Stories by English Authors: England
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Various >> Stories by English Authors: England
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She still controlled her agitation--but she was now unable to conceal
it. Ernest made an attempt to spare her.
"Am I concerned in this?" he asked.
"Yes. Before I tell you why, I want to know what you would do--in a
certain case which I am unwilling even to suppose. I have heard of men,
unable to pay the demands made on them, who began business again, and
succeeded, and in course of time paid their creditors."
"And you want to know if there is any likelihood of my following their
example?" he said. "Have you also heard of men who have made that second
effort--who have failed again--and who have doubled the debts they owed
to their brethren in business who trusted them? I knew one of those men
myself. He committed suicide."
She laid her hand for a moment on his.
"I understand you," she said. "If ruin comes--"
"If ruin comes," he interposed, "a man without money and without credit
can make but one last atonement. Don't speak of it now."
She looked at him with horror.
"I didn't mean that!" she said.
"Shall we go back to what you read in the will?" he suggested.
"Yes--if you will give me a minute to compose myself."
In less than the minute she had asked for, Mrs. Callender was calm enough
to go on.
"I now possess what is called a life-interest in my husband's fortune,"
she said. "The money is to be divided, at my death, among charitable
institutions; excepting a certain event--"
"Which is provided for in the will?" Ernest added, helping her to go on.
"Yes. I am to be absolute mistress of the whole of the four hundred
thousand pounds--" her voice dropped, and her eyes looked away from
him as she spoke the next words--"on this one condition, that I marry
again."
He looked at her in amazement.
"Surely I have mistaken you," he said. "You mean on this one condition,
that you do not marry again?"
"No, Mr. Lismore; I mean exactly what I have said. You now know that the
recovery of your credit and your peace of mind rests entirely with
yourself."
After a moment of reflection he took her hand and raised it respectfully
to his lips. "You are a noble woman!" he said.
She made no reply. With drooping head and downcast eyes she waited for
his decision. He accepted his responsibility.
"I must not, and dare not, think of the hardship of my own position," he
said; "I owe it to you to speak without reference to the future that may
be in store for me. No man can be worthy of the sacrifice which your
generous forgetfulness of yourself is willing to make. I respect you;
I admire you; I thank you with my whole heart. Leave me to my fate, Mrs.
Callender--and let me go."
He rose. She stopped him by a gesture.
"A young woman," she answered, "would shrink from saying--what I, as an
old woman, mean to say now. I refuse to leave you to your fate. I ask
you to prove that you respect me, admire me, and thank me with your
whole heart. Take one day to think--and let me hear the result. You
promise me this?"
He promised. "Now go," she said.
Next morning Ernest received a letter from Mrs. Callender. She wrote to
him as follows:
"There are some considerations which I ought to have mentioned yesterday
evening, before you left my house.
"I ought to have reminded you--if you consent to reconsider your
decision--that the circumstances do not require you to pledge yourself
to me absolutely.
"At my age, I can with perfect propriety assure you that I regard our
marriage simply and solely as a formality which we must fulfill, if I
am to carry out my intention of standing between you and ruin.
"Therefore--if the missing ship appears in time, the only reason for
the marriage is at an end. We shall be as good friends as ever;
without the encumbrance of a formal tie to bind us.
"In the other event, I should ask you to submit to certain
restrictions, which, remembering my position, you will understand
and excuse.
"We are to live together, it is unnecessary to say, as mother and
son. The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private, and you are
so to arrange our affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave
England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends,
and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our
motives, if we stay in our own country, in a manner which would be
unendurable to a woman like me.
"As to our future lives, I have the most perfect confidence in you,
and I should leave you in the same position of independence which
you occupy now. When you wish for my company you will always be
welcome. At other times you are your own master. I live on my side
of the house, and you live on yours; and I am to be allowed my
hours of solitude every day in the pursuit of musical occupations,
which have been happily associated with all my past life, and which
I trust confidently to your indulgence.
"A last word, to remind you of what you may be too kind to think
of yourself.
"At my age, you cannot, in the course of nature, be troubled by
the society of a grateful old woman for many years. You are young
enough to look forward to another marriage, which shall be something
more than a mere form. Even if you meet with the happy woman in my
lifetime, honestly tell me of it, and I promise to tell her that
she has only to wait.
"In the meantime, don't think, because I write composedly, that I
write heartlessly. You pleased and interested me when I first saw
you at the public meeting. I don't think I could have proposed
what you call this sacrifice of myself to a man who had personally
repelled me, though I have felt my debt of gratitude as sincerely
as ever. Whether your ship is safe or whether your ship is lost,
old Mary Callender likes you, and owns it without false shame.
"Let me have your answer this evening, either personally or by
letter, whichever you like best."
Mrs. Callender received a written answer long before the evening.
It said much in few words:
"A man impenetrable to kindness might be able to resist your letter.
I am not that man. Your great heart has conquered me."
The few formalities which precede marriage by special license were
observed by Ernest. While the destiny of their future lives was
still in suspense, an unacknowledged feeling of embarrassment on
either side kept Ernest and Mrs. Callender apart. Every day brought
the lady her report of the state of affairs in the City, written
always in the same words: "No news of the ship."
On the day before the ship-owner's liabilities became due the terms
of the report from the City remained unchanged, and the special
license was put to its contemplated use. Mrs. Callender's lawyer
and Mrs. Callender's maid were the only persons trusted with the
secret. Leaving the chief clerk in charge of the business, with every
pecuniary demand on his employer satisfied in full, the strangely
married pair quitted England.
They arranged to wait for a few days in Paris, to receive any
letters of importance which might have been addressed to Ernest
in the interval. On the evening of their arrival a telegram from
London was waiting at their hotel. It announced that the missing
ship had passed up channel--undiscovered in a fog until she reached
the Downs --on the day before Ernest's liabilities fell due.
"Do you regret it?" Mrs. Lismore said to her husband.
"Not for a moment!" he answered.
They decided on pursuing their journey as far as Munich.
Mrs. Lismore's taste for music was matched by Ernest's taste for
painting. In his leisure hours he cultivated the art, and delighted
in it. The picture-galleries of Munich were almost the only galleries
in Europe which he had not seen. True to the engagements to which
she had pledged herself, his wife was willing to go wherever it
might please him to take her. The one suggestion she made was that
they should hire furnished apartments. If they lived at a hotel
friends of the husband or the wife (visitors like themselves to the
famous city) might see their names in the book or might meet them
at the door.
They were soon established in a house large enough to provide them
with every accommodation which they required. Ernest's days were
passed in the galleries, Mrs. Lismore remaining at home, devoted
to her music, until it was time to go out with her husband for
a drive. Living together in perfect amity and concord, they were
nevertheless not living happily. Without any visible reason for
the change, Mrs. Lismore's spirits were depressed. On the one
occasion when Ernest noticed it she made an effort to be cheerful,
which it distressed him to see. He allowed her to think that she
had relieved him of any further anxiety. Whatever doubts he might
feel were doubts delicately concealed from that time forth.
But when two people are living together in a state of artificial
tranquillity, it seems to be a law of nature that the element of
disturbance gathers unseen, and that the outburst comes inevitably
with the lapse of time.
In ten days from the date of their arrival at Munich the crisis
came. Ernest returned later than usual from the picture-gallery,
and, for the first time in his wife's experience, shut himself up
in his own room.
He appeared at the dinner hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore
waited until the servant had withdrawn.
"Now, Ernest," she said, "it's time to tell me the truth."
Her manner, when she said those few words, took him by surprise.
She was unquestionably confused, and, instead of looking at him,
she trifled with the fruit on her plate. Embarrassed on his side,
he could only answer:
"I have nothing to tell."
"Were there many visitors at the gallery?" she asked.
"About the same as usual."
"Any that you particularly noticed?" she went on. "I mean among
the ladies."
He laughed uneasily.
"You forget how interested I am in the pictures," he said.
There was a pause. She looked up at him, and suddenly looked away
again; but--he saw it plainly--there were tears in her eyes.
"Do you mind turning down the gas?" she said. "My eyes have been
weak all day."
He complied with her request the more readily, having his own
reasons for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.
"I think I will rest a little on the sofa," she resumed. In the
position which he occupied his back would have been now turned
on her. She stopped him when he tried to move his chair. "I would
rather not look at you, Ernest," she said, "when you have lost
confidence in me."
Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and noble
in his nature. He left his place and knelt beside her, and opened
to her his whole heart.
"Am I not unworthy of you?" he asked, when it was over.
She pressed his hand in silence.
"I should be the most ungrateful wretch living," he said, "if I did
not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made.
We will leave Munich to-morrow, and, if resolution can help me,
I will only remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as
the creature of a dream."
She hid her face on his breast, and reminded him of that letter of
her writing which had decided the course of their lives.
"When I thought you might meet the happy woman in my lifetime
I said to you, 'Tell me of it, and I promise to tell her that she
has only to wait.' Time must pass, Ernest, before it can be needful
to perform my promise, but you might let me see her. If you find
her in the gallery to-morrow you might bring her here."
Mrs. Lismore's request met with no refusal. Ernest was only at a
loss to know how to grant it.
"You tell me she is a copyist of pictures," his wife reminded him.
"She will be interested in hearing of the portfolio of drawings
by the great French artists which I bought for you in Paris. Ask
her to come and see them, and to tell you if she can make some copies;
and say, if you like, that I shall be glad to become acquainted
with her."
He felt her breath beating fast on his bosom. In the fear that
she might lose all control over herself, he tried to relieve her
by speaking lightly.
"What an invention yours is!" he said. "If my wife ever tries to
deceive me, I shall be a mere child in her hands."
She rose abruptly from the sofa, kissed him on the forehead, and
said wildly, "I shall be better in bed!" Before he could move or
speak she had left him.
The next morning he knocked at the door of his wife's room, and
asked how she had passed the night.
"I have slept badly," she answered, "and I must beg you to excuse
my absence at breakfast-time." She called him back as he was about
to withdraw. "Remember," she said, "when you return from the
gallery to-day I expect that you will not return alone."
Three hours later he was at home again. The young lady's services
as a copyist were at his disposal; she had returned with him to
look at the drawings.
The sitting-room was empty when they entered it. He rang for
his wife's maid, and was informed that Mrs. Lismore had gone out.
Refusing to believe the woman, he went to his wife's apartments.
She was not to be found.
When he returned to the sitting-room the young lady was not unnaturally
offended. He could make allowances for her being a little out of
temper at the slight that had been put on her; but he was inexpressibly
disconcerted by the manner--almost the coarse manner--in which she
expressed herself.
"I have been talking to your wife's maid while you have been away,"
she said. "I find you have married an old lady for her money. She
is jealous of me, of course?"
"Let me beg you to alter your opinion," he answered. "You are wronging
my wife; she is incapable of any such feeling as you attribute to
her."
The young lady laughed. "At any rate, you are a good husband," she
said, satirically. "Suppose you own the truth: wouldn't you like
her better if she was young and pretty like me ?"
He was not merely surprised, he was disgusted. Her beauty had
so completely fascinated him when he first saw her that the idea
of associating any want of refinement and good breeding with such
a charming creature never entered his mind. The disenchantment to
him was already so complete that he was even disagreeably affected
by the tone of her voice; it was almost as repellent to him as this
exhibition of unrestrained bad temper which she seemed perfectly
careless to conceal.
"I confess you surprise me," he said, coldly.
The reply produced no effect on her. On the contrary, she became
more insolent than ever.
"I have a fertile fancy," she went on, "and your absurd way of
taking a joke only encourages me! Suppose you could transform this
sour old wife of yours, who has insulted me, into the sweetest young
creature that ever lived by only holding up your finger, wouldn't
you do it?"
This passed the limits of his endurance. "I have no wish," he said,
"to forget the consideration which is due to a woman. You leave
me but one alternative." He rose to go out of the room.
She ran to the door as he spoke, and placed herself in the way of
his going out.
He signed to her to let him pass.
She suddenly threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately,
and whispered, with her lips at his ear, "O Ernest, forgive me!
Could I have asked you to marry me for my money if I had not taken
refuge in a disguise?"
When he had sufficiently recovered to think he put her back from
him. "Is there an end of the deception now?" he asked, sternly.
"Am I to trust you in your new character?"
"You are not to be harder on me than I deserve," she answered,
gently. "Did you ever hear of an actress named Miss Max?"
He began to understand her. "Forgive me if I spoke harshly," he
said. "You have put me to a severe trial."
She burst into tears. "Love," she murmured, "is my only excuse."
From that moment she had won her pardon. He took her hand and made
her sit by him.
"Yes," he said, "I have heard of Miss Max, and of her wonderful
powers of personation; and I have always regretted not having seen
her while she was on the stage."
"Did you hear anything more of her, Ernest?"
"Yes; I heard that she was a pattern of modesty and good conduct,
and that she gave up her profession at the height of her success
to marry an old man."
"Will you come with me to my room?" she asked. "I have something
there which I wish to show you."
It was the copy of her husband's will.
"Read the lines, Ernest, which begin at the top of the page. Let
my dead husband speak for me."
The lines ran thus:
"My motive in marrying Miss Max must be stated in this place, in
justice to her, and, I will venture to add, in justice to myself.
I felt the sincerest sympathy for her position. She was without
father, mother, or friends, one of the poor forsaken children
whom the mercy of the foundling hospital provides with a home. Her
after life on the stage was the life of a virtuous woman, persecuted
by profligates, insulted by some of the baser creatures associated
with her, to whom she was an object of envy. I offered her a home
and the protection of a father, on the only terms which the world
would recognise as worthy of us. My experience of her since our
marriage has been the experience of unvarying goodness, sweetness,
and sound sense. She has behaved so nobly in a trying position
that I wish her (even in this life) to have her reward. I entreat
her to make a second choice in marriage, which shall not be a mere
form. I firmly believe that she will choose well and wisely, that
she will make the happiness of a man who is worthy of her, and
that, as wife and mother, she will set an example of inestimable
value in the social sphere that she occupies. In proof of the
heartfelt sincerity with which I pay my tribute to her virtues, I
add to this, my will, the clause that follows."
With the clause that followed Ernest was already acquainted.
"Will you now believe that I never loved till I saw your face for
the first time?" said his wife. "I had no experience to place me
on my guard against the fascination--the madness, some people might
call it--which possesses a woman when all her heart is given to
a man. Don't despise me, my dear! Remember that I had to save you
from disgrace and ruin. Besides, my old stage remembrances tempted
me. I had acted in a play in which the heroine did--what I have done.
It didn't end with me as it did with her in the story. _She_
was represented as rejoicing in the success of her disguise. I have
known some miserable hours of doubt and shame since our marriage.
When I went to meet you in my own person at the picture-gallery,
oh, what relief, what joy I felt when I saw how you admired me! It
was not because I could no longer carry on the disguise; I was able
to get hours of rest from the effort, not only at night, but in
the daytime, when I was shut up in my retirement in the music-room,
and when my maid kept watch against discovery. No, my love! I hurried
on the disclosure because I could no longer endure the hateful
triumph of my own deception. Ah, look at that witness against me!
I can't bear even to see it."
She abruptly left him. The drawer that she had opened to take out
the copy of the will also contained the false gray hair which she
had discarded. It had only that moment attracted her notice. She
snatched it up and turned to the fireplace.
Ernest took it from her before she could destroy it. "Give it to
me," he said.
"Why?"
He drew her gently to his bosom, and answered, "I must not forget
my old wife."
THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE APPLE ORCHARD
BY ANTHONY HOPE
It was a charmingly mild and balmy day. The sun shone beyond the
orchard, and the shade was cool inside. A light breeze stirred the
boughs of the old apple-tree under which the philosopher sat. None
of these things did the philosopher notice, unless it might be when
the wind blew about the leaves of the large volume on his knees,
and he had to find his place again. Then he would exclaim against
the wind, shuffle the leaves till he got the right page, and settle to
his reading. The book was a treatise on ontology; it was written
by another philosopher, a friend of this philosopher's; it bristled
with fallacies, and this philosopher was discovering them all, and
noting them on the fly-leaf at the end. He was not going to review
the book (as some might have thought from his behaviour), or
even to answer it in a work of his own. It was just that he found
a pleasure in stripping any poor fallacy naked and crucifying it.
Presently a girl in a white frock came into the orchard. She picked
up an apple, bit it, and found it ripe. Holding it in her hand,
she walked up to where the philosopher sat, and looked at him. He
did not stir. She took a bite out of the apple, munched it, and
swallowed it. The philosopher crucified a fallacy on the fly-leaf.
The girl flung the apple away.
"Mr. Jerningham," said she, "are you very busy?"
The philosopher, pencil in hand, looked up.
"No, Miss May," said he, "not very."
"Because I want your opinion."
"In one moment," said the philosopher, apologetically.
He turned back to the fly-leaf and began to nail the last fallacy
a little tighter to the cross. The girl regarded him, first with
amused impatience, then with a vexed frown, finally with a wistful
regret. He was so very old for his age, she thought; he could
not be much beyond thirty; his hair was thick and full of waves,
his eyes bright and clear, his complexion not yet divested of all
youth's relics.
"Now, Miss May, I'm at your service," said the philosopher, with
a lingering look at his impaled fallacy; and he closed the book,
keeping it, however, on his knee.
The girl sat down just opposite to him.
"It's a very important thing I want to ask you," she began, tugging
at a tuft of grass, "and it's very--difficult, and you mustn't tell
any one I asked you; at least, I'd rather you didn't."
"I shall not speak of it; indeed, I shall probably not remember
it," said the philosopher.
"And you mustn't look at me, please, while I'm asking you."
"I don't think I was looking at you, but if I was I beg your pardon,"
said the philosopher, apologetically.
She pulled the tuft of grass right out of the ground, and flung it
from her with all her force.
"Suppose a man--" she began. "No, that's not right."
"You can take any hypothesis you please," observed the philosopher,
"but you must verify it afterward, of course."
"Oh, do let me go on. Suppose a girl, Mr. Jerningham--I wish you
wouldn't nod."
"It was only to show that I followed you."
"Oh, of course you 'follow me,' as you call it. Suppose a girl
had two lovers--you're nodding again--or, I ought to say, suppose
there were two men who might be in love with a girl."
"Only two?" asked the philosopher. "You see, any number of men
_might _ be in love with--"
"Oh, we can leave the rest out," said Miss May, with a sudden
dimple; "they don't matter."
"Very well," said the philosopher, "if they are irrelevant we will
put them aside."
"Suppose, then, that one of these men was, oh, _awfully_ in
love with the girl, and--and proposed, you know--"
"A moment!" said the philosopher, opening a note-book. "Let me take
down his proposition. What was it?"
"Why, proposed to her--asked her to marry him," said the girl, with
a stare.
"Dear me! How stupid of me! I forgot that special use of the word.
Yes?"
"The girl likes him pretty well, and her people approve of him,
and all that, you know."
"That simplifies the problem," said the philosopher, nodding again.
"But she's not in--in love with him, you know. She doesn't
_really_ care for him--_much_. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly. It is a most natural state of mind."
"Well then, suppose that there's another man --what are you writing?"
"I only put down (B)--like that," pleaded the philosopher, meekly
exhibiting his note-book.
She looked at him in a sort of helpless exasperation, with just
a smile somewhere in the background of it.
"Oh, you really are--" she exclaimed. "But let me go on. The other
man is a friend of the girl's: he's very clever--oh, fearfully
clever--and he's rather handsome. You needn't put that down."
"It is certainly not very material," admitted the philosopher, and
he crossed out "handsome"; "clever" he left.
"And the girl is most awfully--she admires him tremendously; she
thinks him just the greatest man that ever lived, you know. And
she--she--" The girl paused.
"I'm following," said the philosopher, with pencil poised.
"She'd think it better than the whole world if --if she could be
anything to him, you know."
"You mean become his wife?"
"Well, of course I do--at least, I suppose I do."
"You spoke rather vaguely, you know."
The girl cast one glance at the philosopher as she replied:
"Well, yes; I did mean become his wife."
"Yes. Well?"
"But," continued the girl, starting on another tuft of grass, "he
doesn't think much about those things. He likes her. I think he
likes her--"
"Well, doesn't dislike her?" suggested the philosopher. "Shall we
call him indifferent?"
"I don't know. Yes, rather indifferent. I don't think he thinks
about it, you know. But she--she's pretty. You needn't put that
down."
"I was not about to do so," observed the philosopher.
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