Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Well, this was the second time of my hearing that hateful name. Let me now describe the third. It was the night before our wedding — I mean, it was to have been the night before our wedding — I went to drink tea with my charmer; the cup which cheers, &c., and the lightest of suppers, were the only refreshments I ever obtained from Mrs. Pocklinton, whose widowed circumstances forbade dinner-giving. In the hall I trod into a raised pie; the confectioner’s youth had left it on the door-mat while he handed the maid other cates. They were for the wedding-breakfast — I mean, they were to have been for the wedding-breakfast. It is hard that the conventionalities of this world condemn one to indigestion on the happiest day of one’s life. One’s mother-in-law has to pay for the sacrificial feast, that’s one comfort.

  It was rather a dismal evening than otherwise; the house was suffering from an eruption of sharp-edged trunks and bonnet-boxes, and the effect on one’s shins was disagreeable. Rosa Matilda was low-spirited, and burst out crying at the sight of the Britannia-metal teapot, saying it was the last time she should ever have tea out of that dear old teapot. But, as I said before, that was the worst of Rosa Matilda; there was too much of the “gushing thing” about this Hampstead-road child of nature. I directed the luggage-labels for her boxes. We were going to Paris — and I couldn’t spell Meurice’s Hotel; it was aggravating, and Rosa Matilda’s spirits improved so much as to enable her to laugh at me. Altogether, I was not sorry when the time arrived for my departure. Mrs. Pocklinton squeezed my hand as we parted, and told me there was not another man in England (how did she know? she didn’t know all the other men in England) to whom she could have so confidently trusted the happiness of her beloved child. She would have said the same words to either Brown, Jones, or Robinson, I knew; but I did my best to look grateful, — and so we parted.

  The Thunderer was at it again!

  I hadn’t gone three hundred yards before I suddenly remembered that I didn’t remember what time I was to meet them at St. Paneras Church on the following day. It might be at seven in the morning; it might be at four in the afternoon. I must go back and inquire. That housemaid of theirs was, as usual, flirting with the policeman at the garden-gate, consequently the hall-door was open. I passed her and went in; the parlour-door was ajar — and I heard — yes, I heard from the lips of the woman I was going to marry — these passionate exclamations:

  “My darling Tom, my own precious Thomas! Ums Thomas!” In the whole course of our loves she had never called me Ums Benjamin. Ums was evidently a mysterious expression of endearment, especially consecrate to this military or naval deceiver, “Ums Thomas has come back to ums; ums naughty boy, then! There!”

  After the “There!” there was that indescribable and unmistakable sound — something between the whistling of birds in wet weather and the drawing of corks — which one is in the habit of hearing under the mistletoe. She — my “future” — was kissing Captain Thomas, or Captain Thomas was kissing her! What mattered it which? Ruin either way!

  There was an umbrella-stand in the hall. I retreated into the shadow thereof as Rosa Matilda rushed out of the room.

  “Mamma!” she called at the foot of the stairs; “Mamma, would you believe it? he’s come back! The Captain! He came in at the back-bedroom window.”

  Back-bedroom window! Pretty goings-on! I saw it in perspective in the Sunday papers, headed “Frightful Depravity in the Hampstead-road!”

  “He’s so thin, mamma! O, so thin; quite wasted away! I’m sure he’s been shut up somewhere.”

  The profligate! In prison for debt, I daresay. The Bench, or Whitecross-street.

  “And his whiskers, mamma, his dear whiskers are grown at least an inch longer!” and then she bounded into the parlour again; and the bird-whistling and the cork-drawing began again.

  “And um darling Thomas will never, never, never leave his Rosey Posey again — will he?”

  And really now, what made the conduct of this young woman seem more than ordinarily culpable was, that all the affection appeared to be on her side; for not me word had this apathetic naval or military commander uttered during the whole time.

  Well, I think I’d heard enough. Now, wouldn’t any reasonable person suppose I’d heard enough? So I went quietly out of the house, and home to my chambers, where I packed a carpet-bag, took a cab, and left London by the mail-train for Dover, thence to Paris, whence I was recalled by a letter from Mrs. Pocklinton’s solicitor.

  I am not a raving maniac, or a jibbering idiot; and my hair did not turn white in a single night, as it might have done.

  There was an action for Breach of Promise of Marriage, and I had to pay one thousand pounds damages. Captain Thomas was a very handsome BLACK CAT, which Rosa Matilda had been attached to from his kittenhood, and the temporary loss of which had lacerated her tender heart.

  I offered — I offered! — nay, I implored her to marry me, and forget the past; but she wouldn’t; and she has since married Robinson; and my thousand pounds no doubt has furnished that elegant little house of theirs in the Regent’s Park, at the drawing-room window of which I saw, on passing the other day, basking in the sun, my old and bitterest enemy, Captain Thomas.

  THE COLD EMBRACE

  HE was an artist — such things as happened to him happen sometimes to artists.

  He was a German — such things as happened to him happen sometimes to Germans.

  He was young, handsome, studious, enthusiastic, metaphysical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless.

  And being young, handsome, and eloquent, he was beloved.

  He was an orphan, under the guardianship of his dead father’s brother, his uncle Wilhelm, in whose house he had been brought up from a little child; and she who loved him was his cousin — his cousin Gertrude, whom he swore he loved in return.

  Did he love her? Yes, when he first swore it. It soon wore out, this passionate love; how threadbare and wretched a sentiment it became at last in the selfish heart of the student! But in its first golden dawn, when he was only nineteen, and had just returned from his apprenticeship to a great painter at Antwerp, and they wandered together in the most romantic outskirts of the city at rosy sunset, by holy moonlight, or bright and joyous morning, how beautiful a dream!

  They keep it a secret from Wilhelm, as he has the father’s ambition of a wealthy suitor for his only child — a cold and dreary vision beside the lover’s dream.

  So they are betrothed; and standing side by side when the dying sun and the pale rising moon divide the heavens, he puts the betrothal ring upon her finger, the white and taper finger whose slender shape he knows so well. This ring is a peculiar one, a massive golden serpent, its tail in its mouth, the symbol of eternity; it had been his mother’s, and he would know it amongst a thousand. If he were to become blind tomorrow, he could select it from amongst a thousand by the touch alone.

  He places it on her finger, and they swear to be true to each other for ever and ever — through trouble and danger — in sorrow and change — in wealth or poverty. Her father must needs be won to consent to their union by and by, for they were now betrothed, and death alone could part them.

  But the young student, the scoffer at revelation, yet the enthusiastic adorer of the mystical, asks:

  “Can death part us? I would return to you from the grave, Gertrude. My soul would come back to be near my love. And you — you, if you died before me — the cold earth would not hold you from me; if you loved me, you would return, and again these fair arms would be clasped round my neck as they are now.”

  But she told him, with a holier light in her deep-blue eyes than had ever shone in his — she told him that the dead who die at peace with God are happy in heaven, and cannot return to the troubled earth; and that it is only the suicide — the lost wretch on whom sorrowful angels shut the door of Paradise — whose unholy spirit haunts the footsteps of the living.

  The first year of their betrothal is passed, and she is alone, for he has gone to Italy, on a commission for some rich man
, to copy Raphaels, Titians, Guidos, in a gallery at Florence. He has gone to win fame, perhaps; but it is not the less bitter — he is gone!

  Of course her father misses his young nephew, who has been as a son to him; and he thinks his daughter’s sadness no more than a cousin should feel for a cousin’s absence.

  In the mean time, the weeks and months pass. The lover writes — often at first, then seldom — at last, not at all.

  How many excuses she invents for him! How many times she goes to the distant little post-office, to which he is to address his letters! How many times she hopes, only to be disappointed! How many times she despairs, only to hope again!

  But real despair comes at last, and will not be put off any more. The rich suitor appears on the scene, and her father is determined. She is to marry at once. The wedding-day is fixed — the fifteenth of June.

  The date seems burnt into her brain.

  The date, written in fire, dances for ever before her eyes.

  The date, shrieked by the Furies, sounds continually in her ears.

  But there is time yet — it is the middle of May — there is time for a letter to reach him at Florence; there is time for him to come to Brunswick, to take her away and marry her, in spite of her father — in spite of the whole world.

  But the days and weeks fly by, and he does not write — he does not come. This is indeed despair which usurps her heart, and will not be put away.

  It is the fourteenth of June. For the last time she goes to the little post-office; for the last time she asks the old question, and they give her for the last time the dreary answer, “No; no letter.”

  For the last time — for to-morrow is the day appointed for her bridal. Her father will hear no entreaties; her rich suitor will not listen to her prayers. They will not be put off a day — an hour; to-night alone is hers — this night, which she may employ as she will.

  She takes another path than that which leads home; she hurries through some by-streets of the city, out on to a lonely bridge, where he and she had stood so often in the sunset, watching the rose-coloured light glow, fade, and die upon the river.

  * * * *

  He returns from Florence. He had received her letter. That letter, blotted with tears, entreating, despairing — he had received it, but he loved her no longer. A young Florentine, who had sat to him for a model, had bewitched his fancy — that fancy which with him stood in place of a heart — and Gertrude had been half forgotten. If she had a richer suitor, good; let her marry him; better for her, better far for himself. He had no wish to fetter himself with a wife. Had he not his art always? — his eternal bride, his unchanging mistress.

  Thus he thought it wiser to delay his journey to Brunswick, so that he should arrive when the wedding was over — arrive in time to salute the bride.

  And the vows — the mystical fancies — the belief in his return, even after death, to the embrace of his beloved? O, gone out of his life; melted away for ever, those foolish dreams of his boyhood.

  So on the fifteenth of June he enters Brunswick, by that very bridge on which she stood, the stars looking down on her, the night before. He strolls across the bridge and down by the water’s edge, a great rough dog at his heels, and the smoke from his short meerschaum-pipe curling in blue wreaths fantastically in the pure morning air. He has his sketchbook under his arm, and, attracted now and then by some object that catches his artist’s eye, stops to draw: a few weeds and pebbles on the river’s brink — a crag on the opposite share — a group of pollard willows in the distance. When he has done, he admires his drawing, shuts his sketchbook, empties the ashes from his pipe, refills from his tobacco-pouch, sings the refrain of a gay drinking-song, calls to his dog, 6mokes again, and walks on. Suddenly he opens his sketch-book again; this time that which attracts him is a group of figures: but what is it?

  It is not a fanerai, for there are no mourners.

  It is not a fanerai, but it is a corpse lying on a rude bier, covered with an old sail, carried between two bearers.

  It is not a fanerai, for the bearers are fishermen — fishermen in their every-day garb.

  About a hundred yards from him they rest their burden on a bank — one stands at the head of the bier, the other throws himself down at the foot of it.

  And thus they form a perfect group; he walks back two or three paces, selects his point of sight, and begins to sketch a hurried outline. He has finished it before they move; he hears their voices, though he cannot hear their words, and wonders what they can be talking of. Presently he walks on and joins them.

  “You have a corpse there, my friends?” he says.

  “Yes; a corpse washed ashore an hour ago.”

  “Drowned?”

  “Yes, drowned; — a young girl, very handsome.”

  “Suicides are always handsome,” says the painter; and then he stands for a little while idly smoking and meditating, looking at the sharp outline of the corpse and the stiff folds of the rough canvas-covering.

  Life is such a golden holiday for him — young, ambitious, clever — that it seems as though sorrow and death could have no part in his destiny.

  At last he says that, as this poor suicide is so handsome, he should like to make a sketch of her.

  He gives the fishermen some money, and they offer to remove the sailcloth that covers her features.

  No; he will do it himself. He lifts the rough, coarse, wet canvas from her face. What face?

  The face that shone on the dreams of his foolish boyhood; the face which once was the light of his uncle’s home. His cousin Gertrude — his betrothed!

  He sees, as in one glance, while he draws one breath, the rigid features — the marble arms — the hands crossed on the cold bosom; and, on the third finger of the left hand, the ring which had been his mother’s — the golden serpent; the ring which, if he were to become blind, he could select from a thousand others by the touch alone.

  But he is a genius and a metaphysician — grief, true grief, is not for such as he. His first thought is flight — flight anywhere out of that accursed city — anywhere far from the brink of that hideous river — anywhere away from memory, away from remorse — anywhere to forget.

  * * * * * *

  He is miles on the road that leads away from Brunswick before he knows that he has walked a step.

  It is only when his dog lies down panting at his feet that he feels how exhausted he is himself, and sits down upon a bank to rest. How the landscape spins round and round before his dazzled eyes, while his morning’s sketch of the two fishermen and the canvas-covered bier glares redly at him out of the twilight!

  At last, after sitting a long time by the roadside, idly playing with his dog, idly smoking, idly lounging, looking as any idle, light-hearted travelling student might look, yet all the while acting over that morning’s scene in his burning brain a hundred times a minute; at last he grows a little more composed, and tries presently to think of himself as he is, apart from his cousin’s suicide. Apart from that, he was no worse off than he was yesterday. His genius was not gone; the money he had earned at Florence still lined his pocket-book; he was his own master, free to go whither he would.

  And while he sits on the roadside, trying to separate himself from the scene of that morning — trying to put away the image of the corpse covered with the damp canvas sail — trying to think of what he should do next, where he should go, to be farthest away from Brunswick and remorse, the old diligence comes rumbling and jingling along. He remembers it; it goes from Brunswick to Aix-la-Chapelle.

  He whistles to his dog, shouts to the postillion to stop, and springs into the coupé.

  During the whole evening, through the long night, though he does not once close his eyes, he never speaks a word; but when morning dawns, and the other passengers awake and begin to talk to each other, he joins in the conversation. He tells them that he is an artist, that he is going to Cologne and to Antwerp to copy the Rubenses, and the great picture by Quentin Matsys, in the museu
m. He remembered afterwards that he talked and laughed boisterously, and that when he was talking and laughing loudest, a passenger, older and graver than the rest, opened the window near him, and told him to put his head out. He remembered the fresh air blowing in his face, the singing of the birds in his ears, and the fiat fields and roadside reeling before his eyes. He remembered this, and then falling in a lifeless heap on the floor of the diligence.

  It is a fever that keeps him for six long weeks laid on a bed at a hotel in Aix-la-Chapelle.

  He gets well, and, accompanied by his dog, starts on foot for Cologne. By this time he is his former self once more. Again the blue smoke from his short meerschaum curls upwards in the morning air — again he sings some old university drinking-song — again stops here and there, meditating and sketching.

  He is happy, and has forgotten his cousin — and so, on to Cologne.

  It is by the great cathedral he is standing, with his dog at his side. It is night, the bells have just chimed the hour, and the clocks are striking eleven; the moonlight shines full upon the magnificent pile, over which the artist’s eye wanders, absorbed in the beauty of form.

  He is not thinking of his drowned cousin, for he has forgotten her and is happy.

  Suddenly someone, something from behind him, puts two cold arms round his neck, and clasps its hands on his breast.

  And yet there is no one behind him, for on the flags bathed in the broad moonlight there are only two shadows, his own and his dog’s. He turns quickly round — there is no one — nothing to be seen in the broad square but himself and his dog; and though he feels, he cannot see the cold arms clasped round his neck.