Fan read the sketch, but her mind was too much occupied with all she had just heard, in addition to the joy she felt at having recovered her friend, to pay much attention to it. Moreover the increasing heat began to oppress her; she marvelled that Constance, accustomed all her life to the freedom and cool expanse of the country, should find it possible to work in such an atmosphere and amidst such surroundings.
At length, Merton, who had been coughing a great deal while dressing, came in assisted by his wife, but quite exhausted with the exertion of walking from one room to the other; and after shaking hands with their visitor he sunk into his easy-chair, not yet able to talk. She was greatly shocked at the change in him; the once fine, marble-like face was horribly wasted, so that the sharp unsightly bones looked as if they would cut their way through the deadly dry parchment-yellow skin that covered them; and the deep blue eyes now looked preternaturally large and bright—all the brighter for the dark purple stains beneath them. He was low indeed, nigh unto death perhaps; yet he did not appear cast down in the least, but even while he sat breathing laboriously, still unable to speak, the eyes had a pleased hopeful look as they rested on their visitor's face. A smile, too, hovered about the corners of his mouth as his glance wandered over her costume. For, in spite of feeling the heat a great deal, she looked cool in her light-hued summer dress, with its dim blue pattern on a cream-coloured ground. The loose fashion in which it was made, the tints, and light frosting of fine lace on neck and sleeves, harmonised well with the grey tender eyes, the pure delicate skin, and golden hair.
“You could not have chosen a fitter costume to visit us in,” said Merton at length. “I can hardly believe that you come to us from some other part of this same foul, hot, dusty London. To my fever-parched fancy you seem rather to have come from some distant unpolluted place, where green leaves flutter in the wind and cast shadows on the ground; where crystal showers fall, and the vision of the rainbow is sometimes seen.”
Constance came to his side and bent over him.
“You must not be tyrannical, Connie,” he said. “I really must talk. Even a bird in prison sings its song after a fashion, and why not I?”
And seeing him so anxious to begin she made no further objection, contenting herself with giving him a draught from his medicine bottle. She had already told him Fan's story, and he had heard it with some interest. He congratulated the girl on having found a brother in his old school-fellow, Arthur Eden, and took some merit to himself for having brought them together. But he did not make the remark that truth was stranger than fiction. It was evident that he was impatient to get to other more important matters.
“You have doubtless heard from my wife,” he said, “that I have parted company with those misguided people that call themselves socialists. Well, Miss Affleck, the fact is—”
“Eden,” corrected Constance with a smile. She was quietly moving about the room in her list slippers, engaged in remoistening the hangings, which had now grown dry and hot.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Eden. Yes, thanks—Fan; that will be better still among such old friends as we are. What I wish to say is, that my mind was never really carried away with their fantastical theories—their dreams of a social condition where all men will be equally far removed from want and excessive wealth. I could have told them at once that they were overlooking the first and greatest law of organic nature, that the stone which the builders despised would fall on them and grind them to powder. At the same time my feelings were engaged on their side, I am bound to confess; I did think it possible to educe some good out of this general ferment and dissatisfaction with the conditions of life. For, after all, this ferment—this great clamour and shouting and hurrying to and fro—represents force—blind brute force, no doubt, like that of waves dashing themselves to pieces on the rocks, or of the tempest let loose on the world. A tempest unhappily without an angel to guide it; for I look upon the would-be angels—the Burnses—Morrises—Champions—Hyndmans—merely as so many crows, rooks, and jackdaws, who have incontinently rushed in to swell the noise with their outrageous cawing, and to be tossed and blown about, hither and thither, among the dust, sticks, old newspapers, and pieces of rotten wood stirred up by the wind. Good would have come of it if it had been possible to introduce a gleam of sense and reason into the foggy brains of these wretched men. But that was impossible. I am ashamed to have to confess that I ever believed it possible—that I assumed, when planning their welfare, that they were not absolutely irrational. I have not only thrown the whole thing up, but the disgust, the revulsion of feeling I have experienced, has had the effect of making me perfectly indifferent as to the ultimate fate of these people. If some person were to come to me to-morrow to say that all the East-enders, from Bishopsgate Street to Bow, had been seized with a kind of frenzy, like that which from time to time takes possession of the Norway marmots, or bandicoots, or whatever they are called—”
“Lemmings,” said Constance.
“Yes, lemmings. Thanks, Connie, you are a perfect walking encyclopædia. And—like these Norway lemmings—had rushed into the Thames at Tilbury, men, women, and children, and been drowned, I should say, 'I am very pleased to hear it.' For to my mind these people are no more worthy of being saved than a migrating horde of Norway rats, or than the Gadarene swine that ran down the steep and were drowned in the sea.”
Fan listened with astonishment, and turned to Constance, wondering what would be the effect of such dreadful sentiments on her, and not without recalling some of those “Idylls,” inspired by a spirit so loving and gentle and Christian. But she seemed to be paying little attention to the matter of her husband's discourse, to be concerned only at the state of his health.
“Merton, dear,” she said, “if you talk so much at a stretch you will bring on another fit of coughing.”
“Ah, yes, thanks for reminding me. Let me have another sip of that mixture. Then I shall speak of other more hopeful things. And the sweetness of hope shall be like that rosy honey, rose-scented, to soften my throat, made dry and harsh with barren themes. After all, Connie, these troubles which have tried us so severely have only proved blessings in disguise. Yes, Fan, we have been driven hither and thither about the sea, encountering terrible storms, and sometimes fearing that our bark was about to founder; but they have at last driven us into a haven more sweet and restful than storm-tossed mariners ever entered before. And looking back we can even feel grateful to the furious wind, and the hateful dark blue wave that brought us to such a goal.”
All this figurative language, which was like the prelude to a solemn piece of music, gave Fan the idea that something of very great importance was about to follow. But, alas! the mixture, and the rose-honey sweetness of hope, failed to prevent the attack which Constance had feared, and he coughed so long and so violently that Fan, after being a distressed spectator for some time, grew positively alarmed. By-and-by, glancing at her friend's face as she stood bending over the sufferer, holding his bowed head between her palms, she concluded that it was no more than an everyday attack, and that no fatal results need be feared. Relieved of her apprehension, she began to think less of the husband and more of the wife; for what resignation, what courage and strength she had shown since her unhappy marriage, and what self-sacrificing devotion to her weak unworthy life-partner! Or was it a mistake, she now asked herself, to regard him as weak and unworthy? Had not Constance, with a finer insight—her superior in this as in most things—seen the unapparent strength, the secret hidden virtue, that was in him, and which would show itself when the right time came? No, Fan could not believe that. Tom Starbrow and the poor pale-faced curate in his rusty coat were true strong men, and the woman that married either of them would not lean on a reed that would break and pierce her to the quick; and Captain Horton was also a strong man, although he had certainly been a very bad one. But this man, in spite of his nimble brains and eloquent tongue, was weak and unstable, hopelessly—fatally. The suffering and the poverty which had come to these two, which in the wife's case only made the innate virtue of her spirit to shine forth with starlike lustre, would make and could make no difference to him. Words were nothing to Fan; not because of his words had she forgiven Captain Horton his crime; and if Merton had spoken with the eloquence of a Ruskin, or an angel, it would have had no effect on her. She considered his life only, and it failed to satisfy her.
Recovered from his attack, Merton sat resting languidly in his chair, his half-closed eyes looking straight before him.
“Ah, to lead men,” he said, speaking in a low voice, with frequent pauses, as if soliloquising. “Not higher in their sense—what they with minds darkened with a miserable delusion call higher.... Up and still up, and higher still, through ways that grow stonier, where vegetation shrivels in the bleak winds, and animal life dies for lack of nourishment. Will they find the Promised Land there, when their toil is finished, when they have reached their journey's end? A vast plateau of sand and rock; a Central Asian desert; a cavern blown in by icy winds for only inn; a 'gaunt and taciturn host' to receive them; and at last, to perform the last offices, the high-soaring vulture, and the wild wind scattering dust and sleet on their bones.... Ah, to make them see—to make them know!... Poor dumb brutish cattle, consumed with fever of thirst, bellowing with rage, trampling each other down in a pen too small to hold them! Ah, to show them the gate—the wide-open gate—to make them lie down in green pastures, to lead them beside the still waters!... Better for me, if I cannot lead, to leave them; to go away and dwell alone! to seek in solitary places, as others have done, some wild bitter root to heal their distemper; to come back with something in my hands;... to consider by what symbols to address them; to send them from time to time a message, to be scoffed at by most and heard with kindling hope by those whose souls are not wholly darkened.”
After a long silence he spoke again to ask his wife to get him a book from his bedroom, which he had been reading that morning, to find in it many sweet comforting things. She had been seated at some distance from him, apparently paying no attention to his enigmatical words, but now quickly put down her work and got the book for him from the next room.
“Thanks,” he said, taking it. “Yes, here it is. I wish to read you this passage, Connie: 'Now they began to go down the hill into the Valley of Humiliation. It was a steep hill, and their way was slippery, but they were very careful, so they got down pretty well. Then said Mr. Great-heart, We need not be afraid in this Valley, for here is nothing to hurt us, unless we procure it for ourselves. It is true that Christian did here meet with Apollyon, with whom he also had a sore combat; but that fray was the fruit of those slips that he got in his going down the hill; for they that get slips there must look for combats here.' Do you see what I mean, Connie?”
“Yes, dear,” she replied, very quietly.
Then he continued, “'For the common people, when they hear that some frightful thing has befallen such a one in such a place, are of an opinion that that place is haunted with some foul fiend or evil spirit, when, alas! it is for the fruit of their own doing that such things do befall them there!' Listen, Connie: 'No disparagement to Christian, more than to many others, whose hap and lot was his; for it is easier going up than down this hill, and that can be said but of few hills in all these parts of the world. But we will leave the good man, he is at rest, he also had a brave victory over his enemy; let Him grant that dwelleth above that we fare no worse, when we come to be tried, than he. But we will come again to this Valley of Humiliation. It is fat ground, and, as you see, consisteth much in meadows, and if a man was to come here in the summer-time, as we do now, and if he also delighted himself in the sight of his eyes, he might see that that would be delightful to him. Behold how green this Valley is, also how beautiful with lilies. Some have also wished that the next way to their Father's house were here, that they might be no more troubled with hills and mountains to go over, but the way is the way, and there is an end.
“'Now, as they were going along and talking, they espied a boy feeding his father's sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a very fresh and well-favoured countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang. Then said the guide, Do you hear him? I will dare to say, that this boy lives a merrier life, and wears more of that herb called heart's-ease in his bosom, than he that is clad in silk and velvet. Here a man shall be free from noise and the hurryings of this life. All states are full of noise and confusion, only the Valley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary place. Here a man shall not be so hindered in his contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim's life; and I must tell you that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls here, and here in this place found the words of life.'”
He closed the book and swallowed some more of the mixture, which Constance, standing at his side, had been holding in readiness for him.
Fan by this time had come to the conclusion that Merton had become religious, although the scornful way in which he had spoken of the inhabitants of East London scarcely seemed to favour such an idea. But she knew that he had been reading from The Pilgrim's Progress, a book which Mrs. Churton had put in her hands, and helped her to understand. She did not know that he was putting an interpretation of his own on the allegory which might have made the glorious Bedford tinker clench his skeleton fist and hammer a loud “No—no!” on his mouldy coffin-lid.
“Fan, my dear girl,” he said, after a while, “I cannot expect you to understand what I am talking about. You must be satisfied to wait many days longer before it is all made plain. I have a thousand things to say which will be said in good time. A thousand thousand things. Books to write—volume following volume; so much to do for poor humanity that the very thought of it would make my heart fail were it not for the great faith that is in me. But the paper is still white, and the pen lies idle waiting for this unnerved hand to gain strength to hold it. For you must know that in my descent into this valley I have met with many a slip and fall, and have suffered the consequences: Apollyon has come forth to bar my way, and I have not done with him yet, nor he with me. I have answered all his sophistical arguments, have resisted all his temptations, and it has come to a life-and-death struggle between us. With what deadly fury his thrusts and cuts are made, my poor wife will tell you. My days are comparatively peaceful; I feel that I am near the green meadows, beautiful with lilies, and can almost hear the singing of the light-hearted shepherd-boy. But at night the shadows come again; the shouts and vauntings of my adversary are heard; I can see his crimson eyeballs, full of malignant rage, glaring at me. To drop metaphor, my dear girl, my nights are simply hellish. But I shall conquer yet; my time will come. Only, to me, a sufferer turning on his bed and wishing for the dawn, how long the time delays its coming! If I could only feel the fresh breeze in my lungs once more; if instead of this loathsome desert of squalid streets and slums I could look on the cool green leafy earth again, and listen to nature's sounds, bidding me be of good courage, then these dark days would be shortened and the new and better life begin.”
This was something easy to understand, even to Fan's poor intellect, and she had begun to listen to his words attentively. Here was matter for her practical mind to work upon, and her reply followed quick on his speech. “It must be dreadful for you to remain here all through the hot weather, Mr. Chance. I wish—I wish——” But at this moment the face of Constance, who had drawn near and was bending over her husband's chair, caught her eye, and she became silent, for the face had suddenly clouded at her words.
“What were you going to say, Fan—what is it that you wish?” said Merton, with a keener interest than he usually manifested in other people's words.
“I wish that—that you and Constance would accompany me to some place a little way out of town—not too far—where you would be out of this dreadful heat and smoke, and stand——” She was about to add, stand a better chance of recovery, but at this stage she broke off again and cast down her eyes, fearing that she had offended her friend.
“Most willingly we will go with you, my dear girl, if you will only ask us,” said Merton, finding that she was unable to finish her speech.
“Oh, I should be so glad—so very glad!” returned Fan, in her excitement and relief rising from her seat. “Dear Constance, what do you say?”
But the other did not answer at once. This sudden proposal had come on her as a painful surprise. For the last few weeks she had, even in the midst of anxiety and suffering, rejoiced that she was self-dependent at last, and had proudly imagined that her strength and talents would now be sufficient to keep them in health and in sickness. And now, alas! her husband had eagerly clutched at this offer of outside help; and, most galling of all, from the very girl who, a short time before when she was poor and friendless, he had found not good enough to be his wife's associate.
At length she raised her head and spoke, but there was a red flush on her cheek, and a tone of pain, if not of displeasure, in her voice. “Fan,” she said, “I am so sorry you have made us this offer. It is very, very kind of you; but, dearest, we cannot, cannot accept it.”
“And for what reason, Connie?” said her husband.
She looked down on his upturned face, and for a moment was sorely tempted to stoop and whisper the true reason in his ear, to reply that it would be dishonourable—a thing to be remembered after with a burning sense of shame—to accept any good gift at the hands of this girl, who had been thrown over and left by them without explanation or excuse a short time before, only because circumstances had made her for a time their inferior—their inferior, that is, according to a social code, which they might very well have ignored in this case, since it related to a society they had never been privileged to enter since their marriage, which knew and cared nothing for them. But as she looked down, the yellow skin and sunken cheek and the hollow glittering eyes that met her own made her heart relent, and she could not say the cruel words. She kept silence for a few moments, and then only said, “How can we go, Merton? We cannot move without money, and besides, we have nothing fit to wear.”
“Pshaw, Connie, do you put such trifles in the scale? Have you so little faith in our future as to shrink from this small addition to our debt? Fan, of course, knows our circumstances and just what we would require. Why, a paltry two or three pounds would take us out of London; and as for clothes—well, you know how much we raised on them—a few miserable shillings. You are proud, I know, but you mustn't forget that Fan is Arthur Eden's sister—my old school-fellow and familiar friend; and also that she is your old pupil, and—as I have heard you say times without number—the dearest friend you have on earth.”
He did not see the effect of these words, and that her face had reddened again with anger and shame, and a feeling that was almost like scorn. Fan, seeing her distress, half-guessing its cause, went to her side and put her arm round her.
“Constance dear,” she said, “you only need a little help at first, and I shall be very careful and economical, and some day, when things improve, you shall repay me every shilling I spend now. Oh, you don't know how hard it is for me to say this to you! For I know, Constance, that if our places were changed you would wish to act as a sister to me, and—and you will not let me be a sister to you.”
The other kissed her and turned aside to hide her tears. Merton smiled, and taking Fan's hand in his, stroked and caressed it.
“My dear girl,” he said, “I cannot express to you all I feel now; but away out of this stifling atmosphere, this nightmare of hot bricks and slates and smoking chimney-pots, in some quiet little green retreat where you will take us, I shall be able to speak of it. What a blessing this visit you have made us will prove! It refreshed my soul only to see you; with that clear loveliness on which the evil atmosphere and life of this great city has left no mark or stain, and in this dress with its tender tints and its perfume, you appeared like a messenger of returning peace and hope from the great Mother we worship, and who is always calling to us when we go astray and forget her. How appropriate, how natural, how almost expected, this kind deed of yours then seems to me!”
Constance, seeing him so elated at the prospect of the change, made no further objection, but waited Mr. Northcott's return before discussing details. The curate when he at last appeared suggested that it would be well to consult a young practitioner in the neighbourhood who had been attending Merton; and in the end he went off to look for him. While he was gone the two girls talked about the proposed removal in a quiet practical way, and Merton, quite willing to leave the subject of ways and means to his wife and her friend, took no part in the conversation. Then the curate returned with the doctor's opinion, which was that the change of air would be beneficial, if Merton could stand being removed; but that the journey must be short and made easy: he suggested a well-covered van, with a bed to lie on, and protected from draughts, as better than the railroad.
Fan at once promised to find a van as well as a house near East London to go to, and after she had prevailed on Constance to accept a loan of a few pounds for necessary expenses, she set out with Mr. Northcott on her return to the West End.
Fan resolved to employ Captain Horton again, and as it was too late in the day to see him at his office on her way home, she wrote that evening, asking him to find her a suitable house near East London, removed from other houses, with garden and trees about it, and with two cool rooms for her friends on the ground floor, and a room for herself. She knew, she wrote, that she was putting him to great inconvenience, but felt sure that he would be glad to serve her.
When the next day came she began to be sorely troubled in her mind; or rather the trouble which had been in it ever since her return from Kingston, and which she had tried not to think about, had to be faced, and it looked somewhat formidable. For she had not yet seen Mary, in spite of her promise made at their last parting to go to her immediately on her return from Kingston. But much had happened since their parting: she had met and had become friendly with the man that Mary hated with a great hatred; and she feared that when she came to relate these things, which would have to be related, there would be a storm. But she could no longer delay to encounter it, and Fan knew, better than most perhaps, how to bow her head and escape harm; and so, putting a bold face on it—though it was not a very bold face—she got into a cab about noon and had herself driven to Dawson Place.
Her friend received her in a strangely quiet way, with just a kiss which was not warm, a few commonplace words of welcome, and a smile which did not linger long on her lips.
“Why are you so cold, Mary?”
“Why are you shamefaced, Fan?”
“Am I shamefaced? I did not know.”
“Yes, and I can guess the reason. You did not keep your word to me, though you knew how anxious I was to see you at the end of your fortnight at Kingston; and the reason is that you have something on your mind which you fear to tell me—which you are ashamed to tell.”
“No, Mary, that is not so. I am not ashamed, but——”
“Oh yes, of course, I quite understand—but!”
“Dear Mary, if you will be a little patient with me you shall know everything I have to tell, and then you will know exactly why I didn't come to you the moment I got back to town. For the last two or three days I have been in pursuit of the Chances, and have at last found them.”
“How did you find them?”
“It is a very long story, Mary, and someone you know and that you are not friendly with is mixed up with it. I met him accidentally at Kingston, where there was a dinner-party and he was among the guests. Mrs. Travers introduced him to me, and he took me in to dinner; and it was very painful to me—to both of us; but after a time a thought came into my head—Mary, listen to me, I can't tell you how it all came about—how I found Constance—without speaking of him. Don't you think it would be better to tell you everything, from my first chance meeting with him, and all that was said as well as I can remember it now?”
Miss Starbrow had listened quietly, with averted face, which Fan imagined must have grown very black; she was silent for some time, and at last replied:
“Fan, I can hardly credit my own senses when you talk in that calm way about a person who—of course I know who you mean. What are you made of, I wonder—are you merely a wax figure and not a human being at all? Once I imagined that you loved me, but now I see what a delusion it was; only those who can hate are able to love, and you are as incapable of the one as of the other.”
After delivering herself of this protest she half turned her back on her friend, and for a time there was silence between them, and then Fan spoke.
“Mary, you have not yet answered me; am I to tell you about it or not?”
“You can tell me what you like; I have no power to prevent you from speaking. But I give you a fair warning. I know, and it would be useless to try to hide it, that you have great power over me, and that I could make any sacrifice, and do anything within reason for you, and be glad to do it. But if you go too far—if you attempt to work on my feelings about this—this person, or try to make me think that he is not—what I think him, I shall simply get up and walk out of the room.”
“You need not have said all that, Mary—I am not trying to work on your feelings. I simply wanted to tell you what happened, and—how he came to be mixed up with it.”
As the other did not reply, she began her story, and related what had happened at the Travers' dinner-party faithfully; although she was as unable now to give a reason for her own strange behaviour as she had been to answer Captain Horton when he had asked her what she had to say to him.
At length she paused.
“Have you finished?” said Mary sharply, but the sharpness this time did not have the true ring.
“No. If your name was mentioned, Mary, must I omit that part?—because I wish to tell you everything just as it happened.”
“You can tell me what you like so long as you observe my conditions.”
But when the story was all finished she only remarked, although speaking now without any real or affected asperity:
“I am really sorry for your friend Mrs. Chance. I could not wish an enemy a greater misfortune than to be tied for life to such a one as Merton. Poor country girl, ignorant of the world—what a terrible mistake she made!”
She was in a much better temper now, willing to discuss the details of the expedition, to give her friend advice, and help with money if it should be needed. Fan was surprised and delighted at the change in her, and at last they parted very pleasantly.
“If you can find time before leaving town, Fan, come and say good-bye. I shall be at home in the afternoon to-morrow and next day, and then you can tell me all your arrangements.”
By the first post on the following morning she received a letter from the Captain, who had taken a day from the office to look for a place, and had succeeded in finding a pleasant farm-house, within easy distance of Mile End and about a mile from Edmonton, as rural a spot in appearance as one could wish to be in. He had also exceeded his instructions by engaging a covered van, with easy springs, to convey the invalid to his new home. The letter contained full particulars, and concluded with an expression of the sincere pleasure the writer felt at having received this additional proof of Miss Eden's friendly feelings towards him, and with the hope that the change of air would benefit his poor old friend Merton Chance.
Fan replied at once, asking him to send the van next day at noon to Mile End. Then she telegraphed to the people of the house to have the rooms ready for them on the morrow, and also wrote to Constance to inform her of the arrangements that had been made; and the rest of the day was spent in preparing for her sojourn in the country.
In the evening she went to Dawson Place to see and say good-bye to her friend. Mary was at home, and glad to see her.
“My dear Fan,” she said, embracing the girl, “I have had two or three callers this evening, and was not at home to them only because I thought you might turn up, and I wished to have you all to myself for a little while before you leave. Goodness only knows when we shall meet again!”
“Why, Mary, are you thinking of going away for a long time? I hope not.”
“Well, I don't know what I'm thinking of. Of course it's very disgusting and unnatural to be in London at this time of the year; but the worst of the matter is, I had hoped to get you to go somewhere with me. But now this affair has completely thrown me out. Have you made your arrangements?”
“Yes, I got the letter I expected this morning, and it explains everything. You had better read it for yourself.”
Mary pushed the letter back with an indignant gesture.
“Oh, very well,” returned Fan, not greatly disconcerted. “Then I suppose I can read it to you, as it tells just what arrangements have been made.”
The other frowned but said nothing, and Fan proceeded to read the letter. Mary made no remark on its contents; but when she went on to speak of other things, there was no trace of displeasure in her voice. They were together until about ten o'clock, and then, after taking some refreshment, Fan rose to go. But the parting was not to be a hurried one; her friend embraced and clung to her with more than her usual warmth.
“Mary dear,” said Fan, bending back her head so as to look into her friend's face, “you were very angry with me yesterday, but to-day—now you love me as much as you ever did. Is it not so?”
“Yes, Fan, I think I love you more to-night than ever. I know I cling to you more and seem afraid to lose you from my sight. But you must not get any false ideas into your head.”
“To prevent that, Mary, you must tell me why you cling to me to-night?”
“Because—Fan, is it necessary that I should tell you something which I have a dim, vague idea that you already know? Is it known to you, dear girl, that in all our hearts there are things our lips refuse to speak, even to those who are nearest and dearest to our souls? Did you feel that, Fan, when you came to me again, after so long a time, and told me all—all that had befallen you since our parting?”
Fan reddened, but her lips remained closed.
“That which my lips refuse to speak you cannot know,” continued Mary; “but there is another simple reason I can give you. I cling to you because you are going away to be with people I am not in sympathy with. As far as giving poor miserable Merton a chance to live, I dare say you are doing only what is right, but——”
Fan stopped her mouth. “You shall say no more, Mary. Long, long ago you thought that because I and Constance were friends I could not have the same feeling I had had for you. Oh, what a mistake you made! Nothing, nothing could ever make you less dear to me. Even if you should break with me again and refuse to see me—”
“And that is what I fear, Fan; I really do fear it, when it is actually in your heart to get me to forgive things which it would be unnatural and shameful to forgive. I must warn you again, Fan, if you cannot pluck that thought out of your heart, if I cannot have you without that man's existence being constantly brought to my mind, that there will be a fatal rupture between us, and that it will never be healed.”
Fan drew back a little and looked with a strange, questioning gaze into her friend's face; but Mary, for once, instead of boldly meeting the look, dropped her eyes and reddened a little.
“There will never, never be any rupture, Mary. If you were to shut your door against me, I would come and sit down on the doorstep, which I once—”
“Be quiet!” exclaimed Mary, with sudden passion. “How can you have the courage to speak of such things! The little consideration! If your memory of the past is so faithful—so—so unforgetting, I dare say you can remember only too well that I once—”
“You must be quiet now,” said Fan, stopping her friend's mouth with her hand for the second time, and with a strange little laugh that was half sob. “I only remember, Mary darling, that I was homeless, hungry, in rags, and that you took me in, and were friend and sister and mother to me. Promise, promise that you will never quarrel with me.”
“Never, Fan—unless you, with your wild altruism, drive me to it.”
Fan went home, wondering all the way what her wild altruism was, ashamed of her ignorance. She looked in her dictionary, but it was an old cheap one, and the strange word was not in it. Perhaps Mary had coined it. As to that she would consult Constance, who knew everything.
Miss Starbrow did not leave London after all, but day followed day only to find her in the same unsettled mind as at first. Having no one else to quarrel with, she quarrelled with and mocked at herself. “I shall wait till the heats are over,” she said, “and then stay on to see the end of the November fogs; then I can go north to winter at Aberdeen or some such delightful place.” But these late London days, while her mind was in this unsatisfactory state, studying to deceive itself, had one great pleasure—the letters which came at intervals of two or three days from her loved friend. Even to her eyes they looked beautiful. The girl of the period, when she writes to her friend, usually dips the handle of her sunshade in a basin of ink, and scrawls characters monstrous in size and form, an insult to the paper-maker's art and shocking to man's aesthetic feelings. Now from the first Fan had spontaneously written a small hand, with fine web-like lines and flourishes, which gave it a very curious and delicate appearance; for, unlike the sloping prim Italian hand, it was all irregular, and the longer curves and strokes crossed and recrossed through words above and beneath, so that, while easy enough to read, at first sight it looked less like writing than an intricate pattern on the paper, as if a score of polar gnats had been figure-skating on the surface with inked skates. To her complaint that she was not clever, not musical, like other girls, Mary had once said:
“Ah, yes; all your cleverness and originality has gone into your handwriting.”
“It is such a comfort, such a pleasure,” said Fan in one of her letters, “to have you to write to and put Mary—Mary—Mary twenty times over in a single letter, wondering whether it gives you the same pleasure to see your name written by me as you often say it is to hear it from my lips. Do you remember that when I promised to write everything you sneered and told me not to forget to make the usual mental reservations? That is the way you always talk to me, Mary; but I make no reservation, I tell you everything, really and truly—everything I see and hear and think. I know very well that Constance will never tell me any of her secrets—that she will never open her heart to anyone, as one friend does to another, except her husband; so that it was quite safe for me to make you that promise.”
Again she wrote: “For some hidden reason Constance consented very reluctantly to take Merton out of town, and I feel convinced that it was not on account of the risk there would be in moving him, nor because they were too poor to move away from Mile End. There was some other reason, and I feel pretty sure that if the proposal had come from some other person, even a stranger, instead of from me, it would not have given the same feeling. That it should give her pain was a surprise to me, and has puzzled me a great deal, because I know that Constance loves me as much as she ever did, and that she would gladly do as much and more for me if it were in her power at any time. Perhaps she thinks, poor Constance, that when she and her husband suddenly went away from Netting Hill and left no address, and never wrote to me again, although she knew that I had no other friend in London at that time, that she had treated me badly. Once or twice, since we have been together here, she has mentioned that going away, so sadly, almost with tears, speaking as if circumstances had compelled her to act unkindly, but without giving any explanation. I do not believe, I cannot believe, she left me in that way of her own will; I can only guess the reason, but shall probably never really know; but I feel that this has brought a shadow into our friendship, and that while we are as dear as ever to each other, we both feel that there is something that keeps us apart.”
Another letter spoke more particularly of Merton: “I am sure you would like to know what I think of him now, after living under the same roof for the first time, and seeing so much of him every day. I cannot say what I think of him. As a rule he is out in the garden after eleven o'clock; and then he sends Constance away. 'You have had enough of me now,' he says, 'and if I wish to talk, I can talk to Fan—she is a good listener.' This reminds me of one thing which is a continual vexation to me. He does not seem to appreciate her properly. He does not believe, I think, that she has any talent, or, at any rate, anything worthy of being called talent compared with his own. Just fancy, she is usually up all night, fearing to sleep lest he should need something; and then when he comes out, and is made comfortable on the garden-seat, he tells her to go and have an hour if she likes at her 'idyllic pastimes,' as he calls her writing; and if he mentions her literary work at all, he speaks of it just as another person would of a little piece of crochet-work or netting, or something of that sort.
“After she goes in he talks to me, for an hour sometimes, and when it is over I always feel that I am very little wiser, and what he has said comes back to me in such an indistinct or disconnected way that it would be impossible for me to set it down on paper. I do wish, Mary, that you could come and sit next to me—invisible to him, I mean—and listen for half an hour, and then tell me what it all means.”
Mary laughed. “Tell you, sweet simple child? I wish Fan, that you could come here and sit down next to me for half an hour and read out a chapter from Alice in Wonderland, and then tell me what it all means. It was Sir Isaac Newton, I think, who said of poetry that it was a 'beautiful kind of nonsense'; at all events, if he did not say it he thought it, being a scientific man. And that is the best description I can give of Merton's talk. That's his merit, his one art, which he has cultivated and is proficient in. He reminds me of those street performers who swallow match-boxes and tie themselves up with fifty knots and then wriggle out of the rope, and keep a dozen plates, balls, and knives and forks all flying about at one time in the air. The mystery is how a woman like his wife—who is certainly clever, judging from the sketches I have read, and beautiful, as I have good reason to remember—should have thrown herself away on such a charlatan. Love is blind, they say, but I never imagined it to be quite so blind as that!”
Here Miss Starbrow suddenly remembered the case of another woman, also clever and beautiful; and with a scornful glance at her own image in the glass, she remarked, “Thou fool, first pluck the beam out of thine own eye!”
Then she returned to the letter: “Another thing that seems strange to me is his cheerfulness, for he is really very bad, and Constance is in great fear lest his cough should bring on consumption; and it is sometimes so violent that it frightens me to hear it. Yet he is always so lively and even gay, and sometimes laughs like a child at the things he says himself; and I sometimes know from the way Constance receives them that they can't be very amusing, for I do not often see the point myself. He firmly believes that he will soon throw his illness off, and that when he is well he will do great things. The world, he says, knows nothing of its greatest men, and he will be satisfied to be an obscurity, even a laughing-stock, for the next thirty or thirty-five years. But when he is old, and has a beard, like Darwin's, covering his breast and whiter than snow, then his name will be great on the earth. Then it will be said that of all leaders of men he is greatest; for whereas others led men into a barren wilderness without end, to be destroyed therein by dragons and men-eating monsters, he led them back to that path which they in their blind eager hurry had missed, and by which alone the Promised Land could be reached.
“Perhaps you will think, Mary, from my telling you all this, that I am beginning to change my mind about him, that I am beginning to think that there is something more in him than in others, and that it will all come out some day. But it would be a mistake; what I have always thought I think still.”
“Sensible girl,” said Mary, putting the letter down with a smile.
And thus did these two not infallible women, seeing that which appeared on the surface—empty quick—vanishing froth and iridescent bubbles—pass judgment on Merton Chance.
One afternoon, coming in from a walk, Mary found a letter from Fan on the hall table, and taking it up was startled to see a superfluous black seal over the fastening. Guessing the news it contained, she carried it up to her bedroom before opening it. “It is all over,” the letter ran; “Merton died this morning, and it was so unexpected, so terribly sudden; and I was with him at the last moment. How shall I tell you about it? It is anguish to think of it, and yet think of it I must, and of nothing else; and now at ten o'clock at night I feel that I cannot rest until I have described it all to you, and imagined what you will feel and say to-morrow when you read my letter.
“For the last two or three days he had seemed so much better; but this morning after breakfasting he coughed violently for a long time, and seemed so shaken after it that we tried to persuade him not to go out. But he would not be persuaded; and it was such a lovely morning, he said, and would do him good; and he felt more hopeful and happy than ever—a sure sign that he had reached the turning-point and was already on the way to recovery. So we came out, he leaning on our arms, to a garden-seat under the trees at the end of a walk, quite near to the house. When he had settled himself comfortably on the seat with some rugs and cushions we had got with us, he said, 'Now, Connie, you can go back if you like and leave me to talk to Fan. She is our guardian angel, and will watch over me, and keep away all ugly phantoms and crawling many-legged things—spiders, slugs, and caterpillars. And I shall repay her angelic guardianship with wise, instructive speech.'
“'But an angel looks for no instruction—no reward,' said Constance.
“'Not so,' he replied. 'An angel is not above being taught even by a creature of earth. And in Fan there is one thing lacking, angel though she be, and this I shall point out to her. I can find no mysticism in her: what she knows she knows, and with the unknowable, which may yet be known, she concerns herself not. Who shall say of the seed I scatter that it will not germinate in this fair garden without weeds and tares, and strike root and blossom at last? For why should she not be a mystic like others?'
“Constance laughed and answered, 'Can an angel be a mystic?'
“'Yes, certainly,' he said. 'An angel need not necessarily be a mystic, else Fan were no angel, but even to angels it adds something. It is not that splendour of virtue and immortality which makes their faces shine like lightning and gives whiteness to their raiment; but it is the rainbow tint on their wings, the spiritual melody which they eternally make, which the old masters symbolised by placing harps and divers strange instruments in their hands—that melody which faintly rises even from our own earthly hearts.'
“Constance smiled and looked at me—at the white dress I had on—shall I ever wear white again?—and answered that she had first liked me in white, and thought it suited me best, and would have to see the rainbow tints before saying that they would be an improvement.
“Then she went back to the house, and from the end of the walk turned round and gave us a smile, and Merton threw her a kiss.
“Then he turned to me and said, 'Fan, do you hear that robin—that little mystic robin-redbreast? Listen, he will sing again in less than twenty seconds.' And almost before he had finished speaking, while I was looking at him, a change came over him, and his face was of the colour of ashes; and he said, with a kind of moan and so low that I could scarcely catch the last words, 'Oh, this is cruel, cruel!' And almost at the same moment there came a rush of blood from his mouth, and he started forward and would have fallen to the ground had I not caught him and held him in my arms. I called to Constance, over and over again, but she did not hear me—no one in the house heard me. Oh, how horrible it was—for I knew that he was dying—to hear the sounds of the house, voices talking and the maid singing, and a boy whistling not far off, and to call and call and not be heard! Then a dreadful faintness came over me, and I could call no more; I shivered like a leaf and closed my eyes, and my heart seemed to stand still, and still I held him, his head on my breast—held him so that he did not fall. Then at last I was able to call again, and someone must have heard, for in a few moments I saw Constance coming along the walk running with all her speed, and the others following. But I knew that he was already dead, for he had grown quite still, and his clenched hand opened and dropped like a piece of lead on my knee.
“After that I only remember that Constance was kneeling before him, calling out so pitifully, 'Oh, Merton, my darling, what is it? Merton, Merton, speak to me—speak to me—one word, only one word!' Then I fainted. When I recovered my senses I was lying on a sofa in the house, with some of them round me doing what they could for me; and they told me that they had sent for a doctor, and that Merton was dead.
“But how shall I tell you about Constance? I have done nothing but cry all day, partly from grief, and partly from a kind of nervous terror which makes me imagine that I am still covered with those red stains, although I took off all my things, even my shoes and stockings, and made the servant-girl take them away out of my sight. But she does not shed a tear, and is so quiet, occupied all the time arranging everything about the corpse. And there is such a still, desolate look on her face; her eyes seem to have lost all their sweetness; I am afraid to speak to her—afraid that if I should attempt to speak one word of comfort she would look at me almost with hatred. This afternoon I was in the room where they have laid him, and he looked so different, younger, and his face so much clearer than it has been looking, that it reminded me of the past and of the first time I saw him, when he spoke so gently to me at Dawson Place, and asked me to look up to show my eyes to him. I could not restrain my sobs. And at last Constance said, 'Fan, if you go on in this way you will make me cry for very sympathy.' I could not bear it and left the room. It was so strange for her to say that! Perhaps I am wrong to think it, but I almost believe from her tone and expression that all her love for me has turned to bitterness because I, and not she, was with him at the end, and heard his last word, and held him in my arms when he died.
“She has refused to sleep in my room, and now that the whole house is quiet I am almost terrified at being alone, and to think that I must spend the night by myself. I know that if I sleep I shall start up from some dreadful dream, that I shall feel something on my hands, after so many washings, and shall think of that last look on his ashen face, and his last bitter words when he knew that the end had so suddenly come to him. I wish, I wish, Mary, that I had you with me to-night, that I could rest with your arms about me, to gain strength with your strength, for you are so strong and brave, I so weak and cowardly. But I am alone in my room, and can only try to persuade myself that you are thinking of me, that when you sleep you will be with me in your dreams.”
Having finished reading the letter, Mary covered her eyes with her hand and cried to herself quietly for a while. Cried for despised Merton Chance; and remembered, no longer with mocking laughter, some fragments of the “beautiful nonsense” which he had spoken to her in bygone days. For in that bright sunshine of the late summer, among the garden trees, the Black Angel had come without warning to him, and with one swift stroke of his weapon had laid him, with all his dreams and delusions, in the dust; and its tragic ending had given a new dignity, a touch of mournful glory, and something of mystery, to the vain and wasted life.
After a while, drying her eyes, she rose and went out again, and in Westbourne Grove ordered a wreath for Merton's coffin, and instructed the florist to send it on the following day to the house of mourning.
That mention of her first meeting with Merton in the girl's letter had brought up the past very vividly to Mary's mind; at night, after partially undressing, as she sat combing out her dark hair before the glass, she thought of the old days when Fan had combed it for her, and of her strange mixed feelings, when she had loved the poor girl she had rescued from misery, and had studied to hide the feeling, being ashamed of it, and at the same time had scorned herself for feeling shame—for being not different from others in spite of her better instincts and affected independence of a social code meant for meaner slavish natures. How well she remembered that evening when Merton had amused her with his pretty paradoxes about women not being reasonable beings, and had come back later to make her an offer of marriage; and how before going to bed she had looked at herself in the glass, proud of her beauty and strength and independence, and had laughed scornfully and said that to no Merton Chance would she give her hand; but that to one who, although stained with vice, had strength of character, and loved her with a true and not a sham love, she might one day give it. And thus thinking the blood rushed to her face and dyed it red; even her neck, shoulders, and bosom changed from ivory white to bright rose, and she turned away, startled and ashamed at seeing her own shame so vividly imaged before her. And moving to the bedside, while all that rich colour faded away, she dropped languidly into a chair, and throwing her white arms over the coverlid, laid her cheek on them with a strange self-abandonment, “Do you call me strong and brave, Fan?” she murmured sadly. “Ah, poor child, what a mistake! I am the weak and cowardly one, since I dare not tell you this shameful secret, and ask you to save me. Oh, how falsely I put it to you when I said that there are things in every heart which cannot be told, even to the nearest and dearest! when I hinted to you that you had not told me all the story of your acquaintance with Arthur Eden. That which you kept back was his secret as well as yours. This is mine, only mine, and I have no courage to tell you that you are only working my ruin—that the heart you are trying to soften has no healthy hardness in it. I shall never tell you. Only to one being in the whole world could I tell it—to my brother Tom. But to think of him is futile; for I shall keep my word, and never address him again unless he first begs my forgiveness for insulting me at Ravenna, when he called me a demon. Never, never, and he will not do that, and there is no hope of help from him. You shall know the result of your work one day, Fan, and how placable this heart is. And it will perhaps grieve you when you know that your own words, your own action, gave me back this sickness of the soul—this old disease which had still some living rootlet left in me when I thought myself well and safe at last. How glad I shall be to see you again, Fan! And you will not know that under that open healthy gladness there will be another gladness, secret and base. That I shall eagerly listen again to hear the name my false lips forbade you to speak—to hear it spoken with some sweet word of praise. And in a little while I shall sink lower, and be glad to remember that my courage was so small; and lower still, and give, reluctantly and with many protests, the forgiveness which will prove to you—poor innocent child!—that I have a very noble spirit in me. How sweet it is to think of it, and how I loathe myself for the thought! And I know what the end will be. I shall gain my desire, but my gain will be small and my loss too great to be measured. And then farewell to you, Fan, for ever; for I shall never have the courage to look into your eyes again, and the pure soul that is in them. I shall be a coward still. Just as all that is weak and unworthy in me makes me a coward now, so whatever there is that is good in me will make me a coward then.”