"I am afraid you don't thank me for forcing you to keep your engagement," she said, with her friendly tones and her pleasant smile.
"Indeed I do thank you," he replied. "Your beautiful house and your gracious welcome have persuaded me into forgetting my troubles—for a while."
The smile passed away from her face. "Then it is true," she said gravely.
"Only too true."
She led him to a seat beside her, and waited to speak again until her maid had brought in the tea.
"Have you read my letter in the same friendly spirit in which I wrote it?" she asked, when they were alone again.
"I have read your letter gratefully, but—"
"But you don't know yet what I have to say. Let us understand each other before we make any objections on either side. Will you tell me what your present position is—at its worst? I can and will speak plainly when my turn comes, if you will honor me with your confidence. Not if it distresses you," she added, observing him attentively.
He was ashamed of his hesitation—and he made amends for it.
"Do you thoroughly understand me?" he asked, when the whole truth had been laid before her without reserve.
She summed up the result in her own words.
"If your overdue ship returns safely, within a month from this time, you can borrow the money you want, without difficulty. If the ship is lost, you have no alternative (when the end of the month comes) but to accept a loan from me or to suspend payment. Is that the hard truth?"
"It is."
"And the sum you require is—twenty thousand pounds?"
"Yes."
"I have twenty times as much money as that, Mr. Lismore, at my sole disposal—on one condition."
"The condition alluded to in your letter?"
"Yes."
"Does the fulfillment of the condition depend in some way on any decision of mine?"
"It depends entirely on you."
That answer closed his lips.
With a composed manner and a steady hand she poured herself out a cup of tea.
"I conceal it from you," she said; "but I want confidence. Here" (she pointed to the cup) "is the friend of women, rich or poor, when they are in trouble. What I have now to say obliges me to speak in praise of myself. I don't like it—let me get it over as soon as I can. My husband was very fond of me: he had the most absolute confidence in my discretion, and in my sense of duty to him and to myself. His last words, before he died, were words that thanked me for making the happiness of his life. As soon as I had in some degree recovered, after the affliction that had fallen on me, his lawyer and executor produced a copy of his will, and said there were two clauses in it which my husband had expressed a wish that I should read. It is needless to say that I obeyed."
She still controlled her agitation—but she was now unable to conceal it. Ernest made an attempt to spare her.
"Am I concerned in this?" he asked.
"Yes. Before I tell you why, I want to know what you would do—in a certain case which I am unwilling even to suppose. I have heard of men, unable to pay the demands made on them, who began business again, and succeeded, and in course of time paid their creditors."
"And you want to know if there is any likelihood of my following their example?" he said. "Have you also heard of men who have made that second effort—who have failed again—and who have doubled the debts they owed to their brethren in business who trusted them? I knew one of those men myself. He committed suicide."
She laid her hand for a moment on his.
"I understand you," she said. "If ruin comes—"
"If ruin comes," he interposed, "a man without money and without credit can make but one last atonement. Don't speak of it now."
She looked at him with horror.
"I didn't mean that!" she said.
"Shall we go back to what you read in the will?" he suggested.
"Yes—if you will give me a minute to compose myself."
VI.
IN less than the minute she had asked for, Mrs. Callender was calm enough to go on.
"I now possess what is called a life-interest in my husband's fortune," she said. "The money is to be divided, at my death, among charitable institutions; excepting a certain event—"
"Which is provided for in the will?" Ernest added, helping her to go on.
"Yes. I am to be absolute mistress of the whole of the four hundred thousand pounds—" her voice dropped, and her eyes looked away from him as she spoke the next words—"on this one condition, that I marry again."
He looked at her in amazement.
"Surely I have mistaken you," he said. "You mean on this one condition, that you do not marry again?"
"No, Mr. Lismore; I mean exactly what I have said. You now know that the recovery of your credit and your peace of mind rests entirely with yourself."
After a moment of reflection he took her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips. "You are a noble woman!" he said.
She made no reply. With drooping head and downcast eyes she waited for his decision. He accepted his responsibility.
"I must not, and dare not, think of the hardship of my own position," he said; "I owe it to you to speak without reference to the future that may be in store for me. No man can be worthy of the sacrifice which your generous forgetfulness of yourself is willing to make. I respect you; I admire you; I thank you with my whole heart. Leave me to my fate, Mrs. Callender—and let me go."
He rose. She stopped him by a gesture.
"A young woman," she answered, "would shrink from saying—what I, as an old woman, mean to say now. I refuse to leave you to your fate. I ask you to prove that you respect me, admire me, and thank me with your whole heart. Take one day to think—and let me hear the result. You promise me this?"
He promised. "Now go," she said.
VII.
NEXT morning Ernest received a letter from Mrs. Callender. She wrote to him as follows:
"There are some considerations which I ought to have mentioned yesterday evening, before you left my house.
"I ought to have reminded you—if you consent to reconsider your decision—that the circumstances do not require you to pledge yourself to me absolutely.
"At my age, I can with perfect propriety assure you that I regard our marriage simply and solely as a formality which we must fulfill, if I am to carry out my intention of standing between you and ruin.
"Therefore—if the missing ship appears in time, the only reason for the marriage is at an end. We shall be as good friends as ever; without the encumbrance of a formal tie to bind us.
"In the other event, I should ask you to submit to certain restrictions which, remembering my position, you will understand and excuse.
"We are to live together, it is unnecessary to say, as mother and son. The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private; and you are so to arrange your affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives—if we stay in our own country—in a manner which would be unendurable to a woman like me.
"As to our future lives, I have the most perfect confidence in you, and I should leave you in the same position of independence which you occupy now. When you wish for my company you will always be welcome. At other times, you are your own master. I live on my side of the house, and you live on yours—and I am to be allowed my hours of solitude every day, in the pursuit of musical occupations, which have been happily associated with all my past life and which I trust confidently to your indulgence.
"A last word, to remind you of what you may be too kind to think of yourself.
"At my age, you cannot, in the course of Nature, be troubled by the society of a grateful old woman for many years. You are young enough to look forward to another marriage, which shall be something more than a mere form. Even if you meet with the happy woman in my lifetime, honestly tell me of it—and I promise to tell her t
hat she has only to wait.
"In the meantime, don't think, because I write composedly, that I write heartlessly. You pleased and interested me, when I first saw you, at the public meeting. I don't think I could have proposed, what you call this sacrifice of myself, to a man who had personally repelled me—though I might have felt my debt of gratitude as sincerely as ever. Whether your ship is saved, or whether your ship is lost, old Mary Callender likes you—and owns it without false shame.
"Let me have your answer this evening, either personally or by letter—whichever you like best."
VIII.
MRS. CALLENDER received a written answer long before the evening. It said much in few words:
"A man impenetrable to kindness might be able to resist your letter. I am not that man. Your great heart has conquered me."
The few formalities which precede marriage by special license were observed by Ernest. While the destiny of their future lives was still in suspense, an unacknowledged feeling of embarrassment, on either side, kept Ernest and Mrs. Callender apart. Every day brought the lady her report of the state of affairs in the City, written always in the same words: "No news of the ship."
IX.
ON the day before the ship-owner's liabilities became due, the terms of the report from the City remained unchanged—and the special license was put to its contemplated use. Mrs. Callender's lawyer and Mrs. Callender's maid were the only persons trusted with the secret. Leaving the chief clerk in charge of the business, with every pecuniary demand on his employer satisfied in full, the strangely married pair quitted England.
They arranged to wait for a few days in Paris, to receive any letters of importance which might have been addressed to Ernest in the interval. On the evening of their arrival, a telegram from London was waiting at their hotel. It announced that the missing ship had passed up Channel—undiscovered in a fog, until she reached the Downs—on the day before Ernest's liabilities fell due.
"Do you regret it?" Mrs. Lismore said to her husband.
"Not for a moment!" he answered.
They decided on pursuing their journey as far as Munich.
Mrs. Lismore's taste for music was matched by Ernest's taste for painting. In his leisure hours he cultivated the art, and delighted in it. The picture-galleries of Munich were almost the only galleries in Europe which he had not seen. True to the engagements to which she had pledged herself, his wife was willing to go wherever it might please him to take her. The one suggestion she made was, that they should hire furnished apartments. If they lived at an hotel, friends of the husband or the wife (visitors like themselves to the famous city) might see their names in the book, or might meet them at the door.
They were soon established in a house large enough to provide them with every accommodation which they required.
Ernest's days were passed in the galleries; Mrs. Lismore remaining at home, devoted to her music, until it was time to go out with her husband for a drive. Living together in perfect amity and concord, they were nevertheless not living happily. Without any visible reason for the change, Mrs. Lismore's spirits were depressed. On the one occasion when Ernest noticed it she made an effort to be cheerful, which it distressed him to see. He allowed her to think that she had relieved him of any further anxiety. Whatever doubts he might feel were doubts delicately concealed from that time forth.
But when two people are living together in a state of artificial tranquillity, it seems to be a law of Nature that the element of disturbance gathers unseen, and that the outburst comes inevitably with the lapse of time.
In ten days from the date of their arrival at Munich, the crisis came. Ernest returned later than usual from the picture-gallery, and—for the first time in his wife's experience—shut himself up in his own room.
He appeared at the dinner-hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore waited until the servant had withdrawn. "Now, Ernest," she said, "it's time to tell me the truth."
Her manner, when she said those few words, took him by surprise. She was unquestionably confused; and, instead of lookin g at him, she trifled with the fruit on her plate. Embarrassed on his side, he could only answer:
"I have nothing to tell."
"Were there many visitors at the gallery?" she asked.
"About the same as usual."
"Any that you particularly noticed?" she went on. "I mean, among the ladies."
He laughed uneasily. "You forget how interested I am in the pictures," he said.
There was a pause. She looked up at him—and suddenly looked away again. But he saw it plainly: there were tears in her eyes.
"Do you mind turning down the gas?" she said. "My eyes have been weak all day."
He complied with her request—the more readily, having his own reasons for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.
"I think I will rest a little on the sofa," she resumed. In the position which he occupied, his back would have been now turned on her. She stopped him when he tried to move his chair. "I would rather not look at you, Ernest," she said, "when you have lost confidence in me."
Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and noble in his nature. He left his place, and knelt beside her—and opened to her his whole heart.
"Am I not unworthy of you?" he asked, when it was over.
She pressed his hand in silence.
"I should be the most ungrateful wretch living," he said, "if I did not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made. We will leave Munich to-morrow—and, if resolution can help me, I will only remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as the creature of a dream."
She hid her face on his breast, and reminded him of that letter of her writing, which had decided the course of their lives.
"When I thought you might meet the happy woman in my life-time, I said to you, 'Tell me of it—and I promise to tell her that she has only to wait.' Time must pass, Ernest, before it can be needful to perform my promise. But you might let me see her. If you find her in the gallery to-morrow, you might bring her here."
Mrs. Lismore's request met with no refusal. Ernest was only at a loss to know how to grant it.
"You tell me she is a copyist of pictures," his wife reminded him. "She will be interested in hearing of the portfolio of drawings by the great French artists which I bought for you in Paris. Ask her to come and see them, and to tell you if she can make some copies. And say, if you like, that I shall be glad to become acquainted with her."
He felt her breath beating fast on his bosom. In the fear that she might lose all control over herself, he tried to relieve her by speaking lightly. "What an invention yours is!" he said. "If my wife ever tries to deceive me, I shall be a mere child in her hands."
She rose abruptly from the sofa—kissed him on the forehead—and said wildly, "I shall be better in bed!" Before he could move or speak, she had left him.
X.
THE next morning he knocked at the door of his wife's room and asked how she had passed the night.
"I have slept badly," she answered, "and I must beg you to excuse my absence at breakfast-time." She called him back as he was about to withdraw. "Remember," she said, "when you return from the gallery to-day, I expect that you will not return alone."
Three hours later he was at home again. The young lady's services as a copyist were at his disposal; she had returned with him to look at the drawings.
The sitting-room was empty when they entered it. He rang for his wife's maid—and was informed that Mrs. Lismore had gone out. Refusing to believe the woman, he went to his wife's apartments. She was not to be found.
When he returned to the sitting-room, the young lady was not unnaturally offended. He could make allowances for her being a little out of temper at the slight that had been put on her; but he was inexpressibly disconcerted by the manner—almost the coarse manner—in which she expressed herself.
"I have been talking to your wife's maid, while you have been away," she said. "I find you h
ave married an old lady for her money. She is jealous of me, of course?"
"Let me beg you to alter your opinion," he answered. "You are wronging my wife; she is incapable of any such feeling as you attribute to her."
The young lady laughed. "At any rate you are a good husband," she said satirically. "Suppose you own the truth? Wouldn't you like her better if she was young and pretty like me?"
He was not merely surprised—he was disgusted. Her beauty had so completely fascinated him, when he first saw her, that the idea of associating any want of refinement and good breeding with such a charming creature never entered his mind. The disenchantment to him was already so complete that he was even disagreeably affected by the tone of her voice: it was almost as repellent to him as the exhibition of unrestrained bad temper which she seemed perfectly careless to conceal.
"I confess you surprise me," he said, coldly.
The reply produced no effect on her. On the contrary, she became more insolent than ever.
"I have a fertile fancy," she went on, "and your absurd way of taking a joke only encourages me! Suppose you could transform this sour old wife of yours, who has insulted me, into the sweetest young creature that ever lived, by only holding up your finger—wouldn't you do it?"
This passed the limits of his endurance. "I have no wish," he said, "to forget the consideration which is due to a woman. You leave me but one alternative." He rose to go out of the room.
She ran to the door as he spoke, and placed herself in the way of his going out.
He signed to her to let him pass.
She suddenly threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately, and whispered, with her lips at his ear: "Oh, Ernest, forgive me! Could I have asked you to marry me for my money if I had not taken refuge in a disguise?"
Little Novels Page 14