“I will take one, Arthur; I was just reading it when—” She did not finish the sentence, but began hastily untying the parcel to get the book, while her brother rang the bell, and ordered a cab “for Miss Eden.”
How strange—how sweet it sounded to her!
“Is that my name, Arthur?” she asked, turning to him with a look of glad surprise.
“Yes, until you change it; and, by the way, you had better order yourself some cards.”
A few minutes later and she was speeding northwards in a hansom, feeling that the motion, so unlike that of the familiar lumbering omnibus, had a wonderfully exhilarating effect on her. It was a pleasure she had not tasted since the time when she lived in London with Mary, and that now seemed to her a whole decade ago. But never in those past days had she faced the fresh elastic breeze in so daintily-built a cab, behind so fiery, swift-stepping a horse. Never had she felt so light-hearted. For now she was not alone in life, but had a brother to love; and he loved her, and had shown her his heart—all the good and the evil that was in it; and all the evil she could forgive, and was ready to forget, and it was nothing to her. She was even glad to think that when he had first seen her in that little shabby sitting-room in Norland Square it had been to love her.
Mr. Tytherleigh was already at her lodgings, and seeing her arrive, he hurried out to ask her not to alight. Mr. Travers, he said, wished her to move into better apartments; he had a short list in his pocket, and offered to go with her to choose a place. Fan readily consented, and when he had taken the picture into the house for her, he got into the cab, and they drove off to the neighbourhood of Portman Square. In Quebec Street they found what they wanted—two spacious and prettily—furnished rooms on a first floor in a house owned by a Mrs. Fay. A respectable woman, very attentive to her lodgers, Mr. Tytherleigh said, and known to Mr. Travers through a country client of his having used the house for several years. He also pronounced the terms very moderate, which rather surprised Fan, whose ideas about moderation were not the same as his.
From Quebec Street they went to the London and Westminster Bank in Stratford Place, where Fan was made to sign her name in a book; and as she took the pen into her hand, not knowing what meaning to attach to all these ceremonies, Mr. Tytherleigh, standing at her elbow, whispered warningly—“Frances Eden.” She smiled, and a little colour flushed her cheeks. Did he imagine that she had forgotten? that the name of Affleck was anything more to her than a bit of floating thistledown, which had rested on her for a moment only to float away again, to be carried by some light wind into illimitable space, to be henceforth and for ever less than nothing to her? After signing her new name a cheque-book was handed to her; then Mr. Tytherleigh instructed her in the mysterious art of drawing a cheque, and as a beginning he showed her how to write one payable to self for twenty-five pounds; then after handing it over the counter and receiving five bank-notes for it, they left the bank and proceeded to a stationer's in Oxford Street, where Fan ordered her cards.
Mr. Tytherleigh, as if reluctant to part from her, returned to Charlotte Street in the cab at her side. During their ride back she began to experience a curious sensation of dependence and helplessness. It would have been very agreeable to her if this freer, sweeter life which she had tasted formerly, and which was now hers once more, had come to her as a gift from her brother; but he had distinctly told her that she had nothing to thank him for, and only some very vague words about her father's dying wishes had been spoken. Who then was she dependent on? She had not been consulted in any way; her employer had simply been told that it would not be convenient for her to attend again at the place of business, and now she was sent to live alone in grand apartments, where she would have a cheque-book and some five-pound notes to amuse herself with. For upwards of a year she had been proud of her independence, of her usefulness in the world, of the room she rented, and had made pretty with bits of embroidery and such art as she possessed, and now she could not help experiencing a little pang of regret at seeing all this taken from her—especially as she did not know who was taking it, or changing it for something else.
These thoughts were occupying her mind when she was led into her landlady's little sitting-room, and hoped that the lawyer or lawyer's clerk had only come to explain it all to her.
“I don't know when I shall see you again, Miss Eden,” he said; she noticed that he and her brother had begun calling her Miss Eden on the same day; “but if there is anything more I can do for you now I shall be glad. If I can assist you in moving to Quebec Street, for instance——”
“Oh no, thank you; all my luggage will go easily on a cab. Are you in a hurry to leave, Mr. Tytherleigh?”
“Oh no, Miss Eden, my time is at your disposal”; and he sat down again to await her commands.
“I should so like to ask you something,” she said. “For the last few hours I have scarcely known what was happening to me, and I feel—a little bewildered at being left alone with this cheque-book and money. And then, whose money is it, Mr. Tytherleigh—you can tell me that, I suppose?”
“Why, I should say your own, Miss Eden, else—you could hardly have it to spend.”
“But how is it mine? I forgot to ask my brother today to explain some things in a letter I had from him last night. He wishes me to be guided by Mr. Travers, and says that what I receive does not come from him, but from my father.”
“Quite right,” said the other with confidence.
“But, Mr. Tytherleigh, you told me some days ago that no money was left to my mother or to anyone belonging to her.”
“Ah, yes, it does seem a little contradictory, Miss Eden. I was quite correct in what I told you, and—for the rest, you must of course take your brother's word.”
“Yes; but what am I to understand—can you not explain it all to me?”
“Scarcely,” he returned, with the regulation solicitor smile. “I think I have heard that Mr. Travers will see you himself before long. Perhaps he will make it clear to you, for I confess that it must seem a little puzzling to you just now.”
“When shall I see Mr. Travers?”
“I cannot say. He is an elderly man, not very strong, and does not often go out of his way. In the meantime, I hope you will take my word for it that it is all right, and that when you require money you will freely use your cheque-book.”
And that was all the explanation she got from Mr. Tytherleigh.
Fan, alone in her fine apartments, her occupation gone, found the time hang heavily on her hands. To read a little, embroider a little, walk a little in Hyde Park each day, was all she could do until Mr. Travers should come to her and explain everything and be her guide and friend. But the slow hours, the long hot days passed, and Mr. Travers still delayed his coming, until to her restless heart the leisure she enjoyed seemed a weariness and the freedom a delusion. Every day she spent more and more time out of doors. At home the profound silence and seeming emptiness of the house served but to intensify her craving for companionship. Her landlady, who was her own cook, never entered into conversation with her, and only came to her once or twice a day to ask her what she would have to eat. But to Fan it was no pleasure to sit down to eat by herself, and for her midday meal she was satisfied to have a mutton chop with a potato—that hideously monotonous mutton chop and potato which so many millions of unimaginative Anglo-Saxons are content to swallow on each recurring day. And Mrs. Fay, her landlady, had a soul; and her skill in cooking was her pride and glory. Cookery was to her what poetry and the worship of Humanity, and Esoteric Buddhism are to others; and from the time when she began life as a kitchen-maid in a small hotel, she had followed her art with singleness of purpose and unflagging zeal. She felt it as a kind of degradation to have a lodger in her house who was satisfied to order a mutton chop and a potato day after day. It was no wonder then that she grew more reticent and dark-browed and sullen every day, and that she went about the house like a person perpetually brooding over some dark secret. Some awful midnight crime, perhaps—some beautiful and unhappy young heiress, left in her charge, and smothered with a pillow for yellow gold, still haunting her in Quebec Street. So might one have imagined; but it would have been a mistake, for the poor woman was haunted by nothing more ghastly than the image of her lodger's mutton chop and potato. And at last she could endure it no longer, and spoke out.
“I beg your pardon for saying it, Miss,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “but I think it very strange you can't order anything better for your dinner.”
“It does very well for me,” said Fan innocently. “I never feel very hungry when I'm alone.”
“No, miss; and no person would with nothing but a chop to sit down to. I was told by the gentleman from Mr. Travers' office that brought you here that I was to do my best for you. But how can I do my best for you when you order me to do my worst?” Here she appeared almost at the point of crying. “It is not for me to say anything, but I consider, miss, that you're not doing yourself justice. I mean only with respect to eating and drinking——” with a glance full of meaning at Fan's face, then at her dress. “About other things I haven't anything to say, because I don't interfere with what doesn't concern me.”
“But what can I do, Mrs. Fay?” said Fan distressed. “I have not been accustomed to order my meals, but to sit down without knowing what there was to eat. And I like that way best.” Then, in a burst of despair, she added, “Can't you give me just whatever you like, without asking me?”
Mrs. Fay's brow cleared, and she smiled as Fan had not seen her smile before.
“That I will, miss; and I don't think you'll have any reason to complain that you left it to me.”
From that time Fan was compelled to fare delicately, and each day in place of the simple quickly-eaten and soon-forgotten chop, there came to her table a soup with some new flavour, a bit of fish—salmon cutlets, or a couple of smelts, or dainty whitebait with lemon and brown bread-and-butter, or a red mullet in its white wrapper—and exquisitely-tasting little made dishes, and various sweets of unknown names. Nor was there wanting bright colour to relieve the monotony of white napery and please the eye—wine, white and red, in small cut-glass decanters, and rose and amber-coloured wineglasses, and rich-hued fruits and flowers. Of all the delicacies provided for her she tasted, yet never altogether free from the painful thought that while she was thus faring sumptuously, many of her fellow-creatures were going about the streets hungry, even as she had once gone about wishing for a penny to buy a roll. Still, Mrs. Fay was happy now, and that was one advantage gained, although her lodger was paying dearly for it with somebody's money.
But here she drew the line, being quite determined not to spend any money on dress until Mr. Travers should come to her to relieve her doubts, and yet she knew very well that to be leading this easy idle life she was very poorly dressed. Many an hour she spent sitting in the shade in Hyde Park, watching the perpetual stream of fashionable people, on foot and in carriages—she the only unfashionable one there, the only one who exchanged greetings and pleasant words with no friend or acquaintance. What then did it matter how meanly she dressed? she said to herself every day, determined not to spend that mysterious money. Then one day a great temptation—a new thought—assailed her, and she fell. She was passing Marshall and Snelgrove's, about twelve o'clock in the morning, when the broad pavement is most thronged with shopping ladies and idlers of both sexes, when out of the door there came a majestic-looking elderly lady, followed by two young ladies, her daughters, all very richly dressed. Seeing Fan, the first put out her hand and advanced smilingly to her.
“My dear Miss Featherstonehaugh,” she exclaimed, “how strange that we should meet here!”
“Oh, mamma, it is not Miss Featherstonehaugh!” broke in one of the young ladies; and after surveying Fan from top to toe with a slightly supercilious smile, she added, “How could you make such a mistake!”
“I beg your pardon,” said the old lady loftily, as if Fan had done her some injury, and also surveying the girl, apparently surprised at herself for mistaking this badly-dressed young woman for one of her own friends.
Fan, arrested in her walk, had been standing motionless before them, and her eyes, instinctively following the direction of the lady's glance, travelled down her dress to her feet, where one of her walking-boots, old and cracked, was projecting from her skirt. She reddened with shame and confusion, and walked hurriedly on. What would her brother's feeling have been, she asked herself, if he had met her accidentally there and had noticed those shabby boots? and with all that money, which she had been told to use freely, in her purse! A fashionable shoe-shop caught her eye at that moment, and without a moment's hesitation she went in and purchased a pair of the most expensive walking-shoes she could get, and a second light pretty pair to wear in the house. That was only the first of a series of purchases made that day. At one establishment she ordered a walking-dress to be made, a soft blue-grey, with cream-coloured satin vest; and at yet another a hat to match. And many other things were added, included a sunshade of a kind she admired very much, covered with cream-coloured lace. With a recklessness which was in strange contrast to her previous mood, she got rid of every shilling of her money in a few hours, and then went boldly to the bank. Then her courage forsook her, and her face burned hotly, and her hand shook while she wrote out a second cheque for twenty-five pounds. Not without fear and trembling did she present it at the cashier's desk; but the clerk said not a word, nor did he look at her with a stern, shocked expression as if reproaching her for such awful extravagance. On the contrary he smiled pleasantly, remarking that it was a warm day (which Fan knew), and then bowed, and said “Good-day” politely.
The feeling of guilt as of having robbed the bank with which she left Stratford Place happily wore off in time; and when the grey dress was finished, and she found herself arrayed becomingly, the result made her happy for a season. She surveyed her reflection in the tall pier-glass in her bedroom with strange interest—or not strange, perhaps—and thought with a little feeling of triumph that the grand lady and her daughters would not feel disgusted at their dimness of vision if they once more mistook her for their friend “Miss Featherstonehaugh.”
“Even Constance would perhaps think me good enough for a friend now,” she said, a little bitterly; and then remembering that she had no friend to show herself to, she felt strongly inclined to sit down and cry.
“Oh, how foolish I have been to spend so much on myself, when it doesn't matter in the least what I wear—until Arthur comes back!”
And Arthur was not coming back just now, for only after all her finery had been bought, on that very day she had received a letter from him dated from Southampton, telling her that he had joined a friend who was about to start for Norway in his yacht, and that he would be absent not less than two months. This was a sore disappointment, but a note from Mr. Travers accompanied Eden's letter, sent in the first place to Lincoln's Inn, which gave her something to expect and think about. The lawyer wrote to say that he would call to see her at twelve o'clock on the following morning.
Fan, in her new dress, and with a slight flush caused by excitement, was waiting for him when he arrived. He was a tall spare man, over seventy years old, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, and hair and whiskers almost white. He had an aquiline nose and a firm mouth and chin, and yet the expression was far from severe, and under his broad, much-lined forehead the deep-set clear blue eyes looked kindly to the girl. When in repose there was an expression of weariness on his grey face, and a far-off look in the eyes, like that of one who gazes on a distant prospect shrouded in mist or low-trailing clouds. He had thought and wrought much, and perhaps, unlike that stern-browed and dauntless old chair-mender that Fan remembered so well, he was growing tired of his long life-journey, and not unwilling to see the end when there would be rest. But when talking or listening his face still showed animation, and was pleasant to look upon. Fan remembered certain words of her brother's, and felt that even if they had never been uttered, here was a man in whom she could trust implicitly.
At first he did not say much, and after explaining the cause of his delay in visiting her, contented himself with listening and observing her quietly. At length, catching sight of the water-colour portrait of Fan, which was hanging on the wall, he got up from his seat and placed himself before it.
“It is a very beautiful picture, Miss Eden,” he said with a smile, as Fan came to his side.
“Yes, I think it is,” she returned naïvely. “But that is the artist's work. I never had a dress like that—I never had a dinner dress in my life. It was taken from a photograph, and the painter has made a fancy picture of it.”
“It is very like you, Miss Eden—an excellent portrait, I think. Do you not know that you are beautiful?”
“No, I did not know—at least, I was not sure. But I am glad you think so. I should like very much to be beautiful.”
“Why?” he asked with a smile.
“Because I am not clever, and perhaps it would not matter so much if people thought me pretty. They might like me for that.”
He smiled again. “I do not know you very well yet, Miss Eden, but judging from the little I have seen of you and what I have heard, I think you have a great deal to make people like you.”
“Thank you,” she returned a little sadly, remembering how her dearest friends had quickly grown tired of her.
“How strange it is—how very strange!” he remarked after a while, repeating Mr. Tytherleigh's very words. “I can scarcely realise that I am here talking to Colonel Eden's daughter.”
“Yes, it is very strange. That I should have got acquainted in that chance way with my brother, and—”
“That he should have fallen in love with his sister,” added Mr. Travers, as if speaking to himself rather than to her.
She looked up with a startled expression, then suddenly became crimson to the forehead and cast down her eyes. “Oh, I am so sorry—so sorry that you know,” she spoke in a low sad voice. “Why, why did Arthur tell you that? No person knew except ourselves; and it would have been forgotten and buried, and now—now others know, and it will not be forgotten!”
“My dear Miss Eden, you must not think such a thing,” he returned. “Your secret is safe with me, but perhaps you did not know that. Do you know that your father and I were close friends? There was little that he kept from me, and I am glad that Arthur Eden has inherited his father's trust in me; and perhaps, Miss Eden, when you know me better, and have heard all I intend telling you about your father, you will have the same feeling. But when I spoke of its being so strange, I was not thinking about you and Arthur becoming acquainted. That was strange, certainly, but it was no more than one of those coincidences which frequently occur, and which make people remark so often that truth is stranger than fiction.”
“What were you thinking of then, Mr. Travers?” she asked, a little timidly.
“Are you not aware, Miss Eden, that your father never knew of your existence at all? That is the strangest part of the story. But I must not go into that now. You shall hear it all before long. Would you not like to see your father's portrait?”
“Oh yes, very much; but Arthur never told me that he had one.”
“I am not sure that he has one; but I possess a very fine portrait of him, in oils, by a good artist, which, I hope, will belong to your brother some day, for I do not wish to live for ever, Miss Eden. I should like to show it you very much. And that leads me to one object of my visit to-day. Mrs. Travers and I wish you to pay us a visit if you will. We live at Kingston, and should like you to stay with us a fortnight.”
Fan thanked him and accepted the invitation, and it was agreed that she should go to Kingston that day week.
“I have found out one thing since I came to see you, Miss Eden,” he said, “and it is that you are singularly frank. One effect of that is to make me wish to be frank with you. Now I am going to confess that I came today with some misgivings. I remembered, my dear child, the circumstances of your birth and bringing up, and could not help fearing that your brother had been a little blinded by his feelings, and had seen a little more in you than you possessed. But I do not wonder now at what he said of you. If your father had lived till now I think that he would have been proud of his child, and yet he was a fastidious man.”
“Thank you, Mr. Travers; but you, perhaps, think all that because I am—because you think I am pretty.”
Mr. Travers smiled. “Well, your prettiness is a part of you—an appropriate part, I think, but only a part after all. You see I am not afraid of spoiling you. You are strangely like your father; in the shape of your face, the colour of your eyes, and in your voice you are like him.”
She was looking up at him, drinking in his words with eager pleasure.
“I see that you like to hear about him,” he said, taking her hand. “But all I have to tell you must be put off until we meet at Kingston. I am only sorry that you will find no young people there. My sons and daughters are all married and away. I have some grandchildren as old as you are, and they are often with us, but at present Mrs. Travers is alone.”
After a few more words, he bade her good-bye and left her, and only after he had gone Fan remembered that she had intended to confess to him, among other things, that she had been extravagant with somebody's money.
The lawyer's visit had given her something to think of and to do; forthwith she began to prepare for her fortnight's stay at Kingston with much zeal and energy. It was a great deal to her to be able to look forward to the companionship for a short time of even an elderly, perhaps very dignified, lady, her loneliness did so weigh upon her. It had not so weighed before; she had had her daily occupations, the companionship of her fellow-assistants, and had always felt tired and glad to rest in the evening. Now that this strange new life had come to her, that the days were empty yet her heart full, to be so completely cut off from her fellows and thrown back on herself, to have not one sympathetic friend among all these multitudes around her, appeared unnatural, and made all the good things she possessed seem almost a vanity and a delusion.
Sitting in the shade in Hyde Park, she had begun to find a vague pleasure in recognising individuals she had seen and noticed on previous occasions in the moving well-dressed crowd—the same tall spare military-looking gentleman with the grey moustache; the same three slim pretty girls with golden hair and dressed alike in grey and terra-cotta; the same two young gentlemen together, both wearing tight morning coats, silk hats, and tan gloves, but in their faces so different! one colourless, thoughtful, with eyes bent down; the other burnt brown by tropical heats and looking so glad to be in London once more. Were they brothers, or dear friends, reunited after a long separation, with many strange experiences to tell? To see them again day after day was like seeing people she knew; it was pleasant and painful at the same time. But as the slow heavy days went on, and after all her preparations were complete, and still other days remained to be got through before she could leave London, the dissatisfied feeling grew in her until she thought that it would be a joy even to meet that poor laundry-woman who had given her shelter at Dudley Grove, only to look once more into familiar friendly eyes. During these days the memory of Constance and Mary was persistently with her; for these two had become associated together in her mind, as if the two distinct periods of her life at Dawson Place and Eyethorne had been the same, and she could not think of one without the other. She had loved and still loved them both so much; they were both so beautiful and strong and proud in their different ways; and in their strength perhaps both had alike despised her weak clinging nature, had grown tired of her affection. And at last this perpetual want in her heart, this disquieting “passion of the past,” reached its culminating point, when, one day after dinner, she went out for a short stroll in the park.
The Row at that hot hour being forsaken, instead of crossing the park to seek her favourite resting-place, she turned into the fresh shade of the elms growing near its northern unfashionable side. She walked on until the fountains were passed and she was in the deeper shade of Kensington Gardens. She was standing on the very spot where she had watched three ragged little children playing together, heaping up the old dead brown leaves. The image of the little girl struggling up from the heap in which her rude playfellows had thrown her, with tearful dusty face, and dead leaves clinging to her clothes and disordered hair, made Fan laugh, and then in a moment she could scarcely keep back the tears. For now a hundred sweet memories rushed into her heart—her walks in the Gardens, all the little incidents, the early blissful days when she lived with Mary; and so vividly was the past seen and realised, yet so immeasurably far did it seem to her and so irrecoverably lost, that the sweetness was overmastered by the pain, and the pain was like anguish. And yet with that feeling in her heart, so strong that it made her cheeks pallid and her steps languid, she went on to visit every spot associated in her mind with some memory of that lost time. Under that very tree, one chill October day, she had given charity unasked to a pale-faced man, shivering in thin clothes; and there too she had comforted a poor wild-haired little boy whose stronger companions had robbed him of all the chestnut-burs and acorns he had gathered; and on this sacred spot a small angelic child walking with its mamma had put up its arms and demanded a kiss. Even the Albert Memorial was not overlooked, but she went not there to admire the splendour of colour and gold, and the procession of marble men of all ages and all lands, led by old Homer playing on his lyre. She looked only on the colossal woman seated on her elephant, ever gazing straight before her, shading her eyes from the hot Asiatic sun with her hand, for that majestic face of marble, and the proud beautiful mouth that reminded her of Mary, had also memories for her. And at last her rambles brought her to the extreme end of the Gardens, to the once secluded grove between Kensington Palace and Bayswater Hill; for even that bitter spot among the yew and pine-trees must be visited now. She found the very seat where she had rested on that unhappy day in early spring, shortly after her adventure at Twickenham, when, as she then imagined, her beloved friend and protector had so cruelly betrayed and abandoned her. How desolate and heart-broken she had felt, seated there alone on that morning in early spring, in that green dress which Mary had given her—how she had sobbed there by herself, abandoned, unloved, alone in the world! And after all Mary had done her no wrong, and Mary herself had found her in that lonely place! The whole scene of their meeting rose with a painful distinctness before her mind. In memory she heard again the slight rustle of a dress, the tread of a light foot on a dead leaf that had startled her; she listened again to all the scornful cutting words that had the effect at last of waking such a strange frenzy of rage in her, a rage that was like insanity. And now how gladly would she have dismissed the rest, but the tyrant Memory would not let her be, she must re-live it all again, and not one feeling, thought, or word be left out. Oh, why, why did she remember it all now—when, starting from her seat as if some demon had possessed her, she turned on her mocker with words such as had never defiled her lips before, which she now shuddered to recall? Unable to shake these hateful memories off, and with face crimsoned with shame, she rose from the seat and hurriedly walked away towards Bayswater Hill. Issuing from the Gardens she stood hesitating for some time, and finally, as if unable to resist the strange impulse that was drawing her, she turned into St. Petersburg Place, looking long at each familiar building—the fantastic, mosque-like red-brick synagogue; and just beyond it St. Sophia, the ugly Greek cathedral, yellow, squat, and ponderous; and midway between these two—a thing of beauty—St. Matthew's Church, grey and Gothic, with its slender soaring spire. In Pembridge Square she paused to ask herself if it was not time to turn back. No, not yet, a few steps more would bring her to the old turning—that broad familiar way only as long as the width of two houses with their gardens, from which she might look for a few moments into that old beloved place where she had lived with Mary. And having reached the opening, and even ventured a few paces into it, she thought, “No, not there, I must not go one step further, for to see the dear old house would be too painful now.” But against her will, and in spite of pain and the fear of greater pain, her feet carried her on, slowly, step by step, and in another minute she was walking on the broad clean pavement of Dawson Place.
How familiar it looked, lovely and peaceful under the hot July sun; the detached houses set well back from the road, still radiant as of old with flowers in the windows and gardens! It was strangely quiet, and only two persons beside herself were walking there—a lady with a girl of ten or twelve carrying a bunch of water-lilies in her hand, which she had probably just bought at Westbourne Grove. They passed her, talking and laughing, and went into one of the houses; and after that it seemed stiller than ever. Only a sparrow burst out into blithe chirruping notes, which had a strangely joyous ring in them. And here where she had expected greater pain her pain was healed. Something from far, something mysterious, seemed to rest on that spot, to make it unlike all other places within the great city. What was it—this calm which stilled her throbbing heart; this touch of glory and subtle fragrance entering her soul and turning all bitterness there to sweetness? Perhaps the shy spirit of life and loveliness, mother of men and of wild-flowers and grasses, had come to it, bringing a whiter sunshine and the mystic silence of her forests, and touching every flowery petal with her invisible finger to make it burn like fire, and giving a ringing woodland music to the sparrow's voice.
In that brightness and silence she could walk there, thinking calmly of the vanished days. How real it all seemed—Mary, and her life with Mary: all the rest of her life seemed pale and dream-like in comparison, and the images of all other men and women looked dim in her mind when she thought of the woman, sweet, strong, and passion-rocked, who had taken her to her heart. Slowly she walked along the pavement, looking at each well-known house as she passed, and when she reached the house where she had lived, walking slower still, while her eyes rested lovingly, lingeringly on it. And as she passed it, both to leave it so soon, it occurred to her that she could easily invent some innocent pretext for calling. She would see the lady of the house to ask for Miss Starbrow's present address. Not that she would ever write to Mary again, even if the address were known, but it would be an excuse to go to the door with, to see the interior once more—the shady tessellated hall, perhaps the drawing-room. Turning in at the gate, she ascended the broad white steps, and their whiteness made her smile a little sadly, reminding her of the old dark days before Mary had been her friend.
Her knock was answered by a neat-looking parlourmaid.
“I called to see the lady of the house,” said Fan. “Is she in?”
“Yes, miss; will you please walk in,” and she led the way to the drawing-room. “What name shall I say, miss?” said the girl.
Fan gave her a card, and then, left alone, sat down and began eagerly studying the well-remembered room. There were ferns and blossoming plants in large blue pots about the room, and some pictures, and a few chairs and knick-knacks she had never seen, and a new Persian carpet on the floor; but everything else was unchanged. The grand piano was in the old place, open, with loose sheets of music lying on it, just as if Mary herself had been there practising an hour before.
She was sitting with her back to the door, and did not hear it open. The slight rustling sound of a dress caught her ear, and turning quickly, she beheld Mary herself standing before her. It might have been only yesterday that Mary had spoken those cruel-kind words and left her in tears at Eyethorne. For there was no change in her—in that strong beautiful face, the raven hair and full dark eyes, the proud, sweet mouth—which Foley might have had for a model when he chiselled his “Asia”—and that red colour on her cheeks, richer and softer than ever burned on sea-shell or flower.
The instant that Fan turned she recognised her visitor, and remained standing motionless, holding the girl's card in her hand, her face showing the most utter astonishment. If a visitor from the other world had appeared to her she could not have looked more astonished. Meanwhile Fan, forgetting everything else in the joy of seeing Mary again, had started to her feet, and with a glad cry and outstretched arms moved towards her. Then the other regained possession of her faculties; she dropped her hand to her side, the colour forsook her face, and it grew cold and hard as stone, while the old black look came to her brows.
“Pray resume your seat, Miss Paradise—I beg your pardon, Miss——” here she consulted the card—“Miss Eden,” she finished, her lips curling.
“Oh, I forgot about the card,” exclaimed Fan deeply distressed. “You are vexed with me because—because it looks as if I wished to take you by surprise. Will you let me explain about my change of name?”
“You need not take that trouble, Miss—Eden. I have not the slightest interest in the subject. I only desire to know the object of this visit.”
“My object was only to—to see the inside of the house again. I did not know that you were living here now. I had invented an excuse for calling. But if I had know you were here—oh, if you knew how I have wished to see you!”
“I do not wish to know anything about it, Miss Eden. Have you so completely forgotten the circumstances which led to our parting, and the words I wrote to you on that occasion?”
“No, I have not forgotten,” said Fan despairingly; “but when I saw you I thought—I hoped that the past would not be remembered—that you would be glad to see me again.”
“Then you made a great mistake, Miss Eden; and I hope this interview will serve to convince you, if you did not know it before, that I am not one to change, that I never repent of what I do, or fail to be as good as my word.”
“Then I must go,” said Fan, scarcely able to keep back the tears that were gathering thick in her eyes. “But I am so sorry—so sorry! I wish—I wish you could think differently about it and forgive me if I have offended you.”
“There is nothing to be gained by prolonging this conversation, which is not pleasant to me,” returned the other haughtily, advancing to the bell to summon the servant.
“Wait one moment—please don't ring yet,” cried Fan, hurrying forward, the tears now starting from her eyes. “Oh, Mary, will you not shake hands with me before I go?”
Miss Starbrow moved back a step or two and stared deliberately at her face, as if amazed and angered beyond measure at her persistence. And for some moments they stood thus, not three feet apart, gazing into each other's eyes, Fan's tearful, full of eloquent pleading, her hands still held out; and still the other delayed to speak the cutting words that trembled on her lips. A change came over her scornful countenance; the corners of her mouth twitched nervously, as if some sharp pang had touched her heart; the dark eyes grew misty, and in another moment Fan was clasped to her breast.
“Oh, Fan!—dearest Fan!—darling—you have beaten me again!” she exclaimed spasmodically, half-sobbing. “Oh what a strange girl you are! ... To come and—take me by storm like that! ... And I was so determined never to relent—never to go back from what I said.... But you have swept it all away—all my resolutions—everything. Oh, Fan, can you ever, ever forgive me for being such a brute? But I had to act in that way—there was no help for it. I couldn't break my word—I never do. You know, Fan, that I never change.... Is it really you?—oh, I can't believe it—I can't realise it—here in my own house! Let me look at your dear face again.”
And drawing back their heads they gazed into each other's faces once more, Fan crying and laughing by turns, while Mary, the strong woman, could do nothing but cry now.
“The same dear grey eyes, but oh, how beautiful you have grown,” she went on. “I shall never forgive myself—never cease to hate myself after this. And yet, dearest, what could I do? I had solemnly vowed never to speak to you again if we met. I should have been a poor weak creature if I hadn't—you must know that. And now—oh, how could I resist so long, and be so cruel? I know I'm very illogical, but—I hate it, there!—I mean logic—don't you?”
“I hardly know what it is, Mary, but if you hate it, so do I with all my heart.”
“That's a dear sensible girl. How sweet it is to hear that 'Mary' from your lips again! How often I have wished to hear it!—the wish has even made me cry. For I have never ceased to think of you and love you, Fan, even when I was determined never to speak to you again. But let me explain something. Though you disobeyed me, Fan, and spoke so lightly about it, just as if you believed that you could do what you liked with me, I still might have overlooked it if it had not been for my brother Tom's interference. I was very much offended with you, and when we spoke of you I said that I intended giving you up, but I don't think I really meant it in my heart. But he put himself into a passion about it, and abused me, and called me a demon, and dared me to do what I threatened, and said that if I did he would never speak to me again. That settled it at once. To be talked to in that way by anyone—even by Tom—is more than my flesh and blood can stand. And so we parted—it was at Ravenna, an old Italian city—and of course I did what I said, and from that day to this we have not exchanged a line, nor ever shall until he apologises for his words. That's how it happened, and what woman with any self-respect—would not you have acted in the same way, Fan, in such a case?”
“No, Mary, I don't think so. But we are so different, you so strong and I so weak.”
“Are you really weak? I am not so sure. You have taken me captive, at all events.” And then her eyes suddenly growing misty again, she continued: “Fan, you have a strength which I never had, which, in the old days when you lived with me, used to remind me of Longfellow's little poem about a meek-eyed maid going through life with a lily in her hand, one touch of which even gates of brass could not withstand. You will forgive me, I know, but tell me now from your heart, don't you think it was cruel—wicked of me to receive you as I did just now?”
“You wouldn't have been so hard with me, Mary, if you had known what I felt. All day long I have been thinking of you, and wishing—oh, how I wished to see you again! And before coming here to see Dawson Place once more I went and sat down on that very seat in Kensington Gardens where you found me crying by myself on that day—do you remember?—and where—and where—oh, how I cried again only to think of it! How could I speak to you as I did—in that horrible way—when you had loved me so much!”
“Hush, Fan, for heaven's sake! You make me feel as if you had put your hand down into me and had wound all the strings of my heart round your fingers, and—I can't bear it. I think nothing of what you said in your anger, but only of my cruelty to you then and on other occasions. Oh, do let's speak of something else. Look, there is your card on the floor where I dropped it. Why do you call yourself Miss Eden—how do you come to be so well-dressed, and looking more like some delicately-nurtured patrician's daughter than a poor girl? Do tell me your story now.”
And the story was told as they sat together by the open window in the pleasant room; and when they had drank tea at five o'clock, much remaining yet to be told—much in spite of the gaps Fan saw fit to leave in her narrative—Mary said:
“Will you dine with me, Fan? You shall name the hour yourself if you will only stay—seven, eight, nine if you like.”
“I shall only be too glad to stay for as long as you care to have me,” said Fan.
“Then will you sleep here? I have a guest's room all ready, a lovely little room, only I think if you sleep there I shall sit by your bedside all night.”
“Then if I stay I shall sleep with you, Mary, so as not to keep you up,” said Fan laughing. “Can I send a telegram to my landlady to say that I shall not be home to-night?”
“Yes; after it gets cool we might walk to the post-office in the Grove to send it.”
And thus it was agreed, and so much had they to say to each other that not until the morning light began to steal into their bedroom, to discover them lying on one pillow, raven-black and golden tresses mingled together, did any drowsy feeling come to them. And even then at intervals they spoke.
“Mary,” said Fan, after a rather long silence, “have you ever heard of Rosie since?”
“No; but I saw her once. I went to the Alhambra to see a ballet that was admired very much, and I recognised Rosie on the stage in spite of her paint and ballet dress. I couldn't stay another moment after that. I should have left the theatre if—if—well, never mind. Don't speak again, Fan, we must go to sleep now.”
But another question was inevitable. “Just one word more, Mary; have you never heard of Captain Horton since?”
“Ah, I thought that was coming! Yes, once. Just about the time when I returned from abroad, I had a letter from my bankers to say that he—that man—had paid a sum of money—about two hundred and thirty pounds—to my account. It was money I had lent him a long time before, and he had the audacity to ask them to send him a receipt in my handwriting! I told them to send the man a receipt themselves, and to inform him from me that I was sorry he had paid the money, as it had reminded me of his hateful existence.”
After another interval Fan remarked, “I am glad he paid the money, Mary.”
“Why—do you think I couldn't afford to lose that? I would rather have lost it.”
“I wasn't thinking of the money. But it showed that he had some right feelings—that he was not altogether bad.”
“You should be the last person to say that, Fan. You should hate his memory with all your heart.”
“I am so happy to be with you again, Mary; I feel that I cannot hate anyone, however wicked he may be.”
“Yes, you are like that Scotch minister who prayed for everything he could think of in earth and heaven, and finally finished up by praying for the devil. But are you really so happy, dear Fan? Is your happiness quite complete—is there nothing wanting?”
“I should like very, very much to know where Constance is.”
“Well, judging from what you have told me, I should think she must be very miserable indeed. They are very poor, no doubt, and in ordinary circumstances poverty would perhaps not make her unhappy, for, being intellectual, she would always have the beauty of her own intellect and the stars to think about.”
“Do you really think that, Mary—that she is miserable?”
“I do indeed. When she, poor fool! married Merton Chance, she leant on a reed, and it would be strange if it had not broken and pierced her to the quick.”
And after that there was silence, broken only by a sad sigh from Fan; which meant that she knew it and always had known it, but had gone on hoping against hope that the fragile reed would not break to pierce that loved one.