be worthy of you to—?” She broke off, impatient at the hopelessness of convincing him. “Mr. Duplessis,” she said, and he frowned at the style, “I have been wicked, I think—at least, I have been so foolish that I can hardly believe it was I. I am sure you won’t be so ungenerous as to pin me down to a mistake. I beg you to take what I say now—as I mean it.”

Looking up at him, she saw that she had made no way. The more she said, she could see, the greater the fire in the man. He stooped right over her, and she could hear the fever in his voice.

“My love, my adorable love—I shall never give you up—never—never——”

She cowered. “Ah, be merciful——”

He said, “My mercy shall be my love and service”—and took her hands.

She strained away—she turned her head—“No, no,” she murmured, “I implore you.” But he drew her in—“My beloved—my darling——”

The street knocker clamoured—a double call—and as he started she sprang back to the wall, and gained the door. She went down the passage and met her mother with a telegram in her hand. “For you, Mary. No bad news, I hope.”

Mary read. “Think it would be well if you could come to-day.—Constantia Germain.”

She had not heard from Hill-street for three days. Yes, certainly she must go.

“Mother, I must go home immediately. Mr. Duplessis will take me. I’ll tell him to wait.”

She returned to the kitchen; Duplessis was biting his cheek leaning against the table with folded arms. His breath was still quick.

“Mr. Duplessis,” said she, “I have had a telegram from home—from Mrs. James. My husband is ill and I must go to him. Will you take me, please?”

He jumped forward. “Of course. I’m very sorry. I’ll do everything. Go and get ready—I’ll find a cab.”

XIV
VIGIL

A shadow, not hers, which moved, kept Mary silently employed. She was watching it. She was not conscious of having spoken a single word from the moment of farewell to her mother until her arrival at Hill-street. Duplessis had accompanied her from door to door. She cannot have been aware of it, or she would have dismissed him at Victoria.

Not that he had been obtrusive—far otherwise. He saw to everything, and what conversation there had been, he had made it. She might have been grateful to him for all this, had she observed it. Once only had a cry escaped her. “He is dying. He will die thinking me wicked. What shall I do?”

He had answered her. “No. He is a just man. You have nothing you need fear to tell him.”

“He is dying,” she repeated, her eyes fixed upon the dun waste of houses and chimney-stacks. Duplessis could not doubt this. It seemed as certain to him as to her. He, too, discerned the moving shadow.

As he helped her out of the cab in Hill-street the carriage came quickly up and the Rector of Misperton in it. He and she met on the pavement. Duplessis lifted his hat, re-entered the cab and departed—seen, therefore, by the Rector, by Musters, and the carriage-groom, and by the stately butler and his familiar at the open door. She and James Germain went up the steps without greeting. As she went straightforward to the stairs she heard the Rector’s inquiry, “Well, Greatorex?” and Greatorex’s reply, “The doctors are there, Sir. There is no change.”

She went lightly up the stair, to the door of her husband’s room; she knocked lightly. A nurse opened. “Who is it, please! I don’t think——”

“I am Mrs. Germain. I must come in.”

Mrs. James, the doctrine of the Soul’s immortality lambent upon her features, stood by the window talking in whispers to a great physician. Another, equally imposing, was by the bed, his hand on the sick man’s pulse. At Mary’s entry the lady broke away and came towards her. The light of conflict was in her eyes, tight upon her lips; she was prepared for reproof in any form—but none came. Mary did not see her. She walked past her on tiptoe, to the edge of the bed, and sat herself in a chair which stood there, and looked at the shadow which was not her own. It hovered, now, moved no more. Sir Lambton Tweedale, his investigation ended, joined his colleague by the window.

Mary thought that he was dead. He lay on his back with nearly closed eyes, and she could discern no movement for breath. His face was colourless, and so frail, so diaphanous did he look, she thought that she could see the colour of his eyes through the lids, a haunting thought. He seemed to be watching her through them, as if they were a thin veil—to be reading her, whether guilty or not. Of pity for him lying there so noble, so patient, and so fordone; of awe before his remoteness from her lot, his immortal indifference; of remorse for what had been, or a shudder for what might have been—she had none. But her eyes watched him intently, with a new power in them, a fierce and feverish light—as if she had the will and the means to draw the dead back to life. For one half-hour only, to fulfil one need. He must hear her tell him her story; and then he might die in peace.

One of the great pair came to where she sat on the watch, and bowed. “Mrs. Germain, I think?”

She nodded sharply, without turning her eyes.

“I could—we could—have wished that you had received earlier notice of this serious turn. It seems to have been Mr. Germain’s express desire that you should not be needlessly alarmed. He was perfectly conscious and master of himself twenty-four hours ago. But a great change took place yesterday afternoon, it appears. Neither Sir Lambton nor myself can be held answerable for——”

She stopped him by an impatient movement of her head. “Do you think he is—in danger?”

“Undoubtedly. It is right that you should know that it is serious.”

“He will die?”

“Ah, we must not say that.”

She looked him through and through. “Then he is not dead?”

“No, no.”

“Thank you. That is all I want to know.”

The learned pair went out together and Mrs. James with them. The nurse remained—to drink her tea and hover. She was very ready with whispers; but Mary sat, with fixed, intense eyes, willing her husband to live, and asked for no details. By-and-by the Rector came in on noiseless feet and stood by her. Between these two there had always been sympathy; generosity on his part repaid with gratitude on hers. But now she would not turn her head. Nor even, when she felt his hand touch gently on her shoulder and stay there, could she bring herself to acknowledge the kindly act.

He remained by her so for a long time. Then, “My child,” he said, “have you had any tea?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t want any.”

“It could be brought you here.”

“No, thank you.”

“You must be brave, Mary.”

Ah, she knew that! “I must, indeed,” she said.

“Remember, please, that I knew of this no sooner than you did.”

She started, she flushed. What did this mean, then? Was it possible that Mrs. James—for reasons—Ah, and if it was, did it matter? Did anything matter? Only one thing—and that was of her provision. She resumed her hungry, patient watch.

The Rector still stood by her, his hand on her shoulder.

“Be patient, my dear. Trust the future to the good God.”

She said, “I do. But he will not die yet. I am sure.”

“Ah, my dear—” he began, in his despair. But she spoke on vehemently.

“He cannot—he will not. He will know me again presently—and speak to me. That is necessary for us both. We have things to talk about. Then he will die.”

The Rector shrank. “You talk strangely. What do we know? My dear old brother! . . . Will you not come and rest—after your—?” He stopped there, and she understood his reason.

“I’m not at all tired,” she told him. “I shall sit here until he wakes, and knows me. I can rest here quite well. I don’t want any food or anything.” The Rector urged her no more, and presently left her.

She sat on through the dinner-hour, the change of nurses, motionless and absorbed. Once the patient stirred, sighed, muttered with his lips. Listening to him, breathless herself, she could now hear his breath—so short and light it was that she must have overlooked it all these hours. From this time onwards through the ministrations of the night-nurse, through visits of the Rector, through ominous absence of visits from the Rector’s wife, through the bustling entry of Dr. Goodlake and his voluble explanations—double pneumonia—absence of will-effort—and the like—she was in a fever of hope and anticipation, waiting, like one tense at the starting-post, for the signal.

At midnight Mr. Germain stirred and began to moan, regularly, hopelessly, in a way to break your heart. This, too, her certainty gave her the heart to endure. Such nourishment as he could be given set him wandering. He spoke ramblingly—often of her—cited scripture—“My darling from the lions,” she caught; and “the lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.” Once he cried aloud, “Ha! Tell Wilbraham I will not see him—” and again, moaning, “No, no, it is untrue—it cannot be true.” There followed a time of broken sleep—at three o’clock, with a grey line of light between the curtains, she saw his open eyes fixed earnestly upon her.

She was on her knees by the bed in a moment. “I am here,” she said. “Do you know me?”

His lips moved, “Yes.”

“I was at home when I heard of your illness—but I did not go home when I left you. I went to the north to consult a friend—about myself. Do you hear me? Can you hear me?”

Again he sighed “Yes.” His eyes were fixed upon hers—with interest, she thought—but without any judgment. The night-nurse discreetly left the room.

She asked his patience, and plunged into her story—her story and his own, with Tristram’s part interwoven. “There was one who used to see me,” was her way of bringing in Duplessis, and after that Tristram was “he” throughout. She would not use his name; felt she could not, and knew that she need not. Full understanding lay behind those unwinking, charged eyes, terribly watchful and indifferent to anything but curiosity. She saw them as the patient eyes of an investigator, expectant of a final experiment. “I have studied this case for three years—now, at last, I am to have it.” He knew everything—had known everything from the beginning: she had no news for him; “how she would put it,” was what he was waiting for—for that only she had drawn him back to life.

This knowledge, this realization drove her to candour past belief. She felt as if she was stripping herself for public exhibition—found herself talking in a dry voice of lovers’ intimacies and of still more secret things—of things which women feel but do not even think. She had to examine herself unflinchingly during this confession, which reduced itself, for lack of matter, to one of motives. In the course of it she had to face a fact never faced before only felt. She could not love Tristram, she did not love Germain—whom, then, did she love? The fine colour flushed her cheeks, the true light flamed in her eyes as she told herself—and then told her husband.

“I know myself now. There is one man who could do with me as he pleased. But he will do nothing with me. I trust him utterly; he has changed me. He has given me a soul, I think. He has taught me the worth of things which I never valued before; and what life is, and happiness, and truth. It is through him that I went home and faced what I was afraid of—left him and all the wonderful things he could make me see. I might never see him again—but I left him. I am doing what he would wish now in telling you all this. Untruth is impossible to him, and must never be possible to me again. That is why I have waited here to tell you. I had to tell you—I had to tell myself. Now I have told you everything——”

She stopped there because she felt that if she were to go on she would have to be insincere. Contrition for what she had done and allowed to be done in the days of her blank ignorance, prayers for forgiveness, promises of amendment—such things, proper for bedside confession—what would they imply, what involve? That she loved this poor watcher? Alas! Pity might have urged her to deceive him so; but she dared not deceive him—and, moreover, she was certain that he could not now be deceived. The light of another world shone upon him, shone through him, and enabled him to read hearts. She did not shrink from this supernatural power of his—if it had been profitable she would have given him her life-blood. It seemed to her as clear as daylight that the utmost she could do for him had now been done—when she had discharged her conscience before him, and cleared her honour. She believed that he would feel himself honoured by that act; and as she stooped over him to kiss him she told him as much.

“It is kind of you to have listened to me. You have done me so much honour, so much kindness—but this is the greatest you have ever done me. Do you understand that I feel it so?” For a moment his terrible intelligence pored upon her as she hung over his bed. It searched her, explored her, wondered, judged. A flicker of a smile—a momentary relaxation of his rigid lips—a faint wavering of his attention; then he signed, and closed his eyelids down. The strain was over, she had been heard, assessed, acquitted. When the night-nurse came in she found the patient at peace, and Mary Germain crouched on the floor asleep, her head upon the edge of the bed.

XV
THE DEAD HAND

Her calmness, which was not the stupor of grief, from this point onwards shocked her friend and disturbed her enemy in the house. The Rector could not but feel it a slight upon his dead brother and an attitude most unbecoming to so young a widow; but Mrs. James was made uncomfortable by an attitude for which she had not been prepared. Whatever the girl’s faults may have been, she had never been brazen. Why, then, was she brazen now? Why almost—yes, indecent in her indifference? Mary proposed nothing, objected to nothing; took no part in the funeral arrangements, answered no letters, read none, allowed her sister-in-law entire control, sank back, with evident contentment, to be the cipher in her own house, which, of course, she ought to have been from the first. There was something behind all this; Mrs. James was far too intelligent to misread it. This did not mean that Mary was over-whelmed—by grief, or shame, either; it did not mean that she felt herself in disgrace. No. This was impudence—colossal.

The Rector, to whom this reading of the girl was propounded, could not deny it colour. “She’s very young to have such troubles upon her, and of course she’s still very ignorant. She can’t express herself. I don’t at all agree with you, Constantia; but I own I should have preferred to see her in tears.”

“Why should she cry, pray? She has all that she wants—a sure income and her liberty. At least, that is what she supposes; but we shall see.”

“You paint your devils so impossibly black, my dear,” said the Rector, “that really they refute themselves. I am sorry to have to say it, but you are incapable of being just to this poor girl. However, as I own, tears had been a sign of grace.”

Certainly she shed no tears, that any one could see. She was frequently in her room alone, and may have cried there. The Rector made advances, by look, by gesture, even by words. He was not an effusive man; would sooner have died than have invited anybody to pray with him—but for all that he did put himself in her way, heart in hand, so to speak—and when she gently disregarded him he felt chilly.

She did not attend the funeral, nor did she choose, though she was urged, to be present at the reading of the will. She told the Rector, who pressed this duty upon her, that she couldn’t oblige him. “Please don’t ask me to do that. I have nothing to expect—and if he had left me anything I should have to think about it very seriously. He took me from nothing; I brought him nothing; he has done more for me, and allowed me to do more for my parents than I could ever have asked—even of him. I make no claims at all, and have no expectations. I have never thought about such things——”

“Naturally, my child, naturally not. But—after such a shock as this—after the first pang of loss—it is wise to think of the future. You had no settlement, you know.”

“How could I?” she asked simply. He smiled at the question.

“Well, my dear, well. Your parents might reasonably have looked—my dear brother was very impulsive in some ways—I can’t doubt but that he intended to make proper provision. But he kept his affairs very much to himself—too much. However, at such a time—to judge the beloved dead—! No, no. For the same reason I can’t press you——”

“No—please do not,” she said, and turned to the window. He left her.

The will, then, was read before the Rector and Mrs. James, Miss Germain, and Miss Hester Germain, and produced its effect. It bore the date of a month before the testator’s second marriage and was expressed to be made in view of that coming ceremony, and to take the place of any settlement. It left her Porchfield House in Farlingbridge, “otherwise known as the Dowry House,” with all its furniture and household gear, and three thousand pounds a year charged upon his Southover estate “so long as she remain chaste and unmarried.” Mr. Dockwra, solicitor, slurred his phrase, excusing it. Mrs. James liked it extremely. In the case of remarriage, Mary was to have five hundred pounds. That was all, said Mr. Dockwra, so far as Mrs. Germain was concerned; and he only said this much because he was asked by Mrs. James Germain if there was no further reference to her. For the rest the deceased gave handsome legacies to his sisters, though they were otherwise provided for, and liberal remembrances to his servants—annuities calculated upon their years of service; and referred to the fact that the Southover property and the London property alike were in strict settlement upon his own children, should he have any, and, failing them, upon his brother James.

Mr. Dockwra then produced a small bundle of papers. “There was a codicil,” he said, “which bore date the 26th of August—a week before Mr. Germain’s wedding. By this document he left five hundred a year to “my cousin Tristram Duplessis,” so long as he remained unmarried.” Thus tersely expressed, the Rector started as if he had been shot, and his wife compressed her lips.

“I think that I should explain,” said Mr. Dockwra, “that this codicil was not drawn by me, and that I had no knowledge of its existence until the day after Mr. Germain’s death. Mr. James Germain, however, as executor, handed me then the sealed envelope containing it. That envelope contained one other paper—a telegram, which (as it has no obvious reference to the disposition) may have been put there by oversight. I shall hand it now to Mr. Germain.”

The Rector took it, opened it, looked at it, and raised his eyebrows. Presently he put it quietly on the table before him. Mrs. James, without turning her head, read it. It was very short—_Middleham, Hill-street, Berkeley-square_—_Look out_. Mrs. James smiled at her thoughts—and presently left the room.

Mary must now be told what she had not cared to hear. The Rector broke her the contents of the will but said nothing of the codicil. He had not asked his wife the meaning of that second document, and did not mean to. It pointed to a domestic mystery. Without being a prude, all such matters were distasteful to him.

He was very kind, as he had always been. “You will be very comfortably left, you see, Mary,” he said, “at any rate, let us say, while you are looking about you.”

Mary had shown no more than a polite interest in his report. Three thousand a year? Porchfield? She may have been dazed, but she certainly was not dazzled. James Germain reflected to himself on the ease with which one gets acclimatized. Little more than two years ago this child was working hard for sixty pounds a year; now she hears that she is secured three thousand—without moving a muscle.

“I need not tell you,” he went on, “that your home is here or at Southover for any length of time convenient to you. Indeed, I am sure I might include the Rectory in my general invitation. We have been so nearly related; I could not bear to think the tie severed by my dear brother’s death. Apart from that, we have learned to love each other, I hope. I shall always look upon you as one of us—if you will let me; and your settlement at Porchfield will be a reason the more to keep me at Southover.”

“That is very kind of you, Mr. Germain,” Mary said—but without enthusiasm. After a few more efforts, the worthy man left her alone.

It was then Mrs. James’s turn. She came in, after knocking, with the telegram in her hand.

“This, I think, belongs to you,” she said.

Mary took it, read it, and remembered. A quick flush of colour showed that she did.

“Yes,” she said, “but it is of no importance now.” And she tore it across.

But Mrs. James was not to be balked. “You must allow me to explain its importance. It was found in the envelope containing the codicil to my dear brother’s will—a codicil which he made within two days of your receiving it.”

Mary, still looking out of the window, commented idly. “A codicil? Was there a codicil? That meant that you changed your mind, didn’t it?”

“In this case,” said Mrs. James, “it means, I think, that my dear brother explained his mind. I thought that the Rector might have informed you.”

“No,” said Mary. Mrs. James cleared her throat and began to enjoy herself.

“By that he left five hundred a year to my cousin Tristram Duplessis—so long as he remained unmarried.”

Mary was puzzled at first. She knew by the speaker’s tone that she was in disgrace—and connected it with Duplessis at the mention of his name. She stared at the bitterly incisive lady. “Mr. Duplessis—five hundred—if he doesn’t marry? What has that to do with—?” She stopped—her eyes widened and deepened—showed fathomless. “Ah!” she said, and picked up the torn paper. She read the date, August 24th. “What did you say was the date of the will?”

“It was a codicil,” said Mrs. James.

“The date, please, the date,” Mary asked her, fretfully.

“It was dated the 26th of August.”

Jinny’s birthday! Mary remembered it perfectly. He had had tea with the two of them, and she had clung to him afterwards, with a confession on the tip of her tongue. He had never been more loving to her than on that afternoon—and he had Jinny’s telegram in his pocket—in his breast pocket—while she had clung sobbing to his breast! And he had left her that evening, full of love, as he had seemed to be, and gone home and tied Tristram by the leg. Ah—so he had known everything—always! Before that night at Exeter—he had known it from the beginning.

She sat very still—the telegram in her lap—and her eyes cast down, as she played idly with the pieces, lifting them up and letting them fall. The triumphant foe could see nothing but her heavy eyelids, and the fringe of her lashes curving upwards as they brushed her cheeks. If she expected victory she was to be disappointed.

“I am glad you sent him my telegram,” she said. “I am glad he knew about Mr. Duplessis and me.”

Mrs. James lifted her head. “It was certainly advisable that he should be told. Personally, I could not interfere. I told him nothing that may have presented itself to me——”

“No,” said Mary, “of course not. It was no business of yours.” Mrs. James jumped.

“It seems to me that it was very much a business of _yours_, if you will forgive me.”

“It was,” Mary said. “And I told him all about it.”

Mrs. James started. “I told him,” Mary said, “on the night he died. He quite understood.”

“It is horrible to me,” cried Mrs. James, “that he was kept in the dark so long.”

“He wasn’t at all in the dark,” Mary said. “That is plain now. I wish that I had known it before.”

“You may well say so. Apart from candour, apart from sincerity, surely it is the sacred duty of a married woman to have no secrets from her husband.”

Mary looked up. She had the eyes of a woman acquainted with grief. “I am not a married woman,” she said. “I fancy that you must know it.”

XVI
WINGS

The tale of Germain’s posthumous disposition of his chattels ran, as such tales will, all about town, and lost nothing in the running. Women took it complacently, after their kind. Of course it was odd; and yet, in its way, was it not a tribute? One or two pretty young wives told each other that it was touching; a Miss Lavender shed tears. In the clubs they said plainly that Duplessis had been bought off. Palmer Lovell, with his back to the fireplace, cried out in his strident boy’s voice, “If that’s not compounding a felony, it’s compounding a felon. But what the devil of a right has old Germain, alive or dead, to whip his wife in public?” No clubman had an answer to this. The best thing of all was said by Lord Kesteven in Paris: “God be good to us, what Turks we all are! Here’s old Germain taking the harem-key into the grave with him.”

That keen-faced old lord came to London and called on Mary in Hill-street. He observed her pale in her black weeds, but with a haunted kind of beauty upon her which she had never had before. Her eyes were enormous, he said. She was very quiet in her manner, seemed dazed, but not cowed—apprehensive, you might think. She looked up at him in a mutely expectant way, as if she expected him momentarily to hit her, and was too tired even to flinch at the impending blow. He felt deeply for her—all sorts of things, and after his manner, therefore, was more bluff and direct than usual. “Well, my young friend, and what are you going to do with yourself? I should advise you to get out of this. No woman can be expected to stand it.”

She flushed at the bold attack, but did not avoid it. “I hear nothing of what is being said. I am sure he did not mean to be unkind. That is not like him. I was to blame.”

“I won’t talk about it, or I shall get angry. Cant—in a man’s will—to disguise something worse, and nastier—pouf! Look here, my dear, try France—try Paris. My sister Margaret de Guiche would like you to pay her a visit. She said so. She’s alone, and you need see nobody. De Guiche is in Petersburg. You couldn’t have a better dueña than Margaret. It will be a kindness to her—and a kindness to me. I wish you’d think of it.”

She listened with hanging head, and veiled eyes. Her eyelids, always heavy, seemed now as if they were of intolerable weight. She watched her twisting fingers as she thanked him for the proposal. She would think of it, she told him—she had everything to think of.

“I know that very well,” Kesteven said; “but there are some things which I hope you need not consider. One of them is the great regard I have for you.”

Oh, yes, she was sure of that. He had shown her so much kindness.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he continued; “and I’ll go as far as this. If you decide to renounce your legacy—on reflection—I should claim the privilege of helping you to do it. I can hardly go further—but so far I am ready to go. Remember that. Remember that I am allowed to call myself your friend. Remember, if you choose, that I am five-and-sixty, and take heart—if you need heart.”

It was clear what was implied in this speech; but she did not feel equal to quieting the anxiety which underlay it. She made no remark.

“At any rate,” said his lordship, “I tell you that you may command the Hôtel de Guiche. Margaret may be trusted—and perhaps I need not add that you may trust me, too.” But he couldn’t get her to say more than she would think of it, so took his leave. He kissed her hand.

So far she had not seen Duplessis, nor heard from him; but the sense that an interview with him was impending, was, as it were, swinging like a sword over her head, fretted her nerves so badly that she was incapable of thinking what she could say to him when he came to her—as of course he would—with an offer of instant marriage. That would be, in his view, the only possible answer to the public affront he had received. But as the days went on and he made no sign she began to wonder dimly whether, after all, she might not escape—and from such faint sighings thrown out into the vague she came by degrees to hopes—and from hopes to plans and shifts.

Everything in town conspired together to make her position impossible. The chill reserve of Mrs. James—whose frozen civility was worse than any rebuke; the letters of her parents from Blackheath, kind, repining, half-informed letters which said in effect, We don’t know what is being cried against you, but be sure that we are on your side; and the terrible letters of Jinny (almost Mrs. Podmore by now, and vigorously on the side of decorum)—“the disgrace which has been cast upon our family . . . your unfortunate _liaison_, . . . One can only hope that you will let them be a warning, child. . . . Let us be thankful that things are no worse . . .”—all this made the poor girl so self-conscious that she could hardly lift her head. She thought that the very servants were judging her—as, no doubt, they were; she felt beaten to the earth; and the fund of common-sense, the fund of charity, which she had at her call—through mere panic—suspended payment.

If she had been left to herself she would have borne her husband no grudge for seeking to tie her publicly to his name. She would have pitied, not blamed him, for supposing that three thousand or thirty thousand a year could have held her. And certainly that midnight confession absolved her in her own conscience. If she had looked back upon her dealings with Duplessis it would have been to see what a little fool she had been—to blush at her ignorance, not at her shame. But now her world insisted on her disgrace; she was made to stand in a sheet like a Jane Shore; the straight, clinging, disgraceful robe imprisoned her body and soul. She felt that she must die if she stayed where she was, a public mock; but until Duplessis delayed so obviously his coming she had felt bound in honour to see him.

To be just to Duplessis, he kept himself away by violence, obeying an instinct—which was a true one. He had no doubt but that she would marry him now—he could not for the life of him see how any two people could otherwise reply to posthumous impudence of the sort. Indeed, he felt in his heart of hearts that she owed him that. But his instinct told him that that could not be put to her for the present, and that to be seen in her society, to visit her, even to write to her, would make her burden heavier to bear. He contented himself by renouncing his legacy in the most precise terms—in a letter to Dockwra the lawyer, and in another to James Germain. If this act came to Mary’s ears, as he hoped it would, no harm would be done to his affair. Rather, she would see in it a plain declaration of his feelings. But, unfortunately for him, it did not. James Germain was at Misperton by this time, and Dockwra communicated directly with him, not through his wife. James Germain, true to his fastidious sense, thought it no business of Mary’s—and was thankful it was none of his.

The delay of a week, ten days, a fortnight, gave her courage. Her feverish dreams, hopes of a release, left her. She knew now that she was to be free, and, once resolved, schemes began to gather in her brain, to develop; her mind went to work, and she became happy. There was no doubt at all where she would go. All her ideas of freedom were centred in one place—Land’s End. The sea, the rocks, the birds—and the low white cottage facing them all—open-doored to them all. Her dream of nearly three years; now to come true! If Senhouse was at the back of her mind, he was kept rigorously there. She felt virginal now when she thought of Senhouse, found herself blushing, and put the image away as not lawful. Freedom from the intolerable eyes about her—the butler’s—her maid’s—Mrs. James’s—this ghastly mummery of clothes and ceremony—she agonized to be quit of it all; but now she intended to be, and could not afford time to agonize. She turned all her quick wits to the work, applied method and deliberation to it, and could almost fix a day, so plain did everything seem.

Method cautioned her to go slowly to work; the first thing to do was to accustom Mrs. James to her walks abroad. She devoted a week to this—went alone, deeply veiled, into the park every day, and spent gradually increasing hours there, doing nothing more.

Then, one morning, she went circuitously to the Bank in Burlington-gardens, and asked for her pass-book. There was some £300 to her credit—the remains of her pin-money allowance. Two days later she presented a cheque for £300—which left her a balance of £27 10s.—and asked for the money in gold. The porter took the sack to her cab, and she gave the direction “Hill-street”—but once out of hearing she put her hand through the window at the top and gave another order—the Army and Navy Stores.

Leaving her sack of money in the cab, she bought herself a Gladstone bag. Perhaps it is evidence at once of the folly and fortune of women that she was not robbed; she may well have deserved to be, for, being full of her ingenious schemes, she had given no thought to the matter—had neither taken the man’s number, nor told him what she was entrusting to him. She had not so much as troubled to shut the cab door after her. The man himself, with a “Well, I’m damned!” had done that, and it may be that the very magnitude of his opportunities had bereft him of the means of using them; for she found him smiling on the rank when she came out. The bag was handed in to her—uncovered—she gave the new direction “Paddington,” and _en route_ deposited her sack of sovereigns and locked it in the bag.

At Paddington she dismissed the cab, not extravagantly, and disappeared with a porter and the bag. She put it in the cloak-room, took a ticket for it, then went back to Hill-street.

Two things must be done, two letters be written—one to her mother, one to James Germain. He had always been her friend; she was really fond of him, and liked to think that he would regret her loss, while she was bound to guard against his trying to recover her. To her mother she wrote very simply that she was suddenly called away on affairs connected with her husband’s death, and might have to go abroad. It would be difficult to write—but she would send an address as soon as she had one of any permanence. She added, “Darling Mother, be as sure of my love for you and father and all of you, as I am of yours. I promise to tell you how I succeed in my business, or if I fail in it. You will never be out of my thoughts, as you are never out of my prayers. Love me always, in spite of anything that you may hear against me. I have been foolish, very ignorant, and very blind—but no worse, Mother, upon my honour. I am wiser now, and intend to be a good woman. Trust your Mary; who loves you and kisses this paper.”

She wrote in the same strain to the Rector of Misperton. “I am not able to bear the strain of London for the present, and intend to travel for some time before making my plans. I feel the need of quiet, and shall trust in you to do all you can to ensure it to me. After the comforting words you gave me I am sure that you may rely upon my doing nothing which should make me unworthy of them. I am resolved not to see Mr. Duplessis again. I could never be happy with him, nor make him happy after what has passed. If he should inquire for me, pray tell him that this is my sincere conviction, and ask him not to attempt to dissuade me from it. I can never thank you enough for your invariable kindness to me; that must always be one of my happy recollections of the life that I have ended. If I have to begin again without it, it is because I cannot ask you to continue it until I have proved myself more worthy to have it. I am going away now by myself, to work and to learn, and to forget much, but never to forget your kindness. I beg you to, remember sometimes with charity your affectionate friend, =Mary S. Germain=.”

It was on the tip of her pen to write to Tristram; as she sat hesitating the phrases printed themselves, one after another in her head, and she wrote them down. “You never loved me—but I was proud to be even in your notice. I am greatly to blame for the renewal of what was idle on your part and foolish vanity on mine in the beginning. I can only be glad that my husband, though he knew everything, heard it all again from my own lips—I told him the night he died. I hope that you will be happy and famous, I know that both are in your power. Do not try to find me, I beg of you. Forget me, and love a woman who is more suited to you by birth and education. I know that if you try you can succeed in this. If you have any feeling of regard for me you will do as I ask you now.—MARY S. GERMAIN.”

Two of these letters she posted with her own hand that night. Tristram’s she reserved.

Then she made her last preparations. She packed her jewel-case carefully, tied and sealed it, and addressed it to the bank. She dined in her boudoir and spent the rest of the evening with Bradshaw, planning out her route. Love of secrecy, love of intricacy, which were both characteristic of her, decided her against so simple a course as a journey from Paddington to Penzance. She worked out a way more to her taste: Waterloo to Basingstoke, thence to Swindon, and thence by the Great Western to Exeter, where she would stay for a while. This necessitated an early start in the morning, for she must go to Paddington and recover her three hundred pounds. She would take no luggage whatever, would buy what she wanted in Exeter. Loyalty to Senhusian ethics decided her to this.

Meantime, it was necessary to be rid of her maid for an hour. That she effected by the simple means of sending her with the note to Duplessis, and with her jewel-box, to be taken to the bank, and a receipt obtained. The moment she was alone she dressed herself as she intended to appear—in black jacket and skirt and a grey silk blouse—in hat and veil studiously plain. Then she left the house in Hill-street on foot, got a cab in Davies-street, and was free.

All went well with her as far as Basingstoke; but there she was imprudent. She asked at the office whether she could book through to Penzance, and break her journey for a week, and being told, after some delay, that she could not—“Then Exeter, please,” she said. “Second single to Exeter,” and receiving it, holding it in her mouth, she half turned to get a better light into her purse, and caught sight of Horace Wing—the courtly Horace—who must have heard her. In the shock, as he hastened forward, cap in one hand, golf-clubs dragging by the other, she left her change on the counter, bowed and fairly ran. This was very indiscreet; but she escaped, and the porter came after her with her bag. Horace Wing, after gaping, had a shuddering fit. He did not follow her, and was not able to smile at the encounter for some weeks.

Her carriage was empty: she was alone now, with all her life, like an open sea, in front of her. She sat, looking out towards the West, her hands quiet in her lap; she had no sense of high adventure, no bosom full of hope—peace possessed her altogether. She felt that she could lie her length upon some green bank, sheltered from the wind, and sleep herself to death. Such a feeling as this was so foreign to her nature that she was surprised at herself, asked herself whether some chord in her had not been broken. She was sanguine by temperament and always lived in the future; if on any morning of any week she could not wake up with the sense of an excitement to come, to be waited for, to be felt nearer—that day was so much dead weight, so much space of drab, to be got through, in order that she might live to-morrow. She told herself that she was mortally tired—that her present reward was to be able to live unwatched and unjudged. That was enough for any girl surely—let the morrow’s outlook provide for the morrow.

Even while she was thinking these thoughts she caught herself unawares. She found herself watching the flying landscape anxiously, and smiling as she watched. The open common, the duck-pond, and the white road—yes, and the tilt-cart drawn by a white horse—plodding to the West! Three years ago, almost to a day—she and the tilt-cart had taken that road. And then she had been a bride of an hour—and now she was a widow of an hour. She caught herself blushing, was confused, felt eyes upon her: the carriage seemed full of eyes. For a while, she continued to watch, to watch through the mist in her own eyes—and then she turned suddenly in her place, opened her novel and read diligently in it until the train, stopping at Taunton, showed her that the place of dangerous memories was past.

She would not allow her thoughts to recur to that curious little drama of the mind: in fact, she worked hard to avoid the temptation. She abandoned her novel, opened her purse, and did her accounts. She made lists of necessary purchases, and began to post up the diary with which she had provided herself.

When she reached Exeter she stepped out—Miss Mary Middleham. Her bag bore a label to that effect.

XVII
FIRST FLIGHT

Mrs. Merritt who had been housekeeper to the late Canon Blackrod and now let lodgings in a house of her own, was amiable, and by the possession of that quality was able to keep her curiosity within bounds: but it was her daughter Polly, a Devon maid of apple cheeks and sloe-black eyes, who taught her enthusiasm for her lodger. Polly Merritt adored the quiet and pretty young lady who, though she wore such beautiful clothes, gave herself none of the airs which were clearly within her rights; who would wash her own blouses, trim her own hats, or sit below-stairs chatting affably, while she trimmed one for Polly herself. In such familiar intercourse all the necessary safeguards of landladies were proved to be secure. Miss Middleham, it seemed, was an orphan, by profession a teacher of languages, who had found it necessary to leave her London employment to escape a gentleman’s attentions. Most reasonable, most proper. The gentleman was one indeed, highly connected, in fact, cousin of an Honourable; but impecunious and not very steady. Girls who are orphans must look after themselves: there had been nothing for it but flight. Admirable forethought! Nothing, certainly, but praise could be given to Miss Middleham for conduct so discreet.

“It’ll bring him round, Miss, depend upon it,” Mrs. Merritt had considered. “It’ll make him look nine ways. As good as a slap in the face, any day.”

“Better, I hope,” Mary said.

“Some of ’em wants one thing, some another, Miss. Let him know that you’re in earnest, whatever you do.”

“I am quite in earnest, Mrs. Merritt,” Mary told her; “and I think I have made that plain.”

“Did you tell him so, or write it, Miss?” Polly must ask. “Writing’s better—but it’s dull work.”

“I have done both, Polly. He doesn’t know where I am. I made it quite clear to him that he could not.”

Mrs. Merritt, having observed her guest, passed the back of her hand rapidly across her nose. “To be sure you could, Miss. It’s easy to be seen that God Almighty never gave you that pair of eyes for nothing. To call a man, or send him about his business—ah, I’ll warrant you.”

“Poor fellow,” mused the tender Polly. “I pity him.”

In private conversation afterwards Mrs. Merritt assured her daughter that she need not. We should have the young gentleman here before the swallows were away: let Polly mark her words. Our young lady was a snug young lady—that was a certainty. She was not a girl who would go without letters of a morning for long together. Letters! That sort live on ’em, as a man on his eleven o’clock beer. No, no. She was used to company, any one could see. She was meant to be somebody’s darling. How else did she get her pretty ways—and why to goodness wear her pretty frocks, but for that? Meantime, she had been used to the best, you could see; and she should have it here.

What Mrs. Merritt, however, did not know, and Polly did know, was that another gentleman stood in the background. Here lay the root of Polly’s passionate interest in her friend: a constant appeal to her imagination and judgment and wonder. A gentleman was to be expected; there was always a gentleman. But two gentlemen! One more gentleman, and Polly might have felt the responsibilities of Paris. In fact, she did feel them as things were.

Mary had come to Exeter, meaning no more than a passage-bird’s rest there—a night or two, and away. Her cottage at the Land’s End, solitary vigil face to face with the sea and the rocks, tending of the hidden garden there, a waiting and watching—and a great reward: that had been her fixed intent. Nothing seemed to be in the way. She was free as air: why should she wait?

It is very odd, though, how you cannot carry through these hot-blood thoughts in the cold blood. That momentary shyness which had come upon her in the train, when she had caught herself looking out for a remembered village-green and had been abashed, came upon her the moment she began to think of Cornwall with a view to going there. She found herself trembling, found herself delaying, drawing back. Had she been her old self, never sought and never mated, in this tremulous plight she had remained; but she had learned to face such difficulties, and did not shirk it. The more she thought of it the plainer it became that she could not have the cottage, could not sit down there and wait for Senhouse. Virgin as she was, and virginal as she was now become again, the picture of herself in such an attitude, and in such an act, filled her with shame. And if to picture it was dreadful, what would the day-long reality be but unendurable? But where, then, was her sense of comradeship, of perfect amity between him and her? She did not know. It was gone. And what would he—wondrous, clear-seeing friend—say to her for this prudery? That she did know: she could see him appeal for laughter to the skies. Alas, it could not be helped. She was a maiden, therefore might be wooed. She was a maiden, therefore could not go a-wooing. So he and she might never meet again! Better so—oh, infinitely better—than that they should meet by her act.

Thus it was that Polly Merritt came to learn about the other gentleman. Mary’s perplexities had been stated, and Polly was thrilled.

“Oh, Miss! And he’s never spoken?”

“No,” said Mary. “At least—not about that.”

“What was the nearest he ever got to?”