Rupert Godwin

THE STORY OF THE PAST.

Clara Westford recovered slowly, but she did recover; a faint flush came back to the wan cheeks, a new brightness lit up in the eyes that had been so haggard.

That process of recovery was very painful. When the invalid’s weary hours of delirium and stupor wore over—when unreal afflictions, visions of horror and dread, had ceased to torture the agonized and bewildered mind, real sorrow, stern and cruel, awaited Clara Westford.

The first syllables that fell from her lips, when reason returned, formed a question about her husband.

“Was there any letter?” she asked. “Had any letter come from Harley?”

Alas, for that anxious wife, the answer was in the negative; no letter had arrived from the Captain.

Neither Violet nor Lionel had been rendered uneasy by their father’s silence. They fancied that if he had not written, it was because he had had no opportunity of sending a letter.

But the wife was distracted by a thousand fears. Her husband had left her declaring his intention of depositing the entire amount of his savings in a banker’s hands, and immediately sending her the receipt for the money.

The fortune itself was a secondary consideration in Clara Westford’s mind; yet she knew her husband’s anxiety upon that point, and she could not but wonder that he had omitted to write to her on the subject before leaving England; or failing to write before setting sail from London, she wondered that he had not contrived to send a letter ashore before losing sight of the English coast.

She was distracted by fears, so shadowy in their nature that she could scarcely give utterance to them. Her children perceived her uneasiness, and endeavoured to set her fears at rest.

“My dearest mother,” exclaimed Lionel, “do you think, if there were really cause for fear, that I should not also be uneasy? Do you forget the old proverb, which tells us that ill news flies fast? If anything had been amiss with my father before the Lily Queen lost sight of England, Gilbert Thornleigh would have been sure to write to us. You know how devoted he is to my father; and, indeed, to all of us,” added the young man, looking with peculiar significance at Violet, who blushed, and moved to an open window near her to avoid that searching gaze.

Everybody at the Grange had perceived the impression made by Violet on the simple-hearted first mate of the Lily Queen.

Clara Westford tried to smile upon the loving son and daughter, who watched her every look with anxious eyes. She smiled, but it was the smile of resignation, not of peace. Her heart was racked by hidden torture, yet she suffered no cry of despair to escape her lips. For the sake of Lionel and Violet she tried to suppress all outward evidence of her anguish, and waited, hoping day after day that ere the sun set a letter might reach her, sent by some homeward-bound vessel, to assure her of Harley Westford’s safety.

“He knows how much I suffer when he is away,” she thought. “He will not fail to write whenever the opportunity occurs.”

It was a fearful time—a long, dreary interval of suspense and anxiety. Lionel was happy; for, with the careless, light-hearted confidence of youth that has never been clouded by sorrow, he trusted blindly in the future. All his father’s previous voyages had been prosperous, why should not this voyage be like the rest?

And Violet, she too was happy, with the wondrous happiness of a first love—true, pure, and boundless. Now that her mother was restored to health, it seemed to her as if there were no cloud upon the brightness of her life. What if George Stanmore were poor? Her father would return, and poverty would be no disgrace in the eyes of that most generous of fathers.

So the summer time passed happily for the lovers, who met often in the beautiful woodland, sometimes alone, sometimes in the presence of Lionel, who saw that the painter admired his sister, but had no suspicion of any deeper feeling existing between the two. This is a subject upon which brothers are very slow of understanding. They think their sisters very nice girls, but are rather surprised than otherwise when some masculine friend declares that the nice girl is something akin to an angel.

If Lionel had suspected the truth, he would scarcely have interfered to cross the path of that true love. He had no mercenary ambition, either for his sister or himself; and the hard schooling of adversity had not yet taught him prudence.

The summer waned; bright hues of crimson and amber mingled with the verdant green of the forest, the fern grew brown, the country children came whooping through the echoing glades, bent on the plunder of aloe and hazel, beech and chestnut; the days grew shorter, and the little family at the Grange spent long quiet evenings in the lamp-lit drawing-room.

But still there was no letter from Harley Westford—no tidings of the Lily Queen.

Mrs. Westford and her son and daughter had many friends amongst the neighbouring county families; but they saw little company during this period, for Clara had always held herself very much aloof from society during her husband’s absence.

All who were intimate with her admired and loved her: but there were some who knew little of Clara Westford, and who pronounced her proud and exclusive.

She was proud, because her husband’s position as a merchant captain was beneath that of the county gentry, who had never dabbled in trade or speculation, and who could not quite realize the fact that the owner of a trading-vessel might be a gentleman.

Clara was proud for his sake; not for her own.

“I will go to no house where my husband is not esteemed an honoured guest,” she said.

She was exclusive, because her affection was concentrated into one focus. She loved her husband and children with a deep and devoted love, and she had little affection left for the world outside that happy household.

Three months had passed since the sailing of the Lily Queen; and yet there were no tidings of the Captain.

To Clara, and to Clara alone, this was a cause of alarm. Lionel and Violet still trusted blindly, almost too happy to believe in the existence of misfortune.

One bright autumn day Clara Westford sent her son and daughter on a shopping expedition to Winchester. She was pleased to see them employed and happy; for she had no wish that any part of her burden should be borne by them. It was a relief to her to be alone, so that she might give way to her own sorrow, free from the loving scrutiny of those watchful eyes.

She sat in the Grange drawing-room, a large low-ceilinged apartment, with long windows opening on to the lawn.

The day was warm and bright; and the open windows admitted the pure air from the gardens and woodland. Clara Westford sat in a half-reclining position in a low arm-chair near one of the windows. A little table loaded with books was by her side; but the volumes lay there unopened and unheeded. She could not read; her thoughts were far away—on those terrible and unknown seas where the Lily Queen was sailing.

Never, perhaps, in the earliest bloom of her girlhood, had Clara Westford looked lovelier than she did to-day.

It was the subdued beauty of womanhood, calm and quiet as the mellow light of the moon compared with the full glory of the noontide sun.

She was exquisitely dressed, for she was too completely high-bred to neglect her toilette on any occasion. She was not a woman who made sorrow or anxiety an excuse for slovenly attire. Her chestnut hair was coiled in thick plaits at the back of her small classical head, and fastened with a simple tortoiseshell comb. Her silk dress was of a golden brown, which harmonized exquisitely with the fair clear complexion and chestnut hair—the brown which Millais has immortalized in the dress of his red-coated squire’s fair-haired daughter. A large turquoise, set in a rim of lustreless gold, clasped the small white collar, and a stud of exactly the same fashion fastened each simple cuff of spotless cambric. A few costly rings, all of turquoise and gold, adorned the tapering white hands, and these were the only ornaments worn by the Captain’s wife.

She sat alone, thinking—O, how fondly, how mournfully!—of her absent husband, when suddenly the curtains of the window farthest from her were pushed aside with a jangling noise, and a man entered the room.

Clara Westford looked up, startled by that sound, and a half-stifled shriek burst from her lips.

“You here!” she cried. “You here!”

The intruder was no other than Rupert Godwin, the Lombard-street banker.

He advanced slowly towards the spot where Clara Westford sat. His dark face was just a little paler than usual, and there was a stern resolute look in his eyes.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, “it is I, Clara Westford. After twenty years we meet face to face for the first time to-day, and I look once again upon the woman who has been the curse and torment of my life.”

Clara Westford shrank back into the cushioned chair almost as if she had been recoiling from a blow.

“O, merciful Heaven!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands passionately; “after twenty years of happiness am I to hear that hated voice again?”

“Yes, Clara,” answered the banker; “for twenty years there has been a truce. To-day the war begins again, and this time it shall not end until I am conqueror.”

The Captain’s wife clasped her hands before her face; but she uttered no further appeal. She sat shivering, as if chilled to the very heart by some sudden blast of freezing wind.

“Ah, Clara, you are as beautiful as ever, but you have lost some of your old haughty spirit,” said the banker. “The merchant captain’s wife is not so proud as the baronet’s daughter.”

“A hundred times more proud!” cried Clara, dropping her hands from her face, and looking suddenly at Rupert Godwin. “A hundred times more proud! For she has her husband’s honour to protect as well as her own.”

“Bravely spoken, Clara—nobly spoken! You are the same imperious beauty still, I see, and the conquest will be a noble one. This time I will not fail!”

“Why are you here?” cried Mrs. Westford. “How did you discover this place?”

“From your husband. But you shall know more of that by-and-by.”

“From my husband? Ah! he came to you, then?—you saw him before he sailed?”

“Yes; I saw him.”

“He deposited money to a large amount in your hands?”

The bunker looked at Clara Westford with an insolent smile.

“My dear Clara, you must surely be dreaming!” he exclaimed. “Your husband deposited no money in my hands, nor was he in a position to do so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply, that when Harley Westford came to me he was a beggar. He came to borrow money to pay for some part of the cargo of his ship, and he deposited with me the title-deeds of this estate, as a security for the amount advanced to him.”

“He borrowed money from you!” cried Clara, clasping her hands upon her forehead with a convulsive gesture. “Why, he told me that he meant to lodge twenty thousand pounds in your hands!”

“He told you a falsehood, then; for the whole of his earnings were lost in some foreign speculations in which he had involved himself, and it was only with the help of borrowed money that he could start upon this new venture. Do not look at me with that incredulous stare, my dear Clara; I do not ask you to accept this fact on the simple evidence of my word. I have documents bearing your husband’s signature to prove the truth of what I state. When you hold those papers in your hands you may be able to believe me.”

“O, it’s too terrible!” exclaimed the wretched wife; “it is too bitter. Harley, my husband, under an obligation to you—to you, of all other men upon this earth!”

“Yes,” answered the banker, with a smile. “It was strange that he should come to me, was it not? Very strange! It was one of those startling accidents which go to make the drama of social life.”

There was a pause. Clara Westford was silent. She was thinking of her last interview with her husband, and recalling the words he had then spoken.

Could it be that he had deceived her as to the state of his affairs? Could it be, that, with the weakness and cowardice of intense affection, he had sought to hide from her the approach of ruin?

It might be so; such things had been. Love shrinks, with a cowardly weakness, from inflicting pain upon the thing it loves.

“He might have trusted me,” she thought sadly. “Did he think I should fear poverty that was to be shared with him? After twenty years of union can he know me so little as to think that?”

Clara Westford hated and despised Rupert Godwin, and she would have been inclined to disbelieve any assertion made by him to the detriment of the man she loved; but she ceased to doubt him when he boldly offered to produce her husband’s signature in confirmation of his words.

“Let me see Harley’s own handwriting in support of this statement,” she said presently; “then, and not till then, can I believe you.”

“All in good time, my dear Clara. You shall see your husband’s signature, believe me; perhaps only too soon for your own comfort. But we need not forestall that time. In the meanwhile, let us look back upon the past. After twenty years of truce the war is to begin again; and this time it shall be a duel to the death. Let us look back upon the past, Clara Westford—let us recall that old story.”

“What, Mr. Godwin!” cried the Captain’s wife indignantly. “Are you not ashamed to recall the hateful part you played in that story?”

“I only want to prove to you how well I have remembered. Let me recall that story, Clara.”

There was no answer. Mrs. Westford turned from him and covered her face with her hands once more, as if she would fain have shut out sight and sound; but, in a cold merciless voice, Rupert Godwin began thus:

“Twenty-two years ago, Clara Westford, I spent the autumn at a fashionable watering-place on the south coast. The place was crowded that season with all that was most elegant, most distinguished, most aristocratic. But even amongst that highborn crowd I did not find myself an intruder. The reputation of my father’s wealth went with me, and there was a kind of golden glory about my untitled name. I had been educated in the greatest cities of the world, and was completely a man of the world, with no vulgar prejudices as to religion or morals. My youth had been somewhat stormy, and those who pretended to know most about me whispered dark histories in which my name was mingled—not pleasantly. In a few words, Clara, I was not a man to be trifled with, or fooled, by a girl of seventeen.”

There was a brief pause, and then the banker continued:

“There were many beautiful women at that pleasant seaside town; but the loveliest of them all, the acknowledged belle, the observed of all observers, was the only daughter of Sir John Ponsonby, a rich Yorkshire baronet of very old family. Need I tell you how lovely she was, Clara? She is lovely still; with a more subdued beauty, but with as great a charm as she bore in her brilliant youth. She was a dazzling creature. I met her at a charity-ball—on the sands—in the reading-rooms—on horseback with her father, a thoroughgoing Tory of the old school, and as proud as Lucifer or a Spanish hidalgo. I met her constantly, for I haunted all the places where there was any chance of seeing her. The very sight of that girl dazzled me like the sudden glory of the sun. I loved her, with a mad, wild, unreasonable passion; and I determined that she should be my wife.”

For a moment Clara Westford uncovered her face, and looked at the banker with a quiet scornful smile.

“Ah, I understand the meaning of that smile, Clara,” said Rupert Godwin. “I was presumptuous, was I not, when I determined to win this woman for my wife? But remember, she had fooled me on; she had smiled upon me, and encouraged me by her sweetest words, her brightest glances. She was surrounded by a crowd of admirers; but I was one of the most distinguished amongst them; and it seemed to me that she singled me out from the rest, and took more pleasure in talking to me than to the others. There were strangers who thought so too; and the likelihood of our speedy marriage was soon the public talk of the place.”

“She was a weak, frivolous girl,” murmured Clara; “but she meant no wrong.”

“She meant no wrong!” echoed the banker. “There are men who commit murder, and then declare they meant no wrong. This woman did me a deep and bitter wrong. She fed my mad passion, she encouraged my wild devotion; and then, when I went to her, confident, hopeful, blindly believing that I was beloved again—when I went to her and told her how dearly she was loved, she turned upon me, and slew me with a look of cold surprise, telling me that she was the promised wife of another man.”

The banker paused for a few moments; then, in a suppressed voice, a voice which was low and hoarse with stifled passion, he proceeded:

“I was not the man to take this quietly, Clara Westford. I was not one of those puling creatures who avow their power to forget and forgive. In my heart there was no such thing as forgiveness; in my nature there was no such thing as forgetfulness. I left Clara Ponsonby with a tempest of passion raging in my breast. That night, after roaming alone for hours on the broad open sands, far away from the glimmering lights of the town, where no living creature but myself heard the long roar of the ocean—that night, with my clenched hand lifted to the stars of heaven, I swore a terrible oath. I swore that, sooner or later, Clara Ponsonby should be mine—not as my honoured wife, but mine by a less honourable tie. The cup of degradation she had offered to me—to me, the proud descendant of a proud race—her lips should drain to the lowest dregs. I was not a man to work in the dark. I saw my lovely Clara next day, and told her of the oath that I had sworn. She too came of a proud race, and she defied me.”

“She did,” answered the Captain’s wife, “as she defies you now.”

“For six months the contest lasted,” continued the banker. “For six months that silent warfare was waged. Wherever Clara Ponsonby was seen, I was seen near her. I followed her from place to place. Her father liked and trusted me, so she could not banish me from her presence without betraying her secret engagement to another—a man who was her inferior in station, and whom her father would have refused to admit as a claimant for his daughter’s hand. Clara was dumb, therefore; and, however odious my presence might be, she was compelled to submit to its infliction. I stood behind her chair in her opera-box. I rode beside her carriage when she drove in the Park. I did not succeed in ousting the low-born rival for whose sake I had been rejected; but I did succeed in humiliating Miss Ponsonby in the eyes of the world. Before that season was over the fashionable circle in which Clara lived was busy with slanderous rumours against her fair fame. I had managed very cleverly. I had friends—sycophant followers—always ready to do my bidding. An idle jest, a significant shrug of the shoulders, a little damaging gossip at a club-dinner, and the business was accomplished. Before that season came to its close Clara Ponsonby’s reputation was blighted. The poisonous whispers reached her father’s ear—I took care they should; and the proud old man, believing in his daughter’s disgrace, cast her from his household, declaring that he would never look on her face again.”

A convulsive sobbing shook Clara Westford’s frame; but she uttered no word—no cry.

“In that hour I fancied myself triumphant,” continued Rupert Godwin. “Abandoned, desolate, ruined in reputation, I thought that Clara Ponsonby would have sought the luxurious home which she knew I had prepared against this day. My letters had told her of my hopes, my plans; the new home that awaited her; the passionate devotion that might still be hers. My emissaries watched her as she left her father’s house; but—O, bitter anguish and disappointment!—it was not to me that she came. She went to Southampton, and embarked on board a steamer bound for Malta; and a month afterwards I read in the Times an announcement of the marriage of Harley Westford, captain of the merchant vessel Adventurer, to Clara Ponsonby. At Malta she had joined the man to whom she was engaged. His life had been spent far away from the circles in which she moved, and no breath of scandal against her had ever reached his ear. That, Clara, is the end of the first act of the drama. The second act began three months ago, when Harley Westford, your husband, the man for whose sake you insulted and scorned me, came into my office in Lombard-street.”

Clara Westford suddenly rose from her seat and turned towards the banker, proud and defiant of look and gesture.

“Leave this house!” she exclaimed, pointing to the door. “It is disgraced and degraded by your presence. Twenty years ago, when you intruded yourself upon me, you found me in my father’s house, from which I had no power to dismiss you. This house in my own, Rupert Godwin. I command you to leave it, and never again darken its threshold by your hated shadow!”

“Those are strong words, Clara, and I cannot do otherwise than obey them. I go; but only for a time. The time will come when I may have a better right of entrance to this house. In the meanwhile, I depart; but before I do so, let me show you a paragraph in this newspaper, which may perhaps have some interest for you.”

As he said this, Rupert Godwin handed Mrs. Westford a copy of the Times, in which one paragraph was marked by a heavy black line drawn against it with a pen.

The paragraph ran as follows:—

“The underwriters of Lloyd’s are beginning to have serious fears about the trading vessel Lily Queen, which sailed from London Docks on the 27th of last June, bound for China, and has not since been heard of.”

The paper dropped from Clara Westford’s hands; she could read no farther, but with a long shriek of agony fell senseless on the floor.

“Ah, Clara!” exclaimed the banker, looking down at that prostrate form with a cruel smile upon his face, “I said truly that the second act of our life-drama has begun.”