A Life For a Love: A Novel

"Why do you say 'in her way?' Beauty must always be beauty."

"It has degrees, Esther Helps is not a lady."

Valentine was silent for half a minute.

"I should like to know her," she said then. "I wonder how much she cares for old Helps."

"Look here, Valentine, Esther Helps is not the least like you. I don't know that she has any romantic attachment for that old man. She is a very ordinary girl – a most commonplace person with just a beautiful face."

"How queerly you speak, Gerald. As if it were something strange for an only daughter to be attached to her father."

"The amount of attachment you feel, darling, is uncommon."

"Is it? Well, I have got a very uncommon father."

"My dear Valentine, God knows you have."

Gerald sank down into a chair by the fire. He turned his face, dreary, white and worn, to the blaze. Valentine detected no hidden sarcasm in his tones. After a time she took the cheque out of her purse and handed it to him.

"Here, Gerry, you will put this into your bank to-morrow, won't you? We will open an account in our joint names, won't we? And then we can calculate how much we are to spend weekly and monthly. Oh, won't it be interesting and exciting. So much for my clothes, so much for yours, so much for servants, so much for food – we need not spend so much on food, need we? So much for pleasures – I want to go to the theatre at least twice a week – oh, we can manage it all and have something to spare. And no debts, remember, Gerry – ready money will be our system. We'll go in omnibuses, too, to save cabs – I shall love to feel that I am doing for a penny what might cost a shilling. Gerald darling, do you know that just in one way you have vexed my father a little?"

"Vexed him – how, Valentine?"

"He says it is very wrong of you to croak, and have gloomy prognostications. You know you said it was not worth while for me to learn to housekeep. Just as if you were going to die, or I were going to die. Father was quite vexed when I told him. Now you look vexed, Gerry. Really between such a husband and such a father, a poor girl may sometimes feel puzzled. Well, have you nothing to say?"

"I'm afraid I have nothing to say, Valentine."

"Then you won't croak any more."

"Not for you – I have never croaked for you."

"Nor for yourself."

"I cannot promise. Sometimes fits of depression come over me. There, good-night, sweet. Go to bed. I am not sleepy. I shall read for a time. Your future is all right, Valentine."

CHAPTER XVIII

"I don't like it," said Lilias.

She was sitting in the sunny front parlor, the room which was known as the children's room at the rectory. An open letter lay on her dark winter dress; her sunny hair was piled up high on her shapely head, and her eyes, wistful and questioning, were raised to Marjory's brisker, brighter face, with a world of trouble in them.

The snow lay thick outside, covering the flower beds and the grassy lawn, and laying in piles against the low rectory windows. Marjory was standing by a piled up fire, one of those perfect fires composed of great knobs of sparkling coal and well dried logs of wood. She, too, had on a dark dress, but it was nearly covered by a large holland apron with a bib. Her sleeves were protected by cuffs of the same, on her hands she wore chamois leather gloves with the tips cut off. She looked all bright, and active, and sparkling, and round her on the table and on the floor lay piles and bales of unbleached calico, of coarse red flannel, of bright dark blue and crimson merino. In one of Marjory's capable hands was a large pair of cutting-out scissors, and she paused, holding this implement slightly open, to listen to Lilias' lugubrious words.

"If you must croak to-day," she said, "get it over quickly, and come and help me. Twenty-four blue frocks and twenty-four red to be ready by the time the girls come at four o'clock, besides the old women's flannel and this unlimited supply of unbleached calico. If there is a thing which ruffles my equanimity it is unbleached calico, it fluffs so, and makes one so messy. Now, what do you want to say, Lilias?"

"I'm troubled," said Lilias, "it's about Gerald. I've the queerest feeling about him – three times lately I've dreamt – intangible dreams, of course, but all dark and foreboding."

"Is that a letter from Gerry in your lap, Lilias?"

"No, it is from Val – a nice little letter, too, poor child. I am sure she is doing her best to be a good wife to Gerald. Do you know that she has taken up housekeeping in real earnest."

"Does she say that Gerald is ill?"

"No, she scarcely mentions his name at all."

"Then what in the name of goodness are you going into the dismals for on this morning of all mornings. Twenty-four blue frocks and twenty-four red between noon and four o'clock, and the old women coming for them to the moment. Really, Lilias, you are too provoking. You are not half the girl you were before Gerald's marriage. I don't know what has come to you. Oh, there's Mr. Carr passing the window, I'll get him to come in and help us. Forgive me, Lil, I'll just open this window a tiny bit and speak to him. How do you do, Mr. Carr? You can step in this way – you need not go round through all the slush to the front door. There, you can wipe your feet on that mat. Lilias, say 'how do you do' to Mr. Carr, that is if you are not too dazed."

"How do you do, Miss Wyndham? How do you do. Miss Lilias?" said Carr in a brisk tone. "It is very good of you both to let me into this pleasant room after the cold and snow outside. And how busy you are! Surely, Miss Wyndham, your family don't require such a vast amount of re-clothing."

"Yes," said Marjory, "these bales of goods are for my shivering widows," and she pointed to the red flannel and unbleached calico. "And those are for my pretty orphans – our pretty orphans, Lilly darling, twenty-four in the West Refuge, twenty-four in the East; the Easterns are apparelled in red, the Westerns in blue. Now, Mr. Carr, I'll put it to you as our spiritual pastor, is it right for Lilias to sit and croak instead of helping me with all this prodigious work?"

"But croaking for nothing is not Miss Lilias' way," said Carr, favoring her with a quick glance, a little anxious, a little surprised.

Lilias sprang up with almost a look of vexation. Valentine's letter fell unheeded on the floor.

"You are too bad, Maggie," she said, with almost a forced laugh. "I suppose there are few people in this troublesome world who are not now and then attacked with a fit of the blues. But here goes. I'll shake them off. I'll help you all I can."

"You must help, too," said Marjory in a gay voice, turning to Carr. "Please take off your great coat – put it anywhere. Now then, are your hands strong? are your arms steady? You have got to hold this bale of red merino while Lilly cuts dress lengths from it. Don't forget. Lil, nine lengths of three-and-a-half yards each, nine lengths of four yards each, and six lengths of five yards each. Oh, thank you, Mr. Carr, that will be a great assistance."

Carr was a very energetic, wide-awake, useful man. He could put his hands to anything. No work, provided it was useful, was derogatory in his eyes – he was always cheerful, always bright and obliging. Even Gerald Wyndham could scarcely have made a more popular curate at Jewsbury-on-the-Wold than did this young man.

"If anything could provoke me about him, it is that he is too sunny," Marjory said one day to her sister.

Lilias was silent. It occurred to her, only she was not sure, that in those dark, quick, keen eyes there could come something which might sustain and strengthen on a day of clouds as well as sunshine.

It came now, when Marjory suddenly left the room, and Carr abruptly let the great bale of merino drop at his feet.

"Are you worried about anything?" he asked, in that direct fashion of his which made people trust him very quickly.

Lilias colored all over her face.

"I suppose I ought not to be silly," she said, "but my brother – you see he is my only brother – his marriage has made a great gulf between us."

Carr looked at her sharply.

"You are not jealous?" he said.

"I don't know – we used to be great chums. I think if I were sure he was happy I should not be jealous?"

Carr walked to the fireplace.

"It would not be folly if you were," he said. "All sisters must face the fact of their brothers taking to themselves wives, and, of course, loving the wives best. It is the rule of nature, and it would be foolish of you to fret against the inevitable."

He spoke abruptly, and with a certain coldness, which might have offended some girls. Lilias' slow earnest answer startled him.

"I don't fret against the inevitable," she said. "But I do fret against the intangible. There is a mystery about Gerald which I can't attempt to fathom. I know it is there, but I can't grapple with it in any direction."

"You must have some thought about it, though, or it would not have entered into your head."

"I have many thoughts, but no clues. Oh, it would take me a long, long time to tell you what I fear, to bring my shadowy dread into life and being. I have just had a letter from Valentine, a sweet nice letter, and yet it seems to me full of mystery, although I am sure she does not know it herself. Yes, it is all intangible – it is kind of you to listen to me. Marjory would say I was talking folly."

"You are talking as if your nerves were a little out of sorts. Could you not have a change? Even granted that there is trouble, and I don't suppose for an instant that anything of the kind is in store for your brother, it is a great waste of life to meet it half way."

Lilias smiled faintly.

"I am silly," she said. And just then Marjory came into the room, followed by Augusta, and the cutting out proceeded briskly.

Carr was an invaluable help. Some people would have said that he was a great deal too gay and cheerful – a great deal too athletic and well-knit and keen-eyed for a curate.

This was not the case; he made an excellent clergyman, but he had a great sense of the fitness of things, and he believed fully in a time for everything.

Helping three merry girls to cut out red and blue merino frocks, on a cold day in January, seemed to him a very cheerful occupation. Gay laughter and light and innocent chatter filled the room, and Lilias soon became one of the merriest of the party.

In the midst of their chatter the rector entered.

"I want you, Carr," he said, abruptly; he was usually a very polite man, almost too ceremonious. Now his words came with a jerk, and the moment he had uttered them he vanished.

As Carr left the room in obedience to this quick summons. Lilias' face became once more clouded.

The rector was pacing up and down his study. When Carr entered he asked him to bolt the door.

"Is anything the matter, sir?" asked the young man.

Mr. Wyndham's manner was so perturbed, so unlike himself, that it was scarcely wonderful that Carr should ask this question. It received, however, a short and sharp reply.

"I hope to goodness, Carr, you are not one of those imaginative people who are always foreboding a lion in the path. What I sent for you was – well – " the rector paused. He raised his eyes slowly until they rested upon the picture of Gerald's mother; the face very like Gerald's seemed to appeal to him; his lips trembled.

"I can't keep it up, Carr," he said, with an abandon which touched the younger man to the heart. "I'm not satisfied about my son. Nothing wrong, oh, no – and yet – and yet – you understand, Carr, I have only one son – a lot of girls, God bless them all! – and only one son."

Carr came over and stood by the mantel-piece. If he felt any surprise, he showed none. His words came out gently, and in a matter-of-fact style.

"If you have any cause to be worried, Mr. Wyndham – and – and – you think I can help you, I shall be proud to be trusted." Then his thoughts flew to Lilias, and his firm, rather thin lips, took a faint smile.

"I have no doubt I am very foolish," replied the rector. "I had a letter this morning from Gerald. He tells me in it that he is going to Australia in March, on some special business for his father-in-law's firm – you know he is a partner in the firm. His wife is not to accompany him."

The rector paused.

Carr made no answer for a moment. Then he said, feeling his way —

"This will be a trial for Mrs. Wyndham."

"One would suppose so. Gerald doesn't say anything on the subject."

"Well," said the rector, "how does it strike you? Perhaps I'm nervous – Lilly, poor girl, is the same, and Marjory laughs at us both. How does this intelligence strike you as an outsider, Carr? Pray give me your opinion."

"Yes," said Carr, simply. "I do not think my opinion need startle anyone. Doubtless, sir, you know facts which throw a different complexion on the thing. It all seems to me a commonplace affair. In big business houses partners have often to go away at short notice. It will certainly be a trial for Mrs. Wyndham to do without her husband. I don't like to prescribe change of air for you, Mr. Wyndham, as I did for Miss Lilias just now, but I should like to ask you if your nerves are quite in order?"

The rector laughed.

"You are a daring fellow to talk of nerves to me, Carr," he said. "Have not I prided myself all my life on having no nerves? Well, well, the fact is, a great change has come over the lad's face. He used to be such a boy, too light-hearted, if anything, too young, if anything, for his years – the most unselfish fellow from his birth. Give away? Bless you, there was nothing Gerald wouldn't give away. Why, look here, Carr, we all tried to spoil the boy amongst us – he was the only one – and his mother taken away when he so young – and he the image of her. Yes, all the girls resemble me, but Gerald is the image of his mother. We all tried to teach him selfishness, but we couldn't. Now. Carr, you will be surprised at what I am going to say, but if a man can be unselfish to a fault, to a fault mind you – to the verge of a crime – it's my son Gerald. I know this. I have always seen it in him. Now my boy's father-in-law. Mortimer Paget, is as selfish as my lad is the reverse. Why did he want a poor lad like mine to marry his rich and only daughter? Why did he make him a partner in his house of business, and why did he insure my boy's life? Insure it heavily? Answer me that. My boy would have taken your place here, Carr; humbly but worthily would he have served the Divine Master, no man happier than he. Is he happy now? Is he young for his years now? Tell me, Carr, what you really think?"

"I don't know, sir. I have not looked at things from your light. You are evidently much troubled, and I am deeply troubled for you. I don't know Wyndham very well but I know him a little. I think that marriage and the cares of a house of business and all his fresh responsibilities may be enough to age your son's face. As to the insurance question, all business is so fluctuating that Mr. Paget was doubtless right in securing his daughter and her children from possible want in the future. See here, Mr. Wyndham, I am going up to town this evening for two or three days. Shall I call at Park-lane and bring you my own impressions with regard to your son?"

"Thank you, Carr, that is an excellent thought, and what is more you shall escort Lilias or Marjory up to town. They have a standing invitation to my boy's house, and a little change just now would do – shall I say Lilias? – good."

"Miss Lilias wants a change, sir. She is affected like yourself with, may I call it, an attack of the nerves."

CHAPTER XIX

Valentine really made an excellent housekeeper. Nobody expected it of her; her friends, the ladies, old and young, the girls, married or otherwise, who knew Valentine as they supposed very intimately, considered the idea of settling this remarkably ignorant young person down with a fixed income and telling her to buy with it, and contrive with it, and make two ends meet with it, quite one of the best jokes of the day.

Valentine did not regard it as a joke at all. She honestly tried, honestly studied, and honestly made a success as housekeeper and household manager.

She was a most undeveloped creature, undeveloped both in mind and heart; but she not only possessed intense latent affections, but latent capacities of all sorts. She scarcely knew the name of poverty, she had no experience with regard to the value of money, but nature had given her an instinct which taught her to spend it wisely and well. She found a thousand a year a larger income than she and Gerald with their modest wants needed. She scarcely used half of what she received, and yet her home was cheerful, her servants happy, her table all that was comfortable.

When she brought her housekeeping books to her husband to balance at the end of the first month, he looked at her with admiration, and then said in a voice of great sadness: —

"God help me, Valentine, have I made a mistake altogether about you? Am I dreaming, Valentine, are you meant for a poor man's wife after all?"

"For your wife, whether rich or poor," she said; and she knelt down by his side, and put her hand into his.

She had always possessed a sweet and beautiful face, but for the last few weeks it had altered; the sweetness had not gone, but resolution had grown round the curved pretty lips, and the eyes had a soft happiness in them.

"Pretty, charming creature!" people used to say of her. "But just a trifle commonplace and doll-like."

This doll-like expression was no longer discernible in Valentine.

Gerald touched her hair tenderly.

"My little darling!" he said. His voice shook. Then he rose abruptly, with a gesture which was almost rough. "Come upstairs, Val; the housekeeping progresses admirably. No, my dear, you made a mistake, you were never meant for a poor man's wife."

Valentine kissed his brow: she looked at him in a puzzled way.

"Do you know," she said, laying her hands on his, with a gesture half timid, half appealing; "don't go up to the drawing-room for a moment, Gerald, I want to say a thing, something I have observed. I am loved by two men, by my father and by you. I am loved by them very much – by both of them very much. Oh, yes, Gerald, I know what you feel for me, and yet I can't make either of them happy. My father is not happy. Oh, yes, I can see – love isn't blind. I never remembered my father quite, quite happy, and he is certainly less so than ever now. He tries to look all right when people are by; even succeeds, for he is so unselfish, and brave, and noble. But when he is alone – ah, then. Once he fell asleep when I was in the room, he looked terrible in that sleep; his face was haggard – he sighed – there was moisture on his brow. When he woke he asked me to marry you. I didn't care for you then, Gerald, but I said yes because of my father. He said if I married you he would be perfectly happy. I did so – he is not happy."

Gerald did not say a word.

"And you aren't happy, dear," she continued, coming a little nearer to him. "You used to be; before we were engaged you had such a gay face. I could never call you gay since, Gerald. You are so thin, and sometimes at night I lie awake, and I hear you sigh. Why, what is the matter. Gerald? You look ghastly now. Am I hurting you? I wouldn't hurt you, darling."

Wyndham turned round quickly. He had been white almost to fainting, now a great light seemed to leap out of his eyes.

"What did you say? What did you call me? Say it again."

"Darling."

"Then I thank my God – everything has not been in vain."

He sank down on the nearest chair and burst into tears. Tragedies go on where least expected. The servants in the servants' hall thought their young master and mistress quite the happiest people in the world. Were they not gay, young, rich? Did they not adore one another? Gerald's devotion to Valentine was almost a joke with them, and Valentine's increasing regard for him was very observable to those watchful outsiders.

Certainly the pair stayed in a good deal in the evenings, and why to-night in particular did they linger so long in the dining-room, rather to the inconvenience of the kitchen regime. But presently their steps were heard going upstairs, and then Valentine accompanied Gerald's violin on the piano.

Wyndham played very well for an amateur, so well that with a little extra practice he might almost have taken his place as a professional of no mean ability. He had exquisite taste and a sensitive ear. Music always excited him, and perhaps was not the safest recreation for such a highly strung nature.

Valentine could accompany well; she, too, loved music, but had not her husband's facility nor grace of execution. In his happiest moments Gerald could compose, and sometimes even improvise with success.

During their honeymoon it seemed to him one day as he looked at the somewhat impassive face of the girl for whom he had sold himself body and soul – as he looked and felt that not yet at least did her heart echo even faintly to any beat of his, it occurred to him that he might tell his story in its pain and its longing best through the medium of music. He composed a little piece which, for want of another title, he called "Waves." It was very sweet in melody, and had some minor notes of such pathos that when Valentine first heard him play it on the violin she burst into tears. He told her quite simply then that it was his story about her, that all the sweetness was her share, all the graceful melody, the sparkling joyous notes which coming from Gerald's violin seemed to speak like a gay and happy voice, represented his ideal of her. The deeper notes and the pain belonged to him; pain must ever come with love when it is strongest, she would understand this presently.

Then he put his little piece away – he only played it once for her when they were in Switzerland; he forgot it, but she did not.

To-night, after her confession, when they went up to the drawing-room, his heart immeasurably soothed and healed, and hers soft with a wonderful joy which the beginning of true love can give, he remembered "Waves," and thought he would play it for her again. It did not sound so melancholy this time, but strange to say the gay notes were not quite so gay, the warble of a light heart had deepened. As Wyndham played and Valentine sat silent, for she offered no accompaniment to this little fugitive piece, he found that he must slightly reconstruct the melody. The minor keys were still minor, but there was a ring of victory through them now; they were solemn, but not despairing.

"He that loseth his life shall find it," Wyndham said suddenly, looking full into her eyes.

The violin slipped from his hand, coming down with a discordant crash, the door was flung open by the servant, as Lilias Wyndham and Adrian Carr came into the room.

In a minute all was gay bustle and confusion. Gerald forgot his cares, and Valentine was only too anxious to show herself as the hospitable and attentive hostess.

A kind of improvised meal between dinner and tea was actually brought up into the drawing-room. Lilias ate chicken and ham holding her plate on her lap. Carr, more of a stranger, was not allowed to feel this fact. In short, no four could have looked merrier or more free from trouble.

"It is delightful to have you here – delightful, Lilias," said Valentine, taking her sister-in-law's hand and squeezing it affectionately.

"Do you know, Lil," said Gerald, "that this little girl-wife of mine, with no experience whatever, makes a most capable housekeeper. With all your years of knowledge I should not like you to enter the lists with her."

"With all my years of failure, you mean," answered Lilias. "I always was and always will be the most incompetent woman with regard to beef and mutton and pounds, shillings and pence who walks this earth."

She laughed as she spoke; her face was cloudless, her dark eyes serene. For one moment before he went away Carr found time to say a word to her.

"Did I not tell you it was simply a case of nerves?" he remarked.

CHAPTER XX

Esther Helps was certainly neither a prudent nor a careful young woman. She meant no harm, she would have shuddered at the thought of actual sin, but she was reckless, a little defiant of all authority, even her father's most gentle and loving control, and very discontented with her position in life.