Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “Not recognise you?” said John with the same disagreeable laugh. “Not recognise you? Do not be silly. He talks of nobody else. I tell you there is nothing in the world the matter with him, he is good for another twenty years.”

  “Thank heaven for that — for the twenty years of life, whether with all his faculties or not—”

  “Yes, by all means let us return thanks. At the present rate of interest on his life that means at least two millions.”

  “It hurts me to hear you talk like that about your father,” said Marion, sitting down and watching her husband as he walked slowly up and down before her.

  “Does it? That is interesting. I wonder why you are hurt because he is likely to live twenty years. You are not very likely to be hurt by his death.”

  “Did I ever suggest such a thing?”

  “No, it suggested itself.”

  At this speech Mrs. Darche rose. Standing quite still for a moment, she looked quietly into his uncertain eyes. He was evidently in the worst of humours, and quite unable to control himself, even had he wished to do so. She felt that it would be safer to leave him, for her own temper was overwrought and ready to break out. She turned towards the door. Then he called her back.

  “I say, Marion!”

  “Well.”

  “What are you making such a fuss about?”

  “Have I said anything?”

  “No, not much, but you have a particularly uncomfortable way of letting one see what you would like to say.”

  “Is that why you called me back?” asked Mrs. Darche on the point of turning away again.

  “I suppose so. It certainly was not for the pleasure of prolonging this delightful interview.”

  Once more she moved in the direction of the door. Then something seemed to tighten about her heart, something long forgotten, and which, if she tried to understand it at all, she thought was pity. It was nothing — only a dead love turning in its grave. But it hurt her, and she stopped and looked back. John Darche was leaning against the high mantlepiece, shading his eyes from the fire with his small, pointed white hand. She came and stood beside him.

  “John,” she said gently, “I want to speak to you seriously. I am very sorry if I was hasty just now. Please forget it.”

  Darche looked up, pulled out his watch and glanced at it, and then looked at her again before he answered. His eyes were hard and dull.

  “I think I said that I was rather busy this morning,” he answered slowly.

  “Yes, I know,” answered Marion, in her sweet, low voice. “But I will not keep you long. I must speak. John, is this state of things to go on for ever?”

  “I fancy not. The death of one of us is likely to put a stop to it before eternity sets in,” he answered with some scorn.

  “We can stop it now if we will but try,” said Marion, laying her hand entreatingly upon his arm.

  “Oh yes, no doubt,” observed John coldly.

  “Let me speak, please, this once,” said Mrs. Darche. “I know that you are worried and harassed about business, and you know that I want to spare you all I can, and would help you if I could.”

  “I doubt whether your help would be conducive to the interests of the Company,” observed Darche.

  “No — I know that I cannot help you in that way. But if you would only let me, in other ways, I could make it so much easier for you.”

  “Could you?” asked John, turning upon her immediately. “Then just lend me a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Mrs. Darche started a little at the words. As has been said, she was really quite in ignorance of what was taking place and had no idea that her husband could be in need of what in comparison with the means of the Company seemed but a small sum in cash.

  “Do you need money, John?” she asked, looking at him anxiously.

  “Oh no, I was only putting an imaginary case.”

  “I wish it were not merely imaginary—”

  “Do you?” he asked, interrupting her quickly. “That is kind.”

  Marion seemed about to lose her temper at last, though she meant to control herself.

  “John!” she exclaimed, in a tone of reproach, “why will you so misunderstand me?”

  “It is you who misunderstand everything.”

  “I mean it quite seriously,” she answered. “You know if you were really in trouble for a sum like that, I could help you. Not that you ever could be. I was only thinking — wishing that in some way or other I might be of use. If I could help you in anything, no matter how insignificant, it would bring us together.”

  John smiled incredulously.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, “is that what you are driving at? Do you not think life is very bearable as we are?”

  By this time Marion had completely regained her self-possession. She was determined not to be repulsed, but there was a little bitterness in her voice as she spoke.

  “No, frankly, John, as we are living now, life is not very bearable. I cannot exchange half a dozen words with you without quarrelling, and it is not my fault, John, it is not my fault! Could you not sometimes make it a little easier for me?”

  “By borrowing a hundred thousand dollars?”

  A pause followed John’s answer, and he walked as far as the window, came back again and stopped.

  “If you think it would be conducive to our conjugal happiness that I should owe you a hundred thousand dollars, by all means lend it to me. I will give you very good security and pay you the current rate of interest.”

  Mrs. Darche hesitated a moment before she spoke again. She was not quite sure that he was in earnest, and being determined to make the utmost use of the opportunity she had created, she dreaded lest if she pressed her offer upon him he should suddenly turn upon her with a brutal laugh.

  “Do you really mean it, John?” she asked at last. “Will it help you at all?”

  “Oh, if you insist upon it and think it will promote your happiness, I have no objection to taking it,” said Darche coolly. “As a matter of fact it would be a convenience to-day, and it might help me to-morrow. It will certainly not be of any importance next week.”

  “I do not know whether you are in earnest or not, but I am.”

  Once more she paused. She realised that he was in need of a great deal of money, and that his scornful acceptance of her offer was really his way of expressing real interest.

  “You shall have it as soon as I can get it for you. If you really need it I shall be very glad. If you are only laughing at me — well, I can bear that too.”

  “No,” answered John, speaking much more seriously than hitherto. “It is a simple matter, of course — but it is quite true that it would be a convenience to me to have a hundred thousand dollars in cash during the next twenty-four hours, and after all, it will not make any difference to you, as so much of your property is in bonds. All you need to do is to borrow the money on call and give the bonds as collateral.”

  “I do not understand those things, of course,” said Marion in a tone of grief, “but I suppose it can be managed easily enough, and I shall be so proud if I am able to help you a little. Oh, John,” she added, after a little pause, “if we could only be as we used to be, everything to each other.”

  “I wish we could,” John answered with real or assumed gravity. “But in this existence, there is everything to separate us and hardly anything to bring us together. You see, I am worried all day long, I never get any rest and then I lose my temper about everything. I know it is wrong but I cannot help it, and you must try to be as patient as you can, my dear.”

  “I do try, John, I do try, do I not? Say that you know I do.” For a moment she thought she had produced an impression upon him, and a vision of a happier and more peaceful life rose suddenly before her ready imagination. But the tone in which he spoke the next words dispelled any such illusion.

  “Oh yes,” he said dryly, “I know you do, of course. You are awfully good — and I am awfully bad. I will reform as soon as I have time. A
nd now, if you do not mind, I will go and attend to my letters.”

  “And I will see about getting the money at once,” she said, bravely hiding her disappointment at his change of tone. “I may be able to have it by this evening.”

  “Oh yes,” he answered with some eagerness, “if you are quick about it. Well good-bye, and I am really much more grateful than I seem.”

  His dry unpleasant laugh was the last sound she heard as she left the room. After all, it seemed perfectly useless, though she did her best all day and every day.

  Marion Darche left her husband more than ever convinced of the hopelessness of any attempt at a happier and more united existence. Faithful, brave, loving, a woman of heart rather than head, she encountered in every such effort the blank wall of a windowless nature, so to say — the dull opposition of a heartless intelligence incapable of understanding any natural impulse except that of self-preservation, and responding to no touch of sympathy or love. Against her will, she wondered why she had married him, and tried to recall the time when his obstinacy had seemed strength, his dulness gravity, his brutality keenness. But no inner conjuring with self could give an instant’s life to the dead illusion. The nearest approach to any real resurrection which she had felt for years had been the little pang that had overtaken her when she had turned to leave him and had thought for one moment that he might be suffering, as she was apt to suffer — this being, whom she had once misunderstood and loved, whom she loved not at all now, but to whom she had been lovelessly faithful in word and thought and deed for years past.

  Yet she knew that others had loved her well, most of all Harry Brett, and girl-like, groping for her heart’s half-grown truth she had once believed that she loved him too, with his boyish, careless ways, his thoughtless talk and his love of happiness for its own sake. He had disappointed her in some little way, being over-light of leaf and flower, though the stem was good to the core; she had looked for strength on the surface as a child breaks a twig and laughs at the oak for its weakness; she had expected, perhaps, to be led and ruled by a hand that would be tender and obedient only for her, and she had turned from Harry Brett to John Darche as from a delusion to a fact, from a dream to the strong truth of waking — very bitter waking in the end.

  But though she had wrecked heart and happiness, and had suffered that cold and hunger of the soul which the body can never feel, she would not change her course nor give up the dream of hope. Worse than what had been, could not be to come, she said to herself, realising how little difference financial ruin, even to herself, could make now.

  As she took up her pen to write a word to Brett, begging him to come to her without delay, she paused a moment, thinking how strange it was that in an extremity she should be obliged to send for him, who had loved her, to help her to save her husband, if salvation were possible. She even felt a little warmth about her heart, knowing how quickly Harry would come, and she was glad that she had known how to turn a boy’s romantic attachment into a man’s solid friendship. Brett would not disappoint her.

  She sent Dolly away, and Dolly, obedient, docile and long-suffering for her friend’s sake, kissed her on both pale cheeks and left her, tripping down the brown steps with a light gait and a heavy heart.

  CHAPTER VI.

  MARION HAD SENT a messenger down town after Brett, and the latter did not lose a moment in answering the note in person. He was a little pale as he entered.

  “What is it?” he asked, almost before he had shaken hands.

  “It is kind of you to come at once,” answered Marion. “I asked you to come about a matter of business. Sit down. I will explain.”

  “Can I be of any use?”

  “Yes, I want some money, a great deal of money, in fact, and I want it immediately.”

  “Are you going to buy a house?” he inquired in some surprise. “How much do you want?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  Brett did not answer at once. He looked at her rather anxiously, then stared at the fire, then looked at her again.

  “It is rather short notice for such an amount. But you have nearly as much as that in bonds and mortgages.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Well then, there need not be any difficulty. What you have in bonds you have already, to all intents and purposes. Do I understand that you want this money in cash?”

  “Yes,” answered Mrs. Darche with decision, “in cash.”

  “I suppose a cheque will do as well?” suggested Brett with a smile.

  “A cheque?” She repeated the word and seemed to hesitate. “I should have to write my name on it, should I not?”

  “Yes.”

  During the pause which followed, Marion seemed to be reviewing the aspects of the transaction.

  “The name of the person to whom I give it?” she asked at last, and she seemed to avoid his glance.

  “Yes,” answered Brett, surprised at the inexperience betrayed by the question, “unless you cashed it yourself and took the money in notes.”

  “No,” said Mrs. Darche, as firmly as before. “I want the notes here, please. What I want you to do, is to take enough bonds and get the money for me. I do not care to know anything else about it, because I shall not understand.”

  “I suppose I ought not to be inquisitive, my dear friend,” replied Brett after a little hesitation, “but I ought to tell you what you do not seem to realise, that a hundred thousand dollars is a great deal of money and that you ought not to keep such a sum in the house.”

  “I do not mean to keep it in the house. It is to be taken away immediately.”

  “I see.”

  He concluded that the money was to be taken from the house by John Darche, and he determined to prevent such a result if possible.

  “May I ask one question?” he inquired.

  “I will not promise to answer it.” She still looked away from him.

  “I hope you will. Do you mean to lend this money to some one? If it were an ordinary payment you would certainly not want it in notes in the house.”

  “How do you know?” asked Marion with some impatience.

  “Because no human man of business with whom I have ever had anything to do likes to trot about town with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of notes in his pocket. And there is very little doubt in my mind about what you mean to do with the money. You mean to give it to your husband. Am I right?”

  Mrs. Darche blushed a little and a shade of annoyance crossed her face.

  “Why should I tell you what I am to do with it?” she asked.

  “Because I am your legal adviser,” answered Brett without hesitating, “and I may give you some good advice.”

  “Thank you, I do not want any advice.”

  Another pause followed this declaration, which only seemed to confirm the lawyer in his surmises.

  “I will call it by another name,” he said at last in a conciliatory tone. “I will call it information. But it is information of a kind that you do not expect. I should certainly not have said anything about it if you had not sent for me on this business. Is it of any use to beg you to reconsider the question of lending this money?”

  “No, I have made up my mind.”

  “To lend it to your husband?”

  “Dear Mr. Brett,” said Marion, beginning to be impatient again, “I said that I would rather not tell you.”

  “I fancy that I am not mistaken,” Brett answered. “Now my dear friend, you will be the last to know what every one has known for some time, but it is time that you should know it. The affairs of the Company are in a very bad state, so bad indeed, that an inquiry has been going on into the management. I do not know the result of it yet, but I am very much afraid that it will be bad, and that it will have very disagreeable consequences for you all.”

  “Consequences?” repeated Mrs. Darche. “What consequences? Do you mean that we shall lose money?”

  “I mean that and I mean something more. It is very serious. Your husband is d
eeply involved, and his father’s name is so closely associated with his in all the transactions that it seems almost impossible to say which of the two is innocent.”

  “Innocent!” cried Marion, laying her hand suddenly upon the arm of her chair and starting forward, then rising quickly to her feet and looking down at him. “What do you mean? Why do you use that word?”

  The expression had hardly escaped Brett’s lips when he realised the extent of his carelessness. He rose and stood beside her, feeling, as a man does, that she had him at a disadvantage while he was seated and she was standing.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I should have been more careful. I should have said which of the two is responsible for—”

  “Something disgraceful?” interrupted Mrs. Darche whose excitement was only increased by his hesitation. “For heaven’s sake, do not keep me in this suspense. Speak! Tell me! Be quick!”

  “I should not have spoken at all except as your adviser,” said Brett. “Nothing definite is known yet, but something is wrong. As a purely business transaction it is madness to lend money to John Darche. Can you believe for a moment that the treasurer of such a Company, that the men who control such a Company, would ask you to lend them a hundred thousand dollars at a few hours’ notice, if they were not on the very verge of ruin?”

  “No, but that is not what happened.”

  She stopped short and moved away from him a little, hesitating as to what she should say next. It was impossible to describe to him the scene which had taken place between her and her husband.

  “I cannot tell you, and yet I want you to know,” she said, at last.

  “Do you not trust me?” said Brett, hoping to encourage her.

  “Certainly. Trust you! Oh yes, I trust you with all my heart.”

  She turned and faced him again.

  “Then tell me,” said he. “Tell me what happened in as few words as possible. Just the bare facts.”

  “It is the bare facts that are so hard to tell.”

  She turned away from him again feeling that if she allowed her eyes to meet his she could not long withhold her confidence.