William Shakespeare - "The Merry Wives of Windsor"

Gaston Leroux - "The Secret of the Night"

Nellie L. McClung - "Sowing Seeds in Danny"

Ottilie A Liljencrantz - "The Ward of King Canute"

The Woman Hater

C >> Charles Reade >> The Woman Hater




"Why did you come back before you had found them?"

"Aunt, it was going to rain; and it is raining now, hard."

_"She_ does not mind that."

"Zoe? Oh, she has got nothing on!"

"Bless me!" cried Vizard. "Godiva _rediviva."_

"Now, Harrington, don't! Of course, I mean nothing to spoil; only her
purple alpaca, and that is two years old. But my blue silk, I can't
afford to ruin _it._ Nobody would give me another, _I_ know."

"What a heartless world!" said Vizard dryly.

"It is past a jest, the whole thing," objected Miss Maitland; "and, now
we are together, please tell me, if you can, either of you, who is this
man? What are his means? I know 'The Peerage,' 'The Baronetage,' and 'The
Landed Gentry,' but not Severne. That is a river, not a family."

"Oh," said Vizard, "family names taken from rivers are never _parvenues._
But we can't all be down in Burke. Ned is of a good stock, the old
English yeoman, the country's pride."

"Yeoman!" said the Maitland, with sovereign contempt.

Vizard resisted. "Is this the place to sneer at an English yeoman, where
you see an unprincely prince living by a gambling-table? What says the
old stave?

"'A German prince, a marquis of France, And a laird o' the North
Countrie; A yeoman o' Kent, with his yearly rent, Would ding 'em out, all
three."'

"Then," said Misander, with a good deal of malicious, intent, "you are
quite sure your yeoman is not a--_pauper--_an _adventurer--"_

"Positive."

"And a _gambler."_

"No; I am not at all sure of that. But nobody is all-wise. I am not, for
one. He is a fine fellow; as good as gold; as true as steel. Always
polite, always genial; and never speaks ill of any of you behind your
backs."

Miss Maitland bridled at that. "What I have said is not out of dislike to
the young man. I am warning a brother to take a little more care of his
sister, that is all. However, after your sneer, I shall say no more
behind Mr. Severne's back, but to his face--that is, if we ever see his
face again, or Zoe's either."

"Oh, aunt!" said Fanny, reproachfully. "It is only the rain. La! poor
things, they will be wet to the skin. Just see how it is pouring!"

"That it is: and let me tell you there is nothing so dangerous as a
_te'te-'a-te'te_ in the rain."

"A thunder-storm is worse, aunt," said Fanny, eagerly; "because then she
is frightened to death, and clings to him--_if he is nice."_

Having galloped into this revelation, through speaking first and thinking
afterward, Fanny pulled up short the moment the words were out, and
turned red, and looked askant, under her pale lashes at Vizard. Observing
several twinkles in his eyes, she got up hastily and said she really must
go and dry her gown.

"Yes," said Miss Maitland; "come into my room, dear."

Fanny complied, with rather a rueful face, not doubting that the public
"dear" was to get it rather hot in private.

Her uneasiness was not lessened when the old maid said to her, grimly,
"Now, sit you down there, and never mind your dress."

However, it came rather mildly, after all. "Fanny, you are not a bad
girl, and you have shown you were sorry; so I am not going to be hard on
you: only you must be a good girl now, and help me to undo the mischief,
and then I will forgive you."

"Aunt," said Fanny, piteously, "I am older than she is, and I know I have
done rather wrong, and I won't do it any more; but pray, pray, don't ask
me to be unkind to her to-day; it is brooch-day."

Miss Maitland only stared at this obscure announcement: so Fanny had to
explain that Zoe and she had tiffed, and made it up, and Zoe had given
her a brooch. Hereupon she went for it, and both ladies forgot the topic
they were on, and every other, to examine the brooch.

"Aunt," says Fanny, handling the brooch, and eyeing it, "you were a poor
girl, like me, before grandpapa left you the money, and you know it is
just as well to have a tiff now and then with a rich one, because, when
you kiss and make it up, you always get some reconciliation-thing or
other."

Miss Maitland dived into the past and nodded approval.

Thus encouraged, Fanny proceeded to more modern rules. She let Miss
Maitland know it was always understood at her school that on these
occasions of tiff, reconciliation, and present, the girl who received the
present was to side in everything with the girl who gave it, for that one
day. "That is the real reason I put on my tight boots--to earn my brooch.
Isn't it a duck?"

_"Are_ they tight, then?"

"Awfully. See--new on to-day."

"But you could shake off your lameness in a moment."

"La, aunt, you know one can fight _with_ that sort of thing, or fight
_against_ it. It is like colds, and headaches, and fevers, and all that.
You are in bed, too ill to see anybody you don't much care for. Night
comes, and then you jump up and dress, and go to a ball, and leave your
cold and your fever behind you, because the ball won't wait till you are
well, and the bores will. So don't ask me to be unkind to Zoe,
brooch-day," said Fanny, skipping back to her first position with
singular pertinacity.

"Now, Fanny," said Miss Maitland, "who wants you to be unkind to her? But
you must and shall promise me not to lend her any more downright
encouragement, and to watch the man well."

"I promise that faithfully," said Fanny --an adroit concession, since she
had been watching him like a cat a mouse for many days.

"Then you are a good girl; and, to reward you, I will tell you in
confidence all the strange stories I have discovered today."

"Oh, do, aunt!" cried Fanny; and now her eyes began to sparkle with
curiosity.

Miss Maitland then bid her observe that the bedroom window was not a
French casement, but a double-sash window--closed at present because of
the rain; but it had been wide open at the top all the time.

"Those two were smoking, and talking secrets; and, child," said the old
lady, very impressively, "if you--want--to--know--what gentlemen really
are, you must be out of sight, and listen to them, smoking. When I was a
girl, the gentlemen came out in their true colors over their wine. Now
they are as close as wax, drinking; and even when they are tipsy they
keep their secrets. But once let them get by themselves and smoke, the
very air is soon filled with scandalous secrets none of the ladies in the
house ever dreamed of. Their real characters, their true histories, and
their genuine sentiments, are locked up like that genius in 'The Arabian
Nights,' and come out in smoke as he did." The old lady chuckled at her
own wit, and the young one laughed to humor her. "Well, my dear, those
two smoked, and revealed themselves--their real selves; and I listened
and heard every word on the top of those drawers."

Fanny looked at the drawers. They were high.

"La, aunt! how ever did you get up there?"

"By a chair."

"Oh, fancy you perched up there, listening, at your age!"

"You need not keep throwing my age in my teeth. I am not so very old.
Only I don't paint and whiten and wear false hair. There are plenty of
coquettes about, ever so much older than I am. I have a great mind not to
tell you; and then much you will ever know about either of these men!"

"Oh, aunt, don't be cruel! I am dying to hear it."

As aunt was equally dying to tell it, she passed over the skit upon her
age, though she did not forget nor forgive it; and repeated the whole
conversation of Vizard and Severne with rare fidelity; but as I abhor
what the evangelist calls "battology," and Shakespeare "damnable
iteration," I must draw upon the intelligence of the reader (if any), and
he must be pleased to imagine the whole dialogue of those two unguarded
smokers repeated to Fanny, and interrupted, commented on at every salient
point, scrutinized, sifted, dissected, and taken to pieces by two keen
women, sharp by nature, and sharper now by collision of their heads. No
candor, no tolerance, no allowance for human weakness, blunted the
scalpel in their dexterous hands.

Oh, Gossip! delight of ordinary souls, and more delightful still when you
furnish food for detraction!

To Fanny, in particular, it was exciting, ravishing, and the time flew by
so unheeded that presently there came a sharp knock and an impatient
voice cried, "Chatter! chatter! chatter! How long are we to be kept
waiting for dinner, all of us?"



CHAPTER VI.

AT the very commencement of the confabulation, so barbarously interrupted
before it had lasted two hours and a half, the Misogyn rang the bell, and
asked for Rosa, Zoe's maid.

She came, and he ordered her to have up a basket of wood, and light a
roaring fire in her mistress's room, and put out garments to air. He also
inquired the number of Zoe's bedroom. The girl said it was "No. 74."

The Misogyn waited half an hour, and then visited "No. 74." He found the
fire burned down to one log, and some things airing at the fire, as
domestics air their employers' things, but not their own, you may be
sure. There was a chemise carefully folded into the smallest possible
compass, and doubled over a horse at a good distance from the cold fire.
There were other garments and supplementaries, all treated in the same
way.

The Misogyn looked, and remarked as follows, "Idiots! at everything but
taking in the men."

Having relieved his spleen with this courteous and comprehensive
observation, he piled log upon log till the fire was half up the chimney.
Then he got all the chairs and made a semi-circle, and spread out the
various garments to the genial heat; and so close that, had a spark
flown, they would have been warmed with a vengeance, and the superiority
of the male intellect demonstrated. This done, he retired, with a guilty
air; for he did not want to be caught meddling in such frivolities by
Miss Dover or Miss Maitland. However, he was quite safe; those superior
spirits were wholly occupied with the loftier things of the mind,
especially the characters of their neighbors.

I must now go for these truants that are giving everybody so much
trouble.

When Fanny fell lame and said she was very sorry, but she must go home
and change her boots, Zoe was for going home too. But Fanny, doubting her
sincerity, was peremptory, and said they had only to stroll slowly on,
and then turn; she should meet them coming back. Zoe colored high,
suspecting they had seen the last of this ingenious young lady.

"What a good girl!" cried Severne.

"I am afraid she is a very naughty girl," said Zoe, faintly; and the
first effect of Fanny's retreat was to make her a great deal more
reserved and less sprightly.

Severne observed, and understood, and saw he must give her time. He was
so respectful, as well as tender, that, by degrees, she came out again,
and beamed with youth and happiness.

They strolled very slowly by the fair river, and the pretty little
nothings they said to each other began to be mere vehicles for those soft
tones and looks, in which love is made, far more than by the words
themselves.

When they started on this walk, Severne had no distinct nor serious views
on Zoe. But he had been playing with fire for some time, and so now he
got well burned.

Walking slowly by his side, and conscious of being wooed, whatever the
words might be, Zoe was lovelier than ever. Those lowered lashes, that
mantling cheek, those soft, tender murmurs, told him he was dear, and
thrilled his heart, though a cold one compared with hers.

He was in love; as much as he could be, and more than he had ever been
before. He never even asked himself whether permanent happiness was
likely to spring from this love: he was self-indulgent, reckless, and in
love.

He looked at her, wished he could recall his whole life, and sighed.

"Why do you sigh?" said she, gently.

"I don't know. Yes, I do. Because I am not happy."

"Not happy?" said she. "You ought to be; and I am sure you deserve to
be."

"I don't know that. However, I think I shall be happier in a few minutes,
or else very unhappy indeed. That depends on you."

"On me, Mr. Severne?" and she blushed crimson, and her bosom began to
heave. His words led her to expect a declaration and a proposal of
marriage.

He saw her mistake; and her emotion spoke so plainly and sweetly, and
tried him so, that it cost him a great effort not to clasp her in his
arms. But that was not his cue at present. He lowered his eyes, to give
her time, and said, sadly, "I cannot help seeing that, somehow, there is
suspicion in the air about me. Miss Maitland puts questions, and drops
hints. Miss Dover watches me like a lynx. Even you gave me a hint the
other day that I never talk to you about my relations, and my past life."

"Pray do not confound me with other people," said Zoe proudly. "If I am
curious, it is because I know you must have done many good things and
clever things; but you have too little vanity, or too much pride, to tell
them even to one who--esteems you, and could appreciate."

"I know you are as generous and noble as most people are narrow-minded,"
said Severne, enthusiastically; "and I have determined to tell you all
about myself."

Zoe's cheeks beamed with gratified pride and her eyes sparkled.

"Only, as I would not tell it to anybody but you, I must stipulate that
you will receive it in sacred confidence, and not repeat it to a living
soul."

"Not even to my brother, who loves you so?"

"Not even to him."

This alarmed the instinctive delicacy and modesty of a truly virgin soul.

"I am not experienced," said she. "But I feel I ought not to yield to
curiosity and hear from you anything I am forbidden to tell my brother.
You might as well say I must not tell my mother; for dear Harrington is
all the mother I have; and I am sure he is a true friend to you" (this
last a little reproachfully).

But for Severne's habitual self-command, he would have treated this
delicacy as ridiculous prudery; but he was equal to greater difficulties.

"You are right, by instinct, in everything. Well, then, I shall tell you,
and you shall see at once whether it ought to be repeated, or to remain a
sacred deposit between me and the only creature I have the courage to
tell it to."

Zoe lowered her eyes, and marked the sand with her parasol. She was a
little puzzled now, and half conscious that, somehow, he was tying her to
secrecy with silk instead of rope; but she never suspected the deliberate
art and dexterity with which it was done.

Severne then made the revelation which he had been preparing for a day or
two past; and, to avoid eternal comments by the author, I must once more
call in the artful aid of the printers. The true part of Mr. Severne's
revelation is in italics; the false in ordinary type.

_"When my father died, I inherited an estate in Huntingdonshire. It was
not so large as Vizard's, but it was clear. Not a mortgage nor
incumbrance on it. I had a younger brother;_ a fellow with charming
manners, and very accomplished. These were his ruin: he got into high
society in London; _but high society is not always good society._ He
became connected with a fast lot, some of the young nobility. Of course
he could not vie with them. He got deeply in debt. Not but what they were
in debt too, every one of them. He used to send to me for money oftener
than I liked; but I never suspected the rate he was going at. I was
anxious, too, about him; but I said to myself he was just sowing his wild
oats, like other fellows. Well, it went on, until--to his misfortune and
mine--he got entangled in some disgraceful transactions; the general
features are known to all the world. I dare say you have heard of one or
two young noblemen who committed forgeries on their relations and friends
some years ago. _One of them, the son of an earl, took his sister's whole
fortune out of her bank, with a single forged check. I believe the sum
total of his forgeries was over one hundred thousand pounds. His father
could not find half the money. A number of the nobility had to combine to
repurchase the documents; many of them were in the hands of the Jews; and
I believe a composition was effected, with the help of a very powerful
barrister, an M. P. He went out of his line on this occasion, and
mediated between the parties._ What will you think when I tell you that
my brother, the son of my father and my mother, was one of these
forgers--a criminal?"

"My poor friend!" cried Zoe, clasping her innocent hands.

"It was a thunder-clap. I had a great mind to wash my hands of it, and
let him go to prison. But how could I? The struggle ended in my doing
like the rest. Only poor, I had no noble kinsmen with long purses to help
me, and no solicitor-general to mediate _sub rosa._ The total amount
would have swamped my family acres. I got them down to sixty per cent,
and that only crippled my estate forever. As for my brother, he fell on
his knees to me. But I could not forgive him. _He left the country with a
hundred pounds_ I gave him. _He is in Canada; and only known there as a
most respectable farmer._ He talks of paying me back. That I shall
believe when I see it. All I know for certain is that his crime has
mortgaged my estate, and left me poor--and suspected."

While Severne related this, there passed a somewhat notable thing in the
world of mind. The inventor of this history did not understand it; the
hearer did, and accompanied it with innocent sympathetic sighs. Her
imagination, more powerful and precise than the inventor's, pictured the
horror of the high-minded brother, his agony, his shame, his respect for
law and honesty, his pity for his own flesh and blood, his struggle, and
the final triumph of fraternal affection. Every line of the figment was
alive to her, and she _realized_ the tale. Severne only repeated it.

At the last touch of his cold art, the warm-hearted girl could contain no
longer.

"Oh, poor Mr. Severne!" she cried; "poor Mr. Severne!" And the tears ran
down her cheeks.

He looked at her first with a little astonishment--fancy taking his
little narrative to heart like that--then with compunction, and then with
a momentary horror at himself, and terror at the impassable gulf fixed
between them, by her rare goodness and his depravity.

Then for a moment he felt, and felt all manner of things at once. "Oh,
don't cry," he blurted out, and began to blubber himself at having made
her cry at all, and so unfairly. It was his lucky hour; this hysterical
effusion, undignified by a single grain of active contrition, or even
penitent resolve, told in his favor. They mingled their tears; and hearts
cannot hold aloof when tears come together. Yes, they mingled their
tears, and the crocodile tears were the male's, if you please, and the
woman's tears were pure holy drops, that angels might have gathered and
carried them to God for pearls of the human soul.

After they had cried together over the cool figment, Zoe said: "I do not
repent my curiosity now. You did well to tell me. Oh, no, you were right,
and I will never tell anybody. People are narrow-minded. They shall never
cast your brother's crime in your teeth, nor your own losses I esteem you
for--oh, so much more than ever! I wonder you could tell me."

"You would not wonder if you knew how superior you are to all the world:
how noble, how generous, and how I--"

"Oh, Mr. Severne, it is going to rain! We must get home as fast as ever
we can."

They turned, and Zoe, with true virgin coyness, and elastic limbs, made
the coming rain an excuse for such swift walking that Severne could not
make tender love to her. To be sure, Apollo ran after Daphne, with his
little proposals; but, I take it, he ran mute--till he found he couldn't
catch her. Indeed, it was as much as Severne could do to keep up with her
"fair heel and toe." But I ascribe this to her not wearing high heels
ever since Fanny told her she was just a little too tall, and she was
novice enough to believe her.

She would not stop for the drizzle; but at last it came down with such a
vengeance that she was persuaded to leave the path and run for a
cattle-shed at some distance. Here she and Severne were imprisoned.
Luckily for them "the kye had not come hame," and the shed was empty.
They got into the farthest corner of it; for it was all open toward the
river; and the rain pattered on the roof as if it would break it.

Thus driven together, was it wonderful that soon her hand was in his, and
that, as they purred together, and murmured soft nothings, more than once
she was surprised into returning the soft pressure which he gave it so
often?

The plump declaration she had fled from, and now seemed deliciously
resigned to, did not actually come. But he did what she valued more, he
resumed his confidences: told her he had vices; was fond of gambling.
Excused it on the score of his loss by his brother; said he hoped soon to
hear good news from Canada; didn't despair; was happy now, in spite of
all; had been happy ever since he had met _her._ What declaration was
needed? The understanding was complete. Neither doubted the other's love;
and Zoe would have thought herself a faithless, wicked girl, if, after
this, she had gone and accepted any other man.

But presently she had a misgiving, and looked at her watch. Yes, it
wanted but one hour to dinner. Now, her brother was rather a Tartar about
punctuality at dinner. She felt she was already in danger of censure for
her long _te'te-'a-te'te_ with Severne, though the rain was the culprit.
She could not afford to draw every eye upon her by being late for dinner
along with him.

She told Severne they must go home now, rain or no rain, and she walked
resolutely out into the weather.

Severne did not like it at all, but he was wise enough to deplore it only
on her account; and indeed her light alpaca was soon drenched, and began
to cling to her. But the spirited girl only laughed at his condolences,
as she hurried on. "Why, it is only warm water," said she; "this is no
more than a bath in the summer sea. Bathing is getting wet through in
blue flannel. Well, I am bathing in blue alpaca."

"But it will ruin your dress."

"My dress! Why, it is as old as the hills. When I get home I'll give it
to Rosa, ready washed--ha-ha!"

The rain pelted and poured, and long before they reached the inn, Zoe's
dress had become an external cuticle, an alpaca skin.

But innocence is sometimes very bold. She did not care a bit; and, to
tell the truth, she had little need to care. Beauty so positive as hers
is indomitable. The petty accidents that are the terrors of homely charms
seem to enhance Queen Beauty. Disheveled hair adorns it: close bound hair
adorns it. Simplicity adorns it. Diamonds adorn it. Everything seems to
adorn it, because, the truth is, it adorns everything. And so Zoe,
drenched with rain, and her dress a bathing-gown, was only a Greek
goddess tinted blue, her bust and shoulders and her molded figure
covered, yet revealed. What was she to an artist's eye? Just the Townly
Venus with her sculptor's cunning draperies, and Juno's gait.

"Et vera incessa patuit Dea."

When she got to the hotel she held up her finger to Severne with a pretty
peremptoriness. She had shown him so much tenderness, she felt she had a
right to order him now: "I must beg of you," said she, "to go straight to
your rooms and dress very quickly, and present yourself to Harrington
five minutes before dinner at least."

"I will obey," said he, obsequiously.

That pleased her, and she kissed her hand to him and scudded to her own
room.

At sight of the blazing fire and provident preparations, she started, and
said, aloud, "Oh, how nice of them!" and, all dripping as she was, she
stood there with her young heart in a double glow.

Such a nature as hers has too little egotism and low-bred vanity to
undervalue worthy love. The infinite heart of a Zoe Vizard can love but
one with passion, yet ever so many more with warm and tender affection.

She gave Aunt Maitland credit for this provident affection. It was out of
the sprightly Fanny's line; and she said to herself, "Dear old thing!
there, I thought she was bottling up a lecture for me, and all the time
her real anxiety was lest I should be wet through." Thereupon she settled
in her mind to begin loving Aunt Maitland from that hour. She did not
ring for her maid till she was nearly dressed, and, when Rosa came and
exclaimed at the condition of her cast-off robes, she laughed and told
her it was nothing--the Rhine was nice and warm--pretending she had been
in it. She ordered her to dry the dress, and iron it.

"Why, la, miss; you'll never wear it again, to be sure?" said Rosa,
demurely.

"I don't know," said the young lady, archly; "but I mean to take great
care of it," and burst out laughing like a peal of silver bells, because
she was in high spirits, and saw what Rosa would be at.

Give away the gown she had been wooed and wet through in--no, thank you!
Such gowns as these be landmarks, my masters.

Vizard, unconscious of her arrival, was walking up and down the room,
fidgeting more and more, when in came Zoe, dressed high in black silk and
white lace, looking ever so cozy, and blooming like a rose.

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