Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Archibald Floyd led his daughter and her husband into the dining-room, and the dinner-party sat down against with the two unexpected guests, and the second course was served, and the lukewarm salmon brought in again for Mr. and Mrs. Mellish.

  Aurora sat in her old place on her father’s right hand. In the old girlish days Miss Floyd had never occupied the bottom of the table, but had loved best to sit close to that foolishly doting parent, pouring out his wine for him in defiance of the servants, and doing other loving offices which were deliciously inconvenient to the old man.

  To-day Aurora seemed especially affectionate. That fondly clinging manner had all its ancient charm to the banker. He put down his glass with a tremulous hand to gaze at his darling child, and was dazzled with her beauty, and drunken with the happiness of having her near him.

  “But, my darling,” he said, by and by, “what do you mean by talking about going back to Yorkshire to-morrow?”

  “Nothing, papa, except that I must go,” answered Mrs. Mellish, determinedly.

  “But why come, dear, if you could only stop one night?”

  “Because I wanted to see you, dearest father, and to talk to you about — about money matters.”

  “That’s it,” exclaimed John Mellish, with his mouth half full of salmon and lobster-sauce. “That’s it! Money matters! That’s all I can get out of her. She goes out late last night, and roams about the garden, and comes in wet through and through, and say she must come to London about money matters. What should she want with money matters? If she wants money, she can have as much as she wants. She shall write the figures, and I’ll sign the check; or she shall have a dozen blank checks to fill in just as she pleases. What is there upon this earth that I’d refuse her? If she dipped a little too deep, and put more money than she could afford upon the bay filly, why does n’t she come to me, instead of bothering you about money matters? You know I said so in the train, Aurora, ever so many times. Why bother your poor papa about it?”

  The poor papa looked wonderingly from his daughter to his daughter’s husband. What did it all mean? Trouble, vexation, weariness of spirit, humiliation, disgrace?

  Ah! Heaven help that enfeebled mind whose strength has been shattered by one great shock. Archibald Floyd dreaded the token of a coming storm in every chance cloud on the summer’s sky.

  “Perhaps I may prefer to spend my own money, Mr. John Mellish,” answered Aurora, “and pay any foolish bets I have chosen to make out of my own purse, without being under an obligation to any one.”

  Mr. Mellish returned to his salmon in silence.

  “There is no occasion for a great mystery, papa,” resumed Aurora; “I want some money for a particular purpose, and I have come to consult with you about my affairs. There is nothing very extraordinary in that, I suppose?”

  Mrs. John Mellish tossed her head, and flung this sentence at the assembly as if it had been a challenge. Her manner was so defiant that even Talbot and Lucy felt called upon to respond with a gentle dissenting murmur.

  “No, no, of course not; nothing more natural,” muttered the captain; but he was thinking all the time, “Thank God I married the other one.”

  After dinner the little party strolled out of the drawing-room windows on to the lawn, and away toward that iron bridge upon which Aurora had stood, with her dog by her side, less than two years ago, on the occasion of Talbot Bulstrode’s second visit to Felden Woods. Lingering upon that bridge on this tranquil summer’s evening, what could the captain do but think of that September day, barely two years agone? Barely two years! not two years! And how much had been done, and thought, and suffered since! How contemptible was the narrow space of time! yet what terrible eternities of anguish, what centuries of heart-break, had been compressed into that pitiful sum of days and weeks! When the fraudulent partner in some house of business puts the money which is not his own upon a Derby favorite, and goes home at night a loser, it is strangely difficult for that wretched defaulter to believe that it is not twelve hours since he travelled the road to Epsom confident of success, and calculating how he should invest his winnings. Talbot Bulstrode was very silent, thinking of the influence which this family of Felden Woods had had upon his destiny. His little Lucy saw that silence and thoughtfulness, and, stealing softly to her husband, linked her arm in his. She had a right to do it now — yes, to pass her little soft white hand under his coat sleeve, and even look up, almost boldly, in his face.

  “Do you remember when you first came to Felden, and we stood upon this very bridge?” she asked; for she too had been thinking of that far-away time in the bright September of ‘57. “Do you remember, Talbot, dear?”

  She had drawn him away from the banker and his children in order to ask this all-important question.

  “Yes, perfectly, darling. As well as I remember your graceful figure seated at the piano in the long drawing-room, with the sunshine on your hair.”

  “You remember that! you remember me!” exclaimed Lucy, rapturously.

  “Very well, indeed.”

  “But I thought — that is, I know — that you were in love with Aurora then.”

  “I think not.”

  “You only think not.”

  “How can I tell!” cried Talbot. “I freely confess that my first recollection connected with this place is of a gorgeous black-eyed creature, with scarlet in her hair; and I can no more disassociate her image from Felden Woods than I can, with my bare right hand, pluck up the trees which give the place its name. But if you entertain one distrustful thought of that pale shadow of the past, you do yourself and me a grievous wrong. I made a mistake, Lucy; but, thank Heaven, I saw it in time.”

  It is to be observed that Captain Bulstrode was always peculiarly demonstrative in his gratitude to Providence for his escape from the bonds which were to have united him to Aurora. He also made a great point of the benign compassion in which he heldJohn Mellish. But, in despite of this, he was apt to be rather captious and quarrelsomely disposed toward the Yorkshireman; and I doubt if John’s little stupidities and weaknesses were, on the whole, very displeasing to him. There are some wounds which never heal. The jagged flesh may reunite; cooling medicines may subdue the inflammation; even the scar left by the dagger-thrust may wear away, until it disappears in that gradual transformation which every atom of us is supposed by physiologists to undergo; but the wound has been, and to the last hour of our lives there are unfavorable winds which can make us wince with the old pain.

  Aurora treated her cousin’s husband with the calm cordiality which she might have felt for a brother. She bore no grudge against him for the old desertion, for she was happy with her husband — happy with the man who loved and believed in her, surviving every trial of his simple faith. Mrs. Mellish and Lucy wandered among the flower-beds by the waterside, leaving the gentlemen on the bridge.

  “So you are very, very happy, my Lucy?” said Aurora.

  “Oh, yes, yes, dear. How could I be otherwise. Talbot is so good to me. I know, of course, that he loved you first, and that he does n’t love me quite — in the same way, you know — perhaps, in fact — not as much.” Lucy Bulstrode was never tired of harping on this unfortunate minor string. “But I am very happy. You must come and see us, Aurora, dear. Our house is so pretty!”

  Mrs. Bulstrode hereupon entered into a detailed description of the furniture and decorations in Half-Moon street, which is perhaps scarcely worthy of record. Aurora listened rather absently to the long catalogue of upholstery, and yawned several times before her cousin had finished.

  “It’s a very pretty house, I dare say, Lucy,” she said at last, “and John and I will be very glad to come and see you some day. I wonder, Lucy, if I were to come in any trouble or disgrace to your door, whether you would turn me away?”

  “Trouble! disgrace!” repeated Lucy, looking frightened.

  “You would n’t turn me away, Lucy, would you? No; I know you better than that. You’d let me in secretly, and hide me away in one of the
servants’ bedrooms, and bring me food by stealth, for fear the captain should discover the forbidden guest beneath his roof. You’d serve two masters, Lucy, in fear and trembling.”

  Before Mrs. Bulstrode could make any answer to this extraordinary speech, the approach of the gentlemen interrupted the feminine conference.

  It was scarcely a lively evening, this July sunset at Felden Woods. Archibald Floyd’s gladness in his daughter’s presence was something damped by the peculiarity of her visit; John Mellish had some shadowy remnants of the previous night’s disquietude hanging about him; Talbot Bulstrode was thoughtful and moody; and poor little Lucy was tortured by vague fears of her brilliant cousin’s influence. I don’t suppose that any member of that “attenuated” assembly felt very much regret when the great clock in the stable-yard struck eleven, and the jingling bedroom candlesticks were brought into the room.

  Talbot and his wife were the first to say good-night. Aurora lingered at her father’s side, and John Mellish looked doubtfully at his dashing white sergeant, waiting to receive the word of command.

  “You may go, John,” she said; “I want to speak to papa.”

  “But I can wait, Lolly.”

  “On no account,” answered Mrs. Mellish, sharply. “I am going into papa’s study to have a quiet confabulation with him. What end would be gained by your waiting? you’ve been yawning in our faces all the evening. You’re tired to death, I know, John; so go at once, my precious pet, and leave papa and me to discuss our money matters.” She pouted her rosy lips, and stood upon tiptoe, while the big Yorkshireman kissed her.

  “How you do henpeck me, Lolly!” he said, rather sheepishly. “Good-night, sir. God bless you! Take care of my darling.”

  He shook hands with Mr. Floyd, parting from him with that half-affectionate, half-reverent manner which he always displayed to Aurora’s father. Mrs. Mellish stood for some moments silent and motionless, looking after her husband, while her father, watching her looks, tried to read their meaning.

  How quiet are the tragedies of real life! That dreadful scene between the Moor and his Ancient takes place in the open street of Cyprus. According to modern usage, I can not fancy Othello and Iago debating about poor Desdemona’s honesty in St. Paul’s churchyard, or even in the market-place of a country town; but perhaps the Cyprus street was a dull one, a cul-de-sac, it may be, or at least a deserted thoroughfare, something like that in which Monsieur Melnotte falls upon the shoulder of General Damas and sobs out his lamentations. But our modern tragedies seem to occur in-doors, and in places where we should least look for scenes of horror. Even while I write this the London flaneursare staring all agape at a shop-window in a crowded street as if every pitiful feather, every poor shred of ribbon in that milliner’s window had a mystical association with the terrors of a room up stairs. But to the ignorant passers-by how commonplace the spot must seem; how remote in its every-day associations from the terrors of life’s tragedy!

  Any chance traveller driving from Beckenham to West Wickham would have looked, perhaps enviously, at the Felden mansion, and sighed to be lord of that fair expanse of park and garden; yet I doubt if in the county of Kent there was any creature more disturbed in mind than Archibald Floyd, the banker. Those few moments during which Aurora stood in thoughtful silence were as so many hours to his anxious mind. At last she spoke.

  “Will you come to the study, papa?” she said; “this room is so big, and so dimly lighted, I always fancy there are listeners in the corners.”

  She did not wait for an answer, but led the way to a room upon the other side of the hall — the room in which she and her father had been so long closeted together upon the night before her departure for Paris. The crayon portrait of Eliza Floyd looked down upon Archibald and his daughter. The face wore so bright and genial a smile that it was difficult to believe it was the face of the dead.

  The banker was the first to speak.

  “My darling girl,” he said, “what is it you want of me?”

  “Money, papa. Two thousand pounds.”

  She checked his gesture of surprise, and resumed before he could interrupt her:

  “The money you settled upon me on my marriage with John Mellish is invested in our own bank, I know. I know, too, that I can draw upon my account when and how I please; but I thought that if I wrote a check for two thousand pounds the unusual amount might attract attention, and it might possibly fall into your hands. Had this occurred, you would perhaps have been alarmed, at any rate astonished. I thought it best, therefore, to come to you myself and ask you for the money, especially as I must have it in notes.”

  Archibald Floyd grew very pale. He had been standing while Aurora spoke, but as she finished he dropped into a chair near his little office-table, and, resting his elbow upon an open desk, leaned his head on his hand.

  “What do you want the money for, my dear?” he asked, gravely.

  “Never mind what, papa. It is my own money, is it not, and I may spend it as I please?”

  “Certainly, my dear, certainly,” he answered, with some slight hesitation. “You shall spend whatever you please. I am rich enough to indulge any whim of yours, however foolish, however extravagant. But your marriage settlement was rather intended for the benefit of your children — than — than for — anything of this kind, and I scarcely know if you are justified in touching it without your husband’s permission, especially as your pin-money is really large enough to enable you to gratify any reasonable wish.”

  The old man pushed his gray hair away from his forehead with a weary action and a tremulous hand. Heaven knows that even in that desperate moment Aurora took notice of the feeble hand and the whitening hair.

  “Give me the money, then, papa,” she said. “Give it me from your own purse. You are rich enough to do that.”

  “Rich enough! Yes, if it were twenty times the sum,” answered the banker, slowly. Then, with a sudden burst of passion, he exclaimed, “Oh, Aurora, Aurora, why do you treat me so badly? Have I been so cruel a father that you can’t confide in me. Aurora, why do you want this money?”

  She clasped her hands tightly together, and stood looking at him for a few moments irresolutely.

  “I can not tell you,” she said, with grave determination. “If I were to tell you — what — what I think of doing, you might thwart me in my purpose. Father! father!” she cried, with a sudden change in her voice and manner, “I am hemmed in on every side by difficulty and danger, and there is only one way of escape — except death. Unless I take that one way, I must die. I am very young — too young and happy, perhaps, to die willingly. Give me the means of escape.”

  “You mean this sum of money?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have been pestered by some connection — some old associate of — his?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “I can not tell you.”

  They were silent for some moments. Archibald Floyd looked imploringly at his child, but she did not answer that earnest gaze. She stood before him with a proudly downcast look; the eyelids drooping over the dark eyes, not in shame, not in humiliation, only in the stern determination to avoid being subdued by the sight of her father’s distress.

  “Aurora,” he said at last, “why not take the wisest and the safest step? Why not tell John Mellish the truth? The danger would disappear; the difficulty would be overcome. If you are persecuted by this low rabble, who so fit as he to act for you? Tell him, Aurora — tell him all!”

  “No, no, no!”

  She lifted her hands, and clasped them upon her pale face.

  “No, no; not for all this wide world!” she cried.

  “Aurora,” said Archibald Floyd, with a gathering sternness upon his face, which overspread the old man’s benevolent countenance like some dark cloud, “Aurora — God forgive me for saying such words to my own child — but I must insist upon your telling me that this is no new infatuation, no new madness, which leads you to—” He was unable
to finish his sentence.

  Mrs. Mellish dropped her hands from before her face, and looked at him with her eyes flashing fire, and her cheeks in a crimson blaze.

  “Father,” she cried, “how dare you ask me such a question? New infatuation! New madness! Have I suffered so little, do you think, from the folly of my youth? Have I paid so small a price for the mistake of my girlhood that you should have cause to say these words to me to-night? Do I come of so bad a race,” she said, pointing indignantly to her mother’s portrait, “that you should think so vilely of me? Do I—”

  Her tragical appeal was rising to its climax, when she dropped suddenly at her father’s feet, and burst into a tempest of sobs.

  “Papa, papa, pity me,” she cried, “pity me!”

  He raised her in his arms, and drew her to him, and comforted her, as he had comforted her for the loss of a Scotch terrier-pup twelve years before, when she was small enough to sit on his knee, and nestle her head in his waistcoat.

  “Pity you, my dear!” he said. “What is there I would not do for you to save you one moment’s sorrow? If my worthless life could help you; if—”