by Edith Nesbit
“Your grateful Ella Cave.”
“Either their carriage drive is unusually long, or her face was not the first,” said Mr. Despard. “Why didn’t she go and meet the man, and not stop to write all that rot?”
“Don’t, Bill,” said his wife. “You were always so unjust to that girl.”
“Girl!” said Mr. Despard.
And now the letters were full of detail: the late Miss Eden wrote a good hand, and expressed herself with clearness. Her letters were a pleasure to Mrs. Despard.
“Poor dear!” she said. “It really rejoices my heart to think of her being so happy. She describes things very well. I almost feel as though I knew every room in her house; it must be very pretty with all those Liberty muslin blinds, and the Persian rugs, and the chair-backs Edward’s grandmother worked — and then the beautiful garden. I think I must go to see it all. I do love to see people happy.”
“You generally do see them happy,” said her husband; “it’s a way people have when they’re near you. Go and see her, by all means.”
And Mrs. Despard would have gone, but a letter, bearing the same date as her own, crossed it in the post; it must have been delayed, for it reached her on the day when she expected an answer to her own letter, offering a visit. But the late Miss Eden had evidently not received this, for her letter was a mere wail of anguish.
“Edward is ill — typhoid. I am distracted. Write to me when you can. The very thought of you comforts me.”
“Poor thing,” said Mrs. Despard, “I really did think she was going to be happy.”
Her sympathetic interest followed Edward through all the stages of illness and convalescence, as chronicled by his wife’s unwearying pen.
Then came the news of the need of a miniature trousseau, and the letters breathed of head-flannels, robes, and the charm of tiny embroidered caps. “They were Edward’s when he was a baby — the daintiest embroidery and thread lace. The christening cap is Honiton. They are a little yellow with time, of course, but I am bleaching them on the sweet-brier hedge. I can see the white patches on the green as I write. They look like some strange sort of flowers, and they make me dream of the beautiful future.”
In due season Baby was born and christened; and then Miss Eden, that was, wrote to ask if she might come to the Beeches, and bring the darling little one.
Mrs. Despard was delighted. She loved babies. It was a beautiful baby — beautifully dressed, and it rested contentedly in the arms of a beautifully dressed lady, whose happy face Mrs. Despard could hardly reconcile with her recollections of Miss Eden. The young mother’s happiness radiated from her, and glorified her lips and eyes. Even Mr. Despard owned, when the pair had gone, that marriage and motherhood had incredibly improved Miss Eden.
And now, the sudden departure of a brother for the other side of the world took Mrs. Despard to Southampton, whence his boat sailed, and where lived the happy wife and mother, who had been Miss Eden.
When the tears of parting were shed, and the last waving handkerchief from the steamer’s deck had dwindled to a sharp point of light, and from a sharp point of light to an invisible point of parting and sorrow, Mrs. Despard dried her pretty eyes, and thought of trains. There was no convenient one for an hour or two.
“I’ll go and see Ella Cave,” said she, and went in a hired carriage. “No. 70, Queen’s Road,” she said. “I think it’s somewhere outside the town.”
“Not it,” said the driver, and presently set her down in a horrid little street, at a horrid little shop, where they sold tobacco and sweets and newspapers and walking-sticks.
“This can’t be it! There must be some other Queen’s Road?” said Mrs. Despard.
“No there ain’t,” said the man. “What name did yer want?”
“Cave,” said Mrs. Despard absently; “Mrs. Edward Cave.”
The man went into the shop. Presently he returned.
“She don’t live here,” he said; “she only calls here for letters.”
Mrs. Despard assured herself of this in a brief interview with a frowsy woman across a glass-topped show-box of silk-embroidered cigar-cases.
“The young person calls every day, mum,” she said; “quite a respectable young person, mum, I should say — if she was after your situation.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Despard mechanically, yet with her own smile — the smile that still stamps her in the frowsy woman’s memory as “that pleasant-spoken lady.”
She paused a moment on the dirty pavement, and then gave the cabman the address of the mother and sister, the address of the little house — small, but very convenient — and with a garden — such a lovely old garden — and so unusual in the middle of a town.
The cab stopped at a large, sparkling, plate-glassy shop — a very high-class fruiterer’s and greengrocer’s.
The name on the elaborately gilded facia was, beyond any doubt, Eden — Frederick Eden.
Mrs. Despard got out and walked into the shop. To this hour the scent of Tangerine oranges brings to her a strange, sick, helpless feeling of disillusionment.
A stout well-oiled woman, in a very tight puce velveteen bodice with bright buttons and a large yellow lace collar, fastened with a blue enamel brooch, leaned forward interrogatively.
“Mrs. Cave?” said Mrs. Despard.
“Don’t know the name, madam.”
“Wasn’t that the name of the gentleman Miss Eden married?”
“It seems to me you’re making a mistake, madam. Excuse me, but might I ask your name?”
“I’m Mrs. Despard. Miss Eden lived with me as governess.”
“Oh, yes” — the puce velvet seemed to soften—”very pleased to see you, I’m sure! Come inside, madam. Ellen’s just run round to the fishmonger’s. I’m not enjoying very good health just now” — the glance was intolerably confidential—”and I thought I could fancy a bit of filleted plaice for my supper, or a nice whiting. Come inside, do!”
Mrs. Despard, stunned, could think of no course save that suggested. She followed Mrs. Eden into the impossible parlour that bounded the shop on the north.
“Do sit down,” said Mrs. Eden hospitably, “and the girl shall get you a cup of tea. It’s full early, but a cup of tea’s always welcome, early or late, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Despard, automatically. Then she roused herself and added, “But please don’t trouble, I can’t stay more than a few minutes. I hope Miss Eden is well?”
“Oh, yes — she’s all right. She lives in clover, as you might say, since her uncle on the mother’s side left her that hundred a year. Made it all in fried fish, too. I should have thought it a risk myself, but you never know.”
Mrs. Despard was struggling with a sensation as of sawdust in the throat — sawdust, and a great deal of it, and very dry.
“But I heard that Miss Eden was married—”
“Not she!” said Mrs. Eden, with the natural contempt of one who was.
“I understood that she had married a Mr. Cave.”
“It’s some other Eden, then. There isn’t a Cave in the town, so far as I know, except Mr. Augustus; he’s a solicitor and Commissioner for Oaths, a very good business, and of course he’d never look the same side of the road as she was, nor she couldn’t expect it.”
“But really,” Mrs. Despard persisted, “I do think there must be some mistake. Because she came to see me — and — and she brought her baby.”
Mrs. Eden laughed outright.
“Her baby? Oh, really! But she’s never so much as had a young man after her, let alone a husband. It’s not what she could look for, either, for she’s no beauty — poor girl!”
Yet the Baby was evidence — of a sort. Mrs. Despard hated herself for hinting that perhaps Mrs. Eden did not know everything.
“I don’t know what you mean, madam.” The puce bodice was visibly moved. “That was my baby, bless his little heart. Poor Ellen’s a respectable girl — she’s been with me since she was a little trot of six — all exc
ept the eleven months she was away with you — and then my Fred see her to the door, and fetched her from your station. She would go — though not our wish. I suppose she wanted a change. But since then she’s never been over an hour away, except when she took my Gustavus over to see you. She must have told you whose he was — but I suppose you weren’t paying attention. And I must say I don’t think it’s becoming in you, if you’ll excuse me saying so, to come here taking away a young girl’s character. At least, if she’s not so young as she was, of course — we none of us are, not even yourself, madam, if you’ll pardon me saying so.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Despard. She had never felt so helpless — so silly. The absurd parlour, ponderous with plush, dusky with double curtains, had for her all the effect of a nightmare.
She felt that she was swimming blindly in a sea of disenchantment.
“Don’t think me inquisitive,” she said, “but Miss Eden was engaged, wasn’t she, some time ago, to someone who was killed in South Africa?”
“Never — in all her born days,” said Mrs. Eden, with emphasis. “I suppose it’s her looks. I’ve had a good many offers myself, though I’m not what you might call anything out of the way — but poor Ellen — never had so much as a nibble.”
Mrs. Despard gasped. She clung against reason to the one spar of hope in this sea of faiths dissolved. It might be — it must be — some mistake!
“You see, poor Ellen” — Mrs. Eden made as much haste to smash up the spar as though she had seen it—”poor Ellen, when her mother and father died she was but six. There was only her and my Fred, so naturally we took her, and what little money the old lady left we spent on her, sending her to a good school, and never counting the bit of clothes and victuals. She was always for learning something, and above her station, and the Rev. Mrs. Peterson at St. Michael, and All Angels — she made a sort of pet of Ellen, and set her up, more than a bit.”
Mrs. Despard remembered that Mrs. Peterson had been Miss Eden’s reference.
“And then she would come to you — though welcome to share along with us, and you can see for yourself it’s a good business — and when that little bit was left her, of course, she’d no need to work, so she came home here, and I must say she’s always been as handy a girl and obliging as you could wish, but wandering, too, in her thoughts. Always pens and ink. I shouldn’t wonder but what she wrote poetry. Yards and yards of writing she does. I don’t know what she does with it all.”
But Mrs. Despard knew.
Mrs. Eden talked on gaily and gladly — till not even a straw was left for her hearer to cling to.
“Thank you very much,” she said. “I see it was all a mistake. I must have been wrong about the address.” She spoke hurriedly — for she had heard in the shop a step that she knew.
For one moment a white face peered in at the glass door — then vanished; it was Miss Eden’s face — her face as it had been when she told of her lost lover who died waving his sword at Elendslaagte! But the telling of that tale had moved Mrs. Despard to no such passion of pity as this. For from that face now something was blotted out, and the lack of it was piteous beyond thought.
“Thank you very much. I am so sorry to have troubled you,” she said, and somehow got out of the plush parlour, and through the shop, fruit-filled, orange-scented.
At the station there was still time, and too much time. The bookstall yielded pencil, paper, envelope, and stamp. She wrote —
“Ella, dear, whatever happens, I am always your friend. Let me know — can I do anything for you? I know all about everything now. But don’t think I’m angry — I am only so sorry for you, dear — so very, very sorry. Do let me help you.”
She addressed the letter to Miss Eden at the greengrocer’s. Afterwards she thought that she had better have left it alone. It could do no good, and it might mean trouble with her sister-in-law, for Miss Eden, late Mrs. Cave, the happy wife and mother. She need not have troubled herself — for the letter came back a week later with a note from Mrs. Eden of the bursting, bright-buttoned, velvet bodice. Ellen had gone away — no one knew where she had gone.
Mrs. Despard will always reproach herself for not having rushed towards the white face that peered through the glass door. She could have done something — anything. So she thinks, but I am not sure.
“And it was none of it true, Bill,” she said piteously, when, Mabel and Gracie safely tucked up in bed, she told him all about it. “I don’t know how she could. No dead lover — no retired tea-broker — no pretty house, and sweet-brier hedge with ... and no Baby.”
“She was a lying lunatic,” said Bill. “I never liked her. Hark! what’s that? All right, Love-a-duck — daddy’s here!”
He went up the stairs three at a time to catch up his baby, who had a way of wandering, with half-awake wailings, out of her crib in the small hours.
“All right, Kiddie-winks, daddy’s got you,” he murmured, coming back into the drawing-room with the little soft, warm, flannelly bundle cuddled close to him.
“She’s asleep again already,” he said, settling her comfortably in his arms. “Don’t worry any more about that Eden girl, Molly — she’s not worth it.”
His wife knelt beside him and buried her face against his waistcoat and against the little flannel night-gown.
“Oh, Bill,” she said, and her voice was thick with tears, “don’t say things like that. Don’t you see? It was cruel, cruel! She was all alone — no mother, no sister, no lover. She was made so that no one could ever love her. And she wanted love so much — so frightfully much, so that she just had to pretend that she had it.”
“And what about the Baby?” asked Mr. Despard, taking one arm from his own baby to pass it round his wife’s shoulders. “Don’t be a darling idiot, Molly. What about the Baby?”
“Oh — don’t you see?” Mrs. Despard was sobbing now in good earnest. “She wanted the Baby more than anything else. Oh — don’t say horrid things about her, Bill! We’ve got everything — and she’d got nothing at all — don’t say things — don’t!”
Mr. Despard said nothing. He thumped his wife sympathetically on the back. It was the baby who spoke.
“Want mammy,” she said sleepily, and at the transfer remembered her father, “and daddy too,” she added politely.
Miss Eden was somewhere or other. Wherever she was she was alone.
And these three were together.
“I daresay you’re right about that girl,” said Mr. Despard. “Poor wretch! By Jove, she was ugly!”
THE LOVER, THE GIRL, AND THE ONLOOKER
The two were alone in the grassy courtyard of the ruined castle. The rest of the picnic party had wandered away from them, or they from it. Out of the green-grown mound of fallen masonry by the corner of the chapel a great may-bush grew, silvered and pearled on every scented, still spray. The sky was deep, clear, strong blue above, and against the blue, the wallflowers shone bravely from the cracks and crevices of ruined arch and wall and buttress.
“They shine like gold,” she said. “I wish one could get at them!”
“Do you want some?” he said, and on the instant his hand had found a strong jutting stone, his foot a firm ledge — and she saw his figure, grey flannel against grey stone, go up the wall towards the yellow flowers.
“Oh, don’t!” she cried. “I don’t really want them — please not — I wish—”
Then she stopped, because he was already some twelve feet from the ground, and she knew that one should not speak to a man who is climbing ruined walls. So she clasped her hands and waited, and her heart seemed to go out like a candle in the wind, and to leave only a dark, empty, sickening space where, a moment before, it had beat in anxious joy. For she loved him, had loved him these two years, had loved him since the day of their first meeting. And that was just as long as he had loved her. But he had never told his love. There is a code of honour, right or wrong, and it forbids a man with an income of a hundred and fifty a year to speak of love to a
girl who is reckoned an heiress. There are plenty who transgress the code, but they are in all the other stories. He drove his passion on the curb, and mastered it. Yet the questions — Does she love me? Does she know I love her? Does she wonder why I don’t speak? and the counter-questions — Will she think I don’t care? Doesn’t she perhaps care at all? Will she marry someone else before I’ve earned the right to try to make her love me? afforded a see-saw of reflection, agonising enough, for those small hours of wakefulness when we let our emotions play the primitive games with us. But always the morning brought strength to keep to his resolution. He saw her three times a year, when Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer brought her to stay with an aunt, brought him home to his people for holidays. And though he had denied himself the joy of speaking in words, he had let his eyes speak more than he knew. And now he had reached the wallflowers high up, and was plucking them and throwing them down so that they fell in a wavering bright shower round her feet. She did not pick them up. Her eyes were on him; and the empty place where her heart used to be seemed to swell till it almost choked her.
He was coming down now. He was only about twenty-five feet from the ground. There was no sound at all but the grating of his feet as he set them on the stones, and the movement, now and then, of a bird in the ivy. Then came a rustle, a gritty clatter, loud falling stones: his foot had slipped, and he had fallen. No — he was hanging by his hands above the great refectory arch, and his body swung heavily with the impetus of the checked fall. He was moving along now, slowly — hanging by his hands; now he grasped an ivy root — another — and pulled himself up till his knee was on the moulding of the arch. She would never have believed anyone who had told her that only two minutes had been lived between the moment of his stumble and the other moment when his foot touched the grass and he came towards her among the fallen wallflowers. She was a very nice girl and not at all forward, and I cannot understand or excuse her conduct. She made two steps towards him with her hands held out — caught him by the arms just above the elbow — shook him angrily, as one shakes a naughty child — looked him once in the eyes and buried her face in his neck — sobbing long, dry, breathless sobs.
