Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  The silence was growing oppressive before either the lady or her guest found speech. The footman had retired, leaving the tea-table in front of his mistress, and they were alone again.

  “You will not remain in this house after the funeral, of course,” said Gerard, having cast about for something to say.

  “No, I shall leave England immediately. I have been thinking of my plans while you and I have been sitting here. I hate myself for my egotism; but I could not go on thinking of — him. It would do no good. I shall not easily forget him, poor fellow. His face and his voice will be in my thoughts for a long time to come — but I could not help thinking of myself too. It seems so strange to be free — to be able to go just where I like — not to be obliged to follow a routine. I shall go to Switzerland as soon as I can get ready. I shall take Rosa Gresham with me. She is always enchanted to turn her back upon that adorable parish of hers.”

  “But why should you go away?”

  “It will be best. If I were to stay in England you and I would be meeting, and now — now that he is gone people would rake up the past, and say ill-natured things about us. It will be far better that we should see very little of each other till the year of my widowhood is over. A long time, Gerard; almost long enough for you to forget me.”

  Her tone implied that such forgetfulness must needs be impossible.

  “What if I refuse to submit to such a separation, even to propitiate Mrs. Grundy? We have treated that worthy personage in a very off-hand manner hitherto. Why should we begin to care about her?”

  “Because everything is different now he is gone. While my husband approved of my life nobody could presume to take objection to anything I might do; but I stand alone now and must take care of my good name — your future wife’s good name, Gerard!”

  “How sweetly you put the question! But, my dear Edith, must we really be parted so long? Could people talk about us if you and I were living in the same town, seeing each other every day?”

  “You don’t know how ill-natured people can be. Indeed, Gerard, it will be better for both our sakes.”

  “Not for my sake,” he said earnestly.

  He had gone to Finchley that evening upon a sudden impulse, as if he had been flying from an unimagined peril. He had felt, vaguely, as if his first love were slipping away from him, as if an effort were needed to strengthen the old bonds; and now the woman who should have helped him to be true was about to forsake him — to sacrifice inclination and happiness to the babbling crowd.

  “What can it matter how people talk of us?” he cried impetuously. “We have to think of ourselves and our own happiness. Remember how short life is, and what need we have to husband our brief span of years. Why waste a year, or half a year, upon conventionalities? Let me go with you wherever you go. Let us be married next week.”

  “No, no, no, Gerard. God knows, I love you, only too dearly; but I will not be guilty of deliberate disrespect to him who has gone. He was always good to me — kind and indulgent to a fault. I should have been a better wife, perhaps, if he had been a tyrant. I will not insult him in his grave. A year hence; a year from this day I shall belong to you!”

  “And Mrs. Grundy will have no fault to find with you. ‘Content to dwell in decencies for ever,’” quoted Gerard, with a touch of scorn. “Well, you must have your own way. I have pleaded, and you have answered. Good night. I suppose I shall be allowed to bid you good-bye at the railway station before you leave England.”

  “Of course. Rosa shall write to you about our plans directly they are settled. You will be at the funeral, Gerard, will you not?”

  “Naturally. Once more good night.”

  They clasped hands, she tearful still, ready to break down again at any moment; and so he left her.

  The hansom had waited for him, the horse’s head in a nosebag, the driver asleep on his perch.

  “Only a year, and you are mine as I am yours,” mused Gerard, as he was driven westward. “But a year sometimes makes a wide gap in a life. What will it do in mine?”

  CHAPTER XIV. “FOR SOME MUST STAND, AND SOME MUST FALL OR FLEE.”

  Mr. CHAMPION bad been laid at rest in a brand new vault at Kensal Green for nearly a month, and his widow was at Interlachen, with her cousin, maid, and courier, excursioning mildly among the snow-peaks and glaciers, listening idly to Mrs. Gresham’s interpretation of Mendelssohn, Chopin, and all the new Sclavonic composers, reading Shelley, Keats, and Swinburne, and abandoning herself to a vague melancholy, which found relief in the solitude of everlasting hills, and the seclusion of private sitting-rooms at the hotel. From Interlachen Gerard Hillersdon received his sweetheart’s lengthy and frequent letters, written in a fine, firm hand, on the smoothest paper, with a delicate perfume of wood violets — letters descriptive of every drive and every ramble among the hills, letters meditative upon the poetry she had been reading, or the last German novel, with its diffuse sentimentality and its domestic virtues — letters which generally enclosed a little white woolly flower, plucked amidst perpetual snows; letters which did all that letters can do to bridge the distance between lovers. Gerard replied less lengthily, but with unfailing tenderness, to all those letters of June and July. He wrote from his heart, or he told himself that he was so writing. He wrote with a large panel portrait of his sweetheart upon his desk, in front of him, a portrait which met his eyes whenever he lifted them from his paper, a lifelike likeness of the beautiful face and figure, gorgeous in Court gown and mantle, a tiara on the imperial head, a riviere of diamonds upon the perfect neck; a costume whose splendour would have been enough for a princess of the blood royal, yet which seemed only in harmony with Edith Champion’s beauty.

  Sometimes between that face, with its grand lines, and classic regularity, there would come the vision of another face, altogether different, yet no less beautiful — the ethereal loveliness of the Raffaelle Madonna, the elongated oval cheek and chin and straight sharply-chiselled nose, the exquisite refinement of the pensive lips and delicate arch of the eyebrows over violet eyes, the pearly tints of a complexion in which there was no brilliancy of colour, no peach bloom, only a transparent fairness beneath which the veins about the temples and around the eyes showed faintly azure — an oval face framed in shadowy brown hair. With what a fatal persistence this image haunted him; and yet he had seen Hester Davenport only once since that afternoon at Chelsea, when the old man admitted him to the humble lodging-house parlour. Once only had he returned there, and that was to escort his sister, who was delighted to renew her acquaintance with the curate’s beautiful daughter. That had happened three weeks ago, and Lilian and Hester had met several times since then — meetings of which Gerard had heard every detail.

  And now the London season was drawing to its close and Lilian had to leave her brother’s house in order to do her duty as an only daughter, and accompany her father and mother to Royat, where the Rector was to take a course of waters, which was to secure him an immunity from gout for the best part of a year, until the “cure” season came round again and the London physicians had decided where he was to go. It would be Lilian’s last journey as a spinster with her father and mother. She was to be married early in the coming year, and to take upon herself husband and parish — that parish of St. Lawrence the Martyr to which she had already attached herself, and whose schools, almshouses, dispensary, night-refuge, orphanage, and reading-room were as familiar to her as the morning-room at Helmsleigh Rectory.

  It was her last morning at Hillersdon House, and she was breakfasting tête-à-tête with her brother, a rare pleasure, as Gerard had been very erratic of late, rarely returning home till the middle of the night, and not often leaving his own rooms till the middle of the day. He had been drinking deep of the cup of pleasure, as it is offered to youth and wealth in the height of the London season; but pleasure in his case had not meant debauchery, and the only vice to which late hours tempted him was an occasional hour’s worship of the mystic number nine, or a quiet evening at piqu
et or poker. And in this drinking of the pleasure-chalice, he told himself that he was in no wise unduly consuming the candle of life, inasmuch as there was no pleasure which London could offer him that could stir his pulses or kindle the flame of passion. His heart beat no quicker when he held the bank at baccarat than when he sat over a book alone in his den. Time had been when an hour’s play fired his blood, and set his temples throbbing; but to the millionaire loss or gain mattered little. There was only the pleasant exultation of success for its own sake, success which wag no more delightful than if he had made a good shot at bowls on a summer lawn. He argued, therefore, that he was living soberly within himself, even when his nights were spent among the wildest young men in London, the frequenters of the after-midnight clubs and the late restaurants.

  “How nice it is to have a quiet half-hour with you, Gerard!” said Lilian, as they began breakfast, he trifling with a devilled sardine, she attacking bread and butter and strawberries, while the chefs choicest breakfast dishes remained untouched under their silver covers.

  “Yes, dear, and how soon such quiet hours will be impossible. I shall miss you dreadfully.”

  “And yet, although we have lived under the same roof we have seen very little of each other.”

  “True, but it has been so sweet to know you were here, that I had always a sympathetic listener at hand.”

  Lilian answered with a sigh.

  “You have given me no confidences, Gerard.”

  “Have I not? Believe me it has been from no lack of faith in your honour and discretion. Perhaps it was because I had nothing to tell!”

  “Ah, Gerard, I know better than that. You have a secret — a secret which concerns Mrs. Champion. I know she is something more to you than a commonplace friend.”

  Gerard laughed to himself ever so softly at his sister’s naïveté. “What, has your penetration made that discovery, my gentle Lilian?” he said. “Yes, Edith Champion and I are more than common friends. We were plighted lovers once, dans le temps, when we were both hopeful and penniless. Wisdom and experience intervened. The young lady was induced to marry an elderly money-bag, who treated her generously, and to whom her behaviour was perfect. I changed from lover to friend, and that friendship was never interrupted, nor did it ever occasion the slightest uneasiness to Mr. Champion.”

  “And now that Mrs. Champion is a widow, free to marry for love—”questioned Lilian, timidly. —

  “In all probability she will become my wife — when her mourning is over. Shall you like her as a sister-in-law, Lilian?”

  “How can I do otherwise? She has always been so kind to me.”

  “Ah, I remember. She took you to her dressmaker. I believe that is the highest effort of a woman’s friendship.”

  “How lightly you speak of her, Gerard, and how coldly — and yet I am sure you care for her more than for any one else in the world.”

  “Naturally, and she deserves my affection, after having remained constant to me through the interregnum of a loveless marriage.”

  “She is just the kind of woman you ought to marry. With her beauty and good style she will help you to maintain your position, and she will get rid of the friends whose influence I fear.”

  “Which of my friends, Lilian?”

  “All those who come to this house, except Jack. Perhaps you will say Jack is no friend of yours, that you are not in touch with him, as you call it.”

  “He is my friend all the same. Granted that we differ in ethics and creed. I like him because he is straight, and strong, and true, and outspoken, and hearty — a man to whom I would turn in doubt and difficulty, in sickness or despair — a good, brave, honest man, Lilian, a man to whom I gladly give almost the dearest thing I have on earth, my only sister.”

  Tears sprang to Lilian’s eyes at this praise of her lover. She could not answer in words for a few moments, but she stretched out her hand to her brother, and they sat hand clasped in hand.

  “How happy I am,” she faltered at last, “to have won him, and to have your love as well.”

  “And now tell me why you dislike my friends?”

  “Because they seem to me all false and hollow — full of flowery words and shallow wit — arrogant, superficial, making light of all good men’s creeds, dismissing noble lives and noble thoughts with a jest. Some of them are pleasant enough — Mr. Larose, for instance, with his elegant languor, and his rhapsodies about art and architecture — Mr. Gambier, with his schemes for new novels, which he has the impertinence to tell me will be unfit for me to read.”

  “Poor Gambier! that is his harmless vanity. His most ardent desire is to be ranked with Zola and rejected by Mudie.”

  “There is one of your friends whose presence fills me with horror, and yet he has more winning manners than any of them.”

  “Indeed!”

  “The man who laughs at everything. Mr. Jermyn.”

  “Jermyn the Fate-reader.”

  “He has never read my fate.”

  “No, he refused to make an attempt. ‘There is a light in your sister’s countenance that baffles augury,’ he told me. ‘If I were to say anything about her it would be that she was created to be happy — but in a nature of that kind one never knows what happiness means. It might mean martyrdom.’ So you dislike Justin Jermyn?”

  “It is not so much dislike as fear that I feel when I think of him. When I am in his society I can hardly help liking him. Ho interests and amuses me in spite of myself. But it is his bad influence upon you that I fear.”

  “My dear Lilian, that is all mere girl’s talk. Bad influence, bosh! You don’t suppose that my experience of life since I went to the University has left my mind a blank sheet of paper, to be written upon by the first comer. Jermyn is a new acquaintance, not a friend, and his influence upon my life is nil. He amuses me — that is all — just as he amuses you, by his queer, gnomish ways and impish tricks. And now, before you go, tell me about Hester Davenport. You have been her friend for the last few weeks, and have lightened her burdens. What will she do when you are gone?”

  “Oh, we shall write to each other. We are going to be friends all our fives, and when I am settled at the Vicarage we shall see each other often. She will come to St. Lawrence every Sunday to hear Jack preach.”

  “That is something for her to look forward to, no doubt; but in the meantime she is to go on with her drudgery, I suppose, without even the comfort of occasional intercourse with a girl of her own rank. Why could you not persuade her to accept an income from me, which would be, at least, enough to provide for her and her father?”

  “I did not try very hard to overrule her decision, Gerard. In my heart I could only agree with her that she could take no such help from you, or from any one in your position. She could not sacrifice her independence by allowing herself to be pensioned by a stranger.”

  “I am not a stranger. I know her father’s wretched story, and he was my father’s curate. That does not make me a stranger. I don’t think that either you or she can realise the position of a man with more money than he knows how to spend, who must inevitably squander a great deal of his wealth, waste thousands upon futile aims. Why should not such a man sink a few thousands to provide permanently for the comfort of a girl whose story has touched his heart? I would so settle the money that she would receive the income from year to year, without ever being reminded of its source. There would be no humiliation, no sense of obligation; the thing once done upon my part would be done for ever. Why should it not be?”

  “Because she will not have it so. Call her proud, if you like — I admire her for her pride. She is content with the life she leads. She works hard, but she is her own mistress, and she is able to do her work at home and to watch over the poor old father, who would inevitably fall back into his dreadful ways if she were to leave him too much alone, or if they were more prosperous and he had the command of money. She has told me that their poverty is his salvation.”

  “A sorry prospect for a beautiful y
oung woman, who under other circumstances might have society at her feet.”

  “She does not think of society, or consider herself a victim. You have no idea how simple-minded she is. I doubt if she even knows that she is lovely — or, if she does, she makes very light of her beauty. She told me that she had been poor all her life, and that nobody had ever made much of her, except her father.”

  “And you were able to do very little for her, it seems?”

  “What you would think very little. I could not give her costly presents; her pride would have been up in arms at any attempt to patronise her. I gave her books and flowers; helped her to make that poor little lodging-house sitting-room as pretty and homelike as simple, inexpensive things could make it. We took some walks together in Battersea Park, and one lovely morning she went for a drive with me as far as Wimbledon, where we had a luncheon of buns and fruit on the common, just like two schoolgirls. She was as gay and bright that morning as if she had not a care in the world. I told her that she seemed happier than she had ever been at Helmsleigh, and she said that in those days she was oppressed by the knowledge of her father’s sad failing, which we did not know; but now that we knew the worst, and that ho seemed really to have reformed, she was quite happy. Indeed she has the bravest spirit I ever met with!”

  “Yes, she is full of courage; but it is hard, very hard,” said Gerard, impatiently: and then he began to question Lilian about her own arrangements, and there was no further allusion to Hester Davenport; but there was a sense of irritation in Gerard’s mind when he thought over his conversation with Lilian in the solitude of his own den.

  “How feeble women are at the best!” he said to himself, pacing to and fro in feverish unrest. “What petty notions of help, what microscopic consolations! A few books and flowers, a drive or a walk, a lunch of buns upon Wimbledon Common! Not one effort to take her out of that slough of despond — not one attempt to widen her horizon; a golden opportunity wasted, for Lilian might have succeeded where I must inevitably fail. If Lilian had been firm and resolute, as woman to woman, she might have swept away all ‘hesitations, all foolish pride. But, no; she offers her humble friend a few flowers and a book or two, and hugs herself with the notion that this poor martyr is really happy — that the sewing-machine and the shabby lodging are enough for her happiness-enough for one who should be a queen among women. Why, my housemaids are better off — better fed, better lodged, with more leisure and more amusements. It is intolerable.”