by George Moore
Part II
It was as the Major said. The lodge-keepers asked no questions, and they passed up the drive, through the silence of an overgrowth of laurels and rhododendrons. Then the park opened before their eyes. Nellie rolled on the short, crisp, worn grass, or chased the dragon-flies; the spreading trees enchanted her, and, looking at the house - a grey stone building with steps, pillars, and pilasters, hidden amid cedars and evergreen oaks - she said, ‘I never saw anything so beautiful; is that where the Major goes when he leaves us? Look at the flowers, Mother, and the roses. May we not go in there - I don’t mean into the house? I heard the Major ask you not to go in for fear we should meet the housemaids - but just past this railing, into the garden? Here is the gate.’ The child stood with her hand on the wicket, waiting for reply: the mother stood as in a dream, looking at the house, thinking vaguely of the pictures, the corridors, and staircases, that lay behind the plate-glass windows.
‘Yes; go in, my child.’
The gardens were in tumult of leaf and bloom, and the little girl ran hither and thither, gathering single flowers, and then everything that came under her hands, binding them together in bouquets - one for mother, one for the Major, and one for herself. Mrs Shepherd only smiled a little bitterly when Nellie came running to her with some new and more splendid rose. She did not attempt to reprove the child. Why should she? Everything here would one day be hers. Why then should the present be denied them? And so did her thoughts run as she walked across the sward following Nellie into the beechwood that clothed the steep hillside. The pathway led by the ruins of some Danish military earthworks, ancient hollows full of leaves and silence. Pigeons cooed in the vast green foliage, and from time to time there came up from the river the chiming sound of oars. Rustic seats were at pleasant intervals, and, feeling a little tired, Mrs Shepherd sat down. She could see the river’s silver glinting through the branches, and, beyond the river, the low-lying river lands, dotted with cattle and horses grazing, dim already with blue evening vapours. In the warm solitude of the wood the irreparable misfortune of her own life pressed upon her: and in this hour of lassitude her loneliness seemed more than she could bear. The Major was good and kind, but he knew nothing of the weight of the burden he had laid upon her, and that none should know was in this moment a greater weight than the burden itself. Nellie was exploring the ancient hollows where Danes and Saxons had once fought, and had ceased to call forth her discoveries when Mrs Shepherd’s bitter meditation was broken by the sudden sound of a footstep.
The intruder was a young lady. She was dressed in white, her pale gold hair was in itself an aristocracy, and her narrow slippered feet were dainty to look upon. ‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ she said. ‘This is my favourite seat; but I pray you not to move, there is plenty of room.’ So amiable was she in voice and manner that Mrs Shepherd could not but remain, although she had already recognized the girl as one of the Major’s sisters. Fearing to betray herself, greatly nervous, Mrs Shepherd answered briefly Miss Shepherd’s allusions to the beauty of the view. At the end of a long silence Miss Shepherd said -
‘I think you know my brother, Major Shepherd.’
Mrs Shepherd hesitated, and then she said: ‘No. I have never heard the name.’
‘Are you sure? Of course, I may be mistaken; but -’ Ethel made pause, and looked Mrs Shepherd straight in the face. Smiling sadly, Mrs Shepherd said - ‘Likenesses are so deceptive.’
‘Perhaps, but my memory is pretty good for faces... It was two or three months ago, we were going up to London, and I saw my brother get into the train with a lady who looked like you. She really was very like you.’
Mrs Shepherd smiled and shook her head.
‘I do not know the lady my brother was with, but I’ve often thought I should like to meet her.’
‘Perhaps your brother will introduce you.’
‘No, I don’t think he will. She has come to live at Branbury, and now people talk more than ever. They say that he is secretly married.’
‘And you believe it?’
‘I don’t see why it shouldn’t be true. My brother is a good fellow in many ways, but, like all other men, he is selfish. He is just the man who would keep his wife hidden away in a lonely little lodging rather than admit that he had made a mésalliance. What I don’t understand is why she consents to be kept out of the way. Just fancy giving up this beautiful place, these woods and fields, these gardens, that house for, for -’
‘I suppose this woman gives up these things because she loves your brother. Do you not understand self-sacrifice?’
‘Oh yes, if I loved a man... But I think a woman is silly to allow a man to cheat and fool her to the top of his bent.’
‘What does it matter if she is happy?’
Ethel tossed her head. Then at the end of a long silence she said: ‘Would you care to see the house?’
‘No, thank you, Miss; I must be getting on. Good-bye.’
‘You cannot get back that way, you must return through the pleasure-grounds. I’ll walk with you. A headache kept me at home this afternoon. The others have gone to a tennis-party... It is a pity I was mistaken. I should like to meet the person my brother goes every day to Branbury to see. I should like to talk with her. My brother has, I’m afraid, persuaded her that we would not receive her. But this is not true; we should only be too glad to receive her. I have heard Father and Mother say so - not to Charles, they dare not speak to him on the subject, but they have to me.’
‘Your brother must have some good reason for keeping his marriage secret. This woman may have a past.’
‘Yes, they say that - but I should not care if I liked her, if I knew her to be a good woman now.’
To better keep the Major’s secret, Mrs Shepherd had given up all friends, all acquaintance. She had not known a woman-friend for years, and the affinities of sex drew her to accept the sympathy with which she was tempted. The reaction of ten years of self-denial surged up within her, and she felt that she must speak, that her secret was being dragged from her. Ethel’s eyes were fixed upon her - in another moment she would have spoken, but at that moment Nellie appeared climbing up the steep bank. ‘Is that your little girl? Oh, what a pretty child!’ Then raising her eyes from the child and looking the mother straight in the face, Ethel said -
‘She is like, she is strangely like, Charles.’
Tears glistened in Mrs Shepherd’s eyes, and then, no longer doubting that Mrs Shepherd would break down and in a flow of tears tell the whole story of her life, Ethel allowed a note of triumph to creep into her voice, and before she could stop herself she said, ‘And that little girl is the heiress of Appleton Park.’
Mrs Shepherd’s face changed expression.
‘You are mistaken, Miss Shepherd,’ she said; ‘but if I ever meet your brother I will tell him that you think my little girl like him.’
Mrs Shepherd pursued her way slowly across the park, her long weary figure showing upon the sunset, her black dress trailing on the crisp grass. Often she was obliged to pause; the emotion and exercise of the day had brought back pain, and her whole body thrilled with it. Since the birth of her child she had lived in pain. But as she leaned against the white gate, and looked back on the beautiful park never to be seen by her again, knowledge of her sacrifice quickened within her - the house and the park, and the manner and speech of the young girl, combined to help her to a full appreciation of all she had surrendered. She regretted nothing. However mean and obscure her life had been, it had contained at least one noble moment. Nellie pursued the dragonflies; Mrs Shepherd followed slowly, feeling like a victor in a great battle. She had not broken her trust; she had kept her promise intact; she would return to London to-morrow or next day, or at the end of the week, whenever the Major wished.
He was waiting for them at the corner of the lane, and Nellie was already telling him all she thought of the house, the woods, the flowers, and the lady who had sat down by Mother on the bench above the river. The Major look
ed at his wife in doubt and fear; her smile, however, reassured him. Soon after, Nellie fell asleep, and while she dreamed of butterflies and flowers Mrs Shepherd told him what had passed between her and his sister in the beechwood above the river.
‘You see, what I told you was right. Your appearance has been described to them; they suspect something, and will never cease worrying until they have found out everything. I’m not a bit surprised. Ethel always was the more cunning and the more spiteful of the two.’
Mrs Shepherd did not tell him how nearly she had been betrayed into confession. She felt that he would not understand her explanation of the mood in which his sister had caught her. Men understand women so little. To tell him would be merely to destroy his confidence in her. As they drove through the twilight, with Nellie fast asleep between, he spoke of her departure, which he had arranged for the end of the week, and then, putting his arm round her waist, he said: ‘You have always been a good little woman to me.’
PARTED
LINCOLN-LANE WAS A last remnant of a purlieu that had once thriven about one of the Inns of Court. It stretched like a drain from the bright thoroughfare, disappearing in shadows of old decrepit houses. Its single gas-lamp sufficed only to accentuate its mystery and its blackness. Opposite was a dead wall, yellow and crumbling, and beyond it the back windows of the inn and some back yards.
The tower clock had clanged the first hour of morning. A pause, then the rumble of a cab far away in the Strand, and before it had quite died out of the ear, an altercation was heard coming in the direction of the lane. It grew louder, it grew distinct; and when it turned into the lane the sleepers murmured in their beds, ‘Dale trying to get that drunken wife of his home.’ But the woman refused to come in, and the argument was continued under the windows. It concerned fourpence which Dale had taken from his wife.
‘You stole my money; I want my money; give me my money.’
‘Your money; my money, you mean. What did you raise it on?’
‘You took it out of my pocket. I want my money.’
‘What for? Aren’t you drunk enough already?’
‘Who says I’m drunk? I’m not drunk. I want my money.’ To the folk yearning for sleep the dispute seemed as it if never would end. Since eleven o’clock they had been kept awake by drunkards, angry, jovial and pathetic, and now prayers were offered up beneath every coverlet that Mr and Mrs Dale would settle their differences and go up to bed. At last a window was raised, and a large night-dress was thrust forth.
‘Make less noise there, please; we want to go to sleep.’
‘Oh, it is you, Mrs Temple - you and your daughter, Miss Temple, the two ladies of the lane. I spoke to you this morning and you didn’t deign to answer.’
‘I’m not bound to speak to you; I never stoop where there’s nothing to pick up.’
Immediately after another window was raised, and a lean shirt and a red beard appeared.
‘I’ve to be at my work at half-past five; it is one o’clock, and not a wink of sleep yet, and every night the same thing since the beginning of the week.’
Then window after window was raised, and heads and shoulders, hanging arms and craned necks seemed like a has-relief, the whiteness of the apparel lending itself to the deception.
‘Leave me alone, you’re killing me,’ cried Mrs Dale, and her husband’s strength failed to get her through the doorway.
With a gesture of shame and despair Dale let her go. Involuntarily his eyes went to Mrs Temple’s window, where Annie stood behind her mother in the shadow of the room. Mrs Dale noticed the direction of her husband’s eyes, and she turned upon him fiercely.
‘It is easy to see that you are gone on her. A dear little thing, never touched a drop of liquor in her life; wouldn’t touch it, of course not. I never seed her slip into the private bar of the Feathers with a lot of other girls from up the Strand when she thought no one was about. Oh, dear no! A very artful little minx is Miss Annie Temple; she wouldn’t be her mother’s daughter if she wasn’t.’
The lane was proud of Annie, the best conducted girl in the lane, and Mrs Dale’s accusations against her character filled the windows with numerous disapproval and protest. To better defend her daughter, Mrs Temple leaned still further out of the window. But Dale begged of her to desist; she would only make matters worse, and he would never get his wife upstairs.
‘The two ladies of the lane!’ reiterated Mrs Dale, as if the phrase alone expressed the completeness of her disdain. Suddenly her thoughts went back to her money. ‘Give me my money. I must have my money; just enough for another drink. I want my - my -’
‘Now then, mate, do try to get her upstairs,’ said the red-bearded man, who had come down in his shirt sleeves and trousers. ‘You’ve woke up my babies; I can’t get them to sleep, and I’ve to be up myself at half-past five, and it is after one. If you don’t get her upstairs I must go after the “copper”.’
‘I don’t care; go after the “copper”. It don’t matter to me. Complain to the landlord if you like. I’ve had enough of it. I wish I was dead.’
The red-bearded man looked at Dale compassionately, and then hitching up his trousers, which were falling over his naked feet, he entered his house two doors up the lane.
‘Now, Liz,’ said Dale, ‘come upstairs. We shall get turned out of this.’
Drunken obstinacy gives way unexpectedly, and Mrs Dale allowed her husband to push her up the broken staircase. But she recovered herself somewhat when they got into their room, and the neighbours could hear things being thrown about, and now and then a shuffling of feet as if a struggle was in progress. At last silence came, and for a few hours the tired folk forgot the drudgery of their lives. A few hours of rest, and then the window-panes grew grey with day, and preparations for work began. They had heard Mrs Dale screaming in the street, and now they could hear her declaring that she was too miserable to live, her husband all the while moving about the room dressing himself quickly. He buckled his strap round his thick waist, he tied his comforter round his neck. His wife lay on the bed, half dressed, moaning and throwing her brown hair back from her pale, plump face.
They had had a nice home once, but she had taken to drinking, and then things had begun to disappear. Two years ago the home had been sold up. Dale had been obliged to leave his wife, but she had come after him, and though he did not believe much in her promises never to touch liquor again he had been induced to take her back.
There had been hardly any attempt at reformation. Life had gone steadily from bad to worse, and for the last two years his wife, as he himself expressed it, had made a pig-sty of his home. He was disheartened, but still he went to his work regularly. Notwithstanding the inconvenience and the neglect of the room they lived in, Dale managed to keep himself clean, and in spite of his coarse clothes, his manner, bearing, and tone of voice indicated a certain refinement of nature. There was despair and disgust on his face when he looked at the heap of rubbish in the grate. He knew he would find the room when he returned in the same state as when he left it, and that he would again have to hunt up his wife in the public-houses; she’d be getting drunk again in some quiet corner. But what had she pawned to get drunk last night? Dale thought of his Sunday clothes. No, the lock had not been broken. Then he remembered his Sunday shirt which she had promised to wash for him. They were going next Sunday to Hampstead for a blow on the Heath. He taxed her with having pledged it, but instead of answering she continued to bemoan her miserable condition. It was jealousy that drove her to it. He had never cared for her, and now he wanted to get rid of her so that he might marry Annie Temple. He knew very well that she did not believe what she was saying. Annie was not the cause of her drunkenness; she used to get tipsy long before they came to live in the lane - long before he laid eyes on Annie Temple. Curious, there was a likeness, yet how different they were. He lathered his face and had cleaned off a stubble growth from half one cheek, when he stopped shaving. He remembered how she was always threatening to make aw
ay with herself. She had once tried to kill herself. But he had till now kept things out of her way. Often it was his razors that she begged for, and when she had a fit of blue devils he never left the house without asking one of the neighbours to keep an eye upon her. She was just in the mood to do it. Why should he prevent her? He would leave the razors where she would be sure to see them, and slip away to his work without saying a word. It would be a happy release for both of them. Why should he lock up everything? Nothing obliged him to. It was her own look-out if she chose to kill herself. His hand trembled as he began shaving again. He cut himself and was vexed, for he thought that the sight of blood might alter her resolution.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said, seeing him holding his handkerchief to his face.
‘Nothing; got the toothache.’
‘Oh, Bill, don’t go yet. I’m so miserable; I can’t stay here all alone. I’m afraid I shall do some harm to myself.’
‘I’ve heard that story before; not much harm will come to you except the public-house.’
‘Oh, Bill, don’t leave me. I’m so miserable; I’m so ill. You’ll never see me alive again. I can’t bear up any longer. I’m so miserable. When will you be back?’
