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                          A Daughter of Strife

                                   BY
                          JANE HELEN FINDLATER

                               AUTHOR OF
                    “THE GREEN GRAVES OF BALGOWRIE”




                                NEW YORK
                         DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
                                  1897




                            Copyright, 1897
                                   by
                          DODD, MEAD & COMPANY


                     BURR PRINTING HOUSE, NEW YORK.




                                 PART I


                   ‘. . . _Old unhappy far-off things,_
             _And battles long ago._’




                          A Daughter of Strife

                               CHAPTER I


As long ago as the year 1710 there lived in London town a girl of the
name of Anne Champion—a straw-plaiter by trade, and by hard fortune a
beauty. Anne lived alone in a garret, and earned her bread by the sweat
of her brow, plaiting straws for hats from early morning to late at
night. Then she would go out and buy her food for the next day, if she
had earned enough to buy food with, and if she had not, she would do
without food and work on.

A hard life enough; but it was not to last for ever. For Anne had a fine
lover at the wars—Surgeon Sebastian Shepley,—and ere very long he was
to return, and Anne was to say farewell to work. Partings were partings
in those days, and Anne never thought of getting a letter from Flanders
more than once in seven or eight weeks. When she got one, poor girl, she
could not read it—no, nor answer it; for she had no ‘book-learning,’
and had never been taught to write; but she used to take her letters to
a former adorer of her own who served in a print-shop, and he kindly
read his rival’s love-letters aloud, and, when Anne could afford to send
one in return, would even be forgiving enough to write it for her.
Anne’s fine lover had caused considerable jealousy among her neighbours,
and old Mrs. Nare, the mother of Matthew, the young man in the
news-shop, was never tired of hinting to Anne that no good ever came of
such unequal alliances. When she saw that Anne was quite undisturbed by
these prognostications, Mrs. Nare tried to persuade her that there was
little chance Shepley would ever return from the wars.

‘The surgeons do come by their deaths in war-time so well as the
soldiers,’ she would say; ‘best not set your heart overly on him, Anne.’
And Anne would whiten, and turn away at her words.

Yard’s Entry, where Anne Champion and Mrs. Nare lived, is a place that
smells of age now—it was counted old even in these far-away days I
write of,—and the stone stairs leading up to Anne’s garret were worn
away into crescent shape by the tread of many generations. At the foot
of these stairs, on warm evenings, Mrs. Nare used to stand and watch all
her neighbours’ affairs; so it was natural enough that a stranger coming
in to the Entry one evening should address himself to her when he made
inquiry for Anne Champion. He was a young man with very bright eyes, and
his voice, as clear as the note of a flute, echoed up the stair as he
spoke.

‘Doth Anne Champion live here, my good woman?’ he asked.

‘No, sir. Anne she lives at the top of the stair,’ said Mrs. Nare,
squinting up at the stranger out of her narrow old eyes, then, actuated
by unknown motives, she added—

‘Anne she’ve got a lover at the wars,’ in a sort of interrogative tone.
She had seen Shepley more than once, and knew this was not he; perhaps
she wished to find out the stranger’s errand.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ was all he said, however, as he disappeared up
the winding old stair. Up and up he went, feeling his way, for there was
little or no light to guide him, then he stumbled against a door, and
knocked at haphazard, hoping it was the door he sought.

‘Come in,’ said some one, and at that the man, groping with the latch
for a moment, at last got the door open, and stood on the threshold
looking in.

The sunshine fell across the floor in a flood of smoky brightness, and
full in the sun’s beams sat Anne Champion, surrounded by the straw she
was plaiting. It was piled up round her, within reach of her fingers,
that moved like lightning at her mechanical toil.

Anne wore a gown of pink calico, and, whether for greater comfort or
from mere untidiness, all her yellow hair hung over her shoulders in
splendid confusion. She let her work fall at sight of a stranger,
started up, and standing almost knee-deep among the straw, caught at her
hair, and began to wind it up into a knot.

The young man stood still on the threshold for a full minute, as I have
said. Then he seemed to recollect himself, and stepping across the floor
he held out his hand to the girl, smiling very pleasantly.

‘I scarce need to ask if you are Anne Champion,’ he said.

Anne seemed too much taken aback by this unexpected visitor to make any
reply. She stood looking at him and twisting her long yellow hair
between her fingers. At last she said—

‘Yes, sir, I be Anne Champion,’ and waited for him to make known his
errand.

The young man did not seem to be in any hurry, however. He looked round
the bare little room, and then looked again at Anne before he spoke.

‘I am come to make excuses,’ he said then; ‘and if you will allow me to
sit down, for I am weak still from a fever, I shall make them to the
best of my ability.’

Anne produced a stool from a corner and proffered it to her visitor.

‘I am come from Flanders,’ he began again; but he did not speak like one
intent on his business: his bright eyes were fixed on Anne; he seemed to
be speaking of one thing and thinking of another. His words, however,
had a quick effect on Anne—her look of perplexed shyness had vanished.

‘From Flanders? Ah, sir, ’tis welcome thrice over you are!’ she cried;
‘an’ are you bringing me news of my dear man?’ Her face was radiant; she
smiled, and the beautiful dimples in her cheek were revealed, and her
white even teeth. Her very eyes seemed to smile.

The young man began to speak again—with unaccountable stumblings and
hesitations, still reading Anne’s face with his quick bright eyes as he
spoke.

‘I am come—Sebastian Shepley,’ he said, and paused.

At the sight of his perturbation Anne came quickly towards him and laid
her hand on his shoulder.

‘Sir, sir,’ she cried. ‘Don’t tell me as there is aught amiss with my
Sebastian.’

‘Anne, I am come from your old lover Shepley, as you surmise,’ began the
young man again; ‘he—he is well in health.’

The colour which had left Anne’s face rushed back to it in a beautiful
scarlet tide.

‘Lord! sir, Sebastian’s not old, begging your pardon, sir,’ she said,
letting her hand fall from his shoulder, rather ashamed of her sudden
familiarity.

‘I—’twas not that way I meant it, Anne; I scarce know,’ stammered the
young man. ‘Come, sit down by me and I shall tell you all.’

Anne, however, would not have felt easy sitting down in the presence of
this fine stranger in lace ruffles. She stood opposite him and still
looked anxious in spite of his assurances.

‘There hath ill come to him, sir; he’s wounded; or—or—’ she said.

The young man seemed suddenly to have collected himself; his
embarrassment, if embarrassment it had been, vanished as suddenly as it
had come. He rose and came over to where Anne stood.

‘He hath no wound nor hurt of any sort, Anne, but he hath sent me with a
message to you, and this is it:—The war is like to keep him so long in
the Low Country he dare not ask you to wait.’

‘I’d wait a lifetime for him,’ laughed Anne. ‘If that be all his message
he hath troubled you for naught, sir.’

‘’Tis not all. The fact is Sebastian has married—married a pretty Dutch
wife. He feared to exhaust your patience. He asked me to tell you.
“For,” said he, “Anne hath so many lovers ’twill be neither here nor
there to her.” As like as not he may be years abroad still.’

There was a moment’s silence. Anne looked her visitor straight in the
eyes; she had whitened down to her very lips.

‘You are but fooling with me, sir,’ she said, half whispering the words.

‘I am in sober earnest; ’tis no matter for jest this,’ said the young
man, looking at Anne’s blanching cheeks.

‘O good Lord!’ then cried Anne in a piteous crying voice—the note of a
bird over its harried nest. She seemed to forget the presence of a
stranger, and, sinking down against a settle that stood by the wall, she
hid her face in her hands and sobbed, rocking herself back and forwards
in her bitter grief.

‘Sebastian, Sebastian dear, you are not wedded true and certain?’ she
cried. ‘O God help me, an’ what am I to do now? O Lord! O Lord!’

The young man who had brought this ill news did not go away and leave
Anne alone with her sorrow, as most men would have done. He sat down on
the settle she leant against and laid his hand kindly on her shoulder
though he said nothing. Anne sobbed on, with hidden face, and all the
time her visitor’s bright eyes were roving round the room, taking in
every detail of its poor arrangements, yet ever and again he would pat
the girl’s shoulder in token of sympathy.

Suddenly Anne rose to her feet.

‘He’s not worth a tear,’ she said. ‘He’s like the rest of you. I had no
opinion of men before that I took up with Sebastian, an’ a fool I was to
be deceived with him. You’re all like that,’ she cried, pointing to the
pile of straw at her feet. ‘A spark’ll send you up in a blaze, and
you’re as much to be leaned on as that.’ She plucked a straw from the
heap, and snapped the brittle yellow stalk across as she spoke, with an
unconsciously dramatic gesture.

‘Come, not all,’ said the young man, surprised by her words.

‘Yes, all. Well, this I do say for Sebastian, he’s as fine a liar as he
was a lover—would take in Judas hisself with them straight eyes o’
his.’

‘I am grieved to have borne such bitter news to any one,’ said the young
man. ‘But you take it the right way, Anne, and when Shepley returns
’twill be to find a better man in his place.’

‘Better man! There’s not one good among ’em—no, not one,’ said Anne,
bitterly. She walked away to the little window, through which the
sunshine was pouring in with garish brightness, and leant her forehead
against the panes.

‘Come, Anne,’ urged her visitor, following her to the window. ‘You must
do your endeavour to forget him. ’Tis a scurvy trick he has played you,
but there’s a proverb suited to your case I would have you remember,
about the good fish in the sea! Come, here is a coin as yellow as your
hair to help you to the forgetting. Buy yourself a new gown with
ribbands and have a night at the play.’

Anne looked askance at the stranger’s gold for a moment; then she flung
back her head and laughed a harsh-sounding mirthless laugh.

‘I had best make sure ’tis gold I’ve got this time!’ she said, catching
up the coin and ringing it on the table.

‘I shall bid you good-night then, my good girl,’ said the stranger, and
held out his hand once again.

A minute later he plunged down the dark old stair. ‘What is it like?
going down thus into darkness?’ he said to himself; but he did not reply
to the question.




                               CHAPTER II


The young man Richard Meadowes found a coach waiting for him round the
corner of Yard’s Entry; he jumped in and bade the coachman drive home to
St. James’ Square: a long drive, but Meadowes did not find it so, his
thoughts were amply occupied. When he reached home he went in and sat
down in a chair beside the fire, apparently in a brown study. What was
he thinking about so intently all the time? About a lie: for the whole
story of Sebastian Shepley’s marriage had been invented by Richard
Meadowes on the spur of the moment, as he stood stammering and
hesitating before Anne Champion.

Meadowes had known Sebastian Shepley from his childhood. They had been
born and brought up in the same little country village of Wynford, where
Meadowes’ father had owned the Manor House and the wide lands
appertaining to it, while Shepley’s father was the village apothecary.
Then they both went to the wars; Meadowes to fight, Shepley to heal;
now, tired of campaigning, which had never been to his mind, Meadowes
had left the service and returned to England, where, since his parents’
death, he had inherited, together with the Manor House of Fairmeadowes,
this house in St. James’ Square and enough of money to ruin most men.

But Richard Meadowes was neither idle nor without interests. The whole
of life appealed vividly to him, every day was crowded with incident and
amusement, his difficulty was to select between his pleasures: now of a
sudden he had brought himself into a curious place. It had been from the
easy pleasantness of his nature that Meadowes had offered, when leaving
Flanders, to carry any letters home to Wynford for Dr. Sebastian
Shepley. The young surgeon had hesitated for a moment before asking if,
instead of bearing a letter to Wynford, Meadowes would deliver one in
London.

‘With all my heart—a dozen an’ you please,’ said Meadowes kindly; for
he liked the young man with his steady blue eyes, who came moreover from
Wynford like himself.

So Sebastian Shepley had intrusted a bulky letter to his care, and along
with it a package containing, said he, some amber beads for ‘Annie,’ ‘as
yellow as her hair.’ These were to be given to his sweetheart by
Meadowes’ own hand.

Now, like most men who are good at making pleasant promises, Meadowes
was not quite so good at keeping them. He forgot all about Sebastian
Shepley’s love-letter for several weeks, and lost the amber beads, so
that when at last he set out to deliver the letter, he had determined to
make such apologies as he might for the loss of the beads.

But when first his eyes rested on Anne Champion he thought only of her
beauty. He stood and stammered before her, and then there came a
whisper: Shepley was in Flanders . . . might never return . . . might
have forgotten Anne when he did . . . why could he not supplant him in
the meantime?

No wonder he had hesitated for a little before inventing the story; but
now that it was done a host of difficulties presented themselves to
Meadowes’ fancy. First of all, Shepley might write again to Anne any
day—in all probability he would not do so for some weeks, but still he
might—therefore Anne must be induced to leave her present home as
quickly as might be. Secondly, Anne had impressed him as a
self-respecting woman, quite able to take care of herself; she was no
silly child to be easily deceived, and, so far as he could judge, not to
be bought either. It is true Anne had taken the coin he offered her, but
Meadowes acknowledged that she had scarcely seemed to know what she was
about at the time. How then was he to gain favour in her eyes? How
manage to ingratiate himself with her quickly without rousing her
suspicions? He had no possible pretext for going to visit her again, yet
go he must, and that speedily, or he ran the risk of Anne’s having
received another letter from her lover, which might make her disbelieve
all the statements she had accepted to-day.

As Meadowes weighed the matter in his mind, he remembered Shepley’s
amber beads. Find them he must, and they might be offered to Anne as a
farewell gift from her faithless adorer. So he prosecuted an active
search for the missing package, and when at last it had been discovered,
sat down and opened it. Then Meadowes slipped the warm yellow beads
through his fingers like a monk at his devotions, but all the while
darting fears and shivers of shame overcame him, for he was a man of
quick sensitiveness, fully conscious of the base part he was playing.

There was no time to be lost; the next day at latest he must go to see
Anne again.

Thus it came about that Meadowes stood once more at Anne Champion’s door
the next afternoon and knocked.

Anne opened it herself; she stood on the threshold, and did not invite
her visitor to come in.

‘Oh, ’tis you again,’ was all she said for greeting.

‘I am come with the remainder of my message, Anne,’ said Meadowes. ‘I
forgot yesterday to make over this part of it to you.’

‘Come in then,’ said Anne, curtly enough, and she moved across to the
little window, which stood open for the heat. The room had a deserted
air, Anne seemed to have been sitting idle, for there were no signs of
her usual occupation.

‘Sit down, sir,’ she said, and waited for Meadowes to make known this
further errand of his.

‘Shepley asked me to deliver this amber chain into your hand as a
keepsake, and to bear him no ill will,’ he said, handing the necklace to
Anne.

‘A likely thing it is I’ll have his gifts!’ cried the girl. She flushed
angrily, and with a quick movement of her arm flung the chain out at the
window; it fell on the opposite roof, and the smooth beads slid down the
slates and lodged in some unseen crevice.

‘There they may rot for me!’ she cried.

‘Ah, come,’ began Meadowes; ‘he meant kindly by the gift.’

‘I’ll have none o’ his kindness then,’ said Anne. She did not seem
disposed for further conversation. But Meadowes persisted:—

‘You seem scarce so busy to-day.’

‘No more I am, sir; I be tired of work.’

‘Have you ever lived in the country?’ queried Meadowes, who had since
the day before evolved his plans a little. ‘Work is none so hard there,
and living pleasant; quiet is good for a sad heart.’

‘You’ll have tried it, sir?’ said Anne sarcastically. ‘For sad hearts be
mighty common.’

‘Ah! I have had my sad days too.’

‘I’d scarce have thought it, sir,’ said Anne, taking a survey of her
visitor. ‘But there,’ she added, as if on second thoughts, ‘you have
mayhap felt things like the rest of us.’

‘I have—I have. God knows I feel things,’ said Meadowes, with sudden
curious earnestness. He crossed over to where Anne stood, and laid his
fine, white, ringed hand on her arm for a moment.

‘I am grieved for you, Anne; indeed I am; I had not thought ’twould be
such a stroke to you, this. I would it were in my power to help you.’

Anne shook her head.

‘’Tis kind of you, sir, and thank you; there’s but the cure of time for
me, I do fear,’ she said, drawing back slightly from the touch of
Meadowes’ hand as she spoke.

‘I have a cottage in the country,’ he began, ‘where an old nurse of mine
keeps bees and flowers and the like: mayhap a change to country air
would help you to the forgetting of your trouble.’

Anne shook her head and smiled.

‘I’d get no sale for my straw-plaits thereaway,’ she said.

‘Oh, I would pay you——’ began Meadowes, but Anne cut him short.

‘For what, sir?’ she asked sharply.

Meadowes became certain of what he had only suspected before,—that Anne
Champion was quite able to take care of herself.

‘For your work, my good girl,’ he said, drawing himself up rather
stiffly for a moment. ‘Martha hath over much on her hands between the
bees and the flowers. If you care to live with her it would be to give
her your assistance in these matters.’

‘I’ve no knowledge o’ flowers nor any skill with bees, sir,’ said Anne,
still speaking in a suspicious tone. Then she added: ‘And where will
this place be, sir? for I have been no more than ten miles from London
all my days.’

‘Not farther than that; ’tis out Richmond way,’ said Meadowes. ‘But pray
do not hasten yourself to decide. I can get another woman any day. ’Twas
but that I fancied the country might change your thoughts for you that I
made you the offer.’ He rose as he spoke and held out his hand.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Anne, curtseying to her fine visitor, and rather
impressed by his sudden assumption of dignity.

Meadowes was quick to observe the advantage he had gained.

‘If you care to take a week wherein to think over the offer,’ he said,
‘I shall keep the place vacant for you till then.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ again said Anne.

‘Shall I come and see you at the week’s end?’ asked Meadowes.

‘I thank you; yes, sir,’ said Anne.

When her visitor had gone Anne sat down by the window to consider the
matter. ‘Him an’ his bees!’ was her first contemptuous conclusion, for,
as she would have expressed it herself, ‘handsome women they do know
their own know about the men.’ Then she thought over the past, with its
hard work and scanty pay, over the present, that was swept empty of hope
and pleasure, into a future, that had nothing to offer but work, work,
work. It was a fixed belief with Anne that men were seldom wholly
disinterested in their motives. She could not bring herself to imagine
that Meadowes offered her this situation because he wished his work
done—no, no, it was because she was ‘so rarely fine-looking,’ that was
all. But then what if it proved to be a good situation—good pay, little
work?—she would be a fool to refuse it. And further, she was well able
to take care of herself.

There are moods of mind when only some change in the outward conditions
of life can promise hope or comfort. It seemed to Anne impossible that
she could stay on here in her old surroundings when everything in the
future had changed for her. She was even weak and feminine enough to
imagine the delight of Mrs. Nare when she discovered that her prophecies
had come true and Anne’s fine lover had proved faithless. This thought
recurred to her again and again, for women are curious creatures, and
bad as they find it to be jilted, they perhaps find it worse still that
other women should be able to marvel and gossip over their deserted
state! Said Anne, when this thought had become intolerable, ‘I shall go
away to the country; Mrs. Nare shall be none the wiser,’ and with that
she decided to accept the offered situation, whatever it might prove to
be.

So when on the following Sunday afternoon Meadowes appeared once more at
Yard’s Entry, he found Anne quite ready to undertake the unknown duties
she had hesitated over the week before.

‘I’m happy to go, sir,’ she said; ‘and if so be as I do fail at the
work, ’tis your own fault, sir, offering the place to one as knows
nought of country ways.’

‘You will learn—you will learn,’ said Meadowes hastily.

‘And your name, sir? if I may make bold to ask.’

‘Mr. Richard Sundon; I fancied I had given you my name ere this.’

‘No, sir, and mayhap you live in the country thereaway?’

It scarcely suited Meadowes to answer this with absolute veracity.

‘No, in town—in rooms just now; some day I shall settle down,’ he
replied.

‘O yes, sir, a home’s a fine thing they do say,’ said Anne, in a dreary
voice that had the echo of tears in it.




                              CHAPTER III


Meadowes did not pay much heed to where he was going as he left Yard’s
Entry that Sunday afternoon. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he
walked forward without aim or direction. And these thoughts were
curiously involved: a horror of what he was about; a determination to
persist in it.

‘What’s this I am doing? what’s this I’ve done? Broken a woman’s heart,
and played a good man false . . . and I am gaining (perhaps) my desires,
and losing (certainly) my soul. . . . Soul? Have we got souls? I that am
doing this, have I a soul? I doubt it . . . we are but as the beasts
that perish—and yet——’

He stumbled along through the narrow, crowded streets. ‘I’ll go and
pray,’ he said, stopping suddenly before the door of one of the old city
churches (it stands there yet, grey and cool).

‘Here,’ he said to the verger, ‘is the church empty?’

‘Empty as a new-made grave, sir,’ said the man cheerfully.

Meadowes passed into the musty coolness of the church. He walked up the
aisle and chose out the darkest corner he could find, where to offer up
his strange petitions. There was a brass let into the wall here
commemorating the brave fall of men who had died gallant deaths; a
banner, bullet-singed and tattered, hung from the roof. Meadowes knelt
under the faded fringes and covered his eyes with his hands, to shut out
the world.

Then the former doubt invaded him, and the terror that the unseen was a
delusion and man but a soulless higher brute with a hand-breadth of Time
to sport in, overcame him with the blackness of despair.

‘Better far have a lost soul than none at all,’ he cried out in horror.
He looked up at the banner above him; for things, after all, as
intangible as the soul he doubted of, some happy mortals had bled and
died—for Honour, Patriotism, Courage. Had they forfeited the merry
years for shadows, been fools for their pains? Remembrances crowded on
him of War and Death: he seemed to see whole spectral armies of the
slain arise. He named them happy as they rose; for had they not died
undoubtingly, bartering life for these intangible realities so worthy
the life-blood of men! Ah for the unquestioning heart—to be able to
walk straight forward in a plain path! But for him question would rise
upon question: and this, the darkest doubt, the poisoning of Effort at
its very sources, was worst of all—no Unseen, nothing but the solid
merry world really to be counted upon! If this was so, then good-bye to
aspiration, grasp at the Seen, hold it fast, for seventy miserable years
only were to be depended on—depended on! not seventy seconds were
assured to him. ‘Lord! I must have my pleasures!’ he cried, remembering
the few and evil years. Then in spite of the doubts that tormented him,
Meadowes suddenly began to pray. He came before the God whose existence
he could not be sure of, with a confession he would not have made to his
fellow-men.

‘O God,’ he prayed, speaking low into his clasped hands, ‘I have planned
this thing and am going on with it—’tis pure devilry, but I am going
on. Lord, I do it open-eyed. Some day punish me as I deserve—now I must
take my pleasure——’

A curious prayer; but perhaps better than no prayer at all. For herein
lies the world’s hope, that every man—the blackest sinner amongst
us—is on his own extraordinary terms with the Unseen. Were we as
grossly material as appears, we were lost indeed.

Meadowes’ faith truly was reduced to the minimum, and yet, and yet—to
Something he made confession, assured only of this, that if any Presence
listened it must be with pity. He rose from his knees and went out again
into the crowded streets, filled not with any sudden resolutions of
repentance, but with the determination to persist in the course he had
originally planned out. He even felt a certain relief of conscience. ‘_I
have explained it with God_,’ he found himself saying, adding a moment
later, ‘If there be such an One.’ Then his thoughts seemed to fall into
question and answer:

‘And doth that make all straight?’

‘_Straighter: for I have said that such punishment as I deserve for
this, I shall take._’

‘Did you mean what you prayed?’

‘_If there are punishments in truth._’

‘Do you think there are?’

‘_No: I doubt it._’

‘Then you will have your pleasure without risk?’

‘_I hope for it._’

But conscience had after all the last word, for it spoke suddenly and
loudly then:—

‘_No, no; “a sword shall pierce thine own heart also.”_’




                               CHAPTER IV


Till a few years ago the cottage was still standing where Anne Champion
went to live at the bounty of Richard Meadowes. It stood on one of the
crossways leading off the great west London road; but few people passed
down the green lane, few even looked that way. The cottage was one of
those deep thatched old dwellings that look like an owl with its
feathers drawn up over its head; it had a garden filled with flowers and
bee-hives, and the straight walk leading up to the door was bordered
with flowering shrubs. Anne worked in the garden, clumsily enough at
first, and she looked after the bees and got stung frequently, and time
went on. Each week the old woman, Martha Hare, who occupied the house
along with her, received a certain sum of money to be divided between
herself and Anne; but Meadowes only came occasionally to the cottage at
first: he was very cautious, having weighed Anne’s character pretty
accurately. Then his visits became more frequent, and were somewhat
prolonged, then he brought Anne a present from town. Anne began to draw
her usual conclusions from these things: ‘He’s a-making up to me,’ she
said to Martha Hare.

But she was scarcely prepared for it when Meadowes suddenly asked her
one day if she would marry him.

‘I have been thinking of it for long, Anne,’ he said.

‘Sir, sir!’ said vulgar Anne. ‘I’m not your kind.’

‘But that is just my difficulty, and if you will listen to me I shall
explain it. You cannot but see, Anne, that you are scarce in my class,
as you say, and for that reason ’twill be better to keep the matter
private, else my father will cut me off with a shilling. But if you will
marry me privately, Anne, I swear to you I’ll be a good husband to you.’

Anne had been listening intently; but here she suddenly held up her
hand.

‘There,’ she cried, ‘I’ll have you with no promises if I have you at
all. I’ll take you as I know you, sir, and trust you but so far as I
sees you.’

‘But you will trust me, Anne?’ he said.

‘No. I’ll never trust no man again this side time. But I’ll come an’
live along of you, sir, if so be I’m done with work and care for ever.’

‘Anne, Anne, do not be so bitter,’ said Meadowes. Anne stood looking at
him silently for a moment, then she laughed.

‘’Tis like I’m marrying you for love, sir?’ she said.

‘Well, I have done what I could for you,’ said Meadowes (but he blushed
hotly as he spoke. ‘_I am a devil_,’ he said to himself).

‘You have, sir, one way, but now you’ve showed your hand, so to say. I
knew as it would be this way some day—I’ve had lovers an’ lovers by the
score. Not but that you’ve been civil and taken your time, sir. Well, as
I do say, sir, you be kind and I’ll take you for that. But ’tis not for
love, sir. I have no heart left in me now, but a stone where it once
was. A woman she do have two throws o’ the dice in her life—one’s love
an’ t’other’s money. Lose the first; you’d best, if you’re a wise woman,
have a try for the second, for with never the one nor t’other you be in
a sad case.’

Meadowes listened gravely to this, Anne’s gospel of prudence.

‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘that’s your way of thinking, Anne, and
mayhap mine is not so different—to take what I can get.’

‘What are you gettin’, sir?’ asked Anne, turning suddenly to him. ‘Lor’
sakes, sir! what hath gone agin you in life that you take second best so
soon?’

‘Second best?’ queried Meadowes.

‘Ay, second best. You’ll not make me believe as how you are wedding for
love, sir.’

‘I—I am very fond of you,’ Meadowes began, but Anne stopped him
impatiently.

‘Not you, sir. I’m rarely fine-looking, an’ men be terrible fools.
You’ve a mind to marry—that’s short and long for it,—but for love——’

The silence that Anne ended her sentence with was more expressive than
words. Then she turned and laid her hand in his.

‘Here, sir,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask no questions. Mayhap you’ve had your
story like myself. Leastways you’ve been kind to me, and I’ll be a good
wife to you if you’re wishful to marry with me. Like enough some day we
may both forget——’

She turned hastily away with a sob that would not be kept back.

‘Shall we say Friday of next week, then, Anne?’ said Meadowes, passing
his arm round her and patting her shoulder very kindly.

‘When you please, sir.’

‘And we shall be married here, not in church, for the reason I have
mentioned?’

‘Any place you please, sir.’

‘My friend Mr. Prior will marry us.’

‘Any parson you have a mind for, sir.’

Meadowes drew Anne closer to him, and kissed her lovely tear-stained
face. Then he bade her good-bye, and she went into the cottage and sat
there face to face with life, as every woman is when she makes up her
mind on what now-a-days we term the Marriage Problem.

Anne was very clear-sighted; she saw, as every woman with her wits about
her must see, that it is not good for woman—especially pretty woman—to
be alone. She saw in ‘Dick Sundon,’ as she called him, a protector whom
she had every reason to like. In the bitterness of her heart she had
vowed never to trust any man again, but she must have had some vague
feeling of confidence in this kindly bright-eyed suitor, else Anne would
have hesitated more than she did before coming to her decision. She had
hitherto been rather suspicious of the attentions of ‘fine gentlemen,’
as she termed them, but this offer of marriage seemed honourable to a
degree. ‘I’ll never forget Sebastian—not for all he hath done by
me—but mayhap I’d be happier wedded to Dick Sundon than living alone
all my days. Oh, he’s kind enough for certain, an’ free with his money,
and now he do wish to marry me what better can I do?’ she asked herself.

Unanswerable arguments.

Meadowes, on his part, went home profoundly miserable. For the sinner
who would sin enjoyably must be of another stuff from that of which this
man was made. Just as he had achieved success, his heart turned with a
perfectly genuine emotion of pity towards the woman he had deceived so
cruelly.

Yet on he went.

That evening he called upon his friend Mr. Simon Prior, at his rooms in
Piccadilly.

‘A somewhat late visitor, I fear, Prior,’ he said.

‘Never too late to be welcome,’ said Prior.

‘Well, I am come on business, which must be my excuse,’ said Meadowes.
He sat down, and Prior waited to hear what the business might be.

‘The fact is, I wish you to do me a favour,—I wish your assistance to
the carrying out of—of an affair of some delicacy.’

‘I shall be delighted; but I find it difficult to imagine . . . my money
affairs,’ . . . began Prior, whose one idea of a difficulty was money.

‘I had best make a long story short,’ said Meadowes, ‘I want you to act
cleric for me; I’ve seen your powers of mimicry ere this, and I swear
you’d play the parson to a nicety.’

‘Phew!’ whistled Prior. ‘So ’tis a woman is the difficulty; but why,
Meadowes, if I may intrude upon your secrets, why do you demand a
parson?’

‘Ah! there is my difficulty. There are women, you see, who value their
good name, and this woman is of the number. ’Tis unfortunate, but a fact
I cannot get over. She hath promised to be my wife, however, and I have
explained to her that family reasons make a private marriage necessary
at present. I trusted to you for the rest of it.’

Simon Prior leant back in his chair and eyed his visitor narrowly.

‘And what are you going to give to me in return for these valuable
services?’ he said.

Meadowes leant forward—his bright eyes blazed in the lamplight.

‘I’ll pay every debt you have, if that will do,’ he said.

Prior went through a quick mental sum.

‘Yes, that will do,’ he said, when it had been added up. ‘I have played
many a part, and have no doubt I could acquit myself with credit in
this. I’ll go to church and hear the parson’s drawl (I’ve not heard it
this many a year), and I’ll reproduce it for you whenever you please
with becoming gravity.’

‘Thanks! I’ve no manner of doubt you will. Then you will tell me what I
owe you? And, by the way, this matter must never cross your lips, Prior;
I may trust you for that?’

‘You may.’

‘Then on Saturday of next week, all being well?’

‘On Saturday of next week, all being well,’ repeated Prior, in such a
startling reproduction of Meadowes’ voice that both men laughed aloud.

But laughter was not in Meadowes’ heart though it was on his lips. He
rose to say good-night soon after, and Simon Prior lay back in his
arm-chair and smiled.




                               CHAPTER V


Perhaps it was because he felt the knot so obligingly tied by Simon
Prior not quite impossible to untie, that Richard Meadowes took his
marital obligations very lightly. He was well pleased with his new
acquisition, and used to ride out from town constantly to see Anne. They
would walk out together in the long spring twilights, and gradually Anne
began to lose her dread of such a fine lover and spoke to him freely and
naturally.

Anne could be a very amusing companion; for she had quick wits; and that
for companionship is far better than being well educated. She would tell
Meadowes all about her life; excepting one episode only, no mention of
which ever crossed her lips—of the men who had courted her, and the
women who had hated her, of the straits of poverty, and all she had seen
and suffered and enjoyed in her five-and-twenty years’ pilgrimage. In
return, she would ask Meadowes about the unknown world to which he
belonged. Had they always enough to eat without thinking about it or
working for it? (‘Lord sakes, how grand!’) Had they never to walk when
they were weary, or toil when they were faint? Was it possible he had
never known what it was to be cold for want of clothing, or run out of
fuel in the winter? (‘You scarce know you’re alive!’) Or, sorest strait
of all, was it possible he had never known sickness and want together?
(‘You’ve not felt the Lord’s hand on you yet then, Dick.’) And she would
listen with delight to Meadowes’ tales of his world. Outwardly, indeed,
Anne was cheerful enough now; Meadowes began to think she was forgetting
the past. Only her entire silence about Sebastian Shepley seemed to mark
any feeling on the subject. Yet every now and then he fancied she was
thinking of her former lover. Once as they walked together down the lane
on a lovely summer night—the birds were singing as if their little
throats would burst, the year’s jubilee was at its height—Meadowes
turned to her in his sudden, impulsive way.

‘’Tis fine to be alive and young,’ he said; ‘and the birds sing like the
angels of Paradise!’

‘I think to have heard the sparrows in the Green Park——’ Anne began to
say, almost as if she were speaking to herself—then she broke off in
the middle of her sentence and turned away. A moment later she added—

‘You do speak rarely clear, Dick—for all the world like a flute’s note.
I like to hearken to your voice better than them birds by far.’

Meadowes was charmed with this pretty speech; he flung his arm round
Anne’s waist and kissed her. She looked up at him with her brown eyes
full of tears; but they may have been tears of mirth, for all she said
was, ‘Good sakes! but men be mortal vain,’ and with that she drew
herself away from his embrace.

‘Why should she cry over the sparrows in the Green Park?’ Meadowes
wondered; how should he know how often Anne had walked there with
Sebastian Shepley?

Time wore on, summer merged into autumn, and still Anne had never spoken
once to Meadowes about Sebastian Shepley; they were the best of friends,
Anne welcomed his coming and mourned at his going, but without a trace
of sentiment, as Meadowes found himself forced to admit. Men do not like
a want of sentiment in women: they may condone it in their own sex, it
is considered an essential in ours; so Meadowes, who had never blamed
himself for lacking this quality, found it in his heart to be surprised
and a little indignant with Anne for doing so. ‘She should be beginning
to care more for me by now,’ he thought; he had been a very devoted
husband.

It was devotion indeed, which urged him to ride out from London one
cruel night of wind and rain. The miles seemed as though they would
never be got over; yet Meadowes rode on and on, out into the deep
country, his head bowed before the lashing of the rain and the onslaught
of the wind. At the Cross Roads Inn he dismounted, and leaving his horse
there, strode on through the darkness to Anne’s cottage.

‘Good sakes, Dick, is it you!’ cried Anne at sound of his knock. She
flung open the door and he passed in, into the warmth and stillness of
the cottage kitchen, where he stood laughing and breathless, the water
dripping from his drenched clothes on to the sanded floor. Anne,
exclamatory and sympathetic, stood beside him.

‘’Tis wetted through and through you are, Dick,’ she said, wringing the
flap of his riding-coat. ‘For the love of heaven go and cast these wet
clothes from off you, while I do heat up some ale for you on the fire.
There be naught like hot ale for chills. Good lack! to think of mortal
man riding from London this night!’

Meadowes laughed. ‘I shall be none the worse, Anne. But not hot
ale—mulled claret for me, my girl.’

‘I have no knowledge of your fine sour-wine drinks, Dick. For certain
the hot ale be far wholesomer,’ urged Anne, who clung to tradition as
surely as Meadowes.

So to please her hot ale he drank, sitting by the wide cottage fireplace
listening to the driving storm. The candle, which had been low in its
socket, burned lower; then Anne put it out, and still they sat silently
in the pleasant fire-lit room and heard the storm rave on outside. They
were sitting side by side on the settle by the fire, Meadowes had his
arm round Anne’s shoulder in his kindly caressing fashion, but though
Anne permitted the endearment she did not respond to it in any way.

‘You are very quiet to-night?’ said Meadowes at last. Anne shivered, and
bent forward to stir up the fire for answer.

‘What ails you, Anne? Has aught distressed you through the day?’ he
asked.

Anne turned round and looked at him; her eyes had a curiously wild,
frightened expression.

‘’Tis like great guns,’ she said. ‘There, there. O Lord, I can’t a-bear
to hear it—guns and guns a-thundering on, and when it cometh round the
corner o’ the house ’tis for all the world like the shrieks of dying
men.’

Meadowes was mystified by her words. He had never seen Anne fanciful
before.

‘Well, what of it?—’tis not unlike heavy firing, as you say,’ he
admitted. ‘But you are safe enough here, my girl, in all truth.’

‘Eh, Dick! don’t _you_ understand?’ cried Anne. ‘Battles, and guns, and
all. . . . I do seem to hear from over seas, from Flanders, bringing to
my mind all I’ve a mind to forget. I’ve sat all this day a-hearing of
them guns, and times I’d stop my ears.—O Lord! there be the screams
again.’ And Anne, turning to the only helper she had, held out her hands
to him with a trembling, childish gesture.

‘Dick, Dick,’ she said, ‘you be quick to feel all things, and kind too,
more nor I deserve, I that have married you, and my heart turning back
to another.’

Quick to feel, Meadowes was feeling a hundred conflicting sensations at
that moment. But first of all he must quiet Anne.

‘Come, Anne,’ he said, ‘you are tired and fanciful. ’Tis time you were
gone to bed, and by the morning you will have forgot the storm that
scares you now. Ah, I understand altogether, Anne; aye, and feel for you
too. But these things are better left alone, it but makes them harder to
speak of them.’

‘Maybe, maybe,’ said Anne, rising to put a fresh candle in the
candlestick. She had appealed to ‘Dick’ in vain, she thought, and would
not attempt to make him understand.

‘I have some letters to write,’ said Meadowes, dismissing the subject;
‘I shall sit up and finish them.’

When Anne had gone, however, there, was not much letter-writing done.
Meadowes sat and looked into the fire, coming to several conclusions.
Well, here was the end of his amour; up to this time he had been quite
content with Anne, delighted with her; but now—he simply could not
stand this. If she was going to be always thinking about Sebastian
Shepley, and even mentioning him, it was high time that the connection
between himself and her was at an end. Meadowes, who was a very
fastidious man, shuddered at the whole situation. ‘Horrible; truly ’twas
in Providence I did not marry her,’ he said. Yet he had quite enough of
conscience to make it a difficult matter for him to break with Anne. He
dreaded beyond measure her anger when she found herself to have been so
duped. It was indeed almost impossible to contemplate telling her. How
would it best be done? Offer her money? Anne would never consider that a
recompense. Just leave her? ‘Even I am not bad enough for that!’ Trust
to time? Time would possibly make matters worse. Yet after hours of
thought on the subject this last and very lame conclusion was the one
which Meadowes finally adopted. He resolved not to see so much of her
now and—to wait.

‘A plague upon Sebastian Shepley, and a plague upon Constancy and Love
and all the Virtues!’ he said as he rose from his chair at last; ‘and
equally a plague upon Richard Meadowes, and Treachery and Passion and
all the Vices,’ he added, as he stood looking down at the last embers of
the wood-fire that glowed on the hearth. He gave an angry kick to the
red ashes with the toe of his riding-boot that sent a shower of scarlet
sparks up into the air; they fell down a moment later in soft grey ash,
and the fire was out.

‘The end of all hot fires,’ said Meadowes, as he groped his way across
to the door.




                               CHAPTER VI


‘Business,’ Meadowes explained to Anne a few days after this, ‘was
taking him out of London.’ His absence, too, might be somewhat
prolonged. He left ample means with his friend Mr. Prior (‘the parson
who wedded us, Anne’), and these moneys were to be forwarded by him to
Anne at regular intervals; she would want for nothing. Anne took the
news quietly, as was her way, and hoped his business might delay ‘Dick’
a shorter time than he anticipated.

Meadowes, however, knew his own mind now, and was quite decided as to
the length of time he would be absent from Anne. In the spring a child
would be born to them, and after that he would come and tell her
everything; till then it might be brutal to disturb her present peace of
mind. But after the event it must be done, and the sooner the better.
This had been his ultimate decision.

Still, decisions being more easily taken than put into execution, Anne
had been a very proud and happy mother for some eight weeks before
Meadowes found it possible to speak to her of the matter of their
supposed marriage. And even then his hand was, so to speak, forced. He
had ridden out from town in haste one summer morning, and now sat in the
porch with Anne, wondering why after all he had come, for tell her he
could not, though he had started with the determination to do so.

‘For certain, Dick, you be mighty silent,’ said Anne at last, looking up
from her sewing.

‘I am annoyed over business,’ said Meadowes lamely, looking down at the
ground.

‘And a fine packet of letters unopened in your pocket too,’ laughed
Anne, pointing with her needle at the bundle as she spoke.

‘I rode off in such haste,’ began Meadowes absently, then he took the
letters from his pocket and turned them over one by one.

‘From my lawyer—from Simon Prior—from——’ He stopped short and looked
hard at the third letter, shook his head, and broke the seal to glance
at its contents.

‘Lor’, Dick! what hath come to you?’ cried Anne, throwing aside her work
a moment later, for she had caught sight of his face; it was grown
suddenly grey and rigid. She stepped behind him, laying her hand on his
shoulder, and glanced down at the sheet of paper he held.

‘Nothing, Anne—a mere joke,’ said Meadowes quickly, crumpling up the
paper as if Anne could have read what was written on it.

‘Dick, that’s a word from Sebastian Shepley, so sure as I do stand
here,’ said Anne, her voice shaking; ‘I do know the looks of his name
upon the sheet, for ’twas all ever I could read for myself of his
letters, an’ many’s the one I had.’

‘Shepley? what would Shepley write to me of?’ asked Meadowes hotly,
rising and walking away down the garden-walk towards the gate. But Anne
would not be put off. She followed him down the walk and laid her hand
on his arm.

‘Tell me, Dick,’ she said; ‘I had a deal rather hear straight all he
hath to say.’

‘I swear to you——’ Meadowes began; but Anne interrupted him.

‘Then you swear false, Dick: ’tis writ by Sebastian’s own hand, or my
name be not Anne Sundon. Best tell me what he saith.’

‘The letter is from a man Steven Shackleton, Anne. You mistook the
lettering, being no scholar,’ persisted Meadowes, lying desperately now,
his courage had so withered when brought to the point.

Anne faced round upon him; her big clever brown eyes seemed to be
reading into his very soul.

‘You’re makin’ up tales, Dick,’ she said. ‘You won’t look me in the eyes
and tell me that’s not Sebastian’s hand of write.’

‘There,’ cried Meadowes, facing round to meet her eyes directly. ‘The
letter was from——’ His glance fell to the ground, as he added, ‘Steven
Shackleton’ again.

‘If so be you speak straight——’ Anne began. But Meadowes with an
impatient exclamation cut her short.

‘What do you take me for? Well, I must be off. A fool I was to leave
town without reading my letters, for back to it I must go in a couple of
hurries. Come, bid me good-bye, Anne,’ he added, bending down towards
her.

‘Good-bye,’ said Anne absently, turning away into the cottage.

She sat beside the baby’s cradle, rocking it slowly, and gazed down at
the floor. What did all this confusion and contradiction on Dick’s part
mean? Why did he look like that, as scared as though he had seen a
ghost? And why was he so angry, and why again so flushed?

Dick meantime was riding back to London at a great pace—riding as if
the devil himself rode behind him. But when he reached town it was to
ask himself why he had come there; for deep down in his heart he knew
that the time had come, and that tell Anne he must—yes, the whole black
truth from first to last. He had ridden away from her searching
truth-compelling eyes, but they followed him still, and back he must go
and have done with it all. Why would the earth not open and swallow him
up?—Ah, happy Dathan and Abiram!




                              CHAPTER VII


The day passed slowly for Anne after Dick had left. Her mind was
troubled by vague half-formulated doubts. Had Dick spoken truly, or had
he lied to save her pain? Surely, surely she could never mistake
Sebastian’s signature, the same she had gazed at so often, and kissed,
aye, and wept over also. She revolved these questions in her mind all
day and found no satisfactory answers to them; when she lay down at
night, one insistent suggestion whispered on in her ear, ‘Why did Dick
look like that? Was he lying? Did ever man look so mazed and scared when
he spoke the truth?’ Then Anne’s tired eyes closed and she entered the
beautiful dream-world. Now the dream-world holds sensations of
indescribable vividness not attainable on the earth-world; here
experiences come within the scope of words, there we experience the
inexpressible.

In a dream, then, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep had fallen
upon her, Anne dreamed and thought she awoke in Paradise. For Sebastian
came to her (out of nowhere, after the fashion of dreams), and their
souls seemed fused together in a warm silence. Not a word was spoken
between them; yet the miserable past was blotted out for ever; a great
light shone everywhere—a glow, a heat of forgiveness, a passion of
fulfilment at last; and the beautiful thrilling silence of it all! They
seemed alone in hollow space, out of reach of this world’s hubbub. What
need of explanations when all was understood? Her thoughts rested on
that splendid wordless vacancy. ‘Sure I be in heaven at last!’ said poor
Anne. ‘A fine heaven too, that quiet as it is! The old one as I used to
hear on was all noise o’ trumpets an’ hosannas—here’s heaven indeed,
with this grand quiet as is to go on for ever.’

Anne woke suddenly then—the appalling conviction of a dream was upon
her: she might have spoken face to face with her dear lover, so vividly
present he had seemed, such a sudden assurance of his faithfulness had
come to her. She sat up in bed and called out aloud in the quiet room—

‘Lord! be it a dream? Sebastian dear, what’s this I’m feelin’? Have Dick
Sundon fooled me out an’ out a-tellin’ lies of you all this long time?
Help me, am I losing my judgment?’

She rose up, groped her way across the dark room, and drew back the
window-curtain. The first streaks of day were showing in the sky, the
peaceful wooded land was half shrouded still in the mists of morning.
With long whistling notes the birds gave welcome to the coming day; they
called to each other, near at hand, and far off among the blossoming
thickets, like happy spirits that sing together in the fields of joy.
Anne leaned from the window and listened to these songs that went up so
straight into the dim blue morning skies. A great fear held her
fast,—the fear that Dick, her husband, her helper, had deceived her. In
her dismay and bewilderment she could only repeat again and again, ‘Lord
help me, Lord help me,’ scarcely knowing what she said. Then, afraid to
lie down again, she dressed and went down-stairs and into the garden.
Far off on the London road she heard the distant trotting of a horse and
the roll of wheels; some one must be driving along in the quiet morning
dimness. Anne stepped down the little walk and stood leaning against the
gate.

The wheels came nearer, and then came down the lane. Anne turned away,
for even in that dim light the passers-by must see her tears.

Then she heard the chaise stop at the gate; Dick’s voice—how clear it
sounded in the early stillness!—was speaking to the post-boy.

‘There, my man; that’s for your trouble all a dark night.’

‘Thank you, sir—thanks to you,’ said the boy as the chaise rattled off.

Anne turned and came down the little walk to meet Dick; her gown brushed
the dew from the overgrown rose-bushes in showers as she passed. She
came towards him silently, her face tear-stained, tragic. Dick held out
both hands to her, but before he could speak Anne checked him with an
upraised hand.

‘God’s spoke to me, Dick,’ she said, stopping before him like an
avenging angel.

‘I have come to tell you everything,’ said poor Dick; and at that moment
he drank the dregs of a bitter cup, ‘for I knew you guessed something
when I left you.’

‘God spoke to me in a dream,’ repeated Anne. ‘When I waked up I knew for
sure you had lied to me.’

‘Yes, Anne, I lied,’ he said, almost in a whisper.

‘About Sebastian?’

‘Yes.’

‘An’ he never played me false, nor married a Dutch wife?’

‘Never.’

‘Come,’ said Anne. ‘Come then an’ try if you can speak truth this once.’
She pointed to the seat by the bee-hives, and in silence they crossed
over to it and sat down.

‘Tell me now,’ said Anne.

Dick leant forward and began his story, and a pitiful story it was. Now
that he was face to face with the worst he made no attempt at
extenuation of his falsity; he might have been reading off the words
from a printed page, they came so straight from his lips, his
flute-clear voice never hesitated once till the whole was told. Anne on
her part listened quietly enough; without the usual exclamatory
interruptions which her sex commonly indulge in. When the story was done
there was a moment’s silence, before she said, speaking very low—

‘Eh! but I’ve been a bitter fool.’ She rose then and stood looking down
at Dick.

‘I’m goin’ now,’ she said. ‘If I’m no man’s wife, at least I’ll be no
man’s mistress. An’ for the child, you’d best care for him yourself.
You’ll maybe make him as good a man as his father some day.’

Dick sprang up and caught her hand. ‘Anne, Anne,’ he cried, ‘you must
see how it is—you must understand—I scarce knew all your feeling for
Shepley at first—I thought you had forgot—I thought women forgot
always—I had not realised—not until that night you spoke of him—and
then, then I could not bear it, and I resolved to tell you truly. I——’

‘Oh, you’ve acted mighty true for certain,’ said Anne quietly.

‘I have indeed told you all the truth——’

‘Yes, now.’

‘But, Anne, men are mortal—will fall before temptation. ’Tis hard to
blame us too cruelly.’

‘O yes; for certain men be mortal.’

‘I shall in truth provide for you all your days, Anne; I thought of no
other thing.’

‘Will you, sir?’ said Anne, with a curious smile, and Meadowes, not
catching its meaning, pursued eagerly—

‘All your days truly, Anne; you shall have all that woman can wish, if
you will but pardon me.’

Anne stood looking at him in a curious dispassionate way for a moment.

‘I’d sooner starve,’ she said then, shortly.

‘But, Anne, you can never suppose that I would let you want, after all
there has come and gone between us, after——’

Anne smiled again her curious smile, and shook her head.

‘A strange man you be for certain, Dick,’ she said; ‘kind an’ tender
when you’ve a mind to be, and one as feels quick. She paused before
adding slowly, ‘_And just as false as hell_.’

Meadowes winced under the words, but he went on, ‘False or no, Anne, I
must provide for you—for you and the child.’

‘For the child mayhap, never for me,’ said Anne. ‘You’d best see after
him, for he’ll be set down to your account when all things is squared.
See you train him up to be so good a man as you are, Dick.’

‘Then do you not wish to care for your son yourself, Anne?’ asked
Meadowes incredulously, for, up to this time, Anne had doted on the boy.

‘No more I do. He be your son, Dick, and ’tis for you to fend for him.’

‘Then——’ Meadowes hesitated, waiting for Anne to make her intentions
known.

‘I’ve worked before, and now I’ll work again; and if so be I get no
work, then I’ll starve, as I’ve starved before,’ said Anne quietly.
‘Martha’s kind and up in years, best leave the boy with her.’

‘Are you going to leave him?’

‘Yes, an’ never see him nor you again,’ said Anne. She turned away into
the house without another word, and Meadowes heard her go up-stairs and
move about in her room gathering a few possessions together. She came
out again before long, carrying a little bundle.

‘Good-bye, Dick,’ she said, holding out her hand to him; ‘good-bye to
the part on you as was kind to me—the rest be rotten bad.’

‘It cannot be you are really going, Anne.’

‘Good-bye,’ said Anne for answer, and she walked away down the lane and
turned off at the opening that led into the London road.




                              CHAPTER VIII


On a warm summer evening, some three weeks later, Richard Meadowes sat
in the library of his town house thinking, perhaps not unnaturally, of
Anne Champion and wondering where she was.

‘Dr. Sebastian Shepley, to wait upon you, sir,’ said the man-servant,
showing some one in, and Meadowes rose to greet his visitor, feeling the
room strangely warm.

‘Ah, Shepley,’ was all he said for welcome to the tall steady-eyed man
who came forward into the room.

Shepley sat down opposite to Richard Meadowes and facing the sunlight.
His pleasant blue eyes rested on Meadowes inquiringly for a moment.

‘I fear I have intruded on you, sir,’ he said, noticing the other man’s
embarrassment.

‘I—I am pleased to see you,’ said Meadowes, not with absolute veracity.
The situation seemed at that moment intolerable to him—better, he
thought, make a quick end of it.

‘You have heard about Anne Champion?’ he said, forcing himself to look
straight at Sebastian Shepley.

‘I am come for no other reason than to ask your aid in the matter,’ said
Shepley, ‘for the last I have heard of Anne was the message of thanks
you gave me from her anent the amber necklace. Often as I’ve writ to her
I have heard never a word in answer. Tell me, sir, do you know aught of
where she went?’

‘I know naught of Anne now,’ said Meadowes, looking down as he spoke.

‘_Now?_’ asked Shepley, for something in the other’s voice attracted his
attention.

‘A year and more she lived with me, and she bore me a son,’ said
Meadowes.

There was a moment of silence that seemed to tingle.

‘There—swallow your lies!’ cried Shepley; and he struck with all his
great strength across Meadowes’ lips. Without another word he left the
room, passed out through the hall, and strode away down the Square.

‘Lies, lies—hellish black lies every word he spoke,’ he cried in his
heart. ‘And ah! my poor Annie, what is come to you these weary years?’
Then remembering that Anne’s neighbours in Yard’s Entry might have some
knowledge of her whereabouts he turned his steps in that direction.

It was drawing to sundown when at last he reached Yard’s Entry. He stood
still for a moment and looked up at the little window he had known as
Anne’s, and which used to reflect the sunlight. It was blazing scarlet
just now. Then he went up to the doorway and knocked; Mrs. Nare appeared
in answer to his summons.

‘A good even to you, mistress,’ said Shepley. ‘And can you tell me aught
of Anne Champion, who lived here some two years since?’

Mrs. Nare squinted up at him out of her narrow old eyes.

‘Anne, she came back here some three weeks agone,’ she said. ‘Came and
went her ways again. And now she hath come here mortal stricken—taken
with a fever she’ve caught working amidst the rags for a Jew man in
Flower and Dean Street.’

Sebastian waited to hear no more; he ran up the dark stair and
unceremoniously opened the door of Anne’s room.

Such a blaze of light smote across his eyes as he came in that he was
half-blinded, for the skies were scarlet that night from a great sunset,
and all the room was lit up with the red glow. He stood for a moment in
the doorway shading his eyes from the dazzle, then stepped across the
crazy old floor, that creaked and gave under his heavy tread.

‘Annie, Annie!’ he cried, kneeling down beside her.

For Anne, she thought she dreamed again; the weary tossings of the
desolate day were done—she tasted a supreme felicity. What if with the
breaking day the vision fled, and she woke again to want and loneliness?
enough that now it tarried with her. She would not move, she scarcely
dared to breathe for dread lest the dream should depart; but lay very
still and felt the kindly strength of Sebastian’s arm support her, and
his cool hard cheek pressed against hers that burned with fever.
‘Annie,’ he said again, and this time Anne opened her eyes and smiled.

‘Eh, Sebastian, Sebastian, my dear man, stay—stay one minute, for
dreams be terrible short,’ she cried. Nor would all Shepley’s words
reassure her of his actual presence.

‘So many days as I’ve lain here, an’ such dreams and dreams! Lor’! them
was dreams! You and Dick Sundon, Dick Sundon an’ you, back and fore you
came and went the two of you. Sometimes Phil ’ud be there too (Phil my
boy as is)—(Lord Christ, have a care on Phil, being that he’s so young
and with none but Dick Sundon a-carin’ of him!) . . . then I’d dream of
Dick for hours and hours, an’ now, Sebastian, ’tis you; Lord send this
dream stays!’

Shepley knelt beside her, listening to all her strange babble of ‘Dick’
and ‘Phil;’ but feeling how the fever ran hot in her blood he pushed
back the fears that came to him with her words. He looked round the
room, with the stamp of relentless poverty set everywhere on it, and
thanked Heaven he was there now. For poor Anne lay on the bare boards of
this place that was now her shelter, and for covering she had thrown
over her the dress she had taken off. No trace of meat or drink was to
be seen anywhere.

As he sat thus taking in the bareness of poor Anne’s sick-room, with a
perfunctory little knock the door was shoved open and Mistress Nare came
in. She walked across the floor on tiptoe and stood looking at Anne.

‘The fever hath gotten that hold on her blood ’twill burn her up before
the week is out,’ she said sagely, winking across at Sebastian. ‘And by
your leave, sir, I’d make bold to say you’d best sit farther off from
her—’tis a catching sickness I dare swear.’

‘I am come here to cure her,’ said Sebastian; ‘I am a surgeon to my
trade.’

‘For certain then, sir, you’ve come too late,’ croaked the old woman.

Sebastian rose angrily.

‘Have a care what you say,’ he exclaimed. ‘And now, if you’ll do me a
service, you shall go and buy all that Anne Champion needs—a bed to lie
on——’

‘And die on,’ interpolated Mrs. Nare viciously, but Sebastian gave no
heed to her remark, only went on with his enumeration:—

‘And blankets to cover her, and food to eat and wine to drink—all these
things she must have before the day is done; so hasten you—if so be you
wish for this.’ He drew from his pocket a coin and laid it in the old
woman’s hand.

‘A bed and blankets. Food and wine and fire,’ repeated Mistress Nare.
‘Good lack, sir, dyin’ Anne she’ve not got so much as will buy a shroud
to wrap her in!’

‘Here,’ said Sebastian hastily, shaking out from his purse a handful of
coins. ‘How much will you require?’ Mrs. Nare was convinced.

‘Happen three guineas, sir, to begin with,’ she said, and her crooked
old fingers closed greedily over the yellow coins.

‘Well, hasten—hasten,’ said Sebastian, and Mrs. Nare shuffled off down
the stair chuckling and curious.

‘Dyin’ Annie’s gotten a lover up to the last, Matthew,’ she said as she
passed her son on the stair. So much for maternal jealousy.




                               CHAPTER IX


The vision tarried. Anne never woke to another lonely day; always there
was Sebastian sitting by her, Sebastian holding her hand, Sebastian
bending over her, wise and tender.

Whenever the fever left her, Anne was trying to tell him
something—something he would not listen to then. But at last one day,
lying still and white, Anne suddenly spoke.

‘Listen to me, Sebastian,’ she said, ‘for I’m not long for this world;
you can’t refuse to hear me now.’ And with that she told him all her
story. Sebastian sat beside her, his head bowed upon his hands,
listening without word or comment.

‘Now that I be come to death’s dear, I’ve but the one thought. Dick,
he’s a man to look out for hisself—and you was ever straight, my man;
but w’at’s to come of Phil? Lord, I’d turn in my grave to think on him!
for sure he’s gotten part o’ my soul, Sebastian—he hath truly.’
Sebastian did not speak, and Anne went on—

‘Dick’ll fend for him an’ no fear—make a fine gentleman of him most
like—as fine as hisself, and then teach him lyin’ ways an’ false
dealin’s, an’ my boy as hath half my soul he’ll go down into hell with
all the liars as find their place there, and who’s to help?’

Still Sebastian did not speak.

‘Eh!’ cried Anne, half rising on her pillows. ‘This once I seen you
hard, Sebastian! ’Tis no fault o’ the child’s—no, nor mine neither, as
he’s there.’

‘You can scarce expect me to love him, Anne,’ said Sebastian at last.
‘And what help can I give the child?’

‘Eh! none, none, my man; maybe Heaven’ll help him,’ sobbed Anne, then
she turned and laid her hands in Sebastian’s.

‘But as you love me,’ she said, ‘you’ll make me this vow—you’ll swear
to me if ever you can help my poor Phil you’ll do it; not for his own
sake, Sebastian (an’ forgettin’ Dick Sundon an’ all his lies), but for
mine, as was Phil’s mother, and gave him half her soul?’

‘Annie, Annie, I’d do more than that for you!’ said Sebastian. He prayed
her then to lie still—she had spoken beyond her strength. Anne obeyed,
and till late in the day she did not speak again, then she spoke
suddenly—half-wanderingly this time.

‘You’ll live long and happy, Sebastian,’ she said; ‘you’ll marry, my
pretty man, and another woman but me, she’ll be the joyful mother o’
your sons.’ Then with no change in her voice, but as if she suddenly
addressed a third person in the room, she continued: ‘And, God, you’ll
avenge me on Dick Sundon? You understand how it’s been with me, an’ how
’tis impossible I should forgive him? And, Lord, have a care of Phil,
and give him a white heart—my caring of him be past an’ done with now.’
There fell a long silence then, poor Anne having disposed of all her
earthly cares.

‘Come, Sebastian,’ she cried, then quickly—with that awful chanting
voice of the dying—and she held out her arms to him. But even as he
bent down, Sebastian felt a long straining shiver pass through her, the
sorrows of death compassed her, the pains of hell took hold upon her. He
caught her to his heart for a moment, but a Stronger than he was drawing
Anne away from his embrace. As their lips met she smiled a far-away
dreamy smile.

‘Ha’ done, my man—ha’ done,’ she said; ‘no more of earth.’

                 *        *        *        *        *

‘I’ll bury Annie,’ said Sebastian, ‘and then I’ll kill Richard
Meadowes.’

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was in compliance with this resolution that Sebastian Shepley, a few
days later, waited again upon Richard Meadowes.

Meadowes sat writing at the table with his back to the door, but at the
sound of its opening he turned round, and at sight of his visitor sprang
up; the two men faced each other silently for a moment. Sebastian’s eyes
from under their overhanging brows flashed like blue flames.

‘I called you a liar,’ he said, advancing up the room, ‘and for that
mistake I crave your pardon; you spoke truth, and now I am come to fight
you for the truth you spoke.’

‘Fight with you, you damned surgeon! you son of a village leech! I fight
with gentlemen!’ said Meadowes scornfully.

‘And I with men, so if you are one you had best show it,’ retorted
Shepley; and he drew the sword that hung at his side with a drawing
rattle from its sheath.

There was not much question then between them of rank. They fought with
savage hatred on either side; but from the first the fortunes of the
fight followed Sebastian.

The whole had been ended, and ended with it there would also have been
the larger half of this story, if an unaccountable impulse had not moved
Sebastian Shepley to mercy. Something, perhaps, of the futility of
revenge, now that Anne was dead and could never know of it, came to him
of a sudden, and stayed his hand.

‘There,’ he said. ‘You have your life at my hand, for all it may be
worth.’ And he turned away as if to leave the house.

Meadowes leant against the wall, breathing hard after the struggle.

‘Stop—one moment, Shepley,’ he said, ‘I—I would speak with you; Anne
Champion, if I can find her, shall want for naught.’

‘She wants for naught now,’ said Shepley shortly.

‘But,’ interposed Meadowes, ‘I should be the man to provide for her, I
looked to do that always, I had indeed no intention——’

‘Anne Champion is dead,’ said Shepley slowly, pausing for a moment on
the threshold. ‘Anne is dead, and her blood be upon you and upon your
children.’




                                PART II


             ‘_He that hath a wife and children hath given_
                        _hostages to Fortune._’




                               CHAPTER X


The war was ended, the Peace of Utrecht signed, and what remained of our
armies after the twelve years’ conflict was free to come home once more.
With the soldiers came back the surgeons, to practise in peace the
suggestive proficiency they had gained in war-time; and cleverest among
them all was Dr. Sebastian Shepley.

Like all successful doctors, Shepley owed something to his personality.
There was that in him which inspired others with a sense of his
capacity. Not very much of a gentleman, but very much of a man; of
gigantic size and easy rough address, he suggested all that was most
cheerful and prosperous in life. Shepley had been through half the
campaigns of the war, and now that peace was proclaimed he had the good
luck to obtain an appointment under the then celebrated Dr. Joseph
Barrington of Harley Street, Surgeon in Ordinary to his newly ascended
Majesty King George the First. The appointment was a fortunate one for
Shepley; but perhaps it was not quite so fortunate for Barrington, who
found ere long that Sebastian Shepley was likely to prove an Absalom who
would steal away the hearts of fashionable London from himself. But
Barrington was very magnanimous—strangely magnanimous,—and seemed
rather to like than to dislike the praises that were heaped upon the
young man. The reason of his magnanimity was not very far to seek, nor
had he any false delicacy in telling Shepley of it; for, as they sat
together one day, the older man gave it as his opinion that marriage was
a prudent step for a young man to take before taking up a practice.

‘You should in truth be looking out for a wife, Shepley,’ he concluded,
and he gave a suggestive cough.

‘Some day, mayhap, sir, some day,’ said Shepley. His face fell suddenly
into a half hard, half tragical expression, very foreign to that it
generally wore, and he passed his hand quickly across his lips.
Barrington, a keen observer of faces, gave a sharp glance at him for a
moment.

‘Such wounds, Shepley, are best treated not too tenderly,’ he said. ‘It
but keeps them open.’

‘There may be truth in that you say, sir, but it goes against nature,’
said Shepley.

‘Like many a good drastic cure,’ said Barrington. ‘Come (if you will
have my advice), bury this old trouble, whatever it may be, and begin
life from where you are. Many a happy match hath begun coolishly, many
an ill one hotly: and this is the wisdom of a man old enough to be your
father.’

‘I thank you, sir; I shall give some thought to the matter,’ said
Shepley, and would have changed the subject, but Barrington pursued—

‘You scarce need a proof of my goodwill; Shepley; yet I’ll give you one.
There’s not another man in London to whom I would sooner give my
daughter Emma than yourself.’

‘My dear sir——’

‘There, there, I have but given you a piece of my mind and something of
a hint. Let the matter rest. I pray you to be in no haste: no prudent
marriage was ever yet hasty, nor any hasty one prudent; time, time and
thought——’

‘Yes, sir, as you say, time and thought—’tis a great step in life,’
said Shepley. But he took the older man’s hand in his as he spoke, and
shook it warmly.

‘I thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘And this story you guess at—well, I give
you my hand on’t that if ever I marry Emma she hears it all.’

‘Tush! keep your heart’s history to yourself,’ said Barrington, smiling.
‘The woman who supposes herself any man’s first love is a fool.’

Emma, whose name had been thus bandied between Sebastian Shepley and her
father, was the younger of Dr. Barrington’s two daughters. The elder
daughter, Charlotte by name, had married early, and ‘well,’ as the
phrase goes, having allied her fortunes with those of a certain Sir
James Mallow, who, though only a knight, was the possessor of a handsome
income, and had converted Charlotte from plain Miss Barrington without a
fortune to ‘My Lady’ with one. The marriage had been a source of vast
gratification to Emma as well as to the fortunate Charlotte, for it
seemed to be in the very blood and bones of the Barringtons to aspire in
matters social. Their father’s promotion to Court practice had given
these young women another help on the painful uphill path, and had made
it not only possible but quite natural for them to mention persons of
title frequently in conversation. Now Emma drove out daily in Lady
Mallow’s coach, and dreamt of even greater splendours to come. She was
an extremely pretty girl, slim and tall, with fine auburn hair and
delicate colouring. ‘With her looks,’ said Lady Mallow, ‘Emma must have
a baronet.’ And indeed she repeated this so often that Emma came to
think of the baronet as a reality, and never contemplated the
possibility of any suitor of lower degree.

It gave her, therefore, quite a painful shock to discover suddenly one
fine day that she was beginning to care a great deal about a man who was
not even distantly connected with a baronetcy. Emma made this discovery
some time after Sebastian Shepley had been presented to her; but she put
the thought aside at first as quite unworthy. To confirm herself in
dismissing such an idea, she spoke with some sharpness to Charlotte
about the spectral bridegroom.

‘I wish you would in truth present me to a baronet, Charlotte, instead
of speaking so frequently of doing so,’ she said.

Charlotte was a little nettled by the remark, probably because she knew
no baronet whom she could present to her sister, yet was unwilling to
acknowledge the fact.

‘I take good care to present no man to you whom I do not consider
suitable to be your husband,’ she said coldly.

‘I may get tired of waiting,’ said pretty Emma. This was all she said
then, but some months later, in a burst of girlish despair, she confided
to Lady Mallow what she feared was her hopeless passion for Dr.
Sebastian Shepley. ‘I should not care for fifty baronets now,’ she
concluded, burying her face on Charlotte’s not very sympathetic breast.

‘Tush! Emma,’ said her Ladyship; ‘you should look higher——’ She could
think of no more weighty argument. But Emma could not listen even to
this. She sobbed and sobbed, and prayed Charlotte, if she loved her, to
try to help her. For a long time Charlotte resisted these entreaties,
then she determined to tell her father the state of the case.

‘So this is what ails Emma?’ he said. ‘Gad! but I’ll make short work
with it. Shepley is a fine man—no finer surgeon have I come across this
many a year. If he will take Emma he shall have her, and welcome.’

So not very many days later, Dr. Barrington, as you have heard,
approached Shepley on the subject of marriage.

At first it seemed as if nothing were to come of the conversation; then
quite suddenly Shepley came one day to announce to Dr. Barrington that
Emma had agreed to marry him.

‘My blessings on you for a sensible man,’ said Barrington. ‘You were so
long about it I half feared you would not take my counsel at all.’

‘I took it so well that I did not hurry in the matter,’ laughed
Sebastian.

He laughed himself down-stairs, laughed his adieus to Emma, and
swaggered off down the street with his fine swinging gait, as gay and
hearty a man as you might see in all England.

But oh, inscrutable heart of man! what were these curious old words that
so rang in his ears? He seemed to be walking to the tune of them.

‘_If I forget thee_,’ said the voice of the heart that speaks ever
whitest truth,—‘_If I forget thee, let my right hand forget its
cunning._’

And he shook his head and smiled, and looked down at his clever right
hand.




                               CHAPTER XI


Sebastian and Emma Shepley began their married life in a little house in
Jermyn Street—‘small,’ as Emma would have described it, ‘but genteel.’
It would be impossible to exaggerate the pride and pleasure which Emma
had in the arrangements of her house, and in the fact that she was
married to the (to her) finest and dearest of men; but to Sebastian
marriage appeared in a very different light. For him it showed as the
end of Youth, the voluntary rejection of romance, the light of common
day. He had reasoned himself into it; acknowledging (and the man who
does this need never call himself young again) that he had better take
what he could get and be thankful for it. He had laid Passion in the
grave; and, turning away, he met Life with her resolute face waiting for
him inexorable as of old. Marriage was probably the first and most
prudent step he could take, and Emma was fond of him, and Emma, after
all, was pretty. A home, a wife, children—these solid anchors of the
soul, presented themselves almost invitingly to his fancy after a
time—and farewell to Love and Youth!

In these curiously differing moods of mind Emma and Sebastian entered
into the estate of matrimony—Sebastian with his eyes open, Emma with
hers firmly shut.

‘Can two walk together except they be agreed?’ asks that eternally
unanswerable book the Bible. Not comfortably, certainly, but they can
halt along somehow, far out of step it may be, yet on the same road. I
am afraid that when all was said and done the walk of Emma and Sebastian
was somewhat after this halting kind. For Emma had not been married for
many weeks before she began to see how curiously she disagreed from
Sebastian on almost every point. Strange is the glamour of love that she
had not found this out sooner! It said something for both of them that
after having made the discovery Emma continued to love her husband as
much as ever—only, the glamour was gone now. He had been to her a
faultless romantic hero, she found him to be a man with several
pronounced faults, who frequently offended her taste, who constantly
opposed her, who plainly told her that he had once loved another woman,
and loved her memory still.

Sebastian on his part owned that Emma was occasionally quite
exasperating to him; but he also acknowledged her entire goodness of
heart and the excellence of her housekeeping. Their marriage in fact was
just one of the ordinary ruck of marriages; not unhappy, not
ideal—merely a little disappointing to Emma, a little hardening and
coarsening to Sebastian. The great bone of contention was of a social
nature. For gentility was dear as life itself to Emma, while to
Sebastian all the little affectations and conventions which his wife
valued so highly were the merest moonshine. He submitted graciously
enough to correction in matters of etiquette, and laughed with
imperturbable good humour when Emma called him to task for eating with
his knife and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. But when it
came to the question of friends and acquaintances matters were more
complicated.

Emma had, so to speak, passed her acquaintances through a fine sieve,
and the sifted few who came through, they, and they alone, were her
intimates. Sebastian, on the other hand, had only one reason for making
friends with any one—whether he liked them or not. As a matter of fact
he liked the greater part of the world, and was liked by them in return,
but anything like an ulterior end in making acquaintances was unknown to
him. Emma’s rules for the making of so-called friends, therefore, filled
him with amazement; while Emma, on her part, looked with little short of
dismay upon the men whom Sebastian welcomed to his table. Certainly
there was scarcely one among all his acquaintance that could have been
called a gentleman. ‘As why should they, Emma? I am no gentleman
myself,’ Sebastian had retorted when taxed with his preference for low
company. Emma objected most of all to the soldiers whom her husband had
known abroad, and who were continually coming to the house; she might be
entertaining her most select lady-friends to a dish of tea, and talking
the latest Court gossip with them, when, into this refined circle, and
quite undismayed by its frigidly genteel atmosphere, would enter
Sebastian, bringing with him, as likely as not, his friend Sergeant
Cartwright, or young Tillet the bugler, who played at Ramillies. The
Sergeant had lost an arm at Blenheim, and Emma shrank away instinctively
from the empty sleeve he wore pinned across his breast; no historic
association could reconcile her to the presence of these men in her
parlour, and when they were bidden to supper Mrs. Shepley sat at the
head of the table with an air of studied aloofness that was fine to see.
Now and then she would raise her pretty eyebrows expressively, as when
Cartwright spat on the floor, or Tillet made use of expressions not
usually heard in parlours; but she came at last to see that remonstrance
with Sebastian on this score was useless, and resigned herself as best
she might to see the hero of her first love make merry with such
friends.

But perhaps Emma’s sorest moments were when those whom she naively
termed ‘persons of importance’ came to visit Sebastian. To Emma, every
one with a title was a person of importance, be they never so
unimportant in reality, and it seemed to her that Sebastian
intentionally said and did the wrong things to such personages. There
was one terrible night when ‘a Marquis’ (enough that the mystic dignity
was his) honoured the little house in Jermyn Street with a visit, and
Sebastian, all unheeding of coughs and frowns from his wife, must press
this exalted visitor to sup with them. Now on this ill-fated night Emma
had chosen to feed her lord and master on pig’s feet and fried
liver—viands whose price, or rather want of price, is almost
proverbial. It was, indeed, from no sordid motives of economy that Emma
had so furnished forth her board, but from the desire to please
Sebastian, whose taste in food was incurably vulgar. How could she have
anticipated that burning moment when her faltering tongue must frame the
words—

‘My Lord, may I offer you some of these pig’s feet, or mayhap your
Lordship would relish some of this fried liver more?’

And as if this was not bitter enough, did not Sebastian break into a
laugh that shook the glasses on the table, crying out—

‘Faith, Emma, had you known we were to entertain the quality to-night, I
had not had my liver and pig’s feet!’

Emma smiled faintly, for tears were not far off; and the Marquis, seeing
her perturbation, told the story of the liver they got at Blenheim, that
the officers swore was shoe-leather,—‘A different dish from your fine
cookery, madam,’ he said, begging for another helping of the dish. But
it was a life-long lesson to poor Emma: she never ordered liver for
supper again without a pang of foreboding.

Then the matter of Church observances had arisen between these young
people. Emma was a devout Church-woman; Sebastian did not hold much to
one persuasion or another, and certainly was not fond of Church
services. Emma all her life had gone every Sunday to the curious little
old church of St. Mary Minories, and after her marriage expected
Sebastian to go there with her. The first Sunday morning after her
marriage Emma came down-stairs in her church-going attire, and in rather
a shocked voice expressed her astonishment to find Sebastian smoking by
the fire, instead of making any preparation for coming with her.

‘Charlotte will be here in the coach immediately,’ she said. ‘Hasten,
Sebastian, we shall be late at St. Mary’s.’

‘St. Mary’s?’ queried Sebastian.

‘St. Mary Minories, where it hath always been our custom to attend
divine service—come, Sebastian, pray lay aside your pipe!’

Sebastian leant forward, pressing down the tobacco into the bowl of his
pipe. He made no reply.

‘Are you not coming to church? Perhaps some patients require your
care——’ began Emma. She came and laid her hand on his shoulder in
gentle remonstrance.

‘No, I cannot come.’

‘Mayhap you might come to meet us—you think little of such a walk,’
suggested Emma.

‘No!’ said Sebastian curtly. Emma had never seen him so cross before.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she withdrew her hand from his shoulder,
and turned away.

‘I fear I have displeased you, sir!’ she said, feeling a sudden
inclination to desert this young man, who could behave so strangely to
her one short week after their marriage. But the next moment she forgave
him; for Sebastian, at the tearful sound of her voice, jumped up and
came over to where she stood, holding out his hands to her.

‘Pardon me, Emma; ’tis no fault of yours, but a fancy of my own. I never
pass that way an I can help it, Emma—that’s all.’

‘Why——!’ began stupid Emma; but she dried her tears.

‘Because Anne Champion lived there, and there I saw her die, and I’m
like to weep tears of blood when I pass by that way,’ said Sebastian,
who, whatever he was, would have no secrets from his wife, in spite of
Dr. Barrington’s wisdom.

If Emma had been a crafty woman she would have discontinued her
attendance at St. Mary Minories after this; but she was not, and
instead, she went there weekly, and very frequently she would say,
‘Sebastian, if so be that you cannot worship along with me, why do you
not go to some other church?’ And Sebastian scarcely knew whether to
laugh more at her singular lack of tact or to be provoked by it.

After this sort of fashion time went on; and then, whatever little
differences there may have been between the Shepleys, were forgotten for
a time in the wonderfully uniting interest which came to them with the
birth of their daughter. All Emma’s first admiration for Sebastian
returned to her, when she saw how delightfully he played the part of a
father. And indeed, to see him with this enchanting milky-skinned baby
in his arms was a sight to please any heart; they looked so wholly
incongruous.

‘Lord! to think of your fathering such a dainty piece of goods, doctor!’
exclaimed Emma’s pet aversion, the Sergeant, at sight of Sebastian and
his tiny daughter. Emma was too proud and pleased at the moment to find
fault with the speech, so, lifting little Miss Shepley from her
husband’s arms, she brought her to be kissed by the Sergeant.

‘She is very beautiful,’ said the proud mother in a conclusive manner,
after the salute had been very unwillingly given. ‘And we intend to name
her Caroline, after my mother.’

So let this be my reader’s first introduction to Caroline Shepley.




                              CHAPTER XII


All observant (or is it only unobservant?) persons must surely have
remarked that children seem to grow up suddenly in a night like Jack’s
bean-stalk. The child that only yesterday we dandled in our arms, to-day
runs about and talks with the best of us, and to-morrow he will be
married, and the day after to-morrow his children in their turn will be
beginning the whole curious magic mushroom-growth over again for another
generation! So those who only in the last page saw Caroline Shepley in
long clothes will perhaps not be altogether surprised to recognise her
on this page as a child of six years, trotting along the pavements under
the charge of a very good-looking young nurse-maid.

Seven years had not changed the ambitions of Mrs. Shepley; but they had
been transferred during that period, and now she was no longer ambitious
for herself, but for her beautiful little daughter Caroline.

‘Carrie must have a maid of her own, like other gentlefolk’s children,’
she had said, and though her husband laughed at the idea as pretentious
nonsense, he made no further objections, and Mrs. Shepley engaged the
services of a young woman, Patty Blount, whose duty it became to walk
out daily with little Caroline, as is the custom in all well-regulated
families.

Patty, though not eminently conscientious in other matters, performed
this duty with the most praiseworthy regularity. No sooner had the
hall-clock chimed eleven than this punctual young person issued from the
door of the little house in Jermyn Street leading Caroline by the hand.
Their walks had a curious sameness, tending as they almost invariably
did in the direction of St. James’ Square; and Carrie, a conversational
little person, noticed that about the hour of their walk Patty was
curiously absent-minded. She was always looking round her, and sometimes
would even fairly stand still, with an air of expectation as if she were
waiting for some one.

At last one morning as they sauntered through the Square, the door of
one of the houses opened, and a young gentleman, Carrie’s senior by some
four years, came down the steps attended by a tall man-servant wearing
prune liveries. Carrie, who was feeling very dull at that moment, poor
child, plucked her careless companion by the skirt.

‘See, Patty,’ she whispered; ‘there is a boy who must be nearly my own
age.’

Patty was not absent-minded now. She seemed to have suddenly wakened up;
and giving Carrie that curious dragging shake which seems an hereditary
action in the nurse-maid class, she turned her head pointedly in the
opposite direction from the approaching figures, and hurried Carrie
along the Square at a great pace.

‘You should think shame, Miss Carrie, to be a-noticin’ of strangers in
the streets,’ she said.

They passed the boy and the tall footman as she spoke, and turned the
corner of the Square. A moment later Carrie heard a voice behind them
address Patty, and turning round she beheld the tall footman walking
alongside.

‘Lor’, Mr. Peter,’ exclaimed Patty, all affability and surprise. Then
she shoved Carrie before her, and the footman shoved his charge before
him, and they turned back into the Square again, apparently by mutual
consent.

The children looked at each other dumbly for a moment.

‘What’s your name?’ then says Carrie, taking the initiative.

‘Philip-William-Richard-Frederick-Sundon-Meadowes.’

‘Oh, that’s far too long; I can never say that.’

‘Well, Phil they call me.’

‘Yes, that will do; I am called Caroline—I was named after my
grandmother.’

‘I was named after my grandfather. I never saw him; he was dead long
before I began.’

‘Was he? my grandfather is still alive,’ said Carrie. ‘But he is not
like my father at all; I love my father more than any one.’

‘Well, do you know, Caroline, I do not love my father at all,’ said Phil
with curious candour. As he spoke he turned and looked at Carrie with a
pair of wonderfully glittering grey eyes.

‘O, what strange eyes you have, Phil! Why do they cut into me?’ cried
Carrie.

Phil was rather offended. ‘My eyes are quite as good as yours,
Caroline,’ he said. ‘I think I shall return to Peter.’ And with an air
of great dignity he fell back a step or two. But Peter and Patty were
deep in conversation, nor would they allow themselves to be interrupted
for all Phil’s dignity. So after a minute or two of sullenness, Phil was
forced to rejoin Carrie, and make overtures of peace by silently placing
a hand on the hoop she trundled, and giving an interrogative grunt.
Carrie had nothing to forgive: the pavement was clear before them for
many tempting yards, and off they ran with shouts of pleasure.

‘This is where I live,’ said Phil, as they reached the house he had
appeared from. ‘Look, Carrie, when Peter is in good temper, or if I can
catch my father as he goes out, I can get them to put me on their
shoulders, and then I am so high up that I can get my hand into the
torch-snuffer; it comes out black, I can tell you!’

Carrie looked longingly at the torch-snuffer; she too would have liked
to blacken her plump white fingers.

‘Shall I ask Peter? he looks pleased,’ said Phil.

‘Do,’ urged Carrie in great excitement, peering up into the snuffer.
‘’Tis like an iron nightcap,’ she added.

‘’Tis not often Peter will do it, for you see he has to wash my hands,’
said Phil. ‘Father is better. O good luck, Carrie, here he comes!’ for
as the children stood together on the steps, the great door with its
iron knocker swung open, and a man came out, closing the door behind
him.

‘Hillo, Phil! alone? Where hath Peter disappeared to? And who is the
lady you have forgathered with?’ he said, as he looked down in amusement
at the children. Peter came swinging along the Square, red to his
powdered locks, and Patty, overcome with confusion, stood still at some
distance and beckoned to Carrie to run to her.

‘O no, sir, I am not alone; Peter is talking to a woman there, and——’
said Phil.

‘And you are following his example,’ laughed Phil’s father. ‘And what is
your name, my little lady?’

Carrie was smitten with sudden shyness, and thought of beginning to cry.
She thrust her dimpled hand into her eye and rubbed it hard, and did not
speak. Peter came up breathless and apologetic.

‘I was but speaking with a friend, sir,’ he exclaimed; ‘an’ Master Phil
he did run away along the Square, sir, and——’

‘Tush, Peter, there is little harm done,’ said his master, and would
have passed on, but Phil barred his path.

‘If you please, sir, Caroline would like to put her hand into the
torch-snuffer: will you lift her?’

‘And what will Caroline’s maid say?’ laughed Phil’s father.

‘Nothing, sir, if you do it,’ Phil urged, and at that his father stooped
down and swung Carrie up on to his shoulder, and bade her poke her
fingers into the envied grime of the snuffer.

‘And now give me a kiss for it,’ he said; and Carrie, her shyness quite
cured by the delightfully black aspect of her fingers, gave the salute
with great freedom.

‘Wasn’t that most agreeable?’ asked Phil; he alluded not to the kiss,
but to the soot. Patty at this moment, seeing some interference
necessary, came forward with a curtsey to claim her charge.

‘I fear I have led your little lady into mischief,’ said Phil’s father
to her, smiling very pleasantly. Patty murmured incoherent excuses,
curtseyed again, and bade Carrie say good-day to the gentleman. As they
walked away Carrie heard Phil’s voice—it was singularly clear—echoing
along the quiet Square.

‘Caroline, sir.’ And then, in reply to another question—

‘Caroline, sir; I do not know what else.’ It was well for Carrie that
she could not overhear what followed—

‘A child of singular beauty. . . . Peter, who is she?’

‘I—I cannot say, sir. I am slightly acquainted with the young woman as
looks after her, sir,’ said Peter, and he looked so ashamed of himself,
and so uncomfortable, that his master did not question him further, but
passed down the steps, laughing as he went.

Patty on the homeward way was very silent. When they reached Jermyn
Street she took Carrie straight up-stairs and closed the nursery door.
Then she stood in front of the child menacingly.

‘Mind, Miss Caroline, if ever you do say to master or to mistress one
word of meeting with this little gentleman, I’ll—I’ll lock you up in a
black hole.’

‘Why, Patty?’ began Carrie.

‘Well, you had best ask no questions, or mayhap I’ll put you in the hole
for that,’ said Patty; and then, because in the main she was a
good-hearted girl, and hated to frighten Carrie, she kissed the child
and assured her over and over again that if no word of this meeting ever
crossed her lips, she would have chestnuts to roast on the ribs of the
nursery grate, and nuts to eat by the handful.

So Carrie agreed to be silent.




                              CHAPTER XIII


Now so pleasant and easy is it to tread the primrose path, that after
the first difficulty of being silent about her new playmate was got
over, Carrie never thought about the matter, and it became quite a daily
thing that the children met and walked together while Patty and Peter
sauntered in the rear, very much occupied with each other.

Phil was a curious boy, of great strength of character: a hot-tempered,
domineering child, horribly clever for his age, very imaginative, and
withal sadly spoilt. Peter, it is true, held his young master in very
scant reverence, and would speak to him at times with great sharpness,
but his was the only control that was ever exercised over the child.
Carrie, who had no temper at all, was frightened almost out of her
little judgment the first time she saw Phil in one of his worst fits of
anger. They were walking in St. James’ Park, and Phil began to throw
stones into the water at the water-fowl, spluttering his fine new velvet
suit at each splash.

‘Mustn’t be after that game, Master Phil,’ said Peter, and Phil
continued his stone-throwing with aristocratic indifference.

‘Did you hear, Master Phil? You’re spoilin’ them new clothes,’ said
Peter, and approaching to where Phil stood he forcibly removed the
stones from his hands. Phil’s face was convulsed in a moment with horrid
passion. He fell on his knees on the walk and scraped up the mud and
gravel in handfuls, pelting the stately Mr. Peter’s calves in futile
anger.

‘I shall do as I please, Peter; you are a servant, and you shall not
stop me throwing stones—there—and there—and there.’ He emphasised
each word with another handful of gravel.

Carrie drew away to Patty’s side, shocked into silence. Patty said
‘Lor’,’ and Peter smiled.

‘’E’s a little imp,’ he said; ‘there’s but the one way to manage him,’
And with that he lifted Phil suddenly to his feet, shook him sharply,
and boxed his ears till the child began to cry.

‘There, that’ll settle you,’ he said. He pushed poor Phil before him
along the path, and stooped down to brush from his immaculate stockinged
legs the marks of this ignoble conflict.

Carrie, being admonished by Patty to rejoin her companion, advanced
rather timidly towards him. Phil was quite white now, and shook all
over.

‘I think I shall go home now, Peter,’ he said in a very humble little
voice; ‘I feel most terribly tired—will you take me home?’

‘Yes, Master Phil,’ said Peter, quite pleasantly, and with adieux to
Carrie and Patty, they walked off together up the Mall.

‘Lor’! what a life Mr. Peter do lead with the boy!’ said Patty occultly.
Carrie was silent, and watched the retreating forms of the little Phil
and the mighty Peter till they became merged in the throng.

As they came to see more and more of each other the children’s
intercourse assumed a definite character, which one often notices in
childish friendships. Phil, as the elder and more original-minded of the
two, assumed as it were command, led the conversation, and Carrie,
deeply admiring his powers of mind, and quite content to be commanded,
took all her ideas from him. Phil indeed was vastly entertaining to her
after the pre-occupied silence of Patty, but sometimes his views rather
startled her childish fancy.

They had gone far afield one fine day in late autumn—even to the
Park—a world of delight to the children, and Peter and Patty, having
seated themselves under one of the trees, Phil and Carrie followed the
example of their elders and sat down also.

‘I wish God would come,’ said Phil suddenly, gazing up through the
branches above him. ‘Do you not, Carrie?’

‘No—o,’ admitted the feeble-minded Carrie.

‘I do, and I shall tell you why. Peter took me to his meeting-house,
where they pray without a book, and they prayed, “_Rend the heavens and
come down_.” Well, since that I’ve lain down whenever I’ve got a chance
and looked up into the sky. ’Tis too bright to look into nicely most
days, but if God were to make a rent in that blue bit we see’ (he
pointed up as he spoke, and Carrie glanced upwards, half expecting to
see some Beatific Vision), ‘if He were to make a hole to come down
through, you know, we should see something brighter than that behind, I
believe. And then He’d come down—oh, like that!’ Phil brought his hands
together with a crack that made Carrie jump.

‘I’d be frightened,’ she said, taking a reassuring peep at the placid
blue that smiled above them. It showed no signs of cracking open, she
thought.

‘Pooh,’ said Phil contemptuously. ‘I believe you had rather that the
other God came—the Jesus God. He is quite different, and will not come
the same way at all. I fancy He’d _walk_ into the town: coming the
Richmond way perhaps, about the blossomy time of the year. We would just
be walking along Piccadilly perhaps, and we’d see every one turning to
look, and . . .’

Phil’s imagination gave out here; he had not given enough of thought to
the subject to visualise it perfectly, so he returned to his former and
more favourite imagining—

‘Now what pleases me about t’other God coming would be the noise—drums,
and bugles. Don’t you love ’em, Carrie? I went with my father to the
Horse Guards t’other day. Oh, you should have heard it! Well, God will
have gold bugles of course—the ones I heard were just tin, I think—and
the gold bugles and God’s drums together, they’d make a noise no one
could get away from. Now what do you suppose every one we know would do?
I wonder what my father would do? Peter would come running up the back
stair to look after _me_—I’m sure of that—in case I was afraid. Not
that I would be,’ he added hastily.

‘When do you think it will happen?’ asked Carrie, very much awed, though
Phil had finished off with a shrill little twirl of laughter.

‘Oh, perhaps next week, or perhaps to-night, Peter says. I believe God
will come down on the gilt top of St. Paul’s myself. Such a fine place
to land on from the sky,’ continued the little prophet, inspired as all
prophets are by a credulous audience. ‘He’d—He’d—oh, I don’t know what
I was going to say. Carrie, look round the tree and see if Peter is
kissing Patty, for I want to climb the tree, and ’tis safe to begin if
he’s doing that.’

Carrie obediently reconnoitred; ‘I think he’s going to,’ she reported.
‘He has his arm round her waist, and he always begins that way.’

‘Come on then,’ said the prophet, leaving the Second Advent
unceremoniously behind him, as he addressed himself to the ascent of a
very smutty tree-trunk, much to the detriment of his own and Carrie’s
finery.




                              CHAPTER XIV


One day not very long after this Patty came into the nursery breathless
and agitated.

‘Lord save us! Miss Carrie, what do you think? Master Phil hath near
killed himself! I’m but just in from a message, and who should I meet
but Mr. Peter, running like mad, and with never a hat to his head!
’Taint often as Mr. Peter passeth by me in the street, but he waved and
passed on without one word, and up to the door of Dr. James and kicks
till the door do near split across. When he’d given his message he found
time to return to where I was a-standin’—for in troth I had such a
terror at the sight of Mr. Peter flyin’ down the street that I stood as
if I had the palsy, and must so stand there till he returned. “Well, Mr.
Peter,” I said, “you seem pressed for time this day.” “Miss Patty,”
saith he (and believe me he could scarce get out the words for
agitation),—“_Miss Patty, my young master’s near burned to death_.”’

Patty was breathless with agitation herself at this point, and to
recover her breath and relieve her surcharged feelings she seized a
brush and began to arrange Carrie’s locks with more energy than
gentleness. Carrie, deeply stirred by this tale, listened in great
anxiety for further details. Patty then proceeded—

‘Being dinner-time, all the house was still, and Master Phil slips from
the nursery and into the master’s own room he do go, and commences
playing with the log fire. He hath a great fancy for pilin’ on the logs,
same as he seeth Mr. Peter a-doing, and he’d lifted one too heavy an’
overbalanced hisself into the fire. He’d on a silk suit with ruffles,
and it fired direct, and the whole body of him was blazing in a moment.
The master’s gentleman, as was in the dressing-room a-putting away of
the master’s clothes, he came running in and pulled Master Phil out from
the heart o’ the fire! They’d a business tearing off his clothes! and
now there he do lie in the master’s own bed a-screamin’ in agony.’

Carrie was deeply impressed; it was not her nature to weep easily over
anything, but she approached the nursery fire and stood gazing at the
cruel element that had worked such sad havoc on her poor little
playmate.

Patty, with hysteric exclamations, pulled her back and declared she
would never have an easy moment again—never. But a few moments later
she found it necessary to flounce off to the kitchen, to repeat her tale
there with many sappy additions.

Carrie, thus deserted, quietly drew her little chair close to the fire,
and looked at the flames with a very serious face. She even extended one
of her fat little fingers towards the bars experimentally, withdrawing
it, however, with less caution, and a moment later she said ‘Poor Phil!’
with heart-felt compassion.

Patty ran in then, and shook her roughly. ‘What did I say, Miss
Carrie?—never beyond the rug, and there you do sit close in to the very
blaze! How, Miss Carrie, mind you obey me better, and partickerly in
this, never to say one word of Master Phil to the master or the
mistress. And if so be you do, well, of this I’m sure as I stand in my
shoes: you’ll never play again with Master Phil so long as you live.’

Carrie did not in the least understand the reason of all this mystery
about Phil; but she reiterated once more her promise of secrecy.

That night as she curtseyed to her parents at bedtime, she said
suddenly—

‘Doth burning hurt, dada?’

Sebastian laughed. ‘Are you going to the stake, Carrie?’ he said.

‘No, not _me_,’ said Carrie, with some congratulation in her tones.

One day, some three weeks after this, Patty said mysteriously to Carrie
that they were going out that afternoon to pay a visit. ‘We are to see
Master Phil,’ she said, when they were in the street; and Carrie jumped
for joy.

‘O Patty, I am so glad! Is he better? Where are we to see him?’ she
cried.

‘In his bed, miss, but mind if ever you do say a word——’

Carrie was quite impatient.

‘You are most strange about Phil, Patty,’ she said; ‘I am sure he is
nicer far to speak about than any one else I know.’

‘Oh, well, Miss Carrie, we’ll be going home then; we’ll say no more
about the visit,’ said Patty, making a feint of turning back.

‘No, no, ’tis all right, I shall say nothing,’ said Carrie. On the steps
of the great house, which Carrie knew quite well now, she saw the
familiar figure of Mr. Peter, evidently waiting for them.

‘I’ll trouble you to enter by the back way,’ he said, as he greeted
them, and with that he conducted his visitors to the kitchen regions.
Everything here was bustle and hurry, for up-stairs dinner was being
served. They met a French cook in a white paper cap dashing out of the
kitchen with a saucepan in his hand, and ran against another
man-servant, as tall as Mr. Peter, who carried a silver dish. Then,
leaving these regions, they began to climb long, long stairs, and came
out at last on to a polished oak corridor hung with pictures.

‘Lor’, Mr. Peter, this be terrible fine!’ said Patty, quite overawed.
Mr. Peter sniffed, and affected great unconsciousness.

‘Walk quiet, if you please,’ he said, ‘and on the carpet, missie; these
floors do mark very easy with boot-marks.’

He opened a door very cautiously, and looked into a large fire-lit room.
It was very still.

‘’Ere’s a visitor for you, Master Phil,’ said Mr. Peter, stepping on
tiptoe towards a huge canopied bed which occupied the side of the room
and faced the fire. With a sign to Carrie to follow him, Mr. Peter drew
back one of the satin curtains, and then, followed by Patty, tiptoed
away again into the adjoining room. Carrie crept up to the side of the
bed and peered into its tent-like depths. There lay Phil, propped up
with pillows, white and thin, his shining restless eyes moving
ceaselessly round him.

‘Well,’ said Carrie, after the unemotional manner of children.

‘Hullo!’ said Phil. He started up in bed, and then fell back against the
pillows with a cry.

Carrie was tremendously impressed by all she saw around her:—the size
and grandeur of the room, the satin hangings of the bed, embroidered all
over with crests and coats of arms, the silk coverlet under which Phil
reposed, the solemn quiet of the room, and the weird whiteness of her
little companion’s face.

It was all indelibly stamped upon her memory in a moment, a scene never
to be forgotten.

She laid her little hand on the stiff silk cover and found nothing to
say.

‘Oh, I’m glad to see you, Carrie,’ said Phil then, who was never at a
loss for words. He tossed his head restlessly about as he spoke. ‘They
do not let me play, or anything, since I have been ill.’

‘Do you hurt much?’ asked Carrie, to whom pain was an unknown mystery
and dignity.

‘Yes, my hands hurt most terribly; see, each finger is tied up by itself
in a little bag—that is why I cannot play with anything.’

‘Shall I whistle to you?’ asked Carrie, struck by a sudden inspiration.
‘A friend of my father’s has taught me to whistle, and he says I do it
to admiration.’ She jumped on to the edge of the bed, flung back her
head, and whistled off a gay little roulade.

Phil laughed delightedly. ‘O do that again; you look like the poodles I
saw in Paris. They threw back their heads and howled in a chorus,’ he
cried.

‘Well, you pretend you are the other poodle,’ said Carrie; ‘I find it
difficult whistling alone. Mr. Tillet, who teaches me, always whistles
with me.’

‘Who’s Tillet?’ asked Phil.

‘He’s a soldier—a man my father knows.’

‘A soldier! oh, I suppose he will be a general—they are all generals,’
said Phil.

‘I think he is a bugler—is that the same?—something, I suppose; they
all fight.’

‘Well, never mind; do it again, Carrie, ’tis such fun to see you.’

‘My mother does not like me to whistle,’ said Carrie, ‘but my father is
ever teaching me new tunes, and Mr. Tillet, so I have to learn, but, if
you please, I had rather look round the room, Phil; I want to look into
that long mirror.’ So Carrie slipped down off the bed and walked (by
irresistible feminine instinct drawn) towards the long French mirror,
the like of which she had never seen before, and then she played for a
few minutes with the Dresden china dishes on the dressing-table.

‘You take care with my father’s razors,’ warned Phil; ‘but they are not
there—I forgot he wasn’t sleeping here. I have this room all to myself,
and oh! it’s gloomy at night. You see that big wardrobe over
there—well, I think all manner of things come out of it through the
night. You see sometimes Peter sits with me, and sometimes nurse, but
they both often go asleep, and then——’

Moved by this recital of nightly terrors, Carrie came back to the side
of Phil’s bed and took another compassionate look at him.

‘I am so tired of lying here,’ he said crossly. ‘And you know, though my
father makes a lot of me when I am well sometimes, he never comes near
me now that I am ill—just when I would like him. My father is rather
amusing sometimes, you know.’

‘What would he amuse you with?’ asked Carrie.

‘Oh, he teaches me a number of things. He can swear beautifully. I have
learnt some of that, but when I used one of his expressions the other
day they all laughed at me; ’twas rather hard, I thought. My father
said: “Bravely tried, Phil, but you scarce apply it rightly yet,” and
they all laughed again. I shall not learn for him again in a hurry.’

Carrie was very sympathetic, and Phil continued—

‘Then I play sometimes with him—we have shilling points; ’tis good fun
that, Carrie, but my father says just now I am too cross to play with.’

‘Oh, let me play with you,’ Carrie cried, ‘I have learnt that too.’

Phil rolled over uneasily on his pillows. ‘Peter,’ he called, in a very
lordly fashion,—‘Peter, bring a pack of cards.’

Peter obeyed with some reluctance. ‘See you ain’t a-hurtin’ of your
hands, Master Phil,’ he said. ‘You let missie shuffle an’ deal, like a
good young gen’l’man.’

‘Oh, you be damned, Peter!’ said Phil hastily, and Peter disappeared
into the other room, drawing up his shoulders to his ears in a very
expressive fashion.

‘Now, you sit on the end of the bed, Carrie, and we’ll have a jolly
time,’ said Phil, his ill-temper as quickly gone as it had come.

Carrie scrambled up on to the stiff yellow satin coverlet, and dealt out
the cards across it, while Phil obligingly flattened out his poor little
burnt knees to form an even table.

They were deep in their game, when Patty came to take Carrie home.
Phil’s cheeks were pink with excitement, and he called out to Peter to
go away and let them play on. But Peter, with great unconcern, swept
together the cards that lay on the quilt and lifted Carrie to the
ground.

‘Peter, you are a beast; leave these cards, I tell you!’ cried Phil.

‘Sorry, Master Phil, ’tis too late,’ said Peter, extending his hand
towards the cards that Phil still held; ‘missie must be goin’ now.’

Carrie stood on tiptoe to wave a better adieu to her playmate, but Phil
did not notice her; he was gathering together all his sick little
strength to avenge himself on the inexorable Peter.

‘There, you devilled flunkey!’ he screamed, pitching the cards into
Peter’s face and falling back against the pillows with a sharp cry of
pain.

Peter covered the child gently with the bed-clothes, gathered up the
cards in silence, and signed to Patty and Carrie to follow him out of
the room.

‘That’s some of the master’s speech he’s pickin’ up,’ he said, with a
shake of the head; ‘he don’t swear very skilful, as you may see, Miss
Patty—no fear but he’ll get at that yet,’ he added, with a half smile,
half sigh.

Carrie, rather awed at this scene, took tight hold of Patty’s hand and
did not speak till they were well out in the street again.

‘I do not think Phil is very happy,’ she said then.

‘Not he, Miss Carrie—not for all his grand house an’ altogether, for
he’s a bad boy he is,’ responded the moral Patty.




                               CHAPTER XV


It was a long time until Carrie saw Phil again.

‘Master Phil hath gone off to the country to establish his ’ealth,’
Patty said, and it seemed as though he would never return again, Carrie
thought; for often as she sighed for her little companion, he did not
come, and finally Patty, who seemed to have occult communication with
the household in St. James’ Square, informed her that Phil had gone to
school. Patty wept as she gave this bit of information, and Carrie,
partly, it must be confessed, out of the imitative faculty, wept also at
the news. Time, they say, dries every tear—perhaps it does—certainly
Carrie’s were soon dried; but she remembered Phil long and tenderly for
all that, and used to ask Patty at intervals if she was never going to
see him again. Patty always answered these questions with a burst of
tears, which response had such a sobering effect upon Carrie that she at
last feared to make the inquiry. But one day, fully a year from the date
of Phil’s accident, as Patty and Carrie walked round the Square together
they met a tall lad, having the shining eyes of Phil, but changed, it
seemed, in every other way beyond recognition. He was walking along with
another boy, and passed by Carrie with an unregarding stare. Carrie
stood still, stamped her little foot in anger, and turned to Patty for
sympathy.

‘’Twas Phil, Patty!’ she cried, ‘and he passed me without knowing me!’

Patty gave her head an upward toss.

‘Pay no heed to him, Miss Carrie; the men are all alike—not one to mend
another,’ she said scornfully. They were passing at that moment the door
whence the magnificent Peter had been wont to appear.

Carrie, however, was not so easily answered. She followed Phil’s
retreating figure as it disappeared round the Square, before she spoke
again, then she said, with great decision—

‘There goes my husband that is to be, Patty.’

‘Lor’! have a care what you say in the streets, Miss Carrie!’ cried
Patty, with a delighted giggle.

Thus Phil passed out of Carrie’s life for the time being.

It was not an age of learned women, so though Carrie began her education
about this time, she was not the disquieting receptacle of knowledge
that modern childhood sometimes is in our progressive age. Carrie
learned to read and write, she could do a little arithmetic, and began
to sew a sampler of intricate stitchery; but she could not analyse her
native tongue, or speak in any other, and I fear even her knowledge of
geography was very hazy. Indeed, if the truth must be told about Carrie,
she was entirely unintellectual in every way. Lessons were nothing but a
pain to her, and as in these days a woman was not thought to add to her
charms by wisdom, Carrie was not compelled to pursue her studies after
she had attained to a certain very easy standard.

She was compelled, however, to learn all the housekeeping arts, and Mrs.
Shepley expected nothing short of perfection in this branch of
education. By the time Carrie was thirteen there was a good deal of
friction between the mother and daughter. For Carrie, to her want of
intellectuality, added a supreme carelessness, which was agonising to
her conventional parent. If she had been an incapable girl it would have
been different; but Carrie was far from incapable. When she chose, no
girl of her age could accomplish any household task better. Yet, where
it was a question of pleasure, Carrie would fling aside every duty and
amuse herself without a thought. She had indeed a whole-heartedness of
joy in living, that would have reconciled almost any one except Mrs.
Shepley to her heedless ways. But to her they were unpardonable, and the
worst of it all was, that Carrie’s father encouraged her in her careless
habits—making it almost useless for her to remonstrate.

How it would have fared between the mother and daughter later in life is
hard to say. They were both spared this test. For soon after Carrie’s
fourteenth birthday was past, Mrs. Shepley fell ill of a lingering
disorder, and lay for many a long month between life and death. Carrie
grew less careless in these months of anxiety, grew quieter also, poor
child—never shut the doors noisily, and almost forgot how to whistle,
while Sebastian went about with a very grave face. Now that Emma was so
ill, he recognised what a good wife she had been to him in spite of all
her failings, and realised too what it would mean to him should he be
left with Carrie motherless on his hands. Whatever Emma’s faults had
been, she had been a careful mother, and had given a zealous
watchfulness to everything concerning Carrie that he never could have
time to give.

It must have been weighing on Emma’s mind also, this matter of how
Carrie was to get on without her, but she looked at it in a
characteristic light. Almost with her latest breath she called Sebastian
to her bedside to pray him to be particular about Carrie’s associates.

‘Let Charlotte Mallow see that Carrie makes no friends out of her own
situation in life—beneath her, in fact.’

‘Lord, Emma, the girl’s all right. I am here to protect her,’ said
Sebastian.

‘’Tis the old trouble, Sebastian—you do not see what I mean.—Ah! let
her grow up a gentlewoman.’

‘I’ll do my best, Emma,’ he said.

‘I pray you to send her to church each Lord’s Day,’ pursued Mrs.
Shepley. ‘Send her with Charlotte; you have ever been careless of the
Church and its mysteries.’

‘To church she shall go,’ said Sebastian—‘if that will make her a
gentlewoman,’ he added to himself.

So Mrs. Shepley, with her little gentilities and punctilios, her
tactless ways and her zeal for ordinances, went the way of all flesh.

Sebastian was not broken-hearted, though the house felt empty enough, he
thought, without poor Emma; and Carrie, after the first solemn months of
mourning were over, missed her mother sadly little.

She lived a perfectly happy unconstrained existence, which accorded well
with her simple nature. Sebastian, who was nothing if not truthful, sent
her to church weekly with Lady Mallow, and these were the dreariest
hours of Carrie’s otherwise unclouded childhood. Each Sunday morning
Lady Mallow appeared with horrible regularity, driving in a singularly
gloomy-looking coach, which seemed to Carrie to swallow her up as she
entered it. In silence they drove through the crowded streets (which on
Sunday had a way of looking very gloomy too), and the coach drew up
before the door of that sad little building, the church of St. Mary
Minories. Lady Mallow occupied one of those carved oak pews which to
this day you may see mouldering away in the church, and there in its
genteel obscurity Carrie sat, with a sinking heart, counting the
slow-passing minutes till she could breathe the fresher air of the
everyday world again. Patty had once told her that ‘persons of quality
was buried in ’eaps under the floor in St. Mary Minories,’ and Carrie’s
imagination hovered over this gruesome thought. She somehow connected
that damp old smell which clings about the church with the ‘heaps an’
heaps of persons of quality’ lying in their shrouds under the chancel,
and each day as she asserted her belief in the resurrection of the body,
found herself wondering how the poor dead people would ever work their
way up through those slabs of stone. So Carrie required all the
fortitude and cheerfulness which she inherited from her father to
sustain the ordeal of Sunday’s gloom.

Service once over, however, she stepped into the auntly coach with a
much lighter heart. The drive home seemed an altogether different matter
from the drive to church, and each step of the way Carrie’s spirits
mounted higher and higher, till, when the coach drew up before the door,
she could have danced for joy. Bidding a decorous adieu to her aunt,
Carrie was handed out by the man-servant, and mounted the steps to the
door with the greatest propriety. But it was well that the departing
rumble of the wheels hid from Lady Mallow’s ear that whoop of joy which
Carrie uttered as she raced into the parlour and flung her arms round
her father’s neck, crying out,

‘’Tis done—done for another week, sir!’

Mrs. Shepley had never permitted such demonstrative greetings—they were
indeed considered a great breach of decorum in those days; but I fear
many polite rules were broken in upon by Carrie and her father, who
neither of them cared as much as they should have done for the generally
received ideas of the society of their day.

Such good friends were Carrie and her father that the girl sought for no
friends of her own age; she went about everywhere with Sebastian when he
had leisure to escort her, and when he was busy she amused herself at
home, very well content with life and all things. In her father’s
company she visited many a strange scene; she would go with him to the
hospitals sometimes, and—shade of Mrs. Shepley!—how many a sight she
saw in these unsavoury tents of disease! Then Carrie entertained all her
father’s friends (those motley friends her poor mother had objected to
so much), and in many ways grew up with more of the manners of a boy
than of a girl. She was singularly free from the sillinesses and
affectations of early girlhood, having heard no talk at all of lovers or
admiration, nor having ever entered into rivalry with other women in the
matter of looks and charm. Carrie was serenely unconscious that the
world held a rival for her; she was the first with all the men of her
own little world, and as yet she had not gone beyond it. If she compared
her own looks with those of other girls, it was merely from curiosity
quite untouched by jealous feeling. The fact was only distantly dawning
upon her that she was fair beyond the common; just now she took it as
her due from Fortune’s kindly hand.




                              CHAPTER XVI


Miss Caroline Shepley, up to the age of seventeen years, had perhaps, in
her own way, lived as happy a life as it is granted to many young
persons to live. She looked like it too; wearing that air of pleased
good humour that is a passport to every heart, and blooming like a rose,
in spite of the fact that she had never been out of London all her days.
Carrie was very tall, with just the same fearless brilliant blue eyes
that her father had, but from her mother she had inherited a skin as
white as milk, with a clear pink colour in the cheeks, two bewitching
dimples, and ringlets of deep red hair. To see her pass along the
streets!—— Do they grow now-a-days, these shining beauties that
brightened the world of long ago, or is it that they are so common we
scarcely regard them? But as time went on, Carrie’s good looks became
such as to be quite embarrassing both to herself and to her father, for
she could never go out alone, and even in his company attracted a vast
deal of attention.

‘Now,’ said Sebastian, ‘I shall send Carrie to the country with her
aunt, as she has so often been pressed to go, else her head will be
turned altogether.’

Lady Mallow’s establishment certainly promised to be dull enough for
safety. Her Ladyship, who was rich enough to indulge in fancies about
climate, had taken an idea that London did not suit her health. On her
brother-in-law’s suggestion, she had taken a house in the neighbourhood
of Wynford, and there was passing the summer months in genteel and
plethoric seclusion—for alas! Lady Mallow was becoming stout in middle
life. From all he remembered of Wynford twenty years ago, Sebastian
smiled to think of the conventual existence poor Carrie might lead
there.

‘You must go to the village of Wynford and see where your grandfather
sold drugs; but there’s not one of our name left there now,’ he said.

‘Sir! my dear sir! what would my aunt Charlotte say should I propose to
visit where any one related to me had traded in anything, at any time?’
said Carrie—and indeed she was right.

So one splendid May morning Lady Mallow’s coach drew up before the door
of the Shepleys’ house, and the beautiful Carrie came out upon the
steps, drawing on her long gloves, while her baggage was stowed away in
the rumble of the coach.

‘Well, Carrie, adieu to you, and Heaven bless you!’ said her father; and
Carrie, unconventional as usual, turned suddenly, in the full view of
her aunt’s decorous footman, flung her arms round Sebastian, and kissed
him tenderly.

‘I do not wish to leave you, sir; I had rather far stay with you,’ she
cried; but Sebastian laughed at her, and bade her not keep those
spirited animals which her aunt drove ‘waiting upon her
sentimentalities.’

The spirited animals waddled off down the street very deliberately, and
Carrie sat back in the coach and waved her hand till she was out of
sight. Though she had not been altogether pleased to leave home, it
would certainly be a new and delightful thing to leave London smoke
behind her, and drive far out into the wonderful green country. No train
had yet snorted through these fair English meadows, and the depth of
their tranquillity was like a dreamless sleep. To the heart that has
known sorrow—and perhaps more to the heart that has missed joy—the
jubilant burgeoning of spring will sometimes bring an intolerable
sadness. But in the first blossom and fairness of her youth, with her
sunny childhood barely left behind, with hope ahead, these stainless
blue skies, and the rich promise of the bursting leafage, filled
Carrie’s heart with a sort of ecstasy. She fairly clapped her hands at
the hackneyed old sight of a meadow where lambs were gambolling, and
called out to the coachman, praying him to stop and let her buy a drink
of milk at a cottage door where a cow was being milked. Towards the end
of the day these pleasures began to pall a little, and when at last the
coach drew up at Lady Mallow’s door Carrie was not sorry to alight. The
forty miles that lay between her and London seemed very long in the
retrospect, and a sudden chill of home-sickness fell over her spirit as
she entered the decorous portals of her aunt’s abode. ‘I wonder why I
ever came,’ she thought. ‘Aunt Charlotte will fidget me to death—and I
shall be so dull, and I think London is ever so much nicer than the
country.’ We must all be familiar with such misgivings, and familiar too
with the extraordinary difference which a night’s rest makes in such a
case. Carrie rose up next morning with much more rose-coloured views of
life. ‘Aunt Charlotte is vastly dull, but how agreeable to be here!—and
O how beautiful, how beautiful!’ she said as she gazed out at the new
surroundings, smelt the country sweetness, and longed for breakfast.
Lady Mallow, indeed, was quite shocked by Carrie’s appetite. ‘You will
become stout, my dear,’ she said. ‘’Tis most ungenteel for a young
gentlewoman like you to eat so freely!’ Carrie was a little ashamed of
herself.

‘You see, madam,’ she explained, ‘I live always with men, and perhaps
their example has made me eat as they do. I do not think I shall become
very fat, because all my life I have been hungry, and I have not become
fat yet, you see.’

The restrictions of her aunt’s society began to press upon Carrie pretty
heavily by the afternoon. All morning she had had to sit indoors sewing
at her embroidery, then, about two o’clock, she must drive out for a
slow airing until dinner, then came two hours more of talk and
embroidery, and after supper a game of whist with double-dummy. And
outside, while all these golden hours dragged so slowly past, was the
grand, twittering, budding spring world waiting to be explored! Carrie
beat an impatient tattoo upon the floor with her little foot, and
answered Lady Mallow’s questions rather incoherently.




                              CHAPTER XVII


The next day was the same, and the next and the next. On the fourth day,
urged by despair, Carrie sat down to write to Sebastian the whole tale
of her woe.

‘Sir, I shall die,’ she wrote. ‘’Tis terrible; I do not like living with
women, I find men vastly more agreeable. Pray, pray, dear sir—my
dearest dada—write and summon me home, for I am weary of my life here
at Wynford.’

Sebastian laughed a good deal over this mournful missive, and wrote
Carrie to try to cultivate patience and the womanly graces.

But before his letter had reached her, help had come to Carrie from an
unexpected quarter. Lady Mallow, by the kindness of Heaven, fell sick of
an influenza, which painful disorder confined the poor lady to her bed,
and set Carrie at liberty.

And _ennui_ fled: and with happy hurrying feet Carrie raced down the
avenue and along the sweet hedge-bordered roads, going she knew not
whither—but away, away from bondage and embroidery and double-dummy
whist!

She turned off into a side lane, and then stood looking across the
country to see which direction seemed the most promising.

The river plainly beckoned her: so, thrusting her way through the hedge,
Carrie set off across the meadows towards the silvery loops of water
that slipped along so invitingly in the distance. The fields were white
with anemone blossoms. She stood among them in perfect rapture, and then
got down upon her knees and began to pull the flowers in handfuls; then
further off, along the river bank, she saw a great thicket of blossoming
thorn, white as snow, and off she ran towards it.

Carrie flung down all her freshly gathered flowers in a heap upon the
grass when she reached the thorn bushes. For these blossoms were
lovelier by far than anything she had seen yet; the little starry
flowers set on to their jagged black stems had a beauty all their own.
Undismayed by the assailing thorns, Carrie pressed into the thicket to
gather some of the coveted branches. Her hair caught on the bushes, her
dress gave a distracting tear, and finally she scratched her plump white
arm up to the elbow. This at last sobered her adventurous spirit. She
tried to escape from the clinging branches, but being town-bred, she was
ignorant of the fact that to turn round in a thorn thicket is to
imprison yourself hopelessly there. So Carrie twisted quickly round,
thinking to find herself free, and instead felt of a sudden twenty more
thorns catch on her unfortunate person. She shook her head, and a branch
a-dance in the breeze clutched her hair like a human hand.

‘O you beautiful cross bushes!’ cried Carrie in despair, ‘I will not
gather more of you, if you will but let me go!’

‘Can I help you, madam?’ said a voice behind her at this moment, and
some one laughed. Carrie could not turn round to see who had come to her
assistance, but she laughed also.

‘O yes, I thank you,’ she cried; ‘I do not know what to do, I am all
caught round and round.’

‘Come out backwards; do not try to turn, I shall hold the branches here
for you. Take heed for your eyes, madam,’ said her helper. Carrie began
to beat a slow retreat, disengaging herself from the clinging branches
one by one. At last, torn and dishevelled, she shook off the last
assailant and turned round to see who had come to her aid.

A young man with very shining eyes stood beside her, still holding back
the thorn bushes with one hand. They looked at each other in silence for
a moment, and then the young man exclaimed in a tone of surprised
amusement,

‘Now, by all the powers! ’Tis little Carrie Shepley!’ And Carrie, in
spite of her ruffled plumage, responded to this salutation with great
urban ease of manner.

‘And this is “Phil” that used to be?’ she said, holding out her hand to
him.

‘Carrie, you are scarce changed at all, saving that you are grown to be
near as tall as I am,’ said Phil, and he eyed Carrie with great
admiration as he took her hand.

‘Nor you either, Mr.—Mr.—I forget your surname,’ said Carrie, drawing
herself up with some dignity at this rather free address from a
stranger. But as she spoke she met Phil’s shining eyes so ridiculously
unchanged that she laughed outright and came down from her high horse
without further delay.

‘You are not Mr. Anything, I think—only Phil,’ she said. ‘I could
think, to look at us both just now, that we were playing in the Park,
and that Patty and Peter would come round the corner in a moment to
scold us! Pray, sir—Phil—where are you come from, and how do we meet
here?’

‘Come and sit by the river, and I shall tell you everything you care to
hear,’ said Phil. And Carrie, nothing loath, sat down on the bank,
gathered her torn flounces around her, and gave a surreptitious smooth
to her straying locks.

‘Well, I must tell you, you are a trespasser, Carrie, on my father’s
land. But ’twould be an ungracious way to renew an old friendship to
arrest you—so I let that pass. My father, if you must know, is Mr.
Richard Meadowes of Fairmeadowes—the house you see far away there among
the trees; that is how I come to be here.’

‘Do you live always here then?’ asked Carrie.

‘I? no—I am but come from Oxford for Easter. I am alone here though
just now. My father is in town.—But you have not yet told me how you
are here, Carrie?’

‘I am visiting my aunt, Lady Mallow. She hath taken Forde, the house
which stands on the sloping ground about half a mile from here along the
high road. And indeed, indeed, Phil, I have come near running away to
London, so dull have I been these four days since I came to Wynford.’

‘Dull—ah, ’tis a terrible thing to be dull,’ said Phil sympathetically;
‘once I was dull—just once in life, and I made the resolve never to
suffer it again. I can bear to be unhappy, or even to be in pain; but
dulness—never. I’d sooner get drunk than be dull!’ And at that the
young man went off into a curiously ringing laugh that sounded across
the fields like a bell.

‘Then are you never dull here?’ asked Carrie in amazement.

‘O no—never. I come here once or twice in the year, and I bring with me
books to last me all the time and more; sometimes I work hard, hard,
till I feel as though my brain would crack—’tis rather nice that, and
then I come down here by the river and amuse myself; or I ride, or shoot
the crows, or anything else there is to shoot. But the first morning I
waken at an end of my resources, that day I leave Wynford. Oh, but I
love Fairmeadowes. I never tire here.’

‘You are just the same,’ said Carrie, more emphatically than before; ‘to
hear you talk—’tis just as you used to.’ She looked down at Phil as she
spoke. He had flung himself down on the bank at her feet, and was gazing
up at her in the frankest manner possible. ‘Why, how old are you?’ she
asked suddenly, as unceremonious as he was, and Phil answered without a
moment’s hesitation, ‘One-and-twenty, and horribly young it is—but
there is all the world to conquer, to be sure, and only one life to do
it in.’

Carrie opened her eyes at this statement. ‘How?’ she inquired.

‘How? ah, that is just the question! My father wished me to enter the
Service—not I! “’Tis a profession for gentlemen,” he said. “Yes, and
for fools,” said I, and he (who was in it himself, though he’s no fool!)
was rarely angry with me. My father, you know, is a curious man—oh, I
shall tell you all that another time,’ said Phil, rolling over on the
bank in the most childish manner; then he rose and seated himself beside
Carrie. Leaning his chin on his hand he looked down at the river as it
flowed below them, and went on in a more serious tone—

‘I had no mind to enter the Service, you see, because I must have
something to do that I care about. To speak now before crowds and crowds
of people—that would be my ambition.’

‘But what would you speak about?’ asked Carrie laughingly—she was a
splendid listener!

‘Speak! I’d speak about anything, Carrie. I’d speak eloquently for half
an hour upon your shoe-strings and my entire unworthiness to unloose
them!’

‘I believe you would,’ laughed Carrie; ‘you should enter the Church,
Phil, then each Lord’s Day you must speak for a certain time.’

‘Not the Church for me, my imagination is by far too strong for that;
’twould have me before my Bishop in a jiffy. Oh, do you remember how
scared you were once when I described to you how God would come down on
the gilt top of St. Paul’s?’

‘Yes indeed; I should pity your hearers did you scare them after that
fashion,’ said Carrie, with a smile of reminiscence.

‘I think I shall study for the Bar,’ began Phil, and then, because in
spite of his volubility he was not a bore, he started up in genuine
dismay.

‘Lord save us!’ he exclaimed; ‘here have I been talking of my own
affairs so long you will never speak to me again, Carrie. Come, let me
show you the path through the park, and as you love me, talk of some
other matter!’

Carrie laughingly obeyed, talking in her turn of herself, and then they
talked of childhood (that was not so very far behind either of them),
and of Patty and of Peter. (‘He’s about the only man I respect in this
world; if I could do my duty like him I should be proud,’ said Phil.
‘Why, he has never been late with my shaving-water for years.’ At this
statement Carrie glanced up with a little grimace of amusement at Phil’s
rather peach-like cheek, and he laughed ringingly. ‘Well, that is mayhap
something of an exaggeration,’ he admitted.)

And so they sauntered on, abundantly amused with each other, till Carrie
remembered with dismay the lateness of the hour, and bidding Phil a
hurried farewell, ran off down the road in the direction of Forde.

Phil called after her as she ran: ‘Come again to-morrow, Carrie.’ And so
they parted.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


It was not the nature of Mr. Philip Meadowes (as may have been gathered
from his talk) to be reticent upon any subject. He had the acumen,
however, which most talkative persons lack, to choose his listeners
carefully; but with those whom he trusted Phil had absolutely no
reserves. Chief among his confidants was Peter, the grave-faced elderly
man-servant who had cuffed his ears in childhood, and now had discreetly
forgotten the fact.

This evening, as Peter brought in his young master’s wine, Phil, lying
back in a chair, the book he had been reading thrown carelessly on the
floor, addressed him quite impatiently.

‘Why, where have you been all afternoon, Peter?’ he said.—‘Now whom do
you think I met to-day, by all that is curious?’

Peter laid down the tray he carried, picked up the book from the floor,
smoothed its ruffled pages, and made a feint of guessing.

‘Mayhap the parson, sir?’ he said.

‘No, no, stupid; more interesting by far!’

‘Mayhap the parson’s daughter, sir?’

‘Wrong again; some one a deuced deal prettier than the parson’s
daughter. But there, you can never guess—who but Carrie Shepley that I
used to play with long ago in town, in the days when you were courting
her maid Patty?’

Phil expected Peter to laugh at this resurrection of his former
flirtations; but instead of laughing he stepped forward and laid his
hand suddenly on his young master’s arm.

‘For the love of Heaven, sir, do you have naught to do with Miss Carrie
Shepley!’ he said.

Phil was surprised beyond measure to see the decorous Peter so startled
out of his usual behaviour.

‘Why, Peter, what the dickens is the matter with you?’ he said.

‘This, sir, that there will be trouble betwixt you and the master if so
be you takes up with Miss Carrie Shepley. I know not the rights nor the
wrongs of the story, but this I knows, that there was a mighty quarrel
once betwixt the master and Miss Carrie’s father, Dr. Shepley of Jermyn
Street as is.’

‘Oh—ho!’ whistled Phil. ‘And what did the gentlemen fall out upon,
Peter?’

‘On a woman, sir,’ said Peter, fidgeting a little uneasily.

‘And who was the woman?’

‘By the name of Anne Champion, as I gathered, sir. I overheard their
quarrel, sir, through the folding-doors betwixt the rooms in St. James’
Square, sir.’

‘So that was why you and Patty were so particular that we met outside,
and altogether—eh, Peter?’

‘The same, sir.’

‘Ah, Peter, I have hope for you yet! Sometimes I think you scarce human,
you are so dutiful and faithful, but you stooped to some deceit, I’m
glad to hear, once, all along of Patty!’

Peter smiled his demure smile.

‘’Twas as you say, sir,—all along of Patty,’ he assented.

Phil reverted then to the quarrel. ‘Anne Champion, Anne Champion,’ he
repeated. ‘And who was Anne Champion, think you, Peter?’

Peter came up to the fireplace, re-arranged the ornaments on the
mantel-shelf, blew away a speck of imaginary dust from the gilt top of
the clock, and then, speaking low, he said at last—

‘Your mother, sir, if I made no mistake, sir.’

‘Eh?’ queried Phil, sitting forward in his chair, becoming suddenly
sober.

‘The same, sir,’ repeated Peter.

‘And Shepley and my father fell out over my mother, by your way of it,
then?’

‘’Twas that way for certain, sir.’

‘And what became of my mother, since you know so much, Peter?’

‘How she came by her death, sir, I have no knowledge, but this I can
tell you as the master knew naught of her death till Shepley told him
the same. I heard them speak it out. Saith the master, “I shall provide
for her,” and saith Shepley, “She wants for naught,” and saith the
master, “’Tis I should support her now,” and then saith Shepley, “Anne
Champion is dead, and her blood be on you, and on your children,” and
with that he walked out of the room and through the hall to the street
door, and the whole was over. I made bold to enter the room, and there
sat the master white and shakin’ like any leaf. “Sir,” says I, “there
hath harm come to you,” but he made little of it, and bade me fetch him
some wine. The same I did, and set to straighten the room, that was in a
disorder such as never was. The master watched me a minute, and then
saith he, “Can you be silent on this, Peter—no word of it to any in the
house?” and with that what think you he did, sir? The most of gentlemen
would have offered me money; the master he held out his hand to me like
any other man. I’ve been silent on it all these years, sir, for that
handshake.’

Phil had been listening breathlessly, his quick wits piecing together
from Peter’s rather incoherent account some skeleton of the truth. But
at this point he fairly laughed.

‘The devil he did!’ he said. ‘Now, was not that like him, Peter? Ah, you
are a clever man, my good father!’

Peter smiled indulgently. ‘Now, sir, you do never give the master his
due, if I may make bold to say so,’ he began. ‘But to finish with the
story, sir. ’Twas not more than six weeks from then that you was brought
to the house, sir, and that’s all I do know—but, sir, from it you’ll
see how ’twould be if you took up with Miss Carrie Shepley.’

‘Well, Peter, if the case be so serious as you say, you and Patty should
have hesitated ere you introduced us,’ said Phil mischievously.

‘Sir, sir, this is no laughing matter,’ said Peter in a sad tone, for
Phil, with the incurable flippancy that characterised him, had burst
into a peal of laughter at the man’s grave face.

‘Peter, you are a Methodist; pour me out my wine and go; there is no
calculating what will come to me “all along of Carrie,”’ he said. But
when Peter had gone Phil rose and stood looking into the glass that hung
on the wall, while he examined his features with a new interest. ‘Anne
Champion,’ he repeated. And as, for the first time, he uttered his
mother’s name a curious thrill passed through him. ‘Poor mother of
mine,’ he said, ‘I hope I have more of you in me than of Richard
Meadowes.’




                              CHAPTER XIX


‘Satan,’ says Dr. Watts, ‘finds mischief for idle hands to do.’ And
Caroline Shepley, being very idle at Wynford, fell into mischief in a
way which would have confirmed good Dr. Watts in his convictions. Lady
Mallow’s influenza, by dint of coddling, had become very severe indeed,
and Carrie was left quite to her own devices. What these were the
readers who have followed this story so far will have little difficulty
in guessing. Day after day Philip and Carrie met each other, and their
acquaintance deepened and ripened with extraordinary rapidity. They
seemed to have none of the preliminaries of friendship to go through,
but to have arrived suddenly at intimacy. Carrie was no great
letter-writer at any time, now all thoughts of writing had long ago left
her; she had not put pen to paper for three weeks—so absorbing an
interest is flirtation. The weather hitherto had been very fine, but at
last one morning broke wet and grey. Carrie was sick at heart; how could
she meet Philip out of doors on such a day? she asked herself.

Now dwellers in town may dread a wet day, yet they can scarcely dread it
with that entire dismay of heart that falls upon the country dweller at
sight of the blank grey heavens, the spongy roads, the dripping trees.
The pleasures of the country are, in fact, entirely visionary in wet
weather, its discomforts really practical. Carrie stood and looked out
over the fields, yesterday so green, to-day so grey; up at the skies,
yesterday so blue, to-day so leaden, and her heart died within her. What
on earth should she do with herself all day? She went up-stairs and
tried to be sympathetic over her aunt’s symptoms for an hour or more,
then she came down-stairs again and worked at her embroidery, then she
tried to read (Carrie was not intellectual, you remember), then she fell
asleep and wakened to hear the dinner-bell ring, always a welcome
summons to this hearty young heroine.

Dinner over, Carrie went again to inquire for the health of Lady Mallow,
and as she stood beside the bed, listening with ill-concealed yawns to
an enumeration of all the symptoms, Carrie became aware of a sudden
lightening of the leaden skies, and a watery sunbeam shot in at the
window. She could have clapped her hands for joy.

‘Now, Caroline,’ said Lady Mallow, ‘here is the _Gentlewoman’s Journal_,
which contains much useful information, such as may be useful to you in
after life. I commend to your attention the article which relates to the
making of wax-flowers, a most pretty accomplishment, and one which,
along with other feminine parts of education, I fear your good father
hath omitted from your course of study,’ etc.

Carrie listened with very scant attention, but she took the Journal and
made her escape from the room quickly enough.

There could be no doubt about it—the sun was trying to shine. It is
true everything was dripping with moisture, but what of that? Carrie
donned a long blue cloak, slipped a loose blue hood over her curls, and
set off down the avenue without a thought. It must be confessed that a
hope came to her that Phil too might be tempted out by this change in
the weather. Nor was Carrie mistaken, for she had not gone very far
along the roads—very miry they were—before she heard some one
whistling gaily in the distance, and then Phil came across one of the
fields, leaped the fence, and stood beside her.

‘Now, how delightful, Carrie!’ he began; ‘I was just wondering how best
I could meet you. ’Twas bold of you to venture out in such weather, but
you have your reward, you see,’ added this saucy young man.

‘If you but knew the day I have passed!’ cried Carrie. ‘Come, Phil, take
me to walk somewhere; I am near stifled with sitting in my aunt’s
chamber listening to her symptoms and reading the _Gentlewoman’s
Journal_.’

‘We had best keep on the road, then; the fields are heavy walking
to-day,’ said Phil, and they stepped out along the road very well
pleased with each other. It struck Carrie, however, that her companion
scarcely looked so cheerful as he had done the day before; perhaps this
dull weather affected his spirits, she thought.

‘Tell me, what is your father like?’ asked Phil suddenly. Carrie was
rather surprised, but she answered with eager pride:—

‘Tall above the common, and with eyes as blue as mine; and every one
depends on him: half London come to him to be cured.’ Phil walked along
in silence for a little.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Carrie; ‘you seem quiet to-day.’

‘I was thinking—thinking of my father,’ said Phil, then turning towards
her with his sudden impulsive manner he burst out, ‘’Twould be strange
to feel after that fashion for one’s father! I’ll tell you what my
father is; I am so like him I can see—yes, see—straight into his mind,
and I know every thought that passes through it. All my life I’ve lived
with him, and had everything from his hand, and for the life of me,
Carrie, I cannot trust him!’

‘Oh, Phil, have a care what you say!’ exclaimed Carrie, but Phil, fairly
driven on by the current of his words, continued without heeding her—

‘Ninety-nine times he’d bless you, the hundredth time he’d curse you;
his kindness, when he chooses, can’t be known, and when it comes to an
end he’s as hard as these flints. Oh, but he is not bad through and
through either, only like a rotten fruit—one bite so good and the next
all gone to corruption. I sometimes look and look at him and wonder how
’twill end—the good or the bad. I’d like to have a bet on him, I’d back
the devil in him though, and I’d win. And for all this, Carrie, when he
talks to me, as he will sometimes for hours, ’tis all I can do not to
worship him. He understands me full as well as I understand him, that’s
the strange thing, and he knows I know his heart. When I look at him and
think about myself, I think sometimes that I am doomed to perdition.
I’ll go his way, only quicker, and that’s the way that leads——’

All of a sudden Phil stopped, pointing down to the ground ominously.

‘No,’ said Carrie; ‘for your eyes are open.’

‘That’s the way my father has gone; you don’t suppose he sins with his
eyes shut,’ said Phil. ‘He told me once (he’s nothing if not frank)
that——’

Round the corner of the road came a sudden sound of wheels, a jingle of
harness, a plash of many horses’ feet through the mire. Carrie glanced
up to see a coach with outriders approaching; the men wore prune
liveries, and at sight of them Phil stood still.

‘_My father, Carrie_,’ he said, and Carrie marvelled at his tense voice.

Splish-splash through the sparking mud came the horses, each with his
jogging postilion a-back, whipping and spurring and cursing by turns,
for the roads were heavy and the horses weary.

Phil and Carrie stood to the side, and Carrie took a curious glance into
the coach, where a man sat, its only occupant. The next moment the coach
had drawn up beside them, and the man, opening the door, stepped out on
to the road, and bowed low before Carrie.

‘I scarce expected to find my son in such fair company, madam,’ he said,
but with a little interrogative lift of his eyebrows.

Phil’s face flushed, but he answered in a clear, steady voice.

‘Sir, may I have the honour to present to you Miss Caroline Shepley? It
has been my good fortune to make Miss Shepley’s acquaintance since
coming to Wynford.’

‘Good fortune indeed,’ said Richard Meadowes, though the name went
through him like a stab. Nemesis, Nemesis!—what was this? A woman in a
blue hood stood before him, who wore the very features of Sebastian
Shepley, and did he dream that Philip called her by that name?

A good thing it is we do not see into men’s hearts as we look into their
faces! Carrie, as she stood all unconscious by the roadside in her blue
hood, saw in Richard Meadowes only an elderly man, alert-looking, and of
courteous address, who smiled on her with such a singularly pleasant and
interesting smile that at once she wished to see him smile again. To
this end she smiled herself, and with a gesture towards Phil, she said
very sweetly—

‘The fortune hath not been altogether on his side, sir, for indeed I
should have fared ill at Wynford without your son’s society.’

‘Phil should know better than to ask a lady to walk out over such roads
as these,’ said Meadowes, with a glance at Carrie’s shoes; for that
careless young woman, who was very vain of her pretty feet, had come out
in a pair of smart high-heeled satin shoes—now, alas! smart no longer.

‘Oh, we are not come so very far from home,’ said Carrie; ‘but, sir,
Phil will wish to ride home with you. I shall not go farther now.’

‘You must allow me to have the honour of fetching you home in the
coach,’ said Meadowes. He offered his hand to Carrie, and held open the
door of the coach as he spoke.

Carrie considered it very good fun to ride home in a coach and four. She
thought what fun she would make of it in her next letter to her father.
But she noticed how silent Phil had become of a sudden. He sat on the
back seat and allowed his father to carry on all the conversation.

At the gate of Lady Mallow’s house Carrie descended, and, with a
farewell wave of her hand, tripped off up the avenue in her damp little
shoes.

After Carrie had left the coach all efforts at conversation ceased
entirely between father and son. But when they drew up at the door,
Meadowes, as he got out, signified to Phil that he would speak with him
at once in the library.

Phil followed his father with a shrug which was not noticed by the older
man, as he seated himself in a large chair, and indicated to Phil that
he should stand facing him.

‘Where did you meet Miss Caroline Shepley?’ was the first suavely put
question which Phil had to answer.

‘In the fields by the river, sir.’

‘And what introduction had you to this fair lady?’

‘I had met her before, sir.’

‘Where?’

‘In London.’

‘At whose house in London?’

‘In the Park.’

‘And who presented you to her there?’

‘A friend, sir.’

‘What friend?’

‘I cannot tell you, sir.’

‘You must tell me.’

‘I will not.’

There was a short silence. Phil leant against the mantel-shelf looking
straight at his father, and waited for him to speak.

Meadowes folded his arms, unfolded them, leant back in his chair,
finally spoke—

‘Well, that is straight speech, my son, and mine shall be as straight:
After this time you shall not with my permission have word or look again
for Miss Caroline Shepley.’

‘Have you aught against Carrie Shepley, sir?’ asked Phil. He burned to
tell his father all he knew, but the dread of bringing Peter into
disgrace tied his tongue—he must try to extract the story for himself.

‘I have: let that suffice you. Philip,’ cried his father, starting
forward in his seat, ‘Philip, you are too young to question my commands
after this fashion. Enough that I tell you to have no further speech
with this young woman. ’Tis not for you to gainsay me.’

Phil drew himself up quickly from the easy lounging attitude he had
stood in.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘speak with Carrie? I will speak with her, yes, and
court her, yes, and marry her—that I’ll do if Heaven so send that
she’ll have me.’

‘On how long acquaintance have you taken this resolve?’ asked his father
dryly.

‘Three weeks, sir.’

‘Ah, long enough assuredly for so unimportant a step to be considered!’

Phil was too acute not to see that his adversary had scored here. He
had, moreover, a trait of age seldom to be noticed in the young: he
could laugh at his own foibles. He laughed now, well amused at his
ardour, and, dropping lightly on his knees beside his father’s chair,
took Meadowes’ long white hand in his with his sudden irresistible
impetuosity.

‘Sir, will you not tell me the story of your heart?’ he said. ‘Sure
every man alive hath felt as I feel now!’

‘My heart! ’twould be a history indeed,’ said Meadowes. He spoke
uneasily, for he had reached that stage of moral decay which refuses to
answer any serious questioning. With a quick shuffle of the
conversational cards he passed on:—

‘A history indeed.—But to return to the subject in hand from which you
try to escape: you have known Caroline Shepley for three weeks; you wish
to marry her; I do not intend that you should; therefore there the case
stands.’

Phil had risen and stood before his father again. There is nothing more
irritating to the finer feelings than to have questions, which we put in
all seriousness, answered lightly. Phil had for a moment thought he
might gain his father’s confidence, but he had been mistaken. He felt
jarred and baffled.

‘I am sorry, sir. I shall take my own way,’ he said.

‘Then I shall have no more to do with you, Philip.’

‘Then I shall have to provide for myself. You have at least given me
brains enough for that,’ said Phil hotly.

‘Do you think so? Well, brains are a good gift, better perhaps than
gold.’

Phil stared at his father for a moment in blank amazement, then he
turned on his heel and left the room without a word.




                               CHAPTER XX


After Philip had gone, Richard Meadowes leaned back in his chair with
closed eyes for a long time. The past was stirred in him by this
quarrel. In the twenty years that had elapsed since Anne Champion’s
death he had changed very little outwardly; but the soul had travelled a
long road these twenty years. Now looking back over the ‘Past’s enormous
disarray’ he scarcely recognised himself for the same man he had been.
He that had started so eagerly in the race, how he lagged now! he had
not an enthusiasm left, and smiled to remember all he used to have. At
one time too he remembered having thought about things spiritual; these
did not visit him now. Once even he had feared death and judgment; death
now-a-days had ceased to appall him, and for judgment he thought of it
as an old-world fable. He could even think of Anne Champion’s sad story
and her cruel end with no more than a momentary pang of discomfort.

But for all this the soul was still partially alive in this man. He
could still suffer, and that is a sign of vitality, and if he had a
genuine sentiment left it was for his son.

His suffering indeed was of a purely egotistical sort. The vast failure
he had made of life struck a sort of cold despair through him; Phil must
make restitution for his failures; and now the coldest thought of all
assailed him: he had not Phil’s heart. He had lavished kindness on the
boy all his life, yet sometimes Phil would look at him in his curiously
expressive fashion and turn away quickly as if to hide the thought that
leapt out from his speaking eyes: ‘I know you, I understand you.’

But whether Phil loved him or not, thought he, he could not afford to
quarrel with him after this fashion. Everything else in life had failed;
Phil at least he must keep!

Meadowes rose hurriedly and went in search of Phil, who had gone out, it
appeared, across the Park.

The sun had come out now, after the rain, and its warmth drew up the
smell of the mould from the streaming moisture-laden earth.

‘Earth, where I shall soon lie,’ thought Meadowes; ‘earth, that will
absorb me into its elements again. Then the great failure will be at an
end, the puzzle solved—no, not solved, only concluded: solved would
mean another life, and that would mean—— Ah! the opened Books, and the
Face from which earth and heaven flee away, and the Voice crying: “_Give
an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward._”
Tush, why does that old nonsense so ring in the brain?’

‘Phil, Phil,’ he shouted; he could stand his own thoughts no longer.

It is always a difficult matter to retract one’s words. But it was a
characteristic of Richard Meadowes that he could generally extricate
himself from any difficult situation with grace and composure.

It was, he admitted, quite unsuitable that, after having fairly warned
Phil of the results of his disobedience, he should now retract all he
had just said; but it must be done. Phil must stay with him at any cost.

So, putting the best face he could to it, he called and called again for
Philip, who at last appeared: he had quite expected the summons.

‘I suppose he desires to forget all that has just passed,’ thought Phil,
well aware of the sway he held over his father’s affections.

‘I think you called me, sir?’ he said. He wore a very demure aspect.

‘Yes; I wished to explain this matter further, Phil: ’twas perhaps
scarcely fair in me not to give you a reason for my displeasure. Let us
walk on and I shall tell you all.’

But it would, alas, have been as impossible for the Richard Meadowes of
now-a-days to tell all the truth about any subject as it would be for a
crab to discontinue the sidelong gait which is its inheritance; so he
cut out one half of the story and padded up the other half, and summed
up the whole in one easy sentence: ‘’Twas, in fact, jealousy on
Shepley’s part caused our quarrel,’ he said—a half-truth which altered
the facts of the case a little.

‘Who was the woman?’ asked Philip bluntly. ‘I suppose she was my
mother?’

‘Yes, Anne Champion by name,’ Meadowes said, but hurried on before Phil
had time to question him further. ‘So you can see, Philip, that I have
reason on my side when I bid you have no more to do with Miss Caroline
Shepley.’

‘I scarce see why an old quarrel between our parents should come between
us,’ said Phil.

‘My dear Phil,’ said the candid father, ‘I will be frank with you—’tis
an old story, and I, for my part, would willingly bury it; but I know
Shepley for a man of vindictive passions, and I tell you this, that no
power on earth would persuade him to give you his daughter’s hand in
marriage. ’Twill spare you perhaps much pain and unpleasantness with him
if you but take my advice and see no more of the girl.’

Phil shook his head. But light had meantime come to Meadowes. He would
make peace with Phil yet—all would be well.

‘Well, Phil,’ he said, ‘I have told you the truth of how the matter
stands, and how prudence should guide you; but moreover I have
considered what I said to you in haste, and even should you persist in
this folly I will not turn you from your home.’

Then with a sudden genuine impulse of feeling he laid his hand on Phil’s
arm.

‘Phil, Phil, you are all that I have—you must stay with me were a
hundred Carrie Shepleys in the case.’ Phil did not speak, but he took
his father’s hand, bowing over it with the elaborate courtesy of the
age.

‘I can only ask you, give this matter your very careful consideration,’
said his father, and with that he turned the conversation into another
channel.

But a few hours later—when the dusk had fallen, a man on horseback left
Fairmeadowes bearing a special and important missive to Dr. Sebastian
Shepley of London. The horseman had orders to spend as little time on
the road as might be, and the letter ran thus:—

    ‘SEBASTIAN SHEPLEY,—Richard Meadowes must acquaint you with the
    fact that, unless you take prompt measures for the removal of
    your daughter from the house of her aunt Lady Mallow, she will
    undoubtedly contract a marriage with the son of that man who has
    the honour to sign himself

             ‘YOUR ENEMY.’




                              CHAPTER XXI


Carrie—unconscious, sleepy Carrie—laid herself down to rest that night
in her four-post bed, and slept the dreamless sleep of youth and health,
till the morning light stealing through the curtains disturbed her a
little, when she dreamt she was riding down Piccadilly in a coach and
four with Philip Meadowes, and wakened with a laugh.

And all this night, that had passed so quickly for Carrie, a man was
spurring along the miry roads towards London, bearing a letter that was
big with fate for her; while at Fairmeadowes Phil tossed about,
revolving something in his mind that did not seem to take shape very
easily; and Richard Meadowes too lay sleepless till the dawn.

Three sleepless men, ‘all along of Carrie,’ as Phil had so vulgarly put
it!

The cause of Phil’s sleeplessness was not far to seek, for, late that
night, Peter had brought him a curious and disquieting piece of news.

‘The master hath sent George a-ridin’ express to town this night, sir,’
he had said, and then, in a whisper, ‘bearing a letter, sir, with the
address “_To Dr. Sebastian Shepley_.” For George is no scholar, and came
to me to read the direction, sir, and there it was, so sure as I do
stand in my shoes.’

Phil, who was not without youthful affectations, pretended to receive
this intelligence with great unconcern; but when Peter had gone he
strode up and down the room in great agitation. Then he threw up the
window, and leant out into the velvety spring darkness. Thoughts
throbbed through his brain that the cool night air could do very little
to calm.

‘By Heaven!’ he said, speaking out into the darkness, ‘he’ll not outwit
me.’

So this was what his father’s sudden change of front had meant!—he
wished to throw the blame upon Dr. Shepley if Carrie was taken away. Oh
ho, that was very wily no doubt, ‘but not all the fathers in Britain
shall outwit me,’ said the arrogant Philip, and began to revolve schemes
in his busy, clever young head.

Towards morning he turned over on his pillow, and fell to sleep at last.

‘I can but try my luck,’ he murmured as his eyes closed.

The spring world was all a-dazzle with sunshine again after yesterday’s
rain, when Carrie came down-stairs. I regret to say that she came
down-stairs late, bidding the maid ‘not tell Lady Mallow’ with such a
charming smile that the austere elderly woman fibbed profusely to her
mistress a few minutes later. After breakfast, Carrie went out on to the
lawn, and stood, in apparent irresolution, looking round her. She smiled
to herself out of mere pleasure of heart, and strolled away down the
steps to the terrace, following her errant fancies. From the terrace
there was a wide view far over the country. Carrie stood still here,
shaded her eyes from the brilliant sunshine, and gazed intently in the
direction of Fairmeadowes.

Far away among the fields she saw some one walking by the river bank.
Carrie was irresolute no longer. She did not stay to put on her hat and
her gloves, nor stop to consider that she had not yet visited her aunt’s
sick-room—no, she did none of these things, but ran off down the
avenue, and, pushing through the hedge, walked with more sedateness
across the fields. In the distance, now, she could hear a long clear
whistle like a bird’s note. It came nearer and nearer, then Phil came up
through the long, reedy, flowering grasses by the riverside, with both
hands held out to her; his shining eyes seemed to speak for him.

‘I thought you were never coming, Carrie,’ he said, and took her hands
in his.

Hitherto their relations had been strictly unsentimental, now they had
suddenly become lovers; without a word of explanation they both
acknowledged it.

‘Come and sit down, Carrie, I have all the world to say to you,’ said
Phil, and he flung his arm round her as he spoke. To Carrie it seemed
the most natural thing that Phil should be in love with her—she had
known it indeed for ten days past—she was not the least surprised at
it, but what did surprise her now was to find that she too was in love,
and that it was so natural—she seemed to have loved Phil always. It was
no astonishing thing to her that she should sit here with Phil’s arm
round her, and hear him say all manner of things that only yesterday he
would never have dreamed of saying. What did astonish her was that he
had not said all this long ago! Why not yesterday? why not when they
first met? Had they ever been strangers? Had they not understood each
other always? It was ridiculous this sudden assumption of loverishness
on Phil’s part; they had been lovers from long long ago!

And from these happy thoughts Carrie was rudely wakened by what Phil was
saying. His voice was urgent, his looks were anxious; he was actually
telling her a story, in rather incoherent words, about both their
parents, and a woman and a fight, and she did not take it all in.

‘But what has all this to do with you and with me, Phil?’ she asked,
raising her face to his.

Phil turned and shook her ever so lightly.

‘Oh, you dear dull darling that you are,’ he cried; ‘do you not see they
will separate us?—take you away from me, Carrie—never allow you to see
me again?’

‘But I could not live without you,’ said simple Carrie, unaware that the
formula had been used before; it seemed quite an original argument to
her.

‘Nor I without you, of course,’ cried Phil—quite as unoriginal, in
spite of his quick wits (the poor and the rich in wits as in wealth meet
together in some things), ‘and for that reason you won’t refuse me what
I ask, Carrie—’tis the only plan—I’ve thought all the matter out, and
unless you will do it, your father will be here to-night, and will carry
you off to London, and you will never see my face again, as like as
not.’

‘Well?’ asked Carrie dubiously.

‘You’ll run away with me, and marry me. ’Tis as easy as the alphabet if
once we get to London.’

‘Oh, but my father,’ protested Carrie.

‘Well, it has come to this: you must choose betwixt him and me; he will
never allow you to marry me if he knows.’

‘But ’tis so sudden, Phil!—if I had even a day to consider the matter.’

‘You have scarce an hour,’ said Phil; ‘by now your father has that
letter, by another hour, if I mistake not, he will be on his way here;
by the evening he will have arrived. You must come with me now, now,
now—or——’

The unspoken alternative of separation struck coldly on Carrie’s ear.
Yet another love, older, steadier, plucked at her heart—she was torn
between the two.

‘Ah, Phil,’ she cried, ‘I cannot leave you, and I cannot grieve my
father. What am I to do? O what a sad thing trouble is—I have never
known it before!’

(I doubt if she ever had.)

Phil was not, perhaps, as diligent a Biblical student as he might have
been, but his researches in that direction came to his aid at this
moment.

‘Oh, you know, Carrie, there is Scripture for that,’ he said, ‘about
“leaving father and mother and cleaving to your wife”—that’s the rule
for men, and I dare swear it holds good for women too.’

‘Do you think so? But I would not grieve my father for the world,’
hesitated Carrie.

Phil grew impatient, for time was racing on, the sun was high in the
heavens now.

‘You must—you must; can you bear to think of never seeing me again? I’d
sooner miss the sun out of the sky than you, Carrie.’

Carrie seemed to herself to be whirled round and round in the eddies of
Phil’s passion; she could not gainsay him, and yet she trembled and held
back.

‘Yes—ah, yes—I would go to the world’s end with you, Phil,’ she said,
‘if it were not for fear to grieve my father.’ She rose and paced up and
down the bank in an agony of indecision, clasping her hands together and
then flinging them out with a gesture of helpless bewilderment. Never in
life before had Carrie been called upon to make a decision of any
importance, and now the two strongest affections of her heart warred
together for the victory.

Phil came and paced beside her, arguing, beseeching, coaxing her by
turns—till she turned at last in despair and laid her hands in his.

‘I will come with you,’ she said.

Phil did not allow the grass to grow under his feet.

‘Come then, so quickly as you can, Carrie,’ he cried, ‘for each moment
is precious. I shall return to Fairmeadowes and tell them I am gone out
for the day. You must go home and put on your habit, and get one of your
good aunt’s horses.’

‘I am not permitted to ride alone,’ said Carrie, who saw lions in the
way at every turn.

Phil laughed, and put his hand in his pocket. ‘Here, Carrie,’ he said,
‘give me your hand.’ Carrie all unsuspicious laid her hand in his.

‘That is what you must do to your aunt’s groom, my child; there never
was groom yet but understood that argument,’ said Phil.

‘All this, Phil?’ said Carrie, as she eyed the yellow coin.

‘All that, and say, as you give it, that he must come to Wyntown for the
horse at five o’ the clock.’

‘But he will wonder, Phil.’

‘Doubtless.—Oh, Carrie, but women waste time on trifles!’

Carrie was nettled by this remark, so she hastened off as fast as she
could through the long meadow hay, determined that Phil should not find
her so dilatory after all.

‘Meet me at the cross roads,’ Phil shouted, as he ran off in the
direction of Fairmeadowes.




                              CHAPTER XXII


Philip, who knew every step of the road between Wynford and London, had
some very disquieting thoughts as he rode down to the cross roads to
meet Carrie.

Everything depended upon whether they could reach the half-way house at
Wyntown before Dr. Shepley. For after Wyntown there were several roads
which each led to town; but between Wynford and Wyntown there was only
one road. Therefore if they met, they would in all probability meet upon
that road. Phil determined to keep his fears to himself. It was a
pleasant morning, and a pleasant ride. He found Carrie already waiting
for him under the flickering shade of the beech-trees.

‘You see I can make haste when I please, sir,’ she said, trying to
smile. The smile, however, was rather forced, and after a few
ineffectual attempts at conversation they rode along in silence.

‘The deuce take that horse of your aunt’s!’ at last quoth Phil in
despair; ‘can you not make him go a better pace, Carrie?’

Carrie smiled, and shook her head. ‘My aunt will never permit her steeds
to go beyond a slow trot,’ she explained.

‘Oh, your aunt be ——,’ began Phil, and Carrie actually laughed
outright at his irritation.

‘Now you resemble a little boy I once knew who used bad words,’ she
said, looking up at him under her eyelashes.

‘I ask your pardon, Carrie; ’tis that old cow you are riding irritates
me,’ he said, with an impatient flick of his riding-whip.

Phil affected more assurance than he felt, however, as they dismounted
before the door of the inn at Wyntown. ‘Heaven send Shepley is not here
before us!’ he thought as he lifted Carrie down and gave the horses to
the ostler.

‘We shall come up-stairs and dine, Carrie,’ he said. ‘Do you not feel as
though you were my wife already?’ He drew Carrie’s rather limp little
hand through his arm as he spoke, and they went up-stairs to the inn
parlour, which overlooked the courtyard.

‘You are wearied, I fear, Carrie,’ he said.

‘Hot wearied, Phil, in the least, but not very happy,’ said Carrie, with
a stifled sob.

Phil affected deafness, and requested the landlady to bring up dinner as
quickly as might be. ‘For I am near famished with the morning air,
Mistress Heathe,’ said he, with a smile to the good woman, an old
acquaintance, ‘and so is this lady also; but she is somewhat weary, so
see no stranger comes in while we are here.’

‘Just as you please, sir; just as you please,’ said Mistress Heathe, as
she bustled round the table, and made bold to ask for his father’s
health.

‘The same I did serve with a bottle of wine yesterday at this very hour.
“Bad roads they are to-day, Mistress Heathe,” said he, for your father,
sir, is ever so affable in the passing by, ’tis a pleasure serving such
gentry as he, to be sure.’ And she gave a curious squint at Carrie
meanwhile.

That young woman made a show of eating a little, but in truth it was
Phil who cleared off the viands, and Lady Mallow would have been quite
pleased by the genteel appetite of her niece, if she could have seen how
she toyed with a scrap of chicken, and shook her head at sight of an
apple tart.

‘I am sorry, Phil, I cannot eat,’ she said, ‘and somehow I cannot talk
either, so perhaps we had best not try to talk.’

‘Never fear, Carrie; ’twill be all right soon,’ said Phil, and he
crossed over to the window and sat there looking out into the yard.

Wyntown was nearly equidistant between London and Wynford, so,
calculating that Dr. Shepley had left town at the same hour as they had
left Wynford, he must arrive at Wyntown not much later than
themselves—so calculated Philip. He had no real reason to suppose that
Dr. Shepley would come at all; everything depended on the contents of
that letter, but if he did——

There was a rumble of wheels over the cobble-paved courtyard, and Phil
saw a very tall grave-faced man jump down from the seat of a post-chaise
and come up to the door. Carrie, at the sound of the wheels, came to the
window. She laid her hand on Phil’s shoulder, and glanced out.

‘Phil! Phil!’ she cried, ‘’tis my dear father.’

In the one glance she had got of his face Carrie marked there a new
stamp of anxiety she had never seen before—and it was she who had
stamped it there! She turned away and buried her face on the cushions of
the settle. Phil, trying to be hard-hearted, affected no sympathy with
her grief, but when at last there came a succession of quick gasping
sobs, he crossed the room and bent over her.

‘Come, Carrie, you must not grieve so,’ he said rather lamely. Carrie
sat up and dried her pretty eyes, that were all reddened with tears.

‘O Phil,’ she said, with a little choke in her voice, ‘I have never seen
him look thus. Ah, I must see him—speak with him—I shall explain!’

She rose and hurried to the door, but Phil barred her exit.

‘’Tis madness, Carrie—sheer madness this,’ he expostulated; ‘you’ll
never see my face again if Dr. Shepley discovers you here with me.’

‘I cannot help it. Ah, Phil, do not be cruel! See him I must—then I
shall go with you—then we will be married.’

‘You are a fool, Carrie!’ cried Phil, carried away by one of his sudden,
hot fits of temper. ‘“Then we will be married!”—do you suppose for one
moment your father would permit our marriage?’

‘Yes,’ said Carrie, ‘I think he would.’

‘Then you think nonsense.’

‘I know him better than you do, Phil.’

‘Well, explain me this then—if so be he will not oppose our marriage,
why doth he hasten from London at first hint of your meeting me?’

‘He could not forbid it did he understand all I shall tell him; ’twould
not be like my father to do so. Phil, you do not know him. You do not
guess even at his generous heart—you——’

‘Generous!’ laughed Phil; ‘no, no, not so generous as that.’

‘Phil, I shall see him—whatever you say, I shall see him!’ cried
Carrie, and she tried once more to escape towards the door.

And Phil, fairly mastered now by his temper, flung the door wide open,
crying out: ‘Go to him then, if you love him the best.’

A moment later he saw Carrie swirl down the narrow panelled passage of
the inn into the very arms of Sebastian, who had appeared at the far end
of it.

‘Lord, Carrie!’ he heard Sebastian exclaim, as he laughed his jolly
whole-hearted laugh and kissed his daughter on either cheek with more
fervour than gentility. Then there was an incoherent murmur of
exclamation and sobs from Carrie, then Sebastian’s voice again:—

‘And how are you here, my girl? Have you run away from her Ladyship and
the influenza?’

‘Yes, sir—with Philip Meadowes, sir,’ said Carrie, whose downright
nature equalled her father’s.

Phil held his breath to hear what Sebastian would reply.

‘And where is Philip Meadowes?’ he heard Sebastian say. A minute later
Carrie came into the parlour, leading her father by the hand. There fell
a moment of ominous silence. Neither of the men spoke, but Carrie, as
she took a hand of each, and looked from one to the other in puzzled,
pretty confusion, was the first to speak.

‘This is Philip, sir,’ she said; ‘and indeed I am sure you cannot choose
but love him.’

‘There may be two opinions on that point mayhap,’ said Sebastian grimly.

For all the antagonism of their mutual relations at the moment, Phil,
with his extraordinarily sensitive nature, felt a sudden impulse of
liking to this man, Carrie’s father. ‘Why have I not a father like
that?’ he thought—‘some one to rely on without a shadow of distrust.’
Poor Philip, for all his charm, was sadly alone in the difficult places
of life, and youth, in spite of all its self-assertion, is conscious
enough of its own need. Beside this resolute masterful man, Phil felt
himself, of a sudden, boyish and foolish, as he had never felt before.
But, assuming a great deal more self-confidence than he felt, he bowed
to Dr. Shepley and ‘feared the circumstances of their meeting would
scarce conduce to an agreeable acquaintance between them.’

The older man did not reply to this remark; but drew back the
window-curtain so that the light might fall full across Phil’s face, and
gazed intently at him for a few moments. Annie’s son! Flesh of her
flesh, bone of her bone—and Annie cold in her grave these twenty years!
How say some among us that there is no resurrection? This is, instead, a
world of resurrections, in which that man or woman is fortunate who can
succeed in burying the past so deep that it cannot rise. Phil and
Carrie, hot with their own impatient young desires, were only irritated
by Sebastian’s silence. How could they guess at that blinding back-flash
of memory that held him silent at sight of Phil? How could they hear the
voice Sebastian heard—an urgent tearful voice, ‘_Phil, that hath gotten
half my soul_’; and again, ‘_If ever you can help Phil you’ll do it,
because I gave him half my soul_,’ . . . and . . . ‘_God give Phil a
white heart_,’ . . . and . . . ‘_Come, Sebastian?_’

‘Sir, sir, speak!’ cried Carrie, catching hold again of her father’s
hand.

At the touch of her hand, at the sound of her voice, Sebastian came back
to the present—the important present.

‘By Heaven!’ he cried. ‘Once in life is enough to be robbed by Richard
Meadowes!’

‘But, sir, I am not Richard Meadowes,’ said Phil.

‘His son; and twice accursed by that token. Never shall daughter of mine
have my consent to marry with son of his—black-hearted lying devil that
he is.’

Carrie shrank back, scared at her father’s violence; she had never heard
him speak like this before.

‘Perhaps, sir, ’twould be better for you and me to discuss this matter
by ourselves,’ suggested Phil. There had, in fact, been no explanation
given on either side as yet, a fact which Phil was the first to realise.
Sebastian, beside himself with anger, at the sight of Carrie in company
with the son of his enemy, had never stopped to ask any questions one
way or other.

‘There is little to discuss, I know, Mr. Meadowes,’ he said. ‘I have
information this very day of your intentions, sent me by your father,
and these intentions I cannot even discuss with you; I cannot give you
my daughter. Even had you asked her hand of me in a fair and honourable
manner, I would have denied it. Now doubly I do so since you thought to
obtain it by stealth—a coward’s trick, that savours of the man you have
the honour to name your father.’

Carrie, who knew the hot temper of her lover, held her breath for fear.
But Phil did not fly into a sudden passion. He looked Sebastian full in
the face, but though he flushed with anger, his words were quiet enough.

‘Did I not know the bitter provocation which makes you speak so, I would
not stand here and listen to you in silence,’ he said. ‘My father may be
all that you say, sir, but’—here Phil hesitated for a breath—‘he is
all the father I have, and moreover has been a kind parent enough to me,
as the world counts kindness.’

‘There—the boy speaks rightly,’ said Sebastian. ‘My words were perhaps
over hasty; but the larger fact of our quarrel remains—that you have
induced my daughter to leave her home with you, instead of honestly
asking her hand from me.’

‘I knew, as you have indeed just told me, that that would be wasted
breath; ’twas the only thing left me to do; now Carrie hath spoilt it
all, and I suppose she means to return with you,’ said Phil, his anger
redoubled.

‘I presume that to be her intention,’ said Sebastian, turning to Carrie
as he spoke.

‘Sir, dearest sir, I must do as you command me now,’ said Carrie.
‘But’—and here she laid her hand in Phil’s—‘some day I must go with
Phil, for he hath all my heart.’

‘When you are old enough to take your own will against mine?’ asked
Sebastian.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘When that day comes, you choose betwixt him and me.’

‘If so be I must make the choice,’ said Carrie, ‘I must choose Phil; I
cannot, cannot forsake him.’

There fell a short silence, then Philip spoke.

‘You must admit, sir,’ he said, ‘’tis hard that Carrie and I should be
parted by reason of your and my father’s old quarrels. But I, in my
turn, must admit I did wrong to make her leave home with me as I
did—for that I must ask your forgiveness, but, as I live, sir, I swear
you’d have done the same at my age!’

It was scarcely possible for Phil to harp very long on the serious
string; inevitably his buoyant nature resented the restraint it was
under, and broke through it. Frustrated, disappointed, angry, on the eve
of being parted from Carrie, he must still find something to laugh at.
And Sebastian, in spite of himself, very much in spite of himself, found
it impossible not to laugh also.

‘’Pon my soul! the boy does not lack assurance! Yes, that I would!’ he
said, but added a moment later, ‘I laugh, but that doth not retract my
displeasure one whit, nor alter a word of what I have said: Carrie shall
never marry you an I can prevent it.’

‘How long must I wait ere you consider Carrie of an age to choose for
herself?’ asked Phil.

‘Two years, at the earliest. You will then be of an age to judge for
yourself, though young enough to marry, in all conscience.’

‘And during these two years how much may I see of Carrie?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I may write to her at times?’

‘No, never; you forget, Mr. Meadowes, that my object is that you should
forget one another so speedily as may be.’

Philip bowed, accepting the inevitable.

‘If that be all, there remains nothing but that I should say my
farewells,’ said he.

‘Nothing; the sooner and the shorter they are the better,’ said
Sebastian. He looked at the two young people before him. Carrie stood
scared and silent by the window.

Phil crossed over to where she stood and gathered her up in his arms,
kissing her long and fondly.

‘If it must be.—Good-bye, sweetheart, I shall never forget,’ he said.
And Carrie, as she raised her lips to his, smiled an almost happy smile.

They vowed at that moment an unspoken vow, and parted undoubtingly.

‘Come, dearest sir!’ said Carrie a moment later, when Phil was gone;
‘shall we return to London to-night—you and I?’

‘There! if you wish to see the last of him,’ said Sebastian. He pointed
out to the courtyard, where the ostler had led out Phil’s horse.

‘Lord! what a temper the boy hath!’ said Sebastian, for Phil, without
one backward look to the window where Carrie stood, gave a savage lash
at the horse, which bounded out through the archway, and swung round the
turn that led into the Wynford road with scant direction from its rider.

‘The Lord send him safe at Fairmeadowes,’ said Carrie softly, under her
breath.




                             CHAPTER XXIII


Carrie and her father found it a little difficult to explain her sudden
flight to Lady Mallow; but they patched up some sort of story that held
together after a fashion, and before very long her Ladyship had
forgotten all about Carrie’s escapade, as she considered it.

Carrie meantime had returned to London with her father, and the time
passed slowly enough at first. But Carrie had not the nature that broods
over the inevitable, and she quieted her heart better than most girls of
her age would have done in the same trying circumstances. There were all
the cheerful businesses of home to attend to—Carrie was a notable
housekeeper,—and these, after the forced idleness and gentility of her
stay at Lady Mallow’s, seemed doubly delightful. It was much more
agreeable to eat the pasties and cakes of one’s own making, she thought,
than those prepared by the most practised cook, and, moreover, there was
a new and inspiring thought at work in Carrie’s brain. Some day she
would be cooking all these good things for Philip! She did not stop to
consider that Phil, like Lady Mallow, had servants to cook for him, so
every day she would be trying new dishes, till Sebastian complained that
the _cuisine_ was too rich for his simple tastes, and Carrie blushed,
and murmured something about her book of recipes. The afternoons, when
her father was busy and her housekeeping labours were over for the day,
were the longest time to get through. Carrie would take her needlework
then and sit by the window, but she found plenty time for thought while
she sewed, and her thoughts seemed always to travel in the direction of
Wynford. Had Phil gone back to Oxford yet? she wondered; or was it
possible he was come to town? When could she see him again? What was he
doing? All the ingeniously ridiculous questions and suppositions of
lovers passed through her head in these long afternoons of sewing. In
the evenings Sebastian would take her out to walk or to the play, and
Carrie could not be insensible of the admiration she excited in public
places. Then summer wore away and winter was come. Carrie indulged in
some new and very becoming winter garments, and was more fidgety than
was her wont over the fit and the style of them. When these were ready
she persuaded her father one fine Saturday afternoon to take her for an
airing in the Mall. Sebastian hesitated a little, and professed himself
too busy, but at last consented, and Carrie—exquisitely bewitching in
her furry hood—walked at a slow pace down the Mall by his side, the
admired of all admirers. Now there exists between some people a
mysterious sympathy—telepathy, we call it in the nineteenth century, in
the eighteenth it was not named—which premonishes them of meeting, just
as the quicksilver in an aneroid will foretell the weather of the coming
day. When Carrie dressed herself in all her bravery, and prayed her
father for his escort, she was convinced deep down in her heart that she
would meet Phil that day. She had no reason whatever to suppose that he
was in town; she had walked out every day since they parted and never
met him, but to-day she felt certain she would do so. It came to her
therefore as no surprise to hear her father say—

‘Carrie, there comes Philip Meadowes.’ She did not need to be admonished
of the fact.

‘May I speak with him, sir?’

‘No.’

They had passed almost before the question and answer were spoken.
Carrie did not even bow to him in the passing, but she smiled a
brilliant flashing smile and blushed like a rose.

‘Phil looks older, does he not, sir?’ she asked, as they walked
along—only her quick-drawn breath and the excited little pinch she gave
to her father’s arm betrayed her excitement.

Sebastian did not reply.

It was the next Sunday that Carrie made a delightful discovery: Phil had
begun to come to church at St. Mary Minories! Carrie was just stifling a
yawn behind her hand, when, across the little church, she caught sight
of Phil. He sat just opposite her—why, why was the service so very
short? Carrie, who was as regular a slumberer as she was an attendant
upon Church services, now sat forward in the great square pew, wide
awake, and any observant person must have noted how her eyes wandered
across the church, and met those of the young man who occupied the
opposite pew. Then she would flicker her eyelids and look down and blush
an enchanting blush under the shade of the great feathered hat she wore,
and then the same thing would be gone through over again. Phil, on his
part, leant forward, staring unabashedly at Carrie. He was delighted to
observe that her sole guardian during church hours was Lady Mallow, and
Lady Mallow, like her niece, slept whenever it was possible to do so.
After they had mutually made these pleasant discoveries I suppose it
would have been difficult to find two happier young people than they
were that morning. Every circumstance seemed to be fortunate for them,
for Phil saw to his delight that Lady Mallow, whose pew was near the
door, seemed to be in the habit of letting all the congregation disperse
before she left it. This quite suited Phil. He walked slowly down the
aisle and passed so near Carrie that his sleeve brushed hers for a
moment—for Carrie had risen, and now fumbled at the door of the pew in
the most opportune manner.

Carrie said nothing about this to her father; she thought the meeting
had been accidental; but when another, and yet another, and yet another
Sunday passed, and on each day she saw Phil, Carrie, out of the depth of
her honest heart, found it necessary to tell Sebastian about it. She
came and stood behind his chair, let her pretty white hands fall one
over each shoulder, and laid her cheek against his.

‘Dear sir,’ she said, ‘I think I should tell you something—I think ’tis
scarce honest in me to be silent about it.’

‘Eh?’ queried Sebastian, as he turned to kiss one of Carrie’s hands.

‘I must tell you, sir, that I see Philip Meadowes each Lord’s day at
church in St. Mary Minories. I have never spoken with him, but I fear we
look at each other most part of the morning.’

‘Well,’ said Sebastian, ‘what of it?’

‘May I continue to go to church, sir? I feared you might forbid me,’
said Carrie, her heart bounding with hope.

‘The deuce take your honesty, Carrie. Do you think I can forbid you
now?’

Carrie laughed with delight—words after all were not everything. If
once each week she could sit and gaze at Philip, a year and a half would
surely pass quickly enough!




                              CHAPTER XXIV


There is no reckoning with the infinite possibilities for variation in
human character, which is one of the reasons why all ‘theories’ of
education are doomed to failure. Yet you will sometimes hear the
cleverest men and women lay down general axioms, forgetful of this
qualifying phrase, that may upset the entire calculation.

Richard Meadowes—in other matters a man of considerable acuteness, fell
into this common snare. The axiom which misled him was one which has
been accepted—well-nigh proven by half the world: that youth is fickle
and forgetful. Given fresh interests, new playthings, the young man does
not live (said he) who will not soon forget what so lately charmed him
most. Well, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred this may be true; but
that elusive hundredth case must also be reckoned with if one would make
certain.

‘Phil must go into society and see other women; ere six months are
passed he will never give another thought to this Caroline Shepley,’
said the prudent parent, who had indeed, on his way through the world,
seen many a man forget. Phil showed scant desire for society; he
declared his inclinations lay rather in the way of study, and expressed
a special yearning for legal research. But his father opposed this with
wise moderation.

‘There was of course no reason against it—Phil might please himself—he
was, by now, old enough to choose his own path in life—but, if he might
suggest it, a Parliamentary career offered greater scope for his
peculiar talents. Nothing would be easier. A few years hence . . . time
passed quickly—there was much to see and learn meantime . . . there was
the world to see, not to speak of the men in it. . . . Should they go
the Grand Tour of Europe together? . . . No?—ah, well, there was time
enough for that . . . He preferred London? Well, there was of course no
society like London, and the proper study of mankind (“clever mankind,
Phil, my son”) was certainly man—learn men and manners. He did not wish
to go into society? Ah, well, he might stay at home and do some
reading—no time was lost in reading—he had worked too hard at Oxford
and deserved a rest this winter,’ etc. etc.

Phil listened to it all and smiled and took his own way; he knew
perfectly well what his father’s thoughts were.

At first, after his parting with Carrie, Phil was inclined to be rather
sulky and moody, but when he returned to town with his father, and after
he began to attend church with so much regularity, he came to a more
Christian frame of mind, and exhibited indeed such a markedly better
temper that his father smiled to himself and said all was going well.

Phil now showed no disinclination for society, and indeed entered upon
its pleasures with peculiar zest. He even plunged deep into a
flirtation—a hopeful sign—with a certain Lady Hester Ware, a pretty,
witty young Irishwoman, without a penny to her fortune. Meadowes was
delighted; he would have welcomed a daughter of the beggar Lazarus as
Phil’s chosen bride at that moment.

With commendable caution he paid not the slightest attention to the
affair; for he knew the contradictious human spirit, and Phil flirted
on. But at last, when the matter seemed quite an established fact, he
expressed to Phil his great admiration for Lady Hester.

‘There’s a clever woman!’ he exclaimed in conclusion. But his breath was
taken away by Phil’s response—

‘Clever? yes, deucedly clever. I hate clever women, and if you like ’em,
sir, you’re the first man that ever did!’

‘’Pon my soul!’ exclaimed Meadowes, with a long whistle of astonishment;
then he added severely, ‘If you do not like Lady Hester, Phil, you do
very wrong to trifle with her affections, as you have been doing this
many a day.’

‘’Tis, as you say, sir, an unpardonable sin to play a woman false—may
Heaven forbid I should fall into it!’ said Phil in pious tones, and
Meadowes, as he met the boy’s bright eyes, turned uneasily away.

Richard Meadowes had, you see, not added this cynical axiom to his
collection:—that most men, when desperate about one woman, will plunge
into a flirtation with another: so he was at a loss to account for
Phil’s conduct, if it was not actuated by admiration.

Phil was not really doing anything extraordinary—he was only trying to
find an answer to the question ‘how best to pass two years?’—two years
that seemed to him to expand into a lifetime as he looked ahead, for he
was of an impatient temperament. Six months had passed before the happy
expedient of seeing Carrie at church suggested itself to his mind; and
by dint of this device six months more were got over. But with the
spring’s return came a crowd of tender remembrances, and Phil grew very
sulky and despondent again. His father had gone to Fairmeadowes, but
Phil, grown now very emancipated, refused to leave London; ‘The country
was dull,’ said he, who aforetime loved it so well. He had come to an
end of his flirtation—and the lees of a flirtation are the sourest
beverage; he could gain no distraction from it any longer: he was at his
wit’s end.

As he walked moodily down the Square one morning about this time, Phil
heard his name spoken, and, turning round, found Mr. Simon Prior by his
side.

Now, if there was a man that Philip disliked more than another it was
this Simon Prior. A tall man, with shoulders so high that he seemed to
be always shrugging them, and with prominent eyes that had a look of
bullying challenge in them, he certainly did not carry innocence upon
his face. He always assumed great familiarity with Phil—another point
against him with the young man. But he, this morning, was so at a loss
for a new shiver as almost to welcome this man; could he possibly yield
him any amusement?

‘Yes, my father is at Fairmeadowes, sir,’ he said in response to the
elder man’s greeting, and they fell into step.

‘And you, Philip? Once upon a time you too loved Fairmeadowes—why are
times so changed?’

‘Age, sir, age,’ laughed Philip. ‘And indeed I am become very old, for I
can hit on nothing will amuse me these days.’

‘A sad case. What have you tried?’

Phil was prudent; he might almost have been a Scotsman from his reply—

‘What, sir, would you recommend?’

‘Oh, there are many ways for passing the time, Philip.’

‘That’s not all I wish. ’Tis—’tis—oh, there’s no new thing under the
sun!’

‘Women!—there’s considerable variety there,’ began Prior, and he
treated Phil to one of his bullying stares.

Phil shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

‘Well, if you do not fancy that—let me see—gaming, if you can gain or
lose sufficiently large sums, is not amiss, for a distraction.’

‘Which means that you wish me to play with you?’ said Phil. ‘I shall do
so gladly, sir, if so be you’ll play for large enough stakes.’

So Phil played his pockets empty that fine morning, and felt the amusing
sensation of impecuniosity for a few weeks.

He came too into considerable familiarity with Simon Prior these days, a
familiarity he had no wish to encourage, yet found it difficult to shake
off. Wherever he went Prior was sure to appear—quite by accident, it
would seem—till Philip began to suspect that his father had something
to do in the matter. Once this thought had occurred to him, Phil, in
sudden and hot resentment, behaved to Mr. Simon Prior with very scant
courtesy. His resentment burned hotly also against his father. What was
he that he should be spied upon in this way? If his father distrusted
him, why could he not say so to his face instead of setting this odious
man to spy upon him and report his every action? And he had been frank
enough with his father when they first spoke about Carrie; he knew and,
apparently, acquiesced in his resolution to win her. Why then all this
curiosity?—‘Bah, it was disgusting,’ said Phil in his indignation. A
day or two later he left for Fairmeadowes.

‘You had best have me under your own eye, sir,’ he said in reply to his
father’s surprised greeting.




                              CHAPTER XXV


Carrie, as may be surmised, never spoke about Philip to her father. She
was therefore rather surprised when one morning he passed her the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, and pointed to a short paragraph in it:—

‘Mr. Richard Meadowes and Mr. Philip Meadowes left London yesterday for
Paris. They purpose making the Grand Tour of Europe, a circumstance
which will deprive society of two of its greatest ornaments,’ etc. etc.

Carrie blushed, and felt very miserable, thinking how long an absence
that meant on Phil’s part—he would not be in church next Sunday, nor
any Sunday for months to come!—‘Ah, Philip, why did you go?’ she asked
herself. Sebastian on his part was well content, and this perhaps made
him acquiesce more than it was natural for him to do in a plan which
Lady Mallow divulged to him that very afternoon. This was no less a
scheme than Carrie’s entrance into Society (with a large S).

‘For a young gentlewoman of Carrie’s parts and appearance she leads by
far too quiet a life, sir,’ said her Ladyship. ‘And now that I am
returned to town, I am resolved that Carrie shall make the figure she
ought in Society. ’Twas her good mother’s desire, I feel certain, and,
moreover, Carrie herself will delight in it.’

‘Perhaps you speak truly, Charlotte,’ said Sebastian, ‘and for certain
my Carrie hath charms enough and to spare. I fear you’ll have some
difficulty with her adorers ere long if you take her into Society, as
you call it; but if the girl is of the same mind with yourself, I have
naught to say against it.’

Lady Mallow thought Carrie rather lack-lustre over this generous
proposal. She did not seem to wish much to go to balls and routs, though
she was far too good-natured to show her disinclination very
openly—still there was a want of that exuberant whole-heartedness in
the pursuit of pleasure which used to characterise her at one time.
Carrie only smiled her charming smile and said—

‘You are most kind, madam; ’twill be most agreeable, I am certain.’

She did not even kindle to great interest over her new dresses. What was
the use? Philip would not see them.

Lady Mallow’s ‘circle,’ as she would have called it, received the
beautiful Caroline Shepley with open arms. She might have danced her
pretty little feet off had she had a mind to, and might have had her
head turned round on her shoulders if the compliments she received had
only seemed to her worth the getting. But, alas, Carrie listened coldly
to all the compliments that were showered upon her. She judged every man
she met by one standard—Philip,—and none of them ever came up to it.
There was indeed about Philip a certain careless elegance quite
unattainable, or at least quite unattained, by the other young men of
Carrie’s acquaintance. He was not particular about anything he said or
did, yet it seemed to Carrie he could say or do with impunity what, if
done by any other man, would have offended her in every way. Lady Mallow
made matters worse by continually urging Carrie to think seriously about
this or that man who paid her attentions.

‘Indeed, my dear niece, you should not be so saucy; for all your looks
and the little money your good father may leave you, you will be left a
maiden lady—that pitiable being,—if you despise good offers such as
those of Mr. Sedgebrooke and Captain Cole, as pretty-mannered gentlemen
both as you are like to meet, of good family (though untitled), and
personable men to look at. Sedgebrooke hath a thousand a year to his
fortune, and the Captain, though not so well to do, is an officer and a
gentleman—two very good things.’ Thus Lady Mallow.

But Carrie was obdurate.

‘I cannot abide Sedgebrooke, madam, and for Cole, the sight of his hands
is enough for me—bah, I hate fat hands: the hands of a gentleman should
be thin and brown by my way of thinking.’

So both of these eligible gentlemen were refused. But as time wore on
Lady Mallow was pleased to observe how much brighter Carrie had become.
Her eyes had an exquisite sparkle, she seemed always smiling. ‘Society
hath begun to brighten Carrie,’ she said to Sebastian, who growled, and
remarked that he had never thought her dull. It was not Society,
however, that was brightening Carrie, but the fact that Phil had
returned to town.

She had met him one afternoon as she walked with her aunt in the gardens
at Vauxhall.

‘My dear Carrie, see there,’ Lady Mallow had said. ‘There is Mr. Philip
Meadowes, the—I regret to say it—the natural son of Mr. Richard
Meadowes of Fairmeadowes, the property which adjoins to mine at Wynford.
For certain I thought it curious that he paid no attention to Sir James,
but his infrequent visits to Fairmeadowes no doubt explained the
circumstance, for on every hand I have accounts of the affability both
of the father and the son. They are beloved in the neighbourhood.’

The good lady rattled on long after the subject of her discourse had
passed by. She did not guess how much Phil was beloved in a
neighbourhood very close to her at that moment. Carrie listened to her
aunt’s talk with heightened colour and sparkling eyes. How different
Philip had looked! how much older! He looked boyish no longer—and yet
he was the same, her dearest Phil, who would come very soon to claim her
now. . . . What would her father say that day? Carrie’s joy was checked
at the thought.

For the last month or two of these two years of waiting Carrie could not
be tender enough to her father. She was with him every moment of his
spare time, and sat by him in the evening, and held his hand till he
laughed and asked her the reason of all this sentiment. Carrie laughed
also, but her eyes filled with tears; she knew the blow that impended
over him.

At last one night she determined to speak. She sat down beside her
father and laid her face against his shoulder.

‘Sir, I feel certain that ere long Philip Meadowes will come to claim
your promise,’ she said.

She felt her father draw in his breath hard before he spoke.

‘I thought you had forgot Philip Meadowes,’ he said at length.

‘I—forgotten—oh, sir, so soon? What do you take me for?’ cried Carrie.
She raised her face for a moment as she spoke.

‘Then you mean to have him?’

‘Yes, sir; I can do no other thing.’

Sebastian rose, and pushed Carrie from him almost with roughness.

‘If you marry this man, Carrie, you part from me; you cannot know all
’twould mean to me. You are too young, you have been ever too happy,
even to guess at it. I repeat: Marry Philip Meadowes and part from me,
or stay with me and part from him.’

Carrie in her agitation rose and stood beside her father. Then suddenly
she flung herself into his arms in her impetuous childish fashion.

‘Oh, sir, I must—I must. I cannot part from Philip; he is grown to be
like part of myself,’ she cried in a passion of tears.

Sebastian raised Carrie’s face to his and kissed her.

‘I do not blame you, Carrie—I cannot blame you, for you act too
entirely as I would have acted myself. I only bid you good-bye.’

‘Could you never know him and love him, sir?’ asked Carrie timidly.

‘May the Lord forgive me!—no, Carrie; not even for your sake.’

‘’Twill half break my heart to leave you, sir,’ said Carrie; ‘but
’twould break quite in two if I left Phil. Oh, what am I to do?’

‘Leave me,’ said Sebastian, and without another word he turned on his
heel and went out.




                              CHAPTER XXVI


It would seem that this marriage was to cause sad feelings to more
households than one; for not many days after Carrie and Sebastian had
settled matters after this sad fashion, Phil and his father also came to
an understanding on the same point.

‘Philip,’ said his father, ‘I wish you would get married one of these
days; ’tis a good thing for a young man to marry early: it settles him
for life.’

Far from wishing Philip to marry, there was nothing his father was less
anxious for; but he thought this a skilful way in which to discover
whether his son still hankered after Caroline Shepley—a direct question
was the last method ever employed by Richard Meadowes. He was therefore
not a little taken aback at Phil’s reply:

‘Well, sir, that is exactly what I intend to do, if so be you will make
me a sufficient settlement to marry upon.’

‘And—the lady?’ asked Meadowes. He looked down as he spoke, and twirled
the ring he wore round and round upon his finger.

‘Is Caroline Shepley, as you cannot doubt, sir.’

‘Caroline Shepley! I thought, Phil, you had forgot all that nonsense
long ago. Let me see: two years ago, is it not, since you first saw her?
And since then you have not seen much of her, unless I mistake
strangely.’

‘Nothing. I promised her father to see nothing of her for two years.’

‘You saw—Sebastian Shepley?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And have you had no communication with his daughter since?’

‘I as good as promised him, sir; and I am in the habit of keeping my
promises.’

‘Of course—of course,’ said Meadowes hurriedly; ‘but in two years’ time
that handsome young woman must have found plenty other men to adore her
charms. You make too sure of yourself, Phil, if you suppose she hath
waited these two years.’

‘I do not fear that I shall find myself supplanted,’ said Phil.

‘And should she think of you, are you in earnest in your intention of
marrying her?’

‘More in earnest than ever before in life.’

‘You cannot expect me to provide you with the means for a marriage of
which I disapprove?’

Philip leaned forward, fixing his bright eyes on his father’s face. He
held him captive while he spoke.

‘Yes, sir; I do not see how you can do otherwise; for you are my father,
which makes you responsible for me. You have brought me up in luxury,
but you have not educated me for any profession. You could not suppose
that I would always do exactly as you desired just because I happened to
be dependent upon you instead of having a profession such as most men
have? I may be dependent on you for money, sir, but I am so only on
condition that I am entirely independent of you in the conduct of my
life. ’Tis your duty to give me the fortune you have always led me to
expect; but if you refuse it because I intend to marry Caroline Shepley,
I must then ask you to support me for a few years more till I can learn
to support myself and her. If you refuse me this money it will not keep
me from marrying her—nothing will; but I must repeat again that if you
educate a man to expect a fortune at your hands, you cannot blame him
for calculating upon it.’

Meadowes rose and paced up and down the room.

‘What you say is true, Phil,’ he said at last; ‘the money is yours.’

‘Thank you, sir! I trust you will not regret the decision.’

‘Philip,’ cried his father suddenly, crossing over to where the young
man stood, and laying his hand on his arm,—‘Philip, as you love me do
not marry this girl!’

There fell a short silence before Phil spoke:—

‘But the plain fact is, sir, _I do not love you!_’ he said.

The whirlwind! the whirlwind! How it swept now over the man, who, for
half a lifetime, had been sowing the wind! It came up and smote the four
corners of the house of life where he feasted at his ease, and before
the inrush of the blast he trembled and was afraid.

‘Have I not done everything for you, Philip?’ he said, in a hard, cold
voice.

‘Everything, sir. Do not misunderstand me; I am quite aware of all I owe
you.’

‘What more can I do, Phil, that I have not done?’

‘Nothing, sir!’

‘Then why do you not love me?’

‘Because I cannot trust you—never have and never can,—though ’tis
brutal of me to say so.’

‘I think you may go, Philip,’ said his father. He did not speak angrily,
nor indeed did he feel any anger at Phil. But the end had come. His last
chance for love in this world had failed. He had dreaded this for long.
Year by year, as Phil grew older, the separation between them had been
gradually widening, an estrangement which the very similarity of their
natures, in some respects, seemed to emphasise. Now the breach was open.
And Phil had, without doubt, the right of the matter. ‘I scarce know how
I looked that he should trust me,’ thought the unhappy man, ‘but I have
renounced so much for the boy’s sake,—I have renounced marriage even,
lest another son should supplant him; and I doubt if Phil hath ever
realised all this, else surely he had not spoken with such cruelty
to-night. For the rest of it, youth is sharp to notice, and, when I
consider, do I ever speak or act straightly now? Once I did surely? I
cannot now. My whole nature leans sidewise, like the tower of Pisa,
toppling but still standing. . . . I’m rotten through and through, and
Phil knows it,—and—— Oh, forsaken, forsaken!’

He sat forward with his head bent on his clasped hands.

‘_A sword shall pierce thine own heart_,’ he said.




                             CHAPTER XXVII


After the plain speaking which had passed between Richard Meadowes and
his son, a readjustment of their relationships seemed necessary. It was
not possible for them to keep up the former pretence of amity, yet
Meadowes was anxious that no hint of their differences should reach the
outside world. He called Philip to him one day and explained the case to
him.

‘I would not have all the world know how it fares betwixt us, Phil,’ he
said. ‘I had rather keep that bitter knowledge to myself; but things
being as they are, ’twill be better for us now to live apart,—the one
at Fairmeadowes, the other in town. I purpose after this date giving
over the house in St. James’ Square to you, while I reside myself at
Fairmeadowes. I care no longer for the amusements of the town.’

Phil objected at first to this arrangement as too generous. ‘You will
tire of a rural existence, sir,’ he said, ‘ere six months are gone, and
then—supposing me to have married in the meantime—I and my wife will
have to rearrange our establishment once more. ’Twould be better for you
to keep the house in town, and let me have another and smaller one.’

But Meadowes would not hear of this.

‘I cannot tell you, Phil, how it is with me,’ he said, leaning his head
on his hand as he spoke. ‘And—may you never understand—a great
weariness hath fallen over me, that is of the mind, not of the body. I
care for nothing; the game is played out. So make no further parley over
this; take what I offer and welcome: as you pointed out to me ’tis but
your due, in a sense.’

‘Then you fully understand, sir, that I bring Carrie Shepley to live in
your house?’

‘Bring her and welcome—ah, you think that will bring you happiness,
Phil, but you are mistaken. Happiness is a creature of the fancy, she is
never caught and held; always flits ahead. You’ll not find her in Carrie
Shepley—no, nor in aught in this world.’

‘My dear sir, I fear you will be turning monk, when I hear you despise
the good things of this world, as you do just now,’ said Phil. He laid
his hand on his father’s shoulder with the caressing way he had to every
one. Meadowes smiled.

‘I know better than to think happiness lies there either,’ he
said.—‘But to return to business: you mean to marry this girl as soon
as may be?’

‘So soon as she will have me, sir.’

‘I shall make you an allowance then, Phil, and the house in St. James’
Square; and you understand that the outer world still considers us as a
devoted father and son.’

‘They will be right to name you a generous father at least, sir,’ said
Phil, and he held out his hand suddenly to his father as he spoke.
‘Don’t name me ungrateful, sir,’ he added; ‘I see all you have done for
me.’

It was a very painful moment to them both, for each understood how one
spontaneous expression of affection on Phil’s part would have taken away
all difficulty from the situation; and yet the possibility of giving it
was not there. Gratitude, however sincere it may be, if unwarmed by
love, is cold as icicles.

Now that his affairs were arranged in this unsatisfactory fashion, Phil
lost no time in presenting himself at Jermyn Street, to ask for the hand
of Miss Caroline Shepley in marriage.

Carrie stood at the window that evening looking out into the dusty
little street, when all at once she saw Phil come up the steps and heard
his knock at the door. Her father sat by the fire reading, unsuspicious
of the blow that was about to fall. Carrie turned away from the window
and came towards him.

‘Father,’ she said, in a very tense voice, then waited for a moment, not
knowing what to say; and Phil, who was very impatient that night,
knocked again more loudly than before. ‘I am sure my heart makes as much
noise as the knocker!’ thought Carrie, as she listened. Sebastian looked
up—

‘Well? what is it, my daughter?’

‘_Philip_,’ said Carrie.

Then as in a dream she heard Patty’s familiar voice announce her lover’s
name, and a moment later saw her dear Phil stand beside her.

‘How are you, Carrie?’ he said, as if they had never been parted, and
then he held out his hand to Sebastian.

‘I fear I come as an unwelcome guest, sir,’ he said.

‘I cannot welcome you,’ said Sebastian shortly; but he motioned to Phil
to take a seat.

‘I need not tell you why I am come, sir,’ pursued Phil, who wasted no
time upon preliminaries.

‘I have given Carrie her choice betwixt you and me; ’tis for her to
speak,’ said Sebastian for answer.

Carrie had been standing behind her father during this conversation; she
came now and sat on the arm of his chair, bent down, and whispered a few
words in his ear. He rose, and taking her hand in his held it for a
moment and then laid it in Phil’s.

‘She belongs to you now, Philip Meadowes,’ he said.

‘Oh, dada dear, love him too!’ pleaded Carrie, and the tears gathered in
her blue eyes at the cold sound of her father’s voice.

‘You ask the impossible, Carrie,’ said he.

‘Perhaps, sir, time may soften the prejudice you entertain for me,’ said
Phil. ‘Indeed I shall do my utmost to make Carrie a good husband.’

‘Do not misunderstand me, Meadowes,’ said Sebastian. ‘The feeling I have
against you is quite impersonal, else I had not given you Carrie’s hand
in marriage. I think you will make her happy; but for all that I cannot
be your friend, I cannot bear to look upon your face!’ He rose at the
last words and left the room, and Carrie and Phil looked at each in
perplexity.

‘Ah, Phil, ’tis terrible,’ said Carrie, ‘and I so happy! my dearest
father——’

Phil refused to look upon the tragic side of the case, however. He was
far too pleased to think anything very far wrong.

‘Dear heart, you must not grieve; Dr. Shepley will forget after a time;
the best you can do is to marry me at once. When that is done he will
forgive you. He thinks now to prevent the wedding by his displeasure,
but when he sees that impossible his resentment will die out. Come,
Carrie, the sooner you arrange for our marriage the better ’twill be for
all concerned.’

Perhaps Carrie did not need very much persuasion. Two years of waiting
had been quite long enough.

‘I shall see my aunt, Lady Mallow, and she will decide the date for us,’
she said, and then, as Phil prepared to go, she whispered, ‘I shall make
her arrange it soon.’




                             CHAPTER XXVIII


In spite of her happiness Carrie made a very tearful bride. The parting
from her father was exquisitely painful to her, and not all Phil’s
endearments could at first bring a smile to her lips. For Sebastian had
told her that he could have nothing to do with her now, that their
parting was final. The only way in which Carrie could hear of how he
fared was by sending Peter to inquire of Patty, and Patty (a mature
spinster), while she inwardly exclaimed over the turn of Fortune’s wheel
which thus brought her former admirer again to her door, was fain to
invent messages which would reassure Carrie’s anxious heart.

‘Lor’! Mr. Peter,’ she would say, ‘’tis distressful to see the Doctor
now-a-days.—And how doth dear Miss Carrie (as was) do?’

‘Mrs. Meadowes has her health perfect,’ Peter would respond, ‘but is
ever fretting over the Doctor, so I had best make up some message from
you, and mayhap some evening you might step down to the Square yourself
and make her more easy in the mind about him?’

Patty, in spite of her years and her wisdom, would shake her head
coquettishly at this suggestion, and invent some message for Peter which
had no foundation in fact. ‘The Doctor is well, madam, and eats hearty;
was out the most part of the day at the hospital, and dined with his
friend Dr. Munro,’ Peter would announce. And on such fragments Carrie
had to appease her hungry heart.

Sebastian, poor man, had never been less inclined for social
intercourse; had never eaten his meals with so little ‘heartiness’; had
never visited the hospitals so seldom; but those two well-meaning
retainers thought it kinder to suppress the true facts of the case—and
perhaps they were right.

‘Never fear, Carrie; he will come round—parents always do; they can’t
do without us,’ Phil used to say. ‘I wish you knew all the disputes I’ve
had with my father!’ But Carrie said the cases were not quite similar,
she fancied, and refused to be comforted.

‘’Tis well I am so beautifully happy with you, Phil,’ she said one day,
‘for this trouble weighs so on my heart that had I any other ’twould
break in two.’

‘Oh, no fear!’ laughed Phil. They led a very gay life, these two
exceedingly irresponsible young people, and indeed, older heads were
nodded in wisdom, and prophecies were made that Carrie would have
trouble enough with her wild young husband. Philip seemed, for the
present at least, to have given up work of any kind. He meant to be in
Parliament some day, he told Carrie, meantime he would enjoy himself and
see the world. He was also letting Carrie see it, a process she much
enjoyed, and, in Phil’s company, entered into with all her heart, unlike
the lack-lustre young woman who had gone about with Lady Mallow the
preceding winter. Carrie was now introduced into far finer circles than
those of her worthy aunt. Her name figured in all the reports of what we
should in this vulgar age call ‘smart’ society—a fact which afforded
her a good deal of natural mundane satisfaction. ‘The beautiful Mrs.
Meadowes,’ ‘Handsome Mrs. Philip Meadowes,’ ‘That most charming lady,
Mrs. Meadowes’—these and similar descriptions of herself made Carrie
dimple with pleasure. But a woman in such a position, so young, so
beautiful, so unsophisticated, would, to defend herself aright, require
a beak and claws, whereas our gentle Carrie had not even a sharp tongue
wherewith to chastise her enemies. She entered society with no
protection but simplicity—a much vaunted armour which, alas for the
world, is in reality sadly vulnerable. Brought up as she had been almost
exclusively among men—and honest men into the bargain—Carrie was quite
ignorant of the wiles of her own sex, and scolded Philip heartily when
he ventured to warn her against them; while, for the sterner sex, she
entertained almost pathetic feelings of confidence and liking. The men
did not exist (in consequence) who could resist her, and this more than
any other cause at last opened Carrie’s eyes a little to the involutions
of the feminine character. Alas! too late; half the women in London were
jealous of her before Carrie was even distantly aware of it. She had
smilingly accepted flowers and attention from many a man before it
occurred to her that other women might be wanting them instead.

‘Just singe your wings, my dear butterfly,’ said Phil, ‘then you will
understand what the candle is.’

‘Philip, it must be from your father you take such base views of human
nature,’ said Carrie. ‘For certainly you have not lived long enough
yourself to learn such views. ’Tis not my fault that I am good-looking,
and I do not believe for a moment that other women dislike me for it.’

‘Wait—ah, just wait, Carrie. I agree with you that they do not dislike
you for it—_hate_ is the word.’

‘Phil, I am ashamed to hear my husband say such things,’ said Carrie,
though she laughed in spite of herself.

I have said that Carrie liked and trusted all men; but with one
exception—she could not abide the sight of Simon Prior.

‘I cannot say what it is, Phil,’ she said one day, ‘but to speak with
Mr. Prior doth turn me sick. Pray, my dearest, is he a great friend?
Could you not intimate to him that he visits my drawing-room too
frequently?’

Prior had certainly got into a strange habit of haunting the house in
St. James’ Square, considering how very lukewarm a reception he always
received there. Carrie was one of those fortunate women who find it
quite impossible to be anything except pleasant to every one. She would
sit, smiling and charming, beside Simon Prior, while all the time she
loathed the sound of his voice.

‘Do not be so pleasant to the man, Carrie,’ Phil suggested; and Carrie
in genuine amazement opened her blue eyes widely:—

‘Philip, I was most discourteous to him but yesterday! Twice he hinted
at his wish to accompany me on my airing, and each time I took no notice
of his remark.’

‘But you smiled all the time, and seemed merely not to have noticed the
hint, Carrie—instead of appearing purposely to ignore it.’

‘I tried my best; in honesty, Phil, I tried my best to be disagreeable,’
sighed Carrie, ‘so you must do it for me if I cannot manage it.’

Phil had no scruples. He waited for Prior to call again, and then set
about finding some matter to differ upon; but Prior himself brought
about the dispute finally.

‘I should like a word with you, Philip,’ he said, as he rose to say
good-bye, and Phil, with a quite perceptible shrug, led the way into the
library.

‘I wondered—not to beat about the bush, for frankness between friends
is a good thing—I wondered, in fact, Philip, if you could accommodate
me with a small loan—some £20, or perhaps less; I happen to be very
much pressed just now; I—in fact, ’twould be a great boon.’

‘No,’ said Phil curtly; ‘I fear I cannot oblige you.’

‘Oh, I am sure you can. Your father would advance me the money to-morrow
were he in town, and I look upon you as his representative,’ began
Prior.

‘Were I in the way of lending money, sir,’ said Phil with great
deliberation, ‘’twould be to another sort of man than you.’

‘Ha, ha—very good—the poor ever with us,’ said Prior uneasily; ‘but
indeed you make a mistake when you take me for a rich man. I am
constantly pressed for funds, as you see me to-day; you could scarcely
find a needier object for accommodation, you——’

‘I could easily find a better,’ said Phil.

‘Philip, you call my honour in question!’ cried Prior.

‘I would never trouble to do so,’ said Phil; ‘because I do not consider
that you have got any.’

For far less provocation men in those fighting days had risked their
precious lives, as Phil was well aware. He had calculated the chances of
having to fight with Prior, and his calculations were verified: Prior
had no intention of fighting; he had swallowed many an insult.

‘For your father’s sake, Philip, I will not go further into the
dispute,’ he said with the sorry attempt at dignity of a man who knows
himself in the wrong.

Philip walked to the door and flung it open.

‘Adieu, Mr. Simon Prior,’ he said with great mock ceremony. And Carrie
was not troubled with any more visits.




                              CHAPTER XXIX


Simon Prior had come out to Fairmeadowes to beg. It was not the first
time he had begged from Richard Meadowes, and he had little shame about
doing it. He even assumed a slightly bullying air as he made his modest
demand for £100—he had not gone so high with Philip.

Meadowes sat by the fire in his usual easy lounging attitude. He did not
look like a man inclined to dispute anything, and he listened quietly to
Prior’s demand. But after he had considered it for a moment he spoke
with the greatest decision of tone.

‘No, Prior; I have decided to give you no more. You’ve been bleeding me
these twenty years, now you’ll bleed me no longer.’

Prior stood aghast, and Meadowes continued, ‘Angry, I suppose? Well,
take what revenge you will. Mine is an old story now. Your own
character, such as it is, will suffer full as much as mine should you
make it public.’ He paused and drew his hand slowly across his eyes.
‘The fact is, I care no longer: I have nothing to lose: life is done—I
would it had never begun for me. Mistake upon mistake; and now a dead
heart. D’you remember the old torment? They used to build living men
into a wall slowly with bricks and mortar; every day the tomb closed
more and more round them. Well, I am alive still, but the wall is
closing round me; it hath reached the heart now and presses sore upon
it—well-nigh hath pressed the life out of it. I have built myself into
this living tomb with my own hands too—there’s the special torture.’ He
paused, wondering if Prior understood one half of his meaning. He did
not; the higher feelings had been left out of his nature; he did not
even guess at his friend’s mood.

‘What ails you to-day, Meadowes?’ he said; ‘truly this country life is
too quiet for you by half. Come, we shall return to town, play high, and
forget care.’

‘I have no care,’ said Meadowes.

‘What then?’

‘A dead—rather a dying—heart, I tell you, only you do not understand.’
Then, as impulsive men will often do, Meadowes told out all his sorrow
to this man, just because he did not understand—it was the same relief
as it would have been to talk aloud to himself. ‘Phil loves me no more;
there’s the fact on’t—I doubt if ever he hath loved me. I’ve borne a
measure of disgrace for him, I’ve renounced marriage for his sake, I’ve
nurtured him delicately, and willed half my fortune to him. I’ve loved
that boy foolishly all his days, and now he turns and tells me he doth
not love me. Where doth the advantage lie of loving aught but oneself?
There’s no return for love, and a fool I’ve been to sacrifice myself for
any man. ’Tis the last lesson I needed. All these fine theories we dealt
in in our youth, theories of “love” and “sacrifice” and so on, are
purest moonshine. But with the last shreds of belief I had in them, goes
my last shred of caring for life.’

‘Tush, Meadowes! I must reason with you,’ said Prior. ‘A man at your
time of life to speak thus! Come, Philip hath treated you shamefully,
like the young scoundrel that he is. Let me advise you on this point.
Bring him to his senses by some judicious coldness, and indeed this is
not the first time I have urged you to marry. Now is the time; let no
sentiments for a thankless knave like Philip keep you from it now; turn
him off with a shilling—he deserves no more.’

Prior spoke earnestly, delighted to find some way of repaying the insult
he had received at Phil’s hand. He flattered himself that he was making
an impression, for his listener sat and listened to it all in silence.
‘Now, on the score of our old friendship—’ he went on, but Meadowes
suddenly interrupted him.

‘There, I hate the very sight of you,’ he cried. ‘No friendship hath
been betwixt us, only the bonds of iniquity, and heavy they’ve been.
I’ll have it no more; I’ll go to hell alone—not in your company.’

Prior stood dumb with surprise; so long they had held together for evil,
he could scarcely credit that the rupture had come at last.

‘But——’ he began.

‘No more, no more,’ said Meadowes, and he rose from his seat, and
stretched out his hands in a sudden agonised way. ‘Don’t you know me
yet, Prior? _I can’t be true._ Sooner or later I turn upon every man
that leans on me. Man, I know myself—cruelly well; this is but the old
story. You’ve served my turn, I need you no more, so I leave you. Yes,
sink or swim for me. . . . You should have known better than to trust
me.’

‘I’ve done your dirty work these twenty years,’ said Prior, with
unblushing veracity, ‘and now you forget it all.’

‘Yes, I mean to forget.’

‘But I am indeed hard pressed for money.’

‘Well, find it elsewhere.’

‘Is this final?’

‘Quite.’

Prior moved towards the door, but he paused for a moment on the
threshold and looked back. ‘They call you Judas in the Clubs,’ said he,
‘and they are right—no man ever yet trusted you but he was betrayed.’
He walked out, slamming the door behind him, and Meadowes listened to
hear his footsteps die away along the passage.

‘A bad man,’ he meditated, ‘but not as bad as myself, though the world
takes him to be worse. He’ll end on the gallows—the world will blame
him; but the blame will lie with me—I who made him what he is—and I
shall sleep with my fathers in the chapel like a Christian.’

Prior meantime walked away through the quiet winter woods—a figure
which accorded ill with rural scenes, he so carried with him the savour
of towns, the atmosphere of dissipation. A miserable man—to be
moral,—pressed for money and at an end of his resources, at an end of
pleasure and beginning to realise it; angry, baffled, rejected. He stood
to take a last look at Fairmeadowes, lying so peacefully among its
wooded fields, with the placid river flowing past it, and then,
overpowered by anger, he shook his fist in the air and cursed aloud in
that silent place.

‘By ——!’ he cried, ‘you’ll pay me yet for all I’ve done these twenty
years! I’ll have your money, or’—his raised right hand fell—‘wanting
that, I’ll have your blood.’




                              CHAPTER XXX


As time went on Society began to surmise that Philip Meadowes and his
father were not upon the best of terms. The elder man seldom came to
town, and when he did, never stayed at his own house, then tenanted by
Philip; and this of itself was eloquent of differences. But as against
this was the very fact of Philip’s tenancy of the house—an arrangement
which seemed to point to amiable relationship. The world wondered, but
could do no more.

The feud between Meadowes and Simon Prior had, owing to peculiar caution
on Prior’s part, never got abroad either; he preferred to be still
considered everywhere as Meadowes’ friend.

One night (it was the night of the 9th of January, as Philip had
afterwards reason enough to remember) fortune drew together in her net
at a certain gaming-house, not a thousand miles from Pall Mall, Richard
Meadowes, Philip, and Simon Prior. Phil and his father met quite easily;
their quarrel had not been so serious as to make this the least
difficult for them; but the rest of the men there watched the meeting
with great curiosity. If they had only known, they had better have
turned their scrutiny upon Meadowes’ meeting with Prior; the cordiality
with which these gentlemen met might perhaps, to the observant and
cynically-minded, have given a key to their relations. But there
probably was no cynic in the company; so Phil was the object of
interest.

‘My dear sir,’ said Phil, as he stood beside his father, laying his hand
on his shoulder, ‘you have surely come to town unexpectedly? And but
just in time to see me lose some money, or I am mistaken. Yesterday I
won it—to-night (to make odds even) I am come to lose to the same man.
Come, you shall watch our play, ’twill be fairish sport, I don’t doubt.’

They set them down—Phil and his opponent—and a circle gathered round
them to watch their play. Philip played out of the sheerest love of
excitement, like a schoolboy, laughing and jesting as he threw down his
money, the other man more gravely, pondering his cards. The play ran
high; Philip had staked and lost all the money he had with him, and yet
he played on. It grew late.

‘Come, sir,’ he said, and he leant across the table towards his father,
with his sunny smile, ‘I must play schoolboy again and have my father
pay my debts.’ Meadowes, bewitched like every one else, handed him over
all the gold pieces he carried, and thought himself well paid by Phil’s
smile.

‘Now I’ve cleared out my father,’ he said, ‘and myself, I’ll play you
for my lace ruffles, good ones they are; come on, sir,’ and he tore off
the ruffles carelessly enough, and flung them on the table.

‘Now you’ll have my coat, ’tis a new silk one—there it goes,’ he cried,
flinging off the fine garment in question, as he leant forward with
sparkling eyes to cut the cards.

‘Lost again! My diamond shoe-buckles now—there—you have them also?
Gad! I’ll be stripped before I’m done—well, the shoes themselves. Lost
them too!’ and with a shout of laughter Phil flung down his cards and
rose from the table.

‘I must get home without my shoes and without my coat!—I thank you; no,
sir, I’d like the sensation. We’ll taste the sweets of poverty on a
chill winter’s night for once—to walk home with empty pockets, without
a coat or shoes. By George, that’s something new!’

‘Phil, put on your coat; for all the world you act like a child,’
laughed his father. And Phil certainly looked babyish enough as he stood
there shoeless, in his ruffled cambric shirt, laughing and careless.

But Phil would not be persuaded. The coat was his no longer, said he,
nor the shoes.

‘Come, sir, if you are going my way,’ he said, bowing to his father, and
they stepped out into the passage together.

‘We may go so far in company,’ said Meadowes, as they passed out.

The other men who had been in the room waited to exchange comments on
the father and son, only Simon Prior, after a few minutes, found that it
was growing late, and he must make his way homewards.

He went through the passage and looked out into the inky darkness of the
moonless January night; the sky was of a bluish blackness, only a shade
less dense than the earth it canopied, and unpierced by any star. Prior
listened intently for a moment, but no footsteps echoed down the street.
Great London was asleep in these early morning hours, for it was nearing
three o’clock. Once and again as he walked along Prior stopped to
listen, then he bent down and slipped off his shoes, crammed one into
each of the huge pockets of his long-skirted coat, and with noiseless
flying footsteps sped down the street: the darkness received him.

Meantime Phil and his father were walking together in the direction of
St. James’ Square; Phil, gay as was his wont when excited, was pressing
Meadowes to come home with him.

‘You have scarce seen me for months, sir, and Carrie is a stranger to
you,’ he said.

‘I cannot come to-night, Phil, mayhap to-morrow,’ said Meadowes, as they
paused at the corner where their ways parted.

‘Carrie will think me lost; ’tis three of the clock at the least,’ said
Phil, and his father laughed.

‘You have not yet acquired that fine indifference which comes with
practice, Phil,’ he said. ‘You mention your wife with too palpable
interest.’

‘Maybe, maybe,’ laughed Phil, whose heart indeed beat quicker at the
sound of Carrie’s name. He held out his hand then and bade Meadowes
good-night.

‘Ah, Philip, Philip, if only you loved me!’ thought Meadowes, as he
turned and walked away down the dark street. Phil was going home to the
wife he adored, while he—how bleak a loveless life like his was, to be
sure! There was not a human being that would mourn his death—even Phil
would not think twice of it—more than that, ‘I believe he would welcome
it,’ he thought bitterly; ‘for all his frankness and his charm he cares
nothing for me: I sometimes think he doth veritably hate me.’

Sad thoughts these on a winter’s night. ‘Freeze, freeze, thou bitter
sky, _thou dost not bite so nigh_,’ he said, feeling the chill at his
heart. A moment later he heard a step behind him, a light, unshod step,
surely Phil returned. Could it be? Think if Phil were to come beside him
in the darkness, touch his arm, speak one kind word, say that now all
would be right between them! Surely even now the wilderness would
rejoice—would blossom as the rose—at the coming of love. Surely he
would leave his old crooked ways, live even yet a white, clean, straight
year or two before all was ended, return, if he might do no more, to the
attitude of heart that has at least a desire for good!

These, and half a hundred more, thoughts crowded through his fancy in
that silly moment of expectancy. But it was a moment so dear—like the
sudden thawing of a long frost—that he dared scarcely break it. His
voice was thick with feeling when he spoke.

‘Why are you returned, Phil?’ he asked. It was too dark to make out more
than the outline of the man’s head against the sky, but the sound of his
shoeless feet, as he walked alongside, convinced Meadowes that Phil was
there.

‘Why are you returned?’ he questioned again. There was no reply, then
the man, with a sudden, quick movement, drew his sword and turned upon
Meadowes, pinning him against the wall. He fell almost without a groan.
The man knelt with one knee pressed down on Meadowes’ chest, as if to
squeeze his shortening breaths out of him, and spoke loudly in his ear.

‘_I am Philip_,’ he said.

Meadowes heard even through his clouding senses the high bell-clear
voice. ‘Is it—— Merciful Lord! doth my Phil torment me for my sins?
. . . his voice. . . . Ah, surely not Phil,’ he thought.

‘_I am Philip_,’ repeated the man, rising hastily; he dared not tarry
even for the sweetness of revenge.

‘Philip, Philip!—Ah, undone, undone!’ murmured the dying man. He
writhed over on the pavement as the weight of his adversary’s knee was
lifted off him; pressed his hand against his side as the last agony
seized him, and the spirit, driven so roughly from its dwelling,
lingered for a second on the threshold and looked back. In that second
fifty years were reviewed like one day: childhood at sweet Fairmeadowes
among the fields, youth and manhood, war and love and treachery, and all
the busyness of life, passed before him in a flash. One remembrance
stood out with extraordinary clearness:—the memory of a prayer offered
long ago in one of the old City churches—a strange, seemingly
unanswered prayer. Here, late in time, was its bitter answer. And then
this memory passed also, and one only thought remained—Philip.

All this in a second’s time. In that second, as the murderer rose to his
feet, the glimmer of a lantern fell into the pressing darkness, and a
hand appeared out of the gloom, clutched, and held him.

Meadowes did not see the light. His eyes were closed, but the one
thought of Philip held possession of his brain.

‘_Run, Phil, run, lest this bring you to trouble_,’ he cried with his
latest breath; the two struggling men could not choose but hear. The
watchman let fall his lantern and they wrestled in the darkness, then
with one great wrench the other freed himself, and flung aside his
adversary, who fell heavily. It took him a moment to rise, and then he
stood stupidly for a brief space to listen in what direction the
murderer ran. But even the silent street scarcely echoed back the light
footsteps of the man wearing no shoes, as he scudded away into the
darkness.




                              CHAPTER XXXI


Carrie had sat up late that night waiting for Philip to come in, then
she grew sleepy, went to bed, and fell asleep. But her sleep cannot have
been very sound, for the heavy foot of the watch who passed in the
street below, and the echo of his voice as he chanted out the hour,
wakened her widely.

‘Three o’clock of a January night: a cold dark night with no moon.’ He
went under the window and his footsteps died away.

Carrie rubbed her eyes, and saw that the fire still burned brightly,
lighting up the big room with its heavy hangings and huge pieces of
furniture.

‘Where can Phil be? why has he never come in?’ asked Carrie, a little
anxiously. She sat up to listen if she could not hear any sound in the
house, tossing back her long red curls over her shoulder. Yes, some one
was coming softly up-stairs; she knew the footstep well. A minute later
the door opened and Philip came in. He wore no coat nor any shoes.

‘Hullo, Carrie! are you too keeping a vigil?’ he said lightly, as he
paused at the door.

‘Phil! where is your coat? and why are you without shoes?’ cried Carrie.

‘I played them away. I played the coat off my back and the shoes off my
feet. I scarce ever before had such sport. And let me lie down, Carrie,
my dear, for I am dog tired.’

And with that Phil cast himself down on the bed just as he was, rolled
over on his side, dragged the satin quilt over his shoulder, and was
asleep before the words were well said.

Carrie tried ineffectually to waken him. ‘You will catch a chill for
certain, Phil,’ she said; but Phil would not listen, so she fetched a
cloak and covered him with it as tenderly as a mother might wrap up a
sleeping child, then lay down herself and tried to sleep. But she was
wakeful for long, and thought of many things; of long ago, and the visit
she had paid Phil in that very room where he lay, in that very bed, a
sick and a very bad-tempered child. How strange the turns of Fortune’s
wheel were, to be sure! Then she thought of her father, and longed and
longed to see him. ‘I believe he will find me somewhat altered. I am
become such a fine lady now-a-days,’ thought she, smiling in the
darkness. At last she fell asleep, and dreamed pleasant dreams of
meeting her father, and finding their quarrel had all been a mistake;
and then suddenly she woke with a great noise going on down-stairs.
There came a terrific thunder at the outer door, a confusion of voices,
and then footsteps came up the staircase. Then Peter’s voice
threatening, expostulating:—

‘I’ll tell my master. Stand back! I tell you you are mistook.’

‘Phil,’ cried Carrie, shaking him lightly. ‘Phil, there is something
wrong!’

Phil grumbled in his sleep. But the next moment the door was opened, and
Peter, white and agitated, entered the room.

‘Sir, sir, there is some mistake! For the love of Heaven waken and come
out here.’

As he spoke two men followed him into the room, and one of them advanced
to where Phil, yawning and rubbing his eyes, sat up on the edge of the
bed, exclaiming impatiently to Peter,

‘What the deuce is all this, Peter?’

‘I arrest you in the King’s name,’ said one of the men, and he laid his
hand on Phil’s shoulder.

Phil was wide awake at last.

‘My good fellow,’ he said, ‘you are indeed under some mistake, and you
surely choose a strange place where to arrest me, and show little
consideration for this lady’s feelings.’

‘I’m sorry indeed, my lady,’ said the officer, as he bowed to Carrie;
‘but my business is to secure my prisoner.’

Phil stood up.

‘Of what crime am I accused, then, my good fellow?’

The man hesitated—glancing at Carrie, but Phil laughed.

‘My wife can hear aught I’m accused of,’ he said.

‘_Of the murder of Richard Meadowes_,’ said the man low into Philip’s
ear. He did not mean Carrie to hear; but she, leaning forward, caught
the words. There was a moment’s dismayed silence. Then Carrie shrieked
aloud—three sharp little screams, and fell back against the pillows.

‘Come,’ said Philip, ‘I am ready to go with you.’ At the door he turned
and came back to where Carrie lay, white and scared, staring after him.

‘’Tis some mistake, Carrie; have no fear,’ he said. ‘And, Peter, fetch
me a coat and a pair of shoes.’

The day wore on somehow for Carrie after Phil’s arrest; she sat idle,
hour by hour, looking for news of him and getting none. Late in the day
she sent Peter out to make inquiries, but when he returned it was to
bring her very scant comfort.

‘There was great excitement in town over the murder; nothing was known,
no news was to be had,’ said Peter, but he concealed the half that he
had really heard on all sides. Meantime Phil was detained for
examination.

‘In prison—Phil in prison!’ cried poor Carrie incredulously. ‘Why, I
thought to see him back ere half an hour had gone. O Peter, what can I
do? ’Tis unbelievable.’

Peter was dumb with distress; he did not know what to think—the whole
matter seemed to him like an ugly dream.

‘Mayhap Mr. Philip will return home on bail, madam,’ he said lamely, the
only comfort he could suggest.

‘But that any one should even suppose him to have done it!’ sobbed
Carrie. Ah, that was the sting.

Poor Carrie was to weep many tears before she saw the end of this sad
matter.




                             CHAPTER XXXII


The Courts were crowded on the day that Philip Meadowes stood his trial
at the Old Bailey. The case attracted a vast deal of attention in its
day, and if all the cross-questioning of Phil’s case were reported here,
they would make a ponderous volume, that no one would ever finish. So
the outlines of the trial must suffice for the story.

‘_How say you, Philip Richard William Meadowes, Are you Guilty of the
felony and murder whereof you stand indicted, or Not guilty?_’

‘_Not guilty._’

‘_How will you be tried?_’

‘_By God and my country._’

‘_God send you a good deliverance._’

So ran the time-honoured prelude; and the listening crowds echoed the
prayer, for Phil made a very interesting prisoner.

He stood in the dock and looked round him, nodding to right and left as
he recognised friends among the crowd, as easy and self-possessed as any
man in the house.

There was no trace of anxiety on his face, and he listened with interest
and apparent unconcern to the damning evidence brought against him.

The watchman came up for examination first.

‘May it please you, my Lord,’ said he, ‘this is all I know of this
matter; that on the night of the 9th January, being a black dark night
from want o’ the moon, I came of a sudden round the corner of ——
Street, and was half on top of something lying on the pavement before
that I well knew what I was about. A man rose up from under my very
feet, and, guessing there was something amiss, I caught at him, and we
struggled a minute, but I’d to let go my lantern and it went out in the
falling. That moment came a voice from the ground, “_Run, Phil, run,
lest this bring you into trouble_,” and with a great blow the man
knocked me down and ran. I was a moment rising, and I stood to listen
which way he’d gone, but I heard naught but the steps of a man without
shoes a-scudding down the street, for all the world as you may have
heard the tail of a codfish flapping the flags o’ Billingsgate. I
followed after, but I lost him in the darkness before I well knew. I
came back to see if aught could be done for the wounded man, but he was
going fast by then, and did but breathe once or twice again, with never
a word—and, my Lord, I know no more.’

‘Have you any notion of the hour?’

‘The hour was some ten minutes before three o’ the clock.’

‘In what direction did the man run?’

‘He ran in the direction of St. James’ Square.’

There was a little ripple of excitement through the Court. Then Peter,
looking older by ten years, was brought into the witness-box.

‘At what hour did you open the door to your master?’

‘At three o’ the clock, my Lord; the watch had passed a moment before.’

‘Did your master say anything to you on coming in?’

‘He said, “I’m half asleep, like yourself, Peter,” and passed on up the
stairs.’

There was then brought forward a mass of secondary evidence, as to the
relations which had existed between Philip and his father, and so on.
But even with this the trial did not threaten to be a long one. No
complications seemed to spring up, the whole case was virtually settled
long before all these matters had been gone into. The summing up came at
last:—

‘Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard a long evidence; I shall now take
notice of a few points, which I think are the most material.

‘The indictment against the prisoner at the bar is for a very great
crime: it is for murder, and, moreover, for the murder of a parent. You
must now consider the evidence.

‘You have heard that for some time past the relations between the late
Richard Meadowes and his son have been somewhat strained; but you have
also heard evidence to-day, that on the night of the 9th January they
met with apparent good feeling on both sides, that Meadowes borrowed
money of his father, and that they went out together, apparently on good
terms. You have heard, gentlemen of the Jury, that Meadowes, when he
went out, wore no shoes. The chain of evidence which we have heard after
this is curiously complete. The watchman has told us that the murderer
who ran down the street wore no shoes, and that the dying man called him
“Philip” twice by name, begging him to run for his life. You have
evidence that the murderer was discovered at his horrid task, at ten
minutes before three of the clock, and that he ran in the direction of
St. James’ Square. The time which it would take to go quickly between
—— Street and St. James’ Square is about ten minutes. You have
evidence that Meadowes came home at three of the clock. Gentlemen, I am
very much puzzled in my thoughts, and am at a loss to find out what
inducement there could be to draw Mr. Meadowes to commit such a horrid,
barbarous murder. For though he hath not been on the best of terms with
the late gentleman, his father, yet the supposed cause of their
coolness—an imprudent marriage—is not a cause likely to lead to such
tragic happenings as these. Nor can I see what Mr. Meadowes would gain
by the crime, were it not his own undoing. But, against these
considerations, you must weigh the extraordinary evidence which you have
heard, and must judge whether it be a likely case that another man,
known to Richard Meadowes as “Philip,” and wearing no shoes, should have
committed this crime. I do not say more, gentlemen; there is little more
to say; go and consider your evidence, and I pray God direct you in
giving your verdict.’

The Jury were absent for a very short time.

‘Gentlemen, are you all agreed in your verdict?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who shall say for you?’

‘Foreman.’

‘Philip Richard William Meadowes, hold up thy hand.’ Which he did.

‘Look upon the prisoner. How say you? Is he Guilty of the murder whereof
he stands indicted, or Not guilty?’

‘Guilty.’

Philip listened, incredulous. Then, as the truth forced itself in upon
his mind, the injustice and cruelty of fate overcame him. In his wrath
and bitterness he stood silent, then, with a sudden hard bitter little
laugh, and a dramatic movement of his hand, he leant forward to speak.

‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this just man.’




                             CHAPTER XXXIII


The trial then was over. And it seemed indeed that before very long
Philip Meadowes’ life too would be over. He who had laughed at
imprisonment and laughed at trial could laugh no longer; he was forced
to believe at last that the world held him to be a murderer, and that as
such he must die. But even sitting in his cell, a man under sentence of
death, Philip could not realise it. This the end of him? this, this,
this? It was frankly impossible that this could be the end of Philip
Meadowes and all his ambitions! of the beautiful life he and Carrie had
meant to live together, of that passion clean and hot as flame that
burned between them! Impossible! impossible!

And then, even above this cry of the heart, rose that keener note of
anguish, that supreme utterance of the soul, the terror of unfulfilment.
It lurks in every man, this protest of vitality against encompassing and
ever encroaching mortality, and has its roots in life itself. With most
men the feeling is quite unformulated and vague. ‘They would not like to
be altogether forgotten’ is about all that it amounts to, and the fear,
such as it is, finds ready cure in the laws of their being; having given
hostages to Fortune they have no further dread that their memory will
perish—the next generation will carry it on. But with another type of
man the case is very different; for though the child of his body may be
dearer to him than his own flesh, the child of the soul will be dearer
yet.

It is this law of aspiration, effort, what you will, that moves on our
world at all; for though it is not written that one man in a thousand
shall influence the race, or one in a million leave an undying memory,
yet it is written that every man, though half of them unknowingly, shall
strive after some star, and some even shall succeed. And these myriads
of agonising atoms form a great aggregate of achievement out of all
proportion to their puny individual efforts, and slowly push the world
on in its destined course.

Something of all this came over Philip now; above all his memories of
this dear, warm, wooing world, that had so loved and courted him, came
the agonising thought, ‘I am virtually dead; I must depart, _leaving
nothing behind_.’ With extraordinary vividness of sensation he had
lived; life had appeared to him as a long feast of rich and varied good
things to which he had sat him down gaily. Some day he had thought to
rise from it, gird on his armour, and go forth to some stirring and
valorous enterprise; he had never decided what the enterprise would be,
but trusted that the kind and bountiful Giver of life’s banquet would
provide his children with work when they had feasted long enough. Now
all these vague dreams of the future came down like a house of cards: he
stood face to face with death, his work undone.

This was the thought which eclipsed every other as these strange days
rolled on, each of them it seemed an eternity for length, each of them
bringing Phil nearer and nearer to the gallows. The very gaolers pitied
Philip for his youth and beauty; but they pitied Carrie more that day
she obtained entrance to Newgate and a half-hour’s interview with her
husband.

Phil sat, as he always sat then, his eyes fixed on the floor, his chin
resting on his hands. He did not even look up as the door was unlocked,
but said merely, ‘Lay it down, gaoler; I have little appetite these
days,’ thinking his food had been brought in. Then with a cry,
inarticulate, between joy and agony, Carrie ran towards him. Phil did
not stir nor speak, and Carrie knelt down beside him, and buried her
face against his shoulder, sobbing. He passed his arm round her, but
still he did not speak.

‘O Phil! my darling, my joy, why can you not speak to me?’ cried Carrie.
She took his hand in hers, and held it to her heart, kissing it and
crying over it; but Phil was silent.

When he raised his eyes from the ground at last and looked at her,
Carrie started, such a grave new look there was in them, and all the
shine seemed to have gone from them.

‘What will you do, Carrie?’ he said suddenly. They were the first words
he uttered. ‘Do you think your father will forgive you when you are left
alone? will take you back to his home and care for you?’

‘Don’t! don’t!’ cried Carrie; but Phil went on—

‘I shall be hanged on the 12th of next month, Carrie; there’s no chance
of a reprieve, they’ve tried for it in vain, the facts are too strong
against me. I wish ’twere sooner, even for your sake, my poor darling.
You’ll dream of me being hanged each night twice over ere then.’

Carrie put her fingers in her ears. ‘Stop, Phil! for Heaven’s sake do
not say these things,’ she cried; ‘they cannot kill you. Have you
stopped speaking now? May I take my fingers from my ears?’

‘Yes,’ laughed Philip. ‘Come, Carrie, tell me, have you no doubt of your
husband these days when all the world calls him a murderer?’

‘Phil!’

‘Well, what do you make of it all—all this evidence?’

‘How did it happen?’ asked innocent Carrie.

‘I fear you know as much as I do. Prior did it, I fancy; took off his
shoes and followed my father and killed him—that’s all I can think, but
there’s not a ghost of fact to go to prove this. They had not even
quarrelled, to my knowledge at least.’

‘O Phil! don’t look like that! Oh, you are not a boy any longer,’ said
Carrie, for she had caught the strange new expression of his eyes again
as he spoke.

‘I have been a boy too long,’ said Philip; he shook his head and smiled
at Carrie as if she were a child; ‘and now I have grown old in a
night—like Jack’s bean-stalk. Come and let me speak all my discontent
to my love, and years after this she will remember, and will credit me
with all I wished to do rather than all I left undone.’

Carrie looked up wonderingly, and Philip spoke on—

‘Oh, that’s the bitterness, Carrie; it’s not a shameful death, or
leaving the happy world even—and hasn’t it been happy! No; I’d stand
that if I left anything behind. But just to go out like a
candle—phew!’—he blew into the air as if at a flame,—‘bright one
minute, snuffed out the next. ’Tis ghastly. I cannot realise, it,
Carrie; I won’t—I won’t, ’tis miserable injustice.’

Phil rose and paced about the cell for a moment, then he came and sat
down beside Carrie again, and took her hand in his.

‘You don’t understand, you know, my heart,’ he said with something of
his old lightness for a moment; ‘for I scarce think you ever felt thus.
You now, if you were to die along with me, would not feel a pang, I
believe.’

‘No, indeed, Phil; I should die gladly with you,’ said Carrie,
mystified.

‘Ah, there’s the rub. I cannot die, Carrie; my personality cries out so
loud against extinction ere it hath fulfilled itself. Foolish, vain
talk; but I’ve thought of no other thing night and day since they passed
sentence on me, except of you.’

Carrie, you know, was of another clay; she sat and looked at Phil with
such a puzzled air that he fairly laughed aloud, and his ringing laugh
struck strangely on the walls of Newgate. The poor old walls had heard
many a groan, but so few laughs that the sound was scarcely recognised!

‘Did I puzzle her dear brains with nonsense?’ he said, taking Carrie’s
face between his hands and kissing her. ‘Carrie, our jesting days are
over, and sweet, sweet they’ve been for all their shortness.’

‘O Phil, they cannot be over,’ said Carrie; she was only twenty, poor
child, an age that has little realisation.

‘Carrie, you must believe this,’ said her husband—he looked into her
eyes as he spoke, and let his words fall slowly,—‘I shall be both dead
and buried this day next month—dead and buried, Carrie, and you will be
a widow. You must face this, must talk with me of what you are to do
afterwards.’ But Carrie would only shudder and hide her face in her
hands. Phil spoke on—a curious task to set his eloquence this—telling
her unflinchingly all that would be, explaining, describing, till Carrie
whitened and clutched his hand more tightly than ever.

‘Stop, Phil,’ she said, in a little choked whisper, ‘I believe it now.’

Then with a rattle of the bolts the door fell open, and the gaoler
silently signed to Carrie that she must say her farewells.

‘I shall be allowed to see you once again, Phil,’ she whispered, before
she turned away.

Carrie’s coach had been waiting for her at the prison gate all this
time. And when she came out, Peter stepped forward to assist her. Carrie
got in, and then sat staring before her in a bewildered fashion.

‘Shall we drive home, madam?’ asks Peter, his voice very husky.

‘To——. Yes—to my father’s,’ said Carrie.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV


In this moment of dismay Carrie’s heart had turned to her father, as the
needle turns to the north, with a tenacity of trustfulness that a
thousand quarrels would never shake. Here, if anywhere, lay her help,
her comfort. She alighted at the door of her old home and passed in
without waiting to inquire of Patty whether her father was at home or
no. Her trouble would be her passport; she made sure of welcome now, if
it had been refused to her in her prosperity.

The dusk had fallen, but firelight lit up the room as Carrie entered; it
shone brightly on the polished panelling of the walls with rosy
reflection.

Sebastian had just come in; he stood beside the fire; his great figure
in the half light seemed to fill the little room. Carrie ran towards him
with her arms outstretched and a cry of joy; the sight of him came to
her in her distress like the very peace of heaven.

‘Save him! save him, dada!’ she cried, turning back in her extremity to
her childish speech.

‘Eh, my poor Carrie!—so trouble hath come to you,’ said Sebastian, ‘and
so you are come to me.’ He paused, and looked curiously at his daughter
as he spoke. Carrie had changed so much since they parted; in her
splendid raiment, her jewels and her laces, she looked such a great lady
that Sebastian scarcely recognised her. But Carrie was oblivious of
everything, save the one thing at her heart. She caught both Sebastian’s
hands in hers, and cried again and again, ‘Save him, dada! Oh, sir,
they’re going to hang him—to hang my Philip; he’ll hang ere the month
is out if you do not save him.’

Sebastian sat down and Carrie knelt beside him; there was no word of
dispute between them now; she gazed up into his face in an agony of
entreaty, an ecstasy of confidence.

‘I feared ’twould go badly from the first,’ said Sebastian. ‘Have you
seen your husband, Carrie, since the sentence?’

‘Yes, this afternoon. Oh, sir, ’tis impossible that Phil can die.’

‘And what doth he say—how explain this murder to you—to his wife?’
asked Sebastian curiously.

‘He says Simon Prior—(a man, sir, that I always hated, a man I made
Phil quarrel with not long ago)—he says Simon Prior must have done it,
else he can offer no explanation.’

‘And you—do you not think your husband did it, Carrie?’

Carrie drew back from her father for a moment in horror.

‘Sir!’ she began—but added a moment later—‘but that is because you do
not know Phil.’

‘Carrie,’ said Sebastian, leaning forward to take her hand in his, ‘tell
me, my child, my joy, the better part of life for me—tell me, are you
as happy with Philip as you thought to be? do you love him as first you
did? for youthful passions are hot, and many a time burn themselves
out.’

‘I love him more a thousand times than when first I loved.’

‘And you believe no ill of him?’

‘As soon I would believe it of you, sir.’

Sebastian rose and began to pace up and down the room.

‘Have they tried for a reprieve, Carrie?’

‘Vainly, sir.’

Carrie sank down, burying her face in the cushions of her father’s
chair, and Sebastian paced through the room in silence.

A scheme was already in his mind which would easily enough gain Philip’s
release; but whether to do it? Even the sight of Carrie kneeling there
in such an abandonment of grief could not move him. Willingly he would
see Philip Meadowes die: an offence to him in the very circumstances of
his birth; the son of his bitter enemy; himself the man who had stolen
Carrie from him—how was it possible that he should work for Philip’s
release? Moreover, Philip was a murderer; Carrie might dotingly believe
in his innocence—to the world he stood accused; it would be plainly
wrong and unprincipled to assist at the reprieve of such a man. No, he
would not do it, would never suggest the possibility to Carrie, to any
one. Philip should die, and Carrie would return to her father’s house,
and they would bury the past in the grave that closed over Richard
Meadowes and his son.

So argued Sebastian, as he paced up and down the quiet fire-lit room;
then the silence became full of voices—the past sung and whispered to
his heart; he was young again, and Annie was with him. Annie seemed now
to speak so clearly that she might have been pacing beside him—she
spoke always the same words, pleading with him for something with all
her soul:—‘_If ever you can help my Phil . . . for my sake . . . and
forgettin’ Dick Sundon and all his lies._’ She urged again and yet
again. The time had come in truth; if ever Phil wanted a helper, he
wanted one now, and yet Sebastian held back.

‘Don’t ask it of me, Annie!’ he cried out aloud, forgetful of Carrie’s
presence in the fierceness of the mental struggle he was going through.
Carrie sat up in surprise at the sound of his voice, and hearing a name
she did not know.

‘Did you speak, sir?’ she asked. Her voice woke him to the present, to
the realities of things, and his decision was taken in a moment. How had
he ever questioned?—he had promised Annie once and for ever to help her
son if it ever lay in his power to do so; worthy or unworthy, as Phil
might be, that promise must be kept for the sake of the woman who had
trusted him. Sebastian flung out his arms with a gesture of relief—like
a man who has been long cramped. In the sudden rebound from the tense
feeling of the last few minutes, he fairly laughed aloud, then bending
over Carrie he raised her face to his, and kissed her wet blue eyes.

‘Come, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Take courage, mayhap we shall save him
yet.’

Carrie held her breath, and Sebastian continued:—

‘My Lady Y—— suffers from an obscure disease of the finger-joints.’
. . . He paused and looked at Carrie for a moment.

‘I scarce see how my Lady Y——’s finger-joints affect my husband’s
release, sir,’ pouted Carrie, who thought that her father had taken a
sudden and rather unfeeling divergence into his own affairs at this
point; but her tears were dried none the less; she listened breathlessly
for what Sebastian was going to say next.

‘I have an idea the cure would be simple enough,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’ve
seen more of what can be done with cutting than most men, and I’m not
afraid of the knife.—Come, Carrie, mayhap we can cut this knot yet.’

‘How? what?’ queried Carrie, mystified.

‘Plainly, I’ll operate on your husband if he hath a mind to give a hand
for his life, and an hour of agony.’

Carrie had heard—as what surgeon’s daughter of that day had not
heard?—of many a criminal who owed his life to her father’s lancet. It
was not an uncommon means of escape from the gallows, though the horror
of it made it in every case a last resort. The difficulty of obtaining
subjects for operation in those days was such that the surgeons
considered themselves lucky when they could get some hapless prisoner to
buy his life at their hands. As I say, many a tale of the kind Carrie
had heard, yet she whitened now as she realised all that the plan
involved.

‘Tush, Carrie,’ laughed her father, patting her white cheek. ‘Many’s the
man hath gone through worse at my hands. Ask your old friend Cartwright
how I took off his arm, and he’s here still to tell the tale.’

‘Ugh,’ shuddered Carrie.

‘Come, I had not thought to see my daughter a coward,’ urged Sebastian.

‘Will—will you arrange about it, sir?’ said Carrie faintly.

‘I shall see the authorities—then Philip; I have no fear of his
refusing: all that a man hath will he give for his life, Carrie.’

‘Will it be very bad, sir?’ asked Carrie.

‘Well, I’ll scarce guarantee him a pleasant hour,’ laughed Sebastian.
‘The last I had under my hands from Newgate made noise enough to deafen
one; the one before that had made himself as drunk as a lord, which was
wiser in him for certain.’ Poor Carrie, treated to these details—for it
was a robust age,—shivered and felt sick with horror.

‘Sir, sir, be quiet!’ she cried, with her fingers in her ears, and
Sebastian laughed.

‘Send your coach home, Carrie, and stay with me,’ he said; ‘where else
would you stay, now you are in trouble?’

‘Will you have me, sir?’

‘Till brighter days return, my daughter.’




                              CHAPTER XXXV


I never enter an old house without wishing it had a voice and could tell
me all its stories and secrets; but the secrets of Newgate would be such
as none of us would listen to willingly—I think we would stop our ears
and hasten on were these stones to cry out! Nevertheless one of the
Newgate cells could tell of a sunny morning long ago when Caroline
Meadowes, Sebastian Shepley, and their friend, Dr. Munro, came together
to aid at the release of Carrie’s husband. Philip needed all his
light-heartedness that day, for though liberty was drawing near, he was
to gain it by a dark enough entrance. As he stood beside the window and
looked out into the sunshiny world where men walked free and happy, his
thoughts were bitter enough; one man, at least, thought he, walked free
that day who should not! Then the door was thrown open, and Carrie and
her father came in, followed by Dr. Munro. Carrie was white as a lily,
her blue eyes shone like stars; she ran towards her husband and clasped
his hands—she could not speak, poor child. Sebastian wore his usual air
of decision and cheerfulness; Munro looked with some curiosity at the
three people brought together for such a strange purpose. Philip was the
first to speak, coming forward with his graceful address to greet
Sebastian, as though no disagreement had ever been between them.

‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘I have no words in which to express my
indebtedness to you.’

He spoke with so much of his father’s air and voice that Sebastian had
almost recoiled from his outstretched hand, but, recollecting himself,
he took it as cordially as might be.

‘This is my friend Dr. Munro,’ he said, ‘who hath come to see us through
with this ticklish business.’

‘And hath Carrie come for the same end?’ asked Phil, as he turned to his
wife and laughed; ‘I think ’twill be better for her to wait elsewhere
till we are done with the matter.’

‘So thought I,’ said Sebastian, ‘but so did not think Carrie. Two hours
of fatherly eloquence have I wasted on her this day already, and she
hath turned a deaf ear to it all. Come she would, and stay she will, so
there’s an end of it. But this I say, the first sound she makes, or tear
she sheds, she goes from the room.’

‘Carrie, my sweet, better far go elsewhere and wait; ’twill not be long.
I fear you’ll find it painful to watch this,’ said Phil, but Carrie
shook her head.

‘Let me stay, Phil; ’twould be harder far not to be near you. I shall
not cry nor scream, believe me; I shall be quiet all the time.’

‘Carrie is no coward in truth,’ said her father proudly. ‘Best give her
her own way, Meadowes, as she seems determined in it.’

‘As you please, sir,’ he said; and there was a moment of ominous pause.

‘Come,’ said Sebastian; ‘off with your coat, Meadowes; the quicker we
get to work the better.’ He turned up his own sleeves as he spoke, and
Munro opened out the instruments he carried.

Philip flung off his coat.

‘Which arm, sir? left, I hope?’ he asked, beginning to roll up the
shirt-sleeve off his left arm.

‘Left,’ said Sebastian shortly; ‘now lie down and we’ll be as quick as
may be. Gad! a fine arm it is, and a fine hand—well, say farewell to
it, my man, for ’twill not be fair again, I fear.’

He ran his fingers down Phil’s strong young arm as he spoke. Carrie, who
stood beside him, heard him mutter something under his breath. ‘_Flesh
of her flesh, bone of her bone_,’ he said, and Carrie with the
self-importance of youth, concluded that her father spoke of her oneness
with Philip; she thought of the wedding service: ‘He should have said,
“they twain shall be one flesh,”’ she thought.

‘Go on,’ said Phil; and Sebastian cut sharply into the white flesh.
Carrie whitened and shuddered as she saw the first drop of blood—the
price of a life—redden her father’s lancet. Then she went over to
Phil’s side, and took his right hand in hers and held it fast. Every
moment she felt it thrill and twitch, but Phil gave no other sign of
what he suffered. Sebastian and Munro, intent on their work, bent over
him with a word now and then to each other—it was something in these
days to have live tissue to operate on: and poor Philip, between them,
suffering the torments of Hades, lay there wondering how long he could
hold out, for every second seemed an eternity of pain. At first mere
strength supported him, then strength of will, then strength of love,
then, when all these resources had failed him, Philip groaned aloud, and
fell into blissful forgetfulness.

‘Poor fellow!’ muttered Sebastian. He glanced across at Carrie; she did
not stir a muscle.

‘We will not be long now, madam,’ said Munro, with pity for her white
face.

‘There—he hath paid dearly for—for life,’ said Sebastian a few minutes
later; ‘and I doubt, Munro, my Lady Y——’s courage will not bear her
through the same!’ And both the men laughed.

Phil came to himself slowly; and lay white and trembling, his face drawn
with pain.

‘When you feel able, Philip,’ said Sebastian, in a voice as kind as a
mother’s, bending down to speak to him, ‘I shall take you back to my
house—you and Carrie; ’twill be home for you now.’

Philip just smiled and closed his eyes, and wondered vaguely how Dr.
Shepley ever got his voice to sound so soft; but Carrie, crossing over
to where her father stood, buried her face on his breast and wept her
long restrained tears.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI


Carrie, Philip, and Sebastian formed a curious little household for the
next few weeks. Sebastian, who was first a doctor and then a man,
deferred his judgment upon Philip’s case in the meantime, and directed
his energies to Philip’s recovery. This, with a vigorous young
constitution, was not very prolonged, and he was soon going about as
usual, only with the maimed hand in a sling. Then, and not till then,
Sebastian began to study Philip’s character very carefully. He would sit
in silence and look at the young man, puzzling what the truth of this
strange business was. For the life of him Sebastian could not resist the
charm of Phil’s manner, and found himself unconsciously joining in his
jests and his talk; but every one did that—what surprised him much more
was to find that he esteemed Philip in his more serious moments. When
Philip chose to be serious he was terribly in earnest, compelling
attention to his subject, and Sebastian could scarcely believe the
evidence of his senses when first he heard him speak in this way.

It was one evening as the two men sat alone together, Carrie having gone
out of the room, that Philip began to speak of the future.

‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘I must begin to earn my living—I cannot let
you support my wife, far less myself, and I do not suppose that the
fortune which my father meant to leave me can be mine now. Even if it
were, I scarce think I could touch it while all the world supposes me to
be his murderer.’

Sebastian was silent for a moment, and Phil turned quickly and looked at
him.

‘Do you think I did that, sir?’ he asked.

‘If you did, you have the most extraordinary easy conscience of any man
I have ever met,’ said Sebastian.

Phil gave a light little sigh. ‘Well, sir, ’tis more than generous of
you to house a murderer, even for the sake of your dear daughter.—But
to return to what I spoke of first. Murderer or no, I cannot let another
man work for me and be idle myself, yet I fear, with the stigma that’s
on me now, I can scarce hope for success in any profession here. Sir, do
you think I should leave England and make a home for my wife elsewhere?’

‘Yes,’ said Sebastian slowly; ‘I fear ’tis your only chance. But leave
Carrie with me meantime—a living, far less a competency, is none so
easy to make, as you’ll find when you begin to try to make one.’

‘Oh, I’ve been deucedly rich!’ cried Phil. ‘I should have been working
years ago; but I’ll work now like twelve men, sir, to make up for lost
time. Tell me, sir, isn’t work a splendid thing? Now, when I see you
each day with more than you can overtake, I wish from my heart I’d
belonged always to those that toil. Some fraction of it all must live,
you know, even of work like yours, sir, that appears to be only from day
to day, ’tis really moving the world on. Our horrible idle days are dead
before they are half lived!’

‘I never saw you in earnest before, Philip,’ said Sebastian, with a
smile for the heat of youth.

‘You see—pardon me—you have not seen very much of me,’ said Phil; ‘but
I must be in earnest now: Heaven knows I’ve played myself long enough.
’Tis true I enter into life halt now,’ he added, in a sadder tone.

This was not the last conversation they had on this much-vexed subject
of what Phil was to do; but things took on a different complexion
suddenly, one night not long after.

There came a thunder upon the knocker and a note from Dr. Munro. It was
dated from a house in —— Street, and contained only these words: ‘Do
your endeavour to come as speedily as may be, bringing with you Philip
Meadowes.’

Sebastian could not explain the strange summons. He passed the note to
Philip.

‘Simon Prior lives there,’ said Phil, as he looked at the address.

‘Will you come, then?’

‘Yes, sir; I fancy he hath business with me,’ said Phil. When they
reached the house, Munro met them on the stairway.

‘Come this way,’ he said, leading them into a sitting-room. He closed
the door and signed to them to sit down.

‘This is the house of Simon Prior, the same who witnessed at your
trial,’ he said, with a bow towards Philip. ‘And Simon Prior is taken
with seizures that threaten to end his days ere long. Years ago he came
under my hands in hospital (do you remember, Shepley? no, why should
you?) from a street accident. He seemingly thought me skilful, for now
he sends for me again, and this time the case is scarce so easy. Now,
since I have been called in, the man has seemed in great trouble of
mind—a more arrant coward I never knew—and he takes no rest day nor
night, tossing and crying out. Since this afternoon he calls continually
to see you, “Philip Meadowes,” and moreover hath made me send by special
messenger summoning Judge Matthews to his bedside. His Lordship is not
yet arrived, mayhap he will not trouble himself to come, but I have told
him that the summons may have special bearings on a certain interesting
case he lately tried, so I look to see him shortly.’

Philip said nothing; but he turned his sparkling eyes on Sebastian for a
moment.

‘Doth Prior wander in his mind then?’ said Sebastian, a little
anxiously.

‘No, he fears death and judgment apparently, but when the terrors pass
off him, he is in full possession of his senses.’

‘And he seems anxious to see Philip?’

‘After a fashion. At first he seemed to struggle long about the matter,
then asked me if death was near, inevitably, for him, and when I replied
that it was, he said, after a pause for thought, “Then send for Philip
Meadowes.” ’Twas after that he summoned Judge Matthews, seemingly an
afterthought.’

They heard at this moment the sound of Matthews’ arrival in the hall.
Munro went out to meet him and usher him in. Philip found himself again
in the presence of his Judge.

‘A good evening to you, gentlemen,’ said Matthews. Phil drew himself up
proudly and met his surprised look with a steady glance.

‘I fancy we are about to hear a curious statement from Mr. Simon Prior,
my Lord,’ said Munro, ‘but before we go into his chamber I had best tell
you of his condition. ’Tis critical to a degree, but his mind is clear
still. The thoughts that distract him come, I fancy, from an evil
conscience, so I have troubled you to come at his bidding and hear
whatever he hath to say, in hopes that his mind being put at rest, his
bodily state may be bettered. Gentlemen, shall we go into the
sick-room?’

They followed Munro into a large dim-lighted room, a silent, curious
trio.

Simon Prior at sound of their footsteps started up on his elbow, and
peered into the dimness of the shadowy room.

‘Are they come? are all come? Is Philip Meadowes come, and Shepley, and
Judge Matthews?’ he said, in an anxious, loud voice.

‘All are come, sir; calm yourself and lie back. My Lord here is willing
to hear aught you may have to say,’ said Munro, laying Prior back
against the pillows. Matthews stepped forward and stood beside the bed,
but at sight of him Prior started up again.

‘The Judge! the Judge!’ he cried, ‘and before day shines I’ll stand
before the Judge of All!’

‘Sir, sir, compose yourself,’ said Matthews, as he took a seat by the
side of the bed and laid his hand kindly enough across the coverlet. ‘I
am come to hear your story; take your time, I shall listen, however long
it may be.’

‘Easily told, easily,’ said Prior. He seemed to have strung himself up
to tell all his story, for he rattled it off now like a schoolboy who
repeats his letters. ‘Easily told—just that I did it—killed Richard
Meadowes. I took off my shoes and followed him, trusting to the dark
night. Oh, it was all as easy as could be. Then I told him I was
Philip—just for vengeance—just because Phil was the only thing he
loved on earth, and I wished to make his heart bleed at the last. “I am
Philip,” I said in this high voice’—(he broke out into it as he
spoke)—‘just as Philip there speaks—and Meadowes believed me. He died
believing it. Oh, I paid him out for his treachery, for a thousand
treacheries, and he thought his own boy had turned traitor at the last!
And I’m glad I did it, for he had thrown me over like an old shoe when I
had served his turn. Oh, sin’s easy, easy; nothing so easy as sinning at
the first, but now, how am I to die? how am I to die?’

He tossed himself back against the pillows, his arms flung above his
head. Philip came forward and stood looking pityingly down at him.

‘Now you have cleared me of this crime, Prior,’ he said, ‘let your mind
be easy of that. I am here alive and well, as you see. You have my
forgiveness, if that is any comfort to you. Is this all you have to tell
us?’

‘All? all?—that’s but the end of a hideous story; the beginning was so
long ago I scarce remember it. Always money, money. There was the matter
of Anne Champion; but he was to pay every debt I had, you know, and I
was hard pressed at the time. Lord lay not that sin to my charge! ’Twas
Meadowes’ sin, not mine; and there was that other affair in the year ’24
that——’

‘There,’ said Phil, turning away, ‘I for one have heard all I wish to
hear.’

But Prior talked on:—

‘There was the matter of Anne Champion, as I said; listen, Philip, for
she was your mother, you know, and you, Shepley, you were her lover
once, you remember; come, and I shall tell you all of that I——’

‘Sir, sir,’ said Phil in a low quick whisper to Sebastian, and he
pointed to the door. They passed out together, with the sound of Prior’s
voice still talking on and on as they closed the door. In silence they
passed down the staircase and out into the silent street. They stood
together there for a moment without speaking. Then Sebastian laid his
hand on Phil’s shoulder.

‘Come, my son,’ he said.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Phil and Carrie were perhaps the happiest man and woman in London that
night. And Sebastian Shepley, watching their joy, entered into it and
saw in them the bright end of a dark story.

Ah, untraceable jugglery of Time, and Change, and Fate! In all the arts
of the conjurer is no trickery like this; from pain and dishonour and
treachery, and broken hearts and blighted hopes, from such a soil life
sends up her fresh and vigorous shoots, the immortal blossomings of the
tree that cannot wither, whose leaves shall surely, at some far-off day,
heal the nations!




                           TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74636 ***