Happily for George Gerard he loved his profession for its own sake. That love stood him in the stead of human sympathy and human affection. A word of commendation from one of the famous men at the hospital, a word of gratitude from one of his own patients, the knowledge that he had managed a case well, these things cheered and sustained him, and he tramped along the difficult road with a bold front and a lofty heart, sure of success at the end of it, if he but lived to reach the end.
To-night he abandoned himself to the new delight of pleasant society. A bright room, furnished with that heterogeneous comfort which marks the gradual growth of a family dwelling; dark crimson curtains drawn across the broad bay window; family portraits on the walls; lamps on the table, candles on the mantelpiece and sideboard; a fire heaped high with wood and coal; the Vicar’s favourite colley stretched luxuriously on the hearth rug.
‘I don’t think I will go into the drawing-room, to-night,’ said the Vicar, wheeling his chair round to the fire when the table had been cleared. ‘I’m sure you haven’t so good a fire as this in there.’
Mrs. Clare admitted that the drawing-room fire was not so good as it might be.
‘Very well, then, we’ll finish the evening here. If these two young men want to smoke, they can go to Ted’s room.’
Mr. Gerard declared that he did not want to smoke. He was much too comfortable where he was. And then the Vicar began to question him about his profession, what such and such men were doing, and what these new men were like who had won reputation lately. Gerard talked best when he talked of his own calling, and Celia, working point lace in a corner by the fire, thought that he looked really handsome when he was animated. It was a face so different from all those prosperous, fresh-coloured, country-bred faces that her daily life had shown her; a face marked with the strongest determination, vivified by a powerful intellect. The girl’s observant eye noted every characteristic in that interesting countenance. She saw, too, that the young man’s black frock coat had undergone harder wear than any garment she had ever seen worn by her brother; that his boots were of a thick and useful kind, and lacked the style of a fashionable maker; that he wore a silver watch-chain, and exhibited none of the trinkets affected by prosperous youth.
Now Celia Clare was not fond of poverty. She considered it a necessary evil, but liked to give it as wide a berth as possible. Any visiting she did amongst her father’s poor went sorely against the grain; and she always wondered how it was that Laura got on so well with the distressed classes. Yet she felt warmly interested in this young doctor, who was evidently most uninterestingly poor.
CHAPTER XVI. THOU ART THE MAN.
THE next day was Sunday. George Gerard was up as soon as it was light, and off for a ramble on the moor before the nine o’clock breakfast. This glimpse of the country was sweet to him even in the bleak January weather, and he wanted to make the most of his brief opportunity. When he came back to the Vicarage after his walk, he found Edward Clare smoking a cigar in the shrubbery.
‘What a fellow you are to be rambling about in such wintry weather!’ cried Edward, by way of salutation. ‘I want a few minutes talk before we go in to breakfast. We may not get a chance of being alone afterwards. Celia is so fussy on Sunday mornings. I should like you to go to church with us, if you don’t object?’
‘I had made up my mind to go. I hope you don’t suppose I have an antipathy to churches?’
‘One never knows how that may be. I don’t imagine there’s much church-going among young professional men in London.’
‘I used to escort my mother to church every Sunday morning when I was a little boy, and those were my happiest days. If I didn’t like the Sunday morning service for its own sake, I should like it because it puts me in mind of her.’
‘Ah,’ sighed Edward, ‘I dare say when a fellow loses his mother early in life he feels sentimental about her ever afterwards. But when a mother gets to the elderly and twaddly age, one may be fond of her, but one can’t feel poetical about her. I’ll tell you why I want you to go to church with us, Gerard. John Treverton is sure to be there. It will be a capital opportunity for you to take stock of him. Our pew is Just opposite the Manor House pew. You’ll have him n full view all through the service.’
‘Very good,’ assented Gerard. ‘If this Mr. Treverton and Jack Chicot are the same, I shall know him wherever I see him.’
Celia was in excellent spirits all breakfast-time, and poured out tea and coffee with a vivacity and a grace worthy of French comedy. The presence of a strange, young man had a wonderfully brightening influence. Celia felt grateful to her brother for having afforded this unaccustomed variety in the monotonous course of rural life. She took more pains than usual in putting on her bonnet for church, though that was an operation which she always performed carefully; and she happened somehow to be walling by Mr. Gerard’s side for the few hundred yards between the vicarage and the lych-gate.
The vicarage party were amongst the first arrivals. There were only the charity children in the gallery, and a few gaffers and goodies in the free seats. The gentry dropped in slowly. Here was Mr. Sampson, the lawyer, looking his sandiest, accompanied by Miss Sampson, in a distinctly new bonnet. Here was Lady Barker, short and fat and puffy, in an ancient velvet mantle, bordered with brown fur, like a common councillor’s cloak on Lord Mayor’s Day, and with a bonnet that reached the climax of dowdiness — but when one is Lady Barker, and has lived in the same house for five-and-thirty years, it matters very little what one wears.
Here came the Pugsleys, the retired ironmonger and his wife, from Beechampton, Mrs. Pugsley, positively gorgeous in velvet and sable, and with a bird of many colours in her bonnet. Next arrived Mrs. Daracott, the rich widow, whose husband was the largest tenant farmer in the district, and who looked as if all Hazlehurst belonged to her; and here, after a sprinkling of nobodies, came John Treverton and his wife.
The vicar gave out a New Year’s hymn two minutes after this last arrival, and the congregation rose.
‘The man is marvellously changed,’ George Gerard said to himself as he stood face to face with John Treverton, ‘but he is the man I knew in Cibber Street, and no other.’
Yes, it was Jack Chicot. Happiness had given new life and colour to the face, prosperity had softened the harshness of its outline. The hollow cheeks had filled, the haggard eyes had recovered the glory and gladness of youth. But the man was there — the same man in whose face Gerard had looked a year and a half ago, reading the secret of his loveless marriage.
Did he look like an undetected murderer? Did he look like a man tormented by remorse, weighed down with the burden of it guilty secret? Assuredly not. He had the straight outlook of one whose conscience is clear, Whose heart is free from guile. If he were verily guilty, he must be the prince of hypocrites.
His wife was at his side, and George Gerard looked at her with painful interest. What a lovely trustful face, radiant with innocence and contentment. And was this guileless creature to be made wretched by the knowledge of her husband’s deceit? Was her heart to be broken in order that John Treverton should be punished?
Edward Clare had said that it was for her sake he wanted to know the truth about her husband, it was that she might be rescued from a degrading alliance, protected from a man who was at heart a villain.
George Gerard watched the husband and wife at intervals during the service. He could see nothing but placid content, a mind at ease, in the face of John Treverton. The idea of this freedom from care on the part of him who had been La Chicot’s husband embittered Gerard.
‘Had that woman been my wife I should have been sorry for her cruel fate, I should have mourned for her honestly, in spite of her degradation. But had she been my wife, she would never have sunk so low. I would have made it the business of my life to have saved her.’
Thus argued the man who had passionately loved the beautiful, soulless woman, and who had never comprehended the emptiness of her mind and heart.
Once in t
he progress of the service John Treverton looked across the aisle, and saw the stern grey eyes watching him. In that one glance Gerard saw that he was recognised.
‘What will he do if we meet presently?’ Gerard asked himself. ‘He’ll cut me dead, no doubt.’
They did meet, for in leaving the church porch Laura stopped to talk to Mrs. Clare and Celia. Edward and his friend were close behind.
‘Is it the man?’ Edward asked, in a whisper.
‘Yes,’ answered Gerard.
They went along the churchyard path together, and at the gates there was a pause. Laura wanted the vicarage party to go to luncheon at the Manor-house, but Mrs. Clare declined. Of course the children could do what they liked, she said; as if her children had ever done anything else since they had emerged from the helplessness of infancy. Even in their cradles they had had wills of their own.
Celia looked at her brother, and saw by a warning twitch of his eyebrows that she was to say no.
‘I think we had better go home to luncheon, she said, meekly. ‘Papa likes us to be at home on Sundays.’
Then she gave her brother’s sleeve a little tug.
‘You haven’t introduced Mr. Gerard,’ she whispered.
‘Ah, to be sure. Mr. Gerard, Mrs. Treverton Mr. Treverton.’
Mr. Gerard and I have met before, under circumstances that made me deeply indebted to him,’ said John Treverton, holding out his hand.
Gerard lifted his hat, but appeared not to see the offered hand. This unexpected frankness took him by surprise. He had been prepared for anything rather than for John Treverton’s acknowledgment of their past acquaintance.
It was a bold stroke if the man were guilty; but Gerard’s experience had taught him that guilt is generally bold.
‘I should be glad of ten minutes’ talk with you, Mr. Gerard,’ said Treverton. ‘Will you walk my way?’
‘We’ll all walk as far as the Manor-House,’ said Celia. ‘We need not be home till two, need we, mother?’
‘No, dear, but be sure you are punctual,’ answered the good-natured mother. ‘I shall say good-bye, Laura, my dear.’
While Laura lingered a little to take leave of Mrs. Clare, Treverton and Gerard walked on in front of Celia and her brother, along the frost-bound road, under the leafless elms.
‘The world is much smaller than I took it to be,’ John Treverton began, after a pause, ‘or you and I would hardly meet in such an out-of-the-way corner of it as this.’
Gerard said nothing.
‘Were you not surprised to see me in so altered a position?’ the other asked, after an uncomfortable pause.
‘Yes, I was certainly surprised.’
‘I am going to appeal to your kind feeling — nay, to your honour. My wife knows nothing of my past life, save that it was wild and foolish. You know too well what degradation there was for me in my first marriage. I am not going to speak ill of the dead — —’
‘Pray do not,’ interposed Gerard, very pale.
‘But I must speak plainly. When you knew me I was a most miserable man. I have stood upon one of the bridges many a night, and thought that the best thing I could do with myself was to drop quietly over. Well, Providence cut the knot for me — in a terrible manner — but still the knot was cut. I have profited by my release. Fate has been very kind to me. My wife is the dearest and noblest of women. To pluck the veil from my past history would be to give her infinite pain. I ask you, then, as a gentleman, as a man of honour, to keep my secret and to spare her and me.’
‘And you,’ said Gerard, bitterly. ‘Yes, it is doubtless of yourself you think when you ask me to be silent. To spare you? Did you pity or spare the wretched creature who loved you fondly even in her degradation? As for your secret, as you call it, it is no secret. Mr. Clare, the Vicar’s son, knows as well as I do that John Chicot and John Treverton are one and the same.’
‘He knows it? Edward Clare?’
‘Yes.’
‘Since when?’
‘Positively, since this morning in church. He had his suspicions before. This morning I was able to confirm them.’
‘I am sorry for it,’ said John Treverton, after they had walked a few paces in silence. ‘I am sorry for it, I had hoped that part of my life was dead and buried — that no phantom from that hateful past would ever arise to haunt my innocent young wife. It is very hard upon me: it is harder upon her.’
‘There are some ghosts not easily laid,’ returned Gerard. ‘I should think the ghost of a murdered wife was one of them.’
‘Edward Clare is no friend to me,’ pursued Treverton, hardly hearing Gerard’s remark. ‘He will make the most malicious use of this knowledge that he can. He will tell my wife.’
‘Might he not do something worse than that?’
‘What?’
‘What if he were to tell the police where Chicot, the wife-murderer, is to be found?’
My God!’ cried Treverton, turning upon the speaker with a look of horror. ‘You do not think me that?’
‘Unhappily, I do.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘First, on the strength of your cowardly conduct that night. Why should you shirk the responsibility of your position if you were not guilty? Your flight was damning evidence against you. Surely you must have known that when you fled?’
‘I ought to have known it, perhaps; but I thought of nothing except how best and quickest to escape from the entanglement which had been the bane and blight of my manhood. My wife was dead. Those glassy eyes, with their awful look of horror, — that marble hand — told me that life had been gone for hours. What good could I do by remaining? Attend an inquest at which the story of my life would be ripped up for the delight of every gossip-monger in the kingdom; until I, John Treverton, alias Chicot, stood face to face with the world, so tainted and infected that no innocent woman could own me as her husband? What good to me, to that poor dead woman, or to society at large, could have come of my cross-examination at the inquest?’
‘This much good, at least: your innocence — if you are innocent — might have been made manifest.
John Treverton shook hands with Celia, but he only gave Edward a curt nod of adieu.
‘Good morning, Mr. Gerard,’ he said, with cold courtesy. ‘Come, Laura, if Celia has made up her mind to go home to luncheon we mustn’t detain her.’
‘Duty prevails over inclination,’ said Celia, laughingly. ‘If I were to come to the Manor House I should forget my Sunday-school work. From three to four o’clock I have to give my mind to Scripture history. How dreadfully absorbed you look, Mr. Gerard!’ she exclaimed, struck by the surgeon’s thoughtful aspect. ‘Have you any serious case in London that is preying upon your mind?’
‘I have plenty of serious cases, Miss Clare, but I was not thinking of them just then,’ he answered, smiling at her piquant little face, turned to him interrogatively. ‘My patients are mostly sufferers from an incurable malady.’
‘Good gracious, poor things! Is it an epidemic?’
‘No, a chronic disorder — poverty.’ most dreaded, a hideous notoriety. If I stayed all this was inevitable. I might escape everything if I could get away. At that moment I considered only my own interest. I saw as it were a gate standing open leading into a new world. Was I very much to blame if I took advantage of my chance, and left my old life behind me?’
‘No man can leave his past life behind him,’ answered Gerard. ‘If you are innocent I am sorry for you; as I should be sorry for any innocent man who had acted so as to seem guilty. I am still more sorry for your wife.’
‘Yes, you have need to be sorry for her,’ said Treverton, with a quiet anguish that touched even the man who thought him guilty. ‘God help her, poor girl. We have been very happy together: but if Edward Clare holds our happiness in his hand our peaceful days are at an end.’
They were at the Manor House gate by this time, and here they stopped and waited in silence for the others to join them. Celia and Laura had been talki
ng together merrily, while Edward walked beside them, silent and thoughtful.
young fellow walking the street in his scarlet gown, gaunt and hungry-eyed, to whom a hunch of your stale loaf would have been a luxury. When a Scotch parson sends his son to the University he is not always able to give him the price of a daily dinner. Well for the lad if he can be sure of a bowl of porridge for his breakfast and supper.’
‘Poor dear creatures,’ cried Celia. ‘I’m afraid Edward spends as much money on gloves and cigars as would keep an economical young man at a Scotch University — but then he is a poet.’
‘Is a poet necessarily a spendthrift?’
‘Upon my word I don’t know, but poets seem generally given that way, don’t they? One can hardly expect them to be very careful about pounds, shillings, and pence. Their heads are in the clouds, and they have no eyes for the small transactions of daily life.’
After this they walked on for a little while in silence, George Gerard thoughtfully contemplative of the fair young face, with its mignon prettiness and frivolous expression.
‘Oh, poor souls, then I’m sure I pity them. I’ve been subject to occasional attacks towards the end of the quarter ever since I’ve been an independent being with a fixed allowance.’
They were walking homewards by this time, Edward in the rear.
‘Now, do you seriously think, Miss Clare, that a young lady, living in her father’s house, with every want provided for, can know the meaning of the word poverty?’
‘Certainly I do, Mr. Gerard. But I must tell you that you start upon false premises. Young ladies living in their fathers’ houses have not always every want provide for. I have known what it is to be desperately in want of six-button gloves, and not to be able to get them.’
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