“Drive to St. Gudule,” he said to the man, “and when you see a carriage going that way, keep behind it, but not too near.”
It happened, however, that the first driver had the best horse, and, being eager to earn his fare quickly, had deposited Clarissa in the Place Gudule before George Fairfax’s charioteer could overtake him. She had her money ready to slip into the man’s hand, and she ran across the square and into the narrow street where Austin lived, and vanished, before Mr. Fairfax turned the corner of the square.
He met the empty vehicle, and dismissed his own driver thereupon in a rage. “Your horse ought to be suppressed by the legal authorities,” he said, as he gave the man his fare.
She must live very near the cathedral, he concluded, and he spent a dreary hour patrolling the narrow streets round about in the wet. In which of those dull-looking houses has she her dwelling? He could not tell. He walked up and down, staring up at all the windows with a faint hope of seeing her, but in vain; and at last went home to his hotel crestfallen and disappointed.
“She escapes me at every turn,” he said to himself. “There is a kind of fatality. Am I to grow old and gray in pursuing her, I wonder? I feel ten years older already, since that night when she and I travelled together.”
* * * * *
CHAPTER XLVI.
ON THE WING.
Clarissa hung over her baby with all manner of fond endearments.
“My darling! my darling!” she sobbed; “is it a hard thing to resist temptation for your sake?”
She had shed many bitter tears since that interview with George Fairfax, alone in the dreary room, while Lovel slept the after-dinner sleep of infancy, and while Mrs. Lovel and Jane Target gossipped sociably in the general sitting-room. Austin was out playing dominoes at the café of a Thousand Columns, with some Bohemianishly-disposed Bruxellois.
She had wept for the life that might have been, but which never could be. On that point she was decided. Not under the shadow of dishonour could she spend her days. She had her son. If she had been alone, utterly desolate, standing on some isolated rock, with nothing but the barren sea around her, she might perhaps have listened to that voice which was so very sweet to her, and yielded. But to take this dreadful leap which she was asked to take, alone, was one thing; to take it with her child in her arms, another. Her fancy, which was very vivid, made pictures of what her boy’s future might be, if she were to do this thing. She thought of him stung by the mention of his mother’s name, as if it were the foulest insult. She thought of his agony when he heard other men talk of their mothers, and remembered the blackness of darkness that shrouded his. She thought of the boyish intellect opening little by little, first with vague wonder, then fearful curiosity, to receive this fatal knowledge; and then the shame for that young innocent soul!
“O, not for worlds!” she cried, “O, not for worlds! God keep me from any more temptation!”
Not with mere idle prayers did she content herself. She knew her danger; that man was resolute, unscrupulous, revengeful even: and she loved him. She determined to leave Brussels. She would go and lose herself in the wide world of London; and then, after a little while, when all possibility of her movements being traced was over, she would take her child to some secluded country place, where there were woods and meadows, and where the little dimpled hands could gather bright spring flowers. She announced her intention to her brother that evening, when he came home at a latish hour from the Thousand Columns, elated by having won three francs and a half at dominoes — an amount which he had expended on cognac and syphons for himself and his antagonist.
He was surprised, vexed even, by Clarissa’s decision. Why had she come to him, if she meant to run away directly? What supreme folly to make such a journey for nothing! Why did she not go from Paris to London at once?
“I did not think of that, Austin; I was almost out of my senses that day, I think, after Daniel told me he was going to separate me from my boy; and it seemed natural to me to fly to you for protection.”
“Then why run away from me? Heaven knows, you are welcome to such a home as I can give. The quarters are rough, I know; but we shall improve that, by-and-by.”
“No, no, Austin, it is not that. I should be quite happy with you, only — only — I have a particular reason for going to London.”
“Clarissa!” cried her brother sternly, “has that man anything to do with this? Has he tried to lure you away from here, to your destruction?”
“No, no, no! you ought to know me better than that. Do you think I would bring dishonour upon my boy?”
Her face told him that she was speaking the truth.
“Very well, Clary,” he said with a sigh of resignation; “you must do as you please. I suppose your reason is a good one, though you don’t choose to trust me.”
So, by an early train next morning, Clarissa, with her nurse and child, left Brussels for Ostend — a somewhat dreary place wherein to arrive in early spring-time, with March winds blowing bleak across the sandy dunes.
They had to spend a night here, at a second-rate hotel on the Quay.
“We must go to humble-looking places, you know, Jane, to make our money last,” Clarissa said on the journey. They had travelled second-class; but she had given a five-pound note to her brother, by way of recompense for the brief accommodation he had given her, not telling him how low her stock was. Faithful Jane’s five-and-twenty pounds were vanishing. Clarissa looked at the two glittering circlets on her wedding finger.
“We cannot starve while we have these,” she thought; and once in London, she could sell her drawings. Natural belief of the school-girl mind, that water-coloured sketches are a marketable commodity!
Again in the dismal early morning — that sunrise of which poets write so sweetly, but which to the unromantic traveller is wont to seem a dreary thing — mother and nurse and child went their way in a great black steamer, redolent of oil and boiled mutton; and at nine o’clock at night — a starless March night — Clarissa and her belongings were deposited on St. Katharine’s Wharf, amidst a clamour and bustle that almost confused her senses.
She had meditated and debated and puzzled herself all through the day’s voyage, sitting alone on the windy deck, brooding over her troubles, while Jane kept young Lovel amused and happy below. Inexperienced in the ways of every-day life as a child — knowing no more now than she had known in her school-girl days at Belforêt — she had made her poor little plan, such as it was.
Two or three times during her London season she had driven through Soho — those weird dreary streets between Soho Square and Regent Street — and had contemplated the gloomy old houses, with a bill of lodgings to let here and there in a parlour-window; anon a working jeweller’s humble shop breaking out of a private house; here a cheap restaurant, there a French laundress; everywhere the air of a life which is rather a struggle to live than actual living. In this neighbourhood, which was the only humble quarter of the great city whereof she had any knowledge, Clarissa fancied they might find a temporary lodging — only a temporary shelter, for all her hopes and dreams pointed to some fair rustic retreat, where she might live happily with her treasure. Once lodged safely and obscurely, where it would be impossible for either her husband or George Fairfax to track her, she would spend a few shillings in drawing-materials, and set to work to produce a set of attractive sketches, which she might sell to a dealer. She knew her brother’s plan of action, and fancied she could easily carry it out upon a small scale.
“So little would enable us to live happily, Jane,” she said, when she revealed her ideas to her faithful follower.
“But O, mum, to think of you living like that, with such a rich husband as Mr. Granger, and him worshipping the ground you walk upon, as he did up to the very last; and as to his anger, I’m sure it was only tempory, and he’s sorry enough he drove you away by this time, I’ll lay.”
“He wanted to take away my child, Jane.”
They took a cab, and dr
ove from Thames-street to Soho. Clarissa had never been through the City at night before, and she thought the streets would never end. They came at last into that quieter and dingier region; but it was past ten o’clock, and hard work to find a respectable lodging at such an hour. Happily the cabman was a kindly and compassionate spirit, and did his uttermost to help them, moving heaven and earth, in the way of policemen and small shopkeepers, until, by dint of much inquiry, he found a decent-looking house in a cul-de-sac out of Dean-street — a little out-of-the-way quadrangle, where the houses were large and stately, and had been habitations of sweetness and light in the days when Soho was young, and Monmouth the young man of the period.
To one of these houses the cabman had been directed by a good-natured cheesemonger, at a corner not far off; and here Clarissa found a second-floor — a gaunt-looking sitting-room, with three windows and oaken window-seats, sparsely furnished, but inexorably clean; a bedroom adjoining — at a rent which seemed moderate to this inexperienced wayfarer. The landlady was a widow — is it not the normal state of landladies? — cleanly and conciliating, somewhat surprised to see travellers with so little luggage, but reassured by that air of distinction which was inseparable from Mrs. Granger, and by the presence of the maid.
The cabman was dismissed, with many thanks and a princely payment; and so
Clarissa began life alone in London.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XLVII.
IN TIME OF NEED.
It was a dreary habitation, that London lodging, after the gardens and woods of Arden, the luxurious surroundings and innumerable prettinesses which Mr. Granger’s wealth had provided for the wife of his love; dreary after the holiday brightness of Paris; dreary beyond expression to Clarissa in the long quiet evenings when she sat alone, trying to face the future — the necessity for immediate action being over, and the world all before her.
She had her darling. That was the one fact which she repeated to herself over and over again, as if the words had been a charm — an amulet to drive away guilty thoughts of the life that might have been, if she had listened to George Fairfax’s prayer.
It was not easy for her to shut that image out of her heart, even with her dearest upon earth beside her. The tender pleading words, the earnest face, came back to her very often. She thought of him wandering about those hilly streets in Brussels, disappointed and angry: thought of his reproaches, and the sacrifices he had made for her.
And then from such weak fancies she was brought suddenly back by the necessities of every-day life Her money was very nearly gone; the journeys had cost so much, and she had been obliged to buy clothing for Jane and Lovel and herself at Brussels. She had spent a sovereign on colours and brushes and drawing-paper at Winsor and Newton’s — her little stock-in-trade. She looked at her diamond rings meditatively as she sat brooding in the March twilight, with as vague an idea of their value as a child might have had. The time was very near when she would be obliged to turn them into money.
Fortunately the woman of the house was friendly, and the rooms were clean. But the airs of Soho are not as those breezes which come blowing over Yorkshire wolds and woods, with the breath of the German Ocean; nor had they the gay Tuileries garden and the Bois for Master Lovel’s airings. Jane Target was sorely puzzled where to take the child. It was a weary long way to St. James’s Park on foot; and the young mother had a horror of omnibuses — in which she supposed smallpox and fever to be continually raging. Sometimes they had a cab, and took the boy down to feed the ducks and stare at the soldiers. But in the Park Clarissa had an ever-present terror of being seen by some one she knew. Purposeless prowlings with baby in the streets generally led unawares into Newport-market, from which busy mart Mrs. Granger fled aghast, lest her darling should die of the odour of red herrings and stale vegetables. In all the wider streets Clarissa was afflicted by that perpetual fear of being recognised; and during the airings which Lovel enjoyed with Jane alone the poor mother endured unspeakable torments. At any moment Mr. Granger, or some one employed by Mr. Granger, might encounter the child, and her darling be torn from her; or some accident might befall him. Clarissa’s inexperience exaggerated the perils of the London streets, until every paving-stone seemed to bristle with dangers. She longed for the peace and beauty of the country; but not until she had found some opening for the disposal of her sketches could she hope to leave London. She worked on bravely for a fortnight, painting half a dozen hours a day, and wasting the rest of her day in baby worship, or in profound plottings and plannings about the future with Jane Target. The girl was thoroughly devoted, ready to accept any scheme of existence which her mistress might propose. The two women made their little picture of the life they were to lead when Clarissa had found a kindly dealer to give her constant employment: a tiny cottage, somewhere in Kent or Surrey, among green fields and wooded hills, furnished ever so humbly, but with a garden where Lovel might play. Clarissa sketched the ideal cottage one evening — a bower of roses and honeysuckle, with a thatched roof and steep gables. Alas, when she had finished her fortnight’s work, and carried half a dozen sketches to a dealer in Rathbone-place, it was only to meet with a crushing disappointment. The man admitted her power, but had no use for anything of that kind. Chromolithographs were cheap and popular — people would rather buy a lithograph of some popular artist’s picture than a nameless water-colour. If she liked to leave a couple of her sketches, he would try to dispose of them, but he could not buy them — and giving her permanent employment was quite out of the question.
“Do you know anything about engraving?” he asked.
Clarissa shook her head sadly.
“Can you draw on the wood?”
“I have never tried, but I daresay I could do that.”
“I recommend you to turn your attention that way. There’s a larger field for that sort of thing. You might exhibit some of your sketches at the next Water-Colour Exhibition. They would stand a chance of selling there.”
“Thanks. You are very good, but I want remunerative employment immediately.”
She wandered on — from dealer to dealer, hoping against hope always with the same result — from Rathbone-place to Regent-street, and on to Bond-street, and homewards along Oxford-street, and then back to her baby, broken-hearted.
“It is no use, Jane,” she sobbed. “I can understand my brother’s life now. Art is a broken reed. We must get away from this dreadful London — how pale my Lovel is looking! — and go into some quiet country-place, where we can live very cheaply. I almost wish I had stayed in Belgium — in one of the small out-of-the-way towns, where we might have been safely hidden. We must go down to the country, Jane, and I must take in plain needle-work.”
“I’m a good un at that, you know, mum,” Jane cried with a delighted grin.
And then they began to consider where they should go. That was rather a difficult question. Neither of them knew any world except the region surrounding Arden Court. At last Clarissa remembered Beckenham. She had driven through Beckenham once on her way to a garden-party. Why should they not go to Beckenham? — the place was so near London, could be reached with so little expense, and yet was rustic.
“We must get rid of one of the rings, Jane,” Clarissa said, looking at it doubtfully.
“I’ll manage that, mum — don’t you fidget yourself about that. There’s a pawnbroker’s in the next street. I’ll take it round there in the evening, if you like, mum.”
Clarissa shuddered. Commerce with a pawnbroker seemed to her inexperience a kind of crime — something like taking stolen property to be melted down.
But Jane Target was a brave damsel, and carried the ring to the pawnbroker with so serene a front, and gave her address with so honest an air, that the man, though at first inclined to be doubtful, believed her story; namely, that the ring belonged to her mistress, a young married lady who had suffered a reverse of fortune.
She went home rejoicing, having raised fifteen pounds upon a ring that was wo
rth ninety. The pawnbroker had a notice that it would never be redeemed — young married ladies who suffer reverse of fortune rarely recover their footing, but generally slide down, down, down to the uttermost deeps of poverty.
They were getting ready for that journey to Beckenham, happy in the idea of escaping from the monotonous unfriendly streets, and the grime and mire and general dinginess of London life, when an unlooked-for calamity befell them, and the prospect of release had, for the time at least, to be given up. Young Lovel fell ill. He was “about his teeth,” the woman of the house said, and tried to make light of the evil. These innocents are subject to much suffering in this way. He had a severe cold, with a tiresome hacking cough which rent Clarissa’s heart. She sent for a doctor immediately — a neighbouring practitioner recommended by the landlady — and he came and saw the child lying in his mother’s lap, and the mother young and beautiful and unhappy, and was melted accordingly, and did all he could to treat the matter lightly. Yet he was fain, after a few visits, and no progress for the better, to confess that these little lives hang by a slender thread.
“The little fellow has a noble frame and an excellent constitution,” he said; “I hope we shall save him.”
Save him! An icy thrill went through Clarissa’s veins. Save him! Was there any fear of losing him? O God, what would her life be without that child? She looked at the doctor, white to the lips and speechless with horror.
“I don’t wish to alarm you,” he said gently, “but I am compelled to admit that there is danger. If the little one’s father is away,” he added doubtfully, “and you would like to summon him, I think it would be as well to do so.”
“O, my flower, my angel, my life!” she cried, flinging herself down beside the child’s bed; “I cannot lose you!”
“I trust in God you will not,” said the surgeon. “We will make every effort to save him.” And then he turned to Jane Target, and murmured his directions.
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